Well, they aren't secrets as much as they are time-honored traditions. Well shit. They aren't even time-honored. The lesbian community changes so freaking much you'd have to be an airline hostess with a computer chip in your ass to keep up with it. And really, the only requirement you must meet to join this club is to be a woman, drop on a semi-frequent basis, and wear sensible shoes. Okay, the only real requirement you need is to be a woman and to declare yourself a dyke. Or a lesbian. Or a sister. Or just about any PC term you prefer to use in a crowd that won't get you a raised eyebrow from some bon-vivant bitch sipping a cocktail. Lost you already, didn't I?

Okay, let's backtrack a bit. To keep from spawning a novel-length post about something which you could probably give a flying rat's rectum about, I will tell you a few things about the lesbian community as they apply to moi.

First of all, I could walk past you in a bar or in the mall or on the street and you would not see me. If I went to an office Christmas party alone, no one would ever look at me and say, "Oh look, a lesbian." No straight person has ever asked me if I was gay. There are no tell-tale stereotypical signs. Thing is, when you walk through a mall or anywhere else where there are crowds of people, you are consciously or unconsciously labeling every person you see. Whether it be black, white, mother, father, priest, kid, baby, dyke, fag, pregnant woman, you are seeing these people and making a little mental check. It's normal. Labeling isn't bad. You carry a thousand labels on your person at all times: daughter, mother, sister, cousin, nurse, lover, deranged escaped mental patient. The problem I experience doesn't happen in the straight world. It happens in the gay community.

It is called....*drumroll*...FEMME INVISIBILITY. This is a horrible affliction for which there is no cure. If I walked into a lesbian club and sat down at the bar, it would take about 14.9 seconds before someone, usually the manager, approached me and said, "Uh, just thought you'd want to know...this is a gay bar."

I knew this other femme who was so frustrated with this phenomenon that she once shrieked, "Sometimes I want to put on a public pussy-eating display just to prove I'm gay!"

Another thing about lesbians you should know? They're big on brunches and potlucks. That would be a lunch none of us would miss.

So usually, no one knows I'm gay. I don't come right out and say I'm gay. Do straight people come right out and say they're straight? No. It's not necessary. If I were to define myself by my lesbianism alone, I might feel the need to proclaim it somewhere. I don't. One of the things that so pisses me off about lesbian sites on the Internet is that little disclaimer you see on so many of their webpages: "Warning: Lesbian content contained within. Considered yourself warned." I don't do that either. Find me ONE website that says, "Warning: Heterosexual content contained within. Considered yourself warned," and I will kiss your ass. It just ain't gonna happen. (And as an aside, let me say that this is why Jill Matrix is so popular. She's gay. She's open about it. But when you go to her site you don't automatically box her in. You just like her for her.)

You might be wondering to yourself at this point, "Damn, Tracy's off her fucking meds again!" "Why the rant? Why now? What gives?"

Well, to say people have doubted my gayness is a fucking understatement. I mean, if I don't look gay and don't act gay and I've been married before and have a child, how then could I be gay? This doesn't bother me. Labels, by their very nature, force you to categorize people into little boxes, good or bad, and when you come across someone that's not fitting into your little box, it takes a period of adjustment to either reshape the box or rethink the label. I like when this happens. I like it that people get to know me and say, "Hmmm...she's unlike any gay person I've ever known." That's good. That shows an incredible amount of intelligence and open-mindedness. I mean, granted, we're still a long way off. After all, when you meet a heterosexual person you don't have to wrestle with preconceptions or stereotypes before you accept them. We're getting there...but it's still a long way off.

A few days ago one of my coworkers asked, "Are you really gay?"

My typical answer, when I'm feeling snarky, would be, "Are you really straight?" --but I was feeling Joan sweet and decided to be, uh, straight. "Yes, I'm really gay." You might think he asked this question based on the femme-thing, or because he knows I have a child, knows I've been married, etc. It was none of those things. Wanna know why he couldn't squeeze me into the box?

"Well, you're just so open about it."

Another stereotype? Gay people don't talk openly about their sexuality. Gay people don't talk about their personal lives. Wow. I've thought of little since.

Most of the gay people I know are closeted to a certain degree, but when I hear anyone say something like, "It's hard to hang out in the office and listen to what everyone was doing over the weekend and I can't add anything because I'm gay," I go absolutely apeshit. Straight people don't put these cages around us. We do. If I kept my sexuality a secret from everyone, I would have to keep my entire life a secret. It would be impossible to say, "So Lori and I were at Wal*Mart..." or "Lori and I watched TV all weekend," or anything else that derailed off the mainstream railroad. I don't play the fucking Pronoun Game (we, us, they, she, them, etc.) and I never will. I say Lori, my girlfriend, my partner, my lover, my lesbian love-slave. Straight people handle it just fine.

One of the things that does fucking piss me off when I make this little disclosure to people--correction: straight men--is this comment, which I hear too much, "Oooh, can I watch?" If you are a straight man and you have ever said this to any lesbian, go apologize now and never, ever say it again. Or be an asshole across the board and say that to every woman you meet, especially to straight women, when they tell you they're married. I reckon after the third time, your balls will be shoved so far up into your throat you will never be able to physically say it again. My being a lesbian does not open the door to my bedroom for you. By definition alone, my being a lesbian keeps that door shut to you forever. Period. Asshole.

The other comment I hear, which most men think is so fucking witty but which we lesbians have heard so much it just makes these men look stupid is, "I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body." If you were, you'd most likely be taking female hormones, seeing a psychiatrist, living as a woman and preparing to lose your dick. Shut the fuck up.

Wow! I'm a roll today. Oh, that's not a roll. It's a donut.

Where was I?

Some femme lesbians I know joke about having the word "DYKE" tattooed in rainbow-colored letters across their foreheads. Some wear symbolic jewelry, i.e. rainbow earrings, etc., to become noticeable, to be seen. I don't. Why? Because I don't have any. I don't even wear jewelry. And because Lori would say, "Why the fuck are you wearing that Lambda shirt? Who you comin' out to?" Okay, wait, that's not it. It's because I like shocking people. If I had a dime for each time I came out to someone and they spit their drink out through their nose, I'd have about eighty cents! No seriously, it would be about a buck twenty. Focus! Focus!

Anyway, I had a really good point and I lost it because I'm so hungry, so I shall leave you with a very sweet thing Ginny once said to me. The entire night shift knows how to tell when Lori is mad at me. If I'm angry, tired, or wired, they know all they have to do is check out the lunch Lori packed for me. Usually it's a salad, fresh fruit, snacks, Diet Cokes, roast or meatloaf or something everyone wants a piece of. One night, however, she was mad at me and all I got was a ham sandwich. This has been the gage in which my coworkers measure my mood and relationship. Fucking weirdos.

Joan: "Hey Ginny, Tracy's in a pissy mood. What's she packin'?"

Ginny: "Cup-a-soup."

Joan: "Oh shit."

So one night I had this incredible roast with carrots and celery and potatoes, with strawberry-shortcake for dessert. I called Lori at one point that night and said, "Hey...okay, I'll call you back in about an hour."

Ginny said, "She sleeping?"

"No, she's doing laundry and cleaning the bathroom."

"Must be nice to have a wife," said Ginny.

It sure as hell is.