On Nourishing Queer Love
+ where to find real good news
Hi, sweet beans. Thanks for reading Healing Field Notes, a newsletter I send out twice a month. This newsletter will always be a free offering. However, consider a paid subscription if you’d like to support my writing.
The question I get asked the most, hands down, is how I “handle” being queer in a “straight-presenting” relationship. There are many nuances as to why this question rubs me the wrong way. There are also many nuances to the privileges that come with being in a relationship that affords me a lot of safety as I’m walking through the world in my relationship. Hold those nuances in mind as you continue reading.
I want to tell all my queer friends that we must remember there are so many ways to nourish queerness outside of relationships. In fact, I think nourishing and nurturing our queerness outside of our romantic relationships is some of best love. Some ways I nourish my queerness outside of my romantic relationship are by consuming queer media such as watching Heartstopper and the Gossip Girl reboot, listening to MUNA, and reading queer YA to nurture the teen in me that never got to be out, going to queer-centered spaces like the Little Gay Shop, being in queer community by volunteering at queer organizations like SQSH or joining apps like Lex, loving my queer friends (which is the ultimate queer love), and by taking workshops about embracing queer desire.
However, there are ways it is nourished in my romantic relationship. My partner and I spent the weekend at a cabin for a little Valentine’s Day trip and played We’re Not Really Strangers. The card I picked to ask him said, “What’s something you feel like I have grown into since we met?” The first thing he said was, “Your queerness.” The other day, I came out wearing a pink vintage t-shirt, camo pants, and boots, and he said, “That’s a gay-ass outfit.” These are some ways my partner sees me – honors me.
The truth is, I’m secure in my relationship and my queerness enough now to know that neither one threatens the other – but this took so much time. Now, this is what loves feels like to me. It also helps that I have friends who get it. There are so many ways to feel queer love. And see us and have their own gay little relationships that inspire me to lean fully into mine.
I am sick of telling people who are not in “outwardly queer” relationships (I put that in quotes because what the FUCK does that even mean, to be quite honest) that their queerness is valid. I’m sick of the biphobia, the transphobia, and the actual gatekeeping that happens that makes people feel like their queer love is anything other than sacred. But I will continue saying it. I will tell you: your queer love is valid. Your queerness is present, loved, grounded, and real, whether you are partnered or not. There are so many kinds of queer love. You do not have to show a resume to prove your queerness. You just are. Period.
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Love,
