Seeing Lesbians in Public & what to do
To the 5 lesbians at CVS I saw today, I love you guys,
There is a lesbian couple that lives directly across from the red door of my apartment. We even share a patio. You can tell it’s a lesbian couple because one wears things like knee-high socks with long skirts and the other never takes off their glasses. They are also never alone. My girlfriend and I love to note this as we pass by them together. I like to imagine that they have really pretty sex, the kind with lots of talking in it. A kind of love letter you read aloud and it makes your skin feel real. I bet their bodies search for each other, dipping deeper for rich oxygen under the soft of their lover’s neck, failing. I bet it feels a lot like the pretty sex I have. Like treasure.
I should just go up to them.
I should.
I could, possibly, say hello on the many occasions in which Bella and I are leaving our blue-gray paneled abode or walking back from class, pretending to be French, and we see them. Hand in hand, we acknowledge each other’s presence. We don’t have a nod or a jeep beep to accompany this with, but you can feel it. And it’s louder. Beneath tense shoulder blades, curved to concave an unnecessary chest, muscles expand and relax, the spine straightens and we can walk briefly without the knowledge that we were ever shrinking. And it feels good. To breathe.
It’s a reminder that you exist. No, it’s a reminder that you exist, plurally. The French Vous. Or, as we say in Florida, y’all.
Still, there is no time to say I love you as y’all walk opposite the same sidewalk.
It feels greedy to have found love. It is a certain comfort to the impoverished life of many women, but especially lesbians because love is not all that this is to us. I struggle to find an equivalent but it must be— I’m sorry, the lesbian neighbors have just stepped outside again. I have a very large window. One is wearing a shiny navy suit and tie to match, and, yes, glasses. The other stepped out briefly in a glimmering blush-pink dress before quickly returning because “these shoes are all wrong,” to which her girlfriend, of course, followed in after.
This is it. Life, as it is usually, and seeing yourself reflected in it outside a mirror. Such luxury for the lesbian.
Re·flec·tion
noun
the throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it.
What is special about our reflection is that it is not much of a reflection at all. If I looked in the mirror, I would find something short, porcelain pale, brunette with blue eyes and a strong jaw. But this is not a description that could categorize lesbians, or even most of us. Lesbians are black, latina, asian, south-asian, floridian, new-yorkers, fat, tan, curly hair, soft hands, muscular, tall, poor, rich, middle-class, anarchist, communist, architects, business majors, artists. And the list continues. We cannot be defined by how we publicly present when what connects us is something much more intimate. However, these “skin-deep” attributes are useful to the weight of connection for many other groups. If a black man walks into a room at Florida State University, and the room is mostly white people, save for three other black men, he will at the very least know that there are three people who can see him. Who look like him, who have had experiences (though perhaps from wildly different circumstances) that are akin to the life-long education he has received since birth. There is no such equivalent for the lesbian. With no certain way to look lesbian and thus immediately know if someone sees you (and vice versa), when we walk into a room we could find that we are alone— even if there is a lesbian sitting right across from us, as it so happened in my Freshman Lit class.
Some, then, might ask why we can’t all sport the butch-cut, wear leather, and whistle. The some in question could never be a lesbian, as we wouldn’t dare to forget our Femmes. However, there are lesbians who have mastered the art of making themselves known, but these are brave individuals. If a lesbian presents themselves to be too much of a lesbian— perhaps at no fault of their own, genetic broad shoulders, an unconscious smirk stapled on their face—the heterosexual population will feel as though they have seen too much. We are deviations by default, an eyesore. When we go off of this set path we do it alone, and there is a fear that we will stay alone. Outliers are never to find themselves in the majority afterall, and there is no end our society will find in attempting to correct our deflection.
De·flec·tion
noun
to change direction by interposing something; turn aside from a straight course.
In many ways, lesbianism is like a persecuted religion. We are a group of people from all different backgrounds who are joined together by our love of women. Rather than little t crosses around our neck to identify us, we must spot more innocuous items such as glasses and knee-high socks from our neighbors. Still, something is missing in this comparison. People in religions meet and gather together in churches, synagogues, mosques, and all lesbians have are Chappell Roan concerts. We have no spaces to safely congregate. Without these, we are forced to go off sheer faith alone that there are others like us. This is a hard life to live, even for the shiniest gold-star lesbians among us. We must create the chapels ourselves, we must exist together to see one another. As they say, when two or three lesbians are gathered, I want to be there with them.
This is not to be confused with the ever-lauded “representation” of lesbians in the media. My life has never been remotely akin to any pixel display, no matter how entertaining. The reason behind this is not because I have a lived an extremely unique experience; though, some may argue growing up in rural Florida where the only lesbians I knew were a 24 year old beautiful coke dealer named Robin and a butch-cut blonde with braces and a coke addiction (unrelated), might make a strong case. Nevertheless, a tv show, ipad tiktok, superbowl ad, whatever, is not life. It is not tangible, nor valuable to me in any real sense. The false shimmer of a screen could never compare to finding yourself imaged in reality, suddenly brilliant and pulsating, no.
Recognition is a gift many are given at twinkling conception, the world so shiny it likens itself to the inside of a Victoria’s Secret. New and exciting when young, vinyl striped skies and lacey pink friends. But as those fortunate ones grow older, they grow to expect, demand it even, that manicured polish. Glossy brunettes and boy crushes become necessary markers of identification to distinguish between the familiar and the fallen angels. Without it, life becomes full of dull, almost-strangers, including yourself.
And these are strangers, aren’t they? I don’t even know their names. I just know they’re lesbians. Yet, somehow, this is enough. It is enough to love, to know them as much as I can myself. It’s given that mysteries, as always, are present—still, the distinct shape of its packaging could lend itself even under the dim gleam of a porch light. So— where are they going in such fancy clothes? I don’t know. But, I do know that they decided prior on a good color scheme to compliment each other. And that Glasses probably wanted to go in forest green but couldn’t find a suit like that that fit her size, wallet or otherwise, and was sort of pissed about it. This, of course, could never distract from the beauty of her twirling girlfriend, slightly sweaty from taking off those shoes but, decidedly happy with the new choice. When they arrived at this undefined location, shortly after the sudden panic of being overdressed on the walk there, they stuck close with palms fixed and pink as their cheeks sipped on that good punch. And I know, more than anything I know, that about an hour (or half hour, if good) before anyone was meant to leave they looked at each other. It is time to lay in bed, unclip a tight chest, put on sweater that's not technically hers but is hers, giggle, have sex that drips, silently play stardew valley while one takes an ibuprofen with the water bottle the other filled up for her, quite possibly in any order. I know this. I know this because despite the many silhouettes a lesbian might take, I could recognize us, our routines, our beauty, our lives, even in complete darkness. Our luster remains.