LOOKING/FEELING/QUEERING

A podcast about what it feels like to look (or not look) queer

This project is expanded from a school project for NYU's Geopolitics of Beauty in the spring of 2016. Stemming from my own discomfort and confusion around queer embodiment and aesthetics, I decided to engage with my community through recorded interviews to better understand their experiences and feelings with looking (or not looking) queer. I wanted to pinpoint some of what it felt like to deviate from the norm in at least one way and discover what that might look like on the body.

To situate myself, I currently identify as an AFAB non-binary femme and queer. This research endeavor rose out of a personal struggle and train of thought. I think I look fairly queer. I was raised in an environment that I would describe as very white in its appreciation for individuality–both through physical expression and general independence. Because of this, I work very hard to stand out visually. In some ways this is a reclaiming of my stand-out-ness. I have bright red frizzy curly hair that used to be down to my waist (think Merida from Brave) and there was no way for me to hide visually. I'm also physically larger and I do not fit into Western beauty ideals of thinness or the compromise of fat-but-curvy-ness. I always joke that I wear so many unique clothing items and clashing colors and patterns to draw attention away from my body.

This also ties in with my gender-queerness, of course. Another recurring joke of mine is that I’m going to title my auto-biography Unintentionally Femme. Pants never fit my body so I end up over-correcting and diving into floral dresses and dangly earrings and the like. I often feel like I am not queer “enough” because I can’t pull off that androgynous look where messing with gender becomes synonymous with thinness, whiteness, and traditional masculinity. It’s also a particularly salient thing for me right now because I’m growing my hair back out and I’m trying to figure out how to embody a femme AFAB nonbinary identity in a socially legible way.

In January 2016, I attended Creating Change, an LGBTQ conference with 4000 queers in a hotel together. It was such a beautiful and reaffirming site, but it also stirred up lots of feelings. I had a bit of a breakdown because I didn’t pack the clothes I wanted and I felt this intense internal pressure to fit in by standing out. Internally, I didn't feel queer enough. Where was my embroidered and angsty denim jacket when I needed it? 

This is where my project comes in. I know what it feels like to be me, and I can self-analyze to the moon and back, but how do other people experience the visual embodiment of queerness. 

Some sample interview questions: 

- Do you think you look queer?

- Do you ever feel too queer/not queer enough?

- Do you have any specific Pride clothes? How do you feel about rainbows?

- What's shopping like? Do you feel tension around the gendered sections?

- Do you have hair (length/dye/body hair) feelings?

The further you poke at the idea of visual queerness and its somewhat defined aesthetics, the further the questions feel like fallacies and stereotypes and begin to unravel. How do we live in that mushy ambiguity between where “gaydar isn’t real, it’s based on stereotypes, but also gaydar is real and I definitely can tell?”