Scarleteen

Soo im bi, and i have been looking at my identity within a relationship, especially a wlw one. I look very femme so i doubt anyone would easily think i was bisexual, and i havent ever been in a relationship with anyone ever. I just really want to start dating but i dont know how to like come across? One day i feel sexy and male gaze attractive, i pretend to be more girly than i am without doing it when i talk to a boy. But when i talk to a girl, i feel more comfortable in the more masculine role? You know how in couples there is a femme and masc i just switch so much between them when im with each gender its just confusing bc idk who i wanna be. I feel more comfortable with women, but that might just be because i lack experience having guy friends. I definitely have had some very painful crushes on women that just are not equal to when i crush on guys. Anyway, i just want to know if anyone relates to these supposed roles in relationships that i see in media. And how i could potentially look more gay i guess im sick of people being surprised that i am not straight.

Hi ghiblisirel,

I hear from a lot of folks a sense of frustration around being misperceived, or people assuming they are straight. In my personal opinion, there is no way to look more gay or queer. There are certain aesthetic markers and things we might associate with queerness, but those can range so much depending on where we live, the specific time period, our body type, how we are racialized, and so on. I have been assumed to be straight while kissing a girl. A friend was walking down the street holding hands with a boyfriend and someone yelled a homophobic lesbian-targeted slur out of their car window at her (where she was living, wearing work pants and t shirts was a huge gender transgression!). The truth is, people are going to get us wrong. It creates a huge burden on us to try and orient our presentation and identity around being perceived by people who don’t care to actually understand or know us. All of that is to say, I don't think there is a way to "look more gay" I could offer you, but I think honoring how you would like to look and be is what will always bring you the closest there. Does that make sense?

Switching how you interact between talking to girls and boys is also something I’ve heard many others describe. I think there are some pretty strong social conventions around how to talk to boys when you are a girl or read as a girl. I mean, we have millions of examples of what that looks like, and those examples often involve a certain strain of hyper-femininity.

I want to note that not all couples, and certainly not all queer and/or lesbian couples, involve a masc and femme dynamic. If that feels right to you, by all means, explore that, but I do think some folks can get caught up in an idea of that mirroring heterosexual relationships rather than queer relationships with a masc/femme dynamic.

I wonder what you feel like is most desirable or authentic to you?

Thank you for your reply. I think i agree that i am trying to mirror heterosexual relationships in queer ones. Being wlw feels so overwhelming as there is such a lack of representation in media and in my everyday life its just hard to navigate. But i think i agree that if i want to look more gay i need to wear whatever i want and feel comfortable in. Thank you.

You’re so right that there’s not enough representation in media of queer relationships overall. I’m glad Mikky’s suggestions were helpful! I see you made a new post, so I’ll switch over to that one. <3