So this got me thinking about how legislation and bigotry and ignorance separates us not only from accessing spaces and privileges granted to straight cis people but also from each other. We’re a small slice of the population and often must travel to see our friends, chosen family, or partners. Our community is at once intimately connected and hopelessly far-flung, legitimately linked by no more than three degrees of sex partners on a worldwide daisy chain and profoundly lonely. I only had community last weekend because I’d flown three hours to get it.
This is why queer men and women move to San Francisco or Northampton, attend queer camps in San Bernardino and take lesbian cruises to Alaska, this is why we congregate in Palm Springs to behave like sex-crazed monsters. Why folks traveled from Puerto Rico or drove for hours from central Florida to attend Latin night at an Orlando club. So many of the dead were in the area on vacation. This bar was so good and this night so necessary and unique that it had become a legit tourist attraction for a specific type of tourist. The reverence with which I hear Latinx people talk about Pulse is a reverence I rarely hear in conversations about lesbian bars.
Unlike markers of class/race/religion shared by many biological families, queer folks often have no queer family members, neighbors or in-the-flesh role models. So if we want to meet other people like us we have to go out and find them, sometimes really far away. Marriage equality legislation has enabled me to see my queer friends two to three times as often as I would otherwise, ’cause weddings offer spaces to re-convene. The point of marriage equality wasn’t to enable long-distance queer friends to hang out more often, but damn if it hasn’t managed to do exactly that anyhow.
Some of my current favorite creations on my fridge by various people
