Closets

This week, S and I have begun sharing the news that we're going to be parents with our colleagues.  For me, it has been an experience that again brings up the question of closets in my life as a cigender femme in a heteroqueer relationship.  The lines are blurred between keeping secrets and maintaining personal privacy, between being really, really out and hanging out passively in the closet.

I am out to the majority of my coworkers.  And then there are those with whom I have never worked very closely, and the opportunity to really discuss my identity and personal life haven't really come up - so I haven't pushed the envelope.  Even in a very queer-friendly workplace, I've often found it hard in a professional context, where I'm not a "gay for pay," to be explicit about the fact that I'm a queer woman.  That's partly because I'm an intensely private person - I don't really talk about my personal life at work.  And it's partly because I don't think I have the energy or courage to come out constantly in my life- over and over and over again.  It is exhausting, and painful, and hard.  At 32, I'm simply too cowardly to keep doing it.

I have many contradictions about this, and often think I'm simply too comfortable with the privilege of passing to do much to challenge the assumptions folks make about me.  Because of how I represent myself, I have the choice to come out or not in every context of my life.  I'm working on examining this, especially now that I'm becoming more visibly pregnant and thinking constantly about how I want to represent myself as a queer mama. 

Colleagues have reacted to the news that I'm pregnant in very generous and positive ways.  Folks have asked when we're due, if we're planning to stay in our apartment (such a New York-type question), and if we know the sex of the baby yet.  And many have asked - much to my surprise - how long we've "known" we're pregnant.  Even the folks who know I'm queer and S is trans.  As if it could have been a surprise.

I wasn't really expecting the question, so I've reacted by saying, "oh, we knew right away, it was a very planned process."  Vague enough not to disclose that we used donor sperm/IUIs to get pregnant, to maintain for me, what feels like a necessary amount of privacy about our process.  After all, straight folks don't often have to talk about the steps and emotional process involved in getting pregnant.  But it always leaves me feeling really unsettled to not have folks understand our experience.  There again is a layer of painful invisibility around my queerness.  To alleviate that invisibility, I need to speak up and say instead, "well, since we're a queer couple, we planned every step of the process and went through a timed insemination using donor sperm."  Is that okay to say to a colleague?  Is it necessary for my own wellness? 

I'm not ashamed to be queer.  It is a core part of my identity.  And yet, I can't decide at this juncture how I'll reconcile all these feelings I've been having about how I live in the world, represent myself in the world, and talk in the world.  I feel discomfort in my chest. But I'm not yet ready to make a change.