Front Range Femme: What's in a name?

Your Front Range Femme, Shanna Katz

Editor’s Note: Shanna Katz’s Front Range Femme column appears weekly on OFCB. Shanna will be blogging about kinky queer sexuality in all its aspects. Her posts will sometimes be explicit and may cover controversial material like BDSM, role-playing, sexual assault, and may include language which could be considered offensive. If you find this type of material offensive or inappropriate, please visit other pages on the blog or go back to OFCB. If you wish to proceed, continue reading Front Range Femme: Kink 101 after the jump.

I feel like I should say something special and impressive for my first column, but if you really want to know all the details about who I am and what I do, feel free to check out my site, at www.ShannaKatz.com.

Let’s talk identity. Since moving back to Denver from the east coast, I’ve had quite an interesting time trying to understand what roles identities play here in the Rockies. When I left Denver a few years ago, very few people used the word queer. In fact, it was still thought of – almost exclusively – as an insult, and just as few people identified as dykes.  After spending time back east, where almost everyone seemed to be out as queer or even queer dykes, I was apprehensive about what identities would look like back home in Colorado.

Denver is interesting. Parts of the city are impressively open-minded, and other parts seem to be left a decade or two behind. I’ve had people tell me to give up on my Femme identity, because the butch-femme dynamic is so blasé. Others still take pause when I tell them I’m a queer dyke, and I can see the wheels spinning as they look for a proper response. On the other hand, I feel that there’s a strong young queer contingent here. Both groups are looking to enact social change, but seem to have trouble coming together to do so.

So how do we deal with people who don’t “get” our identities? It appears as though identities have divided the LGBTQ scene in Denver; the older “lesbians” against the younger “dykes,” those who identify as “gay” versus though who identify as “queer.”

Why can’t we just accept identities? We get hung up on bisexuality too; telling bi people that they’re really straight and just experimenting, or really gay/lesbian and just haven’t dove in yet. And how about how we treat people who have transitioned? Why are trans guys always grouped in with the lesbians? They are men, so it seems odd to place them with the dykes. Moreover, sometimes our community is prejudiced toward trans women, not welcoming them into lesbian or women’s spaces.

Add genderqueer to the mix, and suddenly everyone wants to know if you’re going to transition, or if you’re trans, or when you’re going to “decide.” People who are androgynous get the same spiel. And those who are asexual? They’re told to just wait until the right person comes along.

Let’s bring our community together. We spend so much time trying to dissect identities, and trying to put people into little boxes. By doing do, we are segregating our OWN community. It’s ridiculous that First Friday is one of the only times that older and younger lesbians/dykes/queers come together. It’s ridiculous that there are bars catering to gay men who refuse entrance to women. Identities are important to individuals to help them figure out who they are, but they should be celebrated, rather than used to single out and exclude members of our own community.