The Looking Glass: Loving Plainly

Abigail Mitchell (she/her) is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Guelph and holds an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy from U of G.  

Originally from Mississauga, ON, Abigail is a proud bisexual woman who serves on the U of G Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Advisory Committee for Students and the Research Ethics Board. Her research focuses on domestic homicide, sexual femicide and internet-facilitated child sexual abuse.  

Loving Plainly

I recently had the opportunity to moderate a session at the Canadian Sociology Association (CSA) Conference held at York University, a session organized by CSAHS’s very own Drs. Paulina Garcia-Del Moral and Chris Tatham. The session was called Sexualities II: Empirical Approaches, and I felt in my element; although my research focuses primarily on issues of sexual and gender-based violence, I have always loved learning about gender and sexuality in positive, non-violent contexts. 

To prepare for moderating this session, I read over all of the presenters’ work, and I added rainbow pins to my name badge. I arrived early to the session room to get familiar with the technology, and put on my bad-ass confidence heels, à la Julie Lalonde. I practiced the pronunciation of the conference’s land acknowledgement statement, and I wrote my introductory speech for the session that screamed, “I AM ONE OF YOU, I AM US NOT THEM.” 

Looking out at the respectably sized crowd (25 people max, but great for a gender and sexuality session), I felt exactly how I didn’t want to appear: like an outsider. There were cuffed pants and blue hair and a shirt that said, “NO ONE KNOWS I’M A LESBIAN”. And even though I put on my rainbow sunflower pin because it made me smile and feel close to my community, it also felt deeply performative and inauthentic. Aside from me, the only people who had a “straight” aesthetic were the friends who had come to support me. 

The environment of the session was overwhelmingly uplifting. The presenters’ presentations were on queer joy, the future of Pride celebrations, and queer nightlife spaces. The audience members had thoughtful questions that allowed the presenters to showcase their knowledge, and there wasn’t a single moment when I worried someone would ask a question that would make someone feel defensive or uncomfortable. I had already attended a session that week where presenters got personal and unprofessional in their verbal sparring, and I had no desire for anything even remotely similar to occur in my session. 

By the end I had relaxed, and I only heard positive feedback on the session from presenters and audience members alike. I even got compliments on my heels and pins! But one of the presentations stuck with me: Kailey Peckford, from the University of British Columbia, had spoken about straight women and why they go to gay clubs. Even though I’m bisexual and queer spaces are as much for me as they are for gay men and lesbians, I’m very aware that I’m a feminine, white, cis woman in a straight-passing relationship. To any random onlooker, I appear to be straight, and that makes me overwhelmingly self-conscious in queer spaces. Elsewhere, my straight-passing is a privilege; I won’t be run out of a restaurant parking lot for kissing my partner, and I can hold my partner’s hand in public without (much) fear of lecherous comments from strange men. In queer spaces, however, it feels burdensome. It becomes my responsibility to disprove assumptions about my sexuality by changing how I talk, how I dress, how I act. It isn’t fair, and ideally, bi people would be less invisible in queer spaces, but maybe that’s the price I pay for my privilege in other areas of my life. I haven’t figured that part out yet, but I’ll let you know when/if I do. 

Either way, I don’t want to waste my privilege, so I try my best to use it to the advantage of my community. I frequent LGBTQIA2S+ businesses and tip drag performers. I protest homophobia and transphobia. I write and present papers on the irrationality of excluding trans-women from women-only spaces, and I try my best to be a role model for my youngest, queer sister. I don’t know how much impact I can have, since I’m only one person and I have relatively little power to enact change. But what I can do, I feel I must. 

While it was a wonderful experience being surrounded by my LGBTQIA2S+ community members during my session at the CSA, it also meant that their research and points of view didn’t travel beyond us that day. While I have no doubt these marvelous scholars will publish their work and make the world listen, it saddens me that people outside of our community are able to tune us out. Don’t just make sad faces as anti-trans bills are passed in Florida and schools in Ontario refuse to raise the Pride flag, come and listen to what our joy feels like, and maybe then we’ll seem human enough for you to put your privilege on the line and fight for us. 

I have my privilege tattooed on my inner forearm (the most bisexual of tattoo placements). The tattoo is a quote from the novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, “the daily peace of loving plainly.” It reminds me not to take for granted being able to walk beside my partner on the street and take his hand without a second thought. And every time I explain the meaning of my tattoo to someone, I hope they too reflect on their privilege to love plainly and use it to make our lives just a little bit better.