Tear up your gaydar quiz

i started reading the blog effing dykes when i was living in seattle. it was all the rage among my friends. over the past couple years, effing dykes has received a lot of attention and krista, its author, even more. the blog, which professes to assist struggling gays with their gaydar, has always irked me, but i keep reading it much in the same way i watched the entire six seasons of the L Word (more than once). sometimes it feels like there are just so few options in queer media that many of us settle for remarkably subpar products just to feel included.

typically i read the new effing dyke's post and grumble a bit about it, then i move on. not this time though. this time i'm grumbling onto the internet. partially because second term has ended and i've re-committed myself to blogging regularly. partially because i think i've finally realized this may be what the internet is about.

this past week krista posted one of her 'gaydar quizzes'. these are the crux of effing dykes. she set up the scenario of a gay woman (who is not high femme) going shopping. readers are supposed to select which items this fictional character would pick out, given our knowledge of her as a 'lesbian'. we know nothing else about her.

okay, before even diving into how this is really just an exercise in reinforcing tired stereotypes, i want to address the problem of language in this blog. krista alternates somewhat haphazardly among queer, dyke, gay, lesbian, and a litany of slang for these populations. however, who is she actually talking about and to? is she talking about cisgendered women who fuck other cisgendered women? that's a distinct population and, importantly, distinct from queer folks who approach gender and sexuality with more fluidity. these are not words that can just be interchanged without intention. (i will use her words in this post, but in quotes)

moving right along! the outcome of the gaydar quiz is a grand theory about a universal truth of 'lesbian' fashion: simplicity and functionality. according to krista, these are two of the cornerstones of 'lesbian' style. she discovers this by observing the 'gay' population and asking "why did i think they looked gay? what did that even mean?" these are good and important questions to ask, i think. in earlier posts i've written about why i believe it's important to be able to recognize community. how and why you know someone else is queer is an interesting, complicated, and potentially problematic endeavor. krista goes in a different direction, however. from these questions, she develops her theory by noting overwhelming similarities in style. now i would say another question would be: what is the point of fashion?

clearly that's a huge question that cannot be answered by me. still, i think it's important to examine fashion a bit. fashion and style have many uses and are employed differently by different people, certainly. however, one point is presenting an image of yourself to society so you can be read the way you want to be. we learn by observing those around us and by living in a media saturated society how to dress ourselves into these images. if you wanted to become a punk, how hard would it really be for you to think of the types of outfits and accessories you would need to at least craft a passing image for that community?

we rely on stereotypes constantly, especially when deducing information about someone based on their appearance. effing dykes reinforces these stereotypes constantly. why are all of these 'women' so recognizable as 'gay'? maybe because they are intentionally presenting themselves as such. they know what to wear in order to fit in to the queer community because the messages are all around, including in krista's blog posts. have you ever gone out at night and realized that everyone seems to be wearing a variation on the same theme? this is not a coincidence.

the problem is these are stereotypes. they are not universally true at all. who do they leave out? in what ways do they streamline what it looks like to be queer? krista points out that no one sees her as 'gay' at first because she is a femme. since she does not don the uniform she so heavily reinforces as the 'gay look' in her blog, no one knows she is 'gay'. the more heavily we perpetuate these tired ideas of 'what it means to be gay' or 'what gay looks like' the more people we exclude.

though she ends the post with a statement from "we, as a people", she has to insert a small print caveat "cept for femmes". this qualifier is significant. the queer community is not homogenous by far and any sweeping claim is probably falling short on many accounts. however, it's a fairly weak universal theory if within it there has to be a small print exception made for a huge portion of the community. maybe it's just not necessary to try to find clever generalizations for a community that prides itself on difference. we don't have to all dress the same, fuck the same, smirk the same to be queer. we're queer, that's enough.