I don’t write about my queerness specifically very often because, for me, everything I write is filtered through that lens. I’m queer, non-binary, femme, Leather, kinky. It doesn’t get turned ‘off’. There isn’t a moment that isn’t colored by some shade of that.
I’m out about most of this to most people. There’s aspects I don’t share with my bio family and aspects that I wait to discuss with new folks. Not out of shame but protection. I’d rather keep the peace in some areas than explain to my parents why I don’t identify as a woman and listen to their transphobia.
So in the places where my queerness is welcome, where it was shaped, I reveal all of me. The pink-haired queer femme who uses they/them pronouns and proudly serves a queer cis Leather Daddy. I like to be called girl and boy by him. Bitch is special, and just for Daddy. But I’d rather others see me as his boy than ever as his girl. I’d rather people see the lack of gender in my service rather than the idea that ‘of course you serve, all women are submissive and you’re a woman’. I’d rather people take the time to examine their own gender biases instead of making it my fault when they fuck up.
We moved almost two years ago now and the land of BDSM is familiar and strange. The place where I was shaped is 10 hours away, populated by Leather family, switches, and dykes that held my hand and helped me figure out who I was, am, and could become. My queerness made sense there, where people like me existed and everyone had learned how to navigate those waters.
But here…here it is uncomfortable and new for them. My queerness makes them uncomfortable and I am tired.
MAsT is a very special place for me. It’s not inherently leather but the feeling is close for me. It’s a place where my dynamic can truly shine and be seen. Where I can be seen as slave.
Except when I’m not. Except when I’m to be lumped into the group of ‘ladies’ and ‘girls’. To be hand waved at as ‘well, all women are overly emotional’. To be dismissed, made small, ignored, and disrespected all with a handful of words. When I’m told by a person the night before that he respects me and Daddy and is glad I’m there and the next day comes up with excuses as to why he used that language instead of apologizing. Instead of working on being inclusive.
The shape of my queerness isn’t flexible. It’s not something we can negotiate like how hard you can strike me with a cane. It’s not something that I’m willing to give up a little to a person who doesn’t own me. It’s not something that I can find neutral ground on.
And yet, I am afraid. I am afraid of being too much. Of being too sharp and hard and expecting this BDSM land to be like my homeland. How much can I push before I find that I started to trust people I shouldn’t have? How much respect do I give up before I hate myself?
I turn to Daddy for guidance in this. I have made myself small and not matter before and it’s not the kind of person I want to be anymore. It’s not the kind of person he deserves to own.
He tells me that if pushing back makes these people not like me then they don’t deserve to be my friends. If they are so bothered by using the correct pronouns for me, that they are shitty people we don’t need in our lives.
I know he is right. It’s advice I’ve given to many many other people over the years. And it is so hard to follow myself. I have finally begun to soften after months of trauma and I don’t want to close back up again. But if I cannot be truly honest with them, do they deserve my honesty? My respect?
I want to share all of this to FetLife where I know the person who did this will read it. Where the people who heard it will read it. Where the people who don’t understand will read it. But I don’t want the sad apology that will likely come. I don’t want the excuses or coddling or other bullshit non-queers come up with when you tell them they’ve been shitty and phobic. It’s not my job. It’s not my responsibility.
We’ll keep going to these groups. I’ll start donning my leathers again. I will brighten my hair and darken my eyes and wear my gender. I will make the shape of my queerness more prominent, unmissable. They will have to learn or move on because I will not be split into “acceptable” and “too much” anymore by anyone.
I don’t expect this land to mimic my homeland, my teacher’s land, but I do expect it to shape to me, to learn me, and embrace me.
