What's it all about? A note from the other side.

I've been adding so many sightings, I haven't taken the time to talk about the process much. On our facebook page, someone commented that they know lots of butches but don't think they could ask a question like "do you identify as a butch" because it seems nosy. I didn't take it as a critque but more as a comment on the boundaries that exist in some parts of the culture (which I write with awareness that we don't all live or operate in one culture, there are many and most of us cross between them multiple times in a day).

My take is that people are "allowed" to acknowledge one another as queers, and beyond that, as specifically identified queers, in sanctified spaces such as gay bars, marches and gay neighborhoods. We're allowed to do this because we're in a sexualized space of queerness. Here one can be flirtatious and direct with less worry that the line of public pronouncement has been crossed.

Out in the world we're not supposed to do that because we are operating in a significantly straight space where we give each other sideways glances and nods, or sometimes pretend not to see one another at all. In those spaces I always feel a secret thrill like "oh my god I just saw a butch," but have no way to express the experience.

In this project, I'm purposefully crossing the boundary, radicalizing the non-queer spaces, being up front and most of all, not pretending not to see or appreciate. I'm reaching out over the rules of quiet conformity. In doing so, not only do I create a conversation where one might have only possibly existed through surreptitious body language, I'm also outing myself as a femme, an otherwise mostly invisible identity.

I can do this for many reasons without too much angst - my Jewish culture gives me a certain kind of cross-the-boundaries chutzpah, I was raised crossing between many different and conflicting worlds where non-conformity was the norm, and I am the kind of person who likes to challenge herself. And because I am fat, I have always been noticed, stared at, sometimes maligned and otherwise made to feel over-visible. This had the affect of making me more bold, not less. Not to mention I like interacting with people out in the world.

So far, it's been an interesting experience - often times validating (for me and the photographed subject), sometimes confusing and humiliating, quite often thrilling. And you?