I’d like to discuss yet another YouTube video! This time, it’s a short segment from a video by Cammie Scott. Specifically, the video covers her own coming out story.
Butler delves extensively into the idea of “losing place” in gender, when coming to accept one’s own non-heterosexual orientation. She states that she “sought to understand some of the terror and anxiety that some people suffer in ‘becoming gay,’ the fear of losing one’s place in gender or of not knowing who one will be if one sleeps with someone of the ostensibly ‘same’ gender” (11). Returning to Cammie, she is a lesbian, and a self-identified femme. Around the 4:50 mark of the video (embedded below), Cammie briefly discusses the exact experience that is being described by Butler. Even after establishing that she experiences attraction exclusively toward women, and having been in a same-sex relationship at the time, Cammie continued to grapple with the (“terrifying”) idea of being a lesbian. The sole reason: A distorted idea of what truly constitutes a lesbian, and a belief that she would need to wholly sacrifice her femininity in order to truly be a lesbian. She felt that she would be forced to masculinize herself, as Cammie believed that this was tied, without exception, to being and identifying as a lesbian.
From an anecdotal perspective, at least, this is an incredibly common experience for femme/feminine lesbians. (Personally, I delt heavily with this issue, as a teenager.) Through her writing, Butler truly does offer some insight into why and how this (seemingly silly) experience is so common, and why it can become a severe struggle. As she would say, ultimately, it boils down to the “instability” of gender.
This concept in Butler’s article (and also just in real life) is one that really resonates with me. Butler and also Cammie did an excellent job of articulating the feelings and internalized deformity of how one views themselves after “coming out” or “becoming gay.” I’ve also debated if internalized homophobia has an effect on oneself, such as when Cammie talked about debating whether or not she should dress more “boyish” and also not having a gay icon to relate to. Coming to terms with a label and identity is laboring in so many ways, since you have the public/friends/family/society/media hovering and influencing how you think, act, and live in this identity, but also within yourself and others in the community with the same or even differing identities.