We all have our hurdles in the queer community… Butch women are constantly out… femmes are invisible…but it’s us in the middle that get forgotten.

We are the lonely bunch..never butch enough..never comfortable enough as femme. We negotiate a space where people wonder about us constantly..where it’s not really a surprise that we are what we are, people just wait for confirmation.  The outside world thinks we are an acceptable amount of queer..easy to identify yet not threatening.

We’re the acceptable. Like light skinned curly haired black people..we get a pass.

But in our own community we are forgotten..shuffled into a neater box..shunned when we step out of it. We can’t conform to the heteronormative limitations people like to make the rules in this community. We don’t count for who we are..we only count when we can be put in one or the other..we make ppl uneasy. Challenge a butch that see’s us one day in girl clothes and the next in the same things as them.

My community forgets me because I don’t fit in their boxes..so how could I understand..or matter.

But we understand so much more clearly than people give us credit… I know what it feels like to be a dyke on sight and I know what it feels like to be completely invisible..and I know what it feels like not to matter. I know what it feels like to be written off..to be safe…to be alone

But none of that matters. Because nobody makes films about me…nobody writes books about my struggle..nobody puts together conferences..

Because nobody knows we exist until we make a choice.