I’ve spent most of my life not knowing I was not being represented — and not knowing I was missing it.
As a lesbian, desfem woman, I didn’t see anyone who looked like me growing up, anyone who understood what I was feeling and questioning.
I was 16 when I started to think about such things. I knew I felt miserable all the time, but didn´t quite understood why.
I thought my crush on girls was simply admiration or wanting to be their friend. Took me a while to finally realize I was attracted to them, and when that happened, at first, I was in denile, then I believed I was bisexual, because how dare I not be attracted to men, right?
At 18 I came to terms with my sexuality, still not seeing myself in many places — in ficcion or real life. But with that miserable feeling still inside, is when I started to look back at my life and the things I liked: I always preffered trousers over skirts, baggy shirts over dresses, a tied hair over long hair loose. That’s what I was missing. I was still trying to fit the femininity box without realising it wasn´t meant for me.
I had to figure it all out on my own, and it was so hard and challenging. A lonely journy of self knowledge.
If I had representation as a kid, it would’ve spared me so much time and hurt, I would’ve not felt so alone and strange, I wouldn’t have believed for a second that something was wrong with me.
Things are changing though, gladly. Gradually. But we still have a long way to go.
When we think of “representation” usually we think about films and TV Shows having characters who represent us in that way.
However, representation is much more than that, it’s everywhere — or it should be. A perfect example of this is what happened to me a couple of days ago.
I wanted to get a new haircut, and I’m used to having straight people do my hair, the hairdressers would try and make conversations, talking about relationships, family, kids, at times they asked inconvenient quesntions about my sexuality or even sexual experiences — a very straight thing to do…
But this time I went to a barber shop to have another lesbian woman do my hair, and I almost cried at the end of it. I thought “so this is how straight women feel when they go to a beauty salon? Like they’ve found a friend and confidant? I get it now”.
We talked about the sapphic experience, our favorite shows and actresses, we talked about the censored kiss in the novela, and about the different hairs we’ve had. It was just a joyful experience where I felt comfortable and welcomed. I was use to feeling like an alien, an object of research for straight people in those salons, I was use to the stares of confusion or disapprovement. The sad thing is I didn’t know I could have it any other way.
Until I went to that barber shop and felt like a person. I found my place.
THAT’S the difference. That lesbian barber made my day, she changed the way felt when having a haircut. I found representation there.
And that’s what we need more and more. To find ourselves everywhere. In the restaurant we just want to have a nice dinner with our significant other, in the coffee shop we get our take out in the morning, in the stores we shopp for clothes we feel comfortable in…
This is what representation is all about. Making us feel less alone, understood and valued as human beings. Queer people make the difference everywhere they go to, sometimes even just by standing there, letting themselves be seen.
My wish for us is that we have the courage to keep frequenting all the places, especially the ones they’ve said it’s not for us. That we keep pushing our way through and making them unconfortable. I wish we don’t ever back down or let them look down on us. I wish we keep our life colorful and bright, and keep putting up a fight.
If you’re a queer person, letting yourself be seen as such takes courage, but it might as well make all the difference in someone else’s day — or life.
Representation matters. Everyday, everywhere.
