HAVE YOU EVER BEEN WITH A WOMAN? COULD YOU SEE YOURSELF IN A LONG-TERM SAME SEX RELATIONSHIP?

I get asked if I’m queer a lot, Jenny, probably more for confirmation than anything. I have a septum piercing, multiple tattoos of semi-nude women, and short hair that I style with products named things like Dude Paste and Battle Wax. I wore flats to the Oscars, Doc Martens to the Tonys, and I’ve been known to wear boxer briefs under my Dickies coveralls. And of course, I chose the pen name “Diablo,” which a popular lesbian comic recently pointed out is one of the most aggressively non-binary career moves of all time. I did not argue with her because if the Doc fits… wear it for 20 years and resole as needed.

As obvious as these signifiers may be, I know they don’t necessarily mean anything in today’s queerbait-y world where white people like myself race to the margins to claim any kind of oppressed or “alternative” identity. And I’m also aware that there are many extremely femme lesbians out there (I creep on all their TikToks— Chrissy Chlapecka, I’m too old for you, but I love you!) But, I mean, come on. I’ve been undeniably futch since college, when I buzzed my head, bought Girlfriends magazine and wore out my video store’s copy of Go Fish. As a freshman, I wandered into a lesbian rager by accident during a drunken party crawl. My roommate turned to me and said “I don’t think we belong here.” I looked around and shouted back, “I DO!”

Me throwing fake gang signs like an idiot in college, 1997

But maybe it’s all compensatory, because almost all of my relationships have been with men. I married two dudes. I’m not gay. And yet…