Yeah, I get that too. Actually, someone couldn't believe that I live with my boyfriend because I "look like an 11 year old lesbian" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean). Apparently being small and having short hair and an "I don't take crap from anyone" attitude puts me in that category...?

That fits me to a tee. I've never minded getting hit on by chicks unless it meant I wasn't getting hit on by guys ;)
I am also involved in a lot of guy dominated sports and it always shocks the guys when I show up for a party in a skirt and a low cut shirt. I always like watching their eyes pop.

The other day I over heard a couple of my friends talking (one guy, one girl) and the guy actually said its 'o.k.' for me to have short hair cus I'm a boy. I freaked and he tried to back pedal saying he thinks of me as 'one of the guys'. I had to explain that there is a difference between being a boy and being 'one of the guys'. I love being rough and tumble during the day but am actually quite feminine the rest of the time. Most guys just can't handle the a girl being as tough as they are. ::)

Thank you babpuppy and rhetcompgirl for the intellectual discussion of queer - it makes so much sense now that you've both explained it!!  I love that according to this definition that I am also queer ;D

Of course, I can complicate the vegan+queer issue further by pointing out that I don't consider myself "gay" or "lesbian"--I'm queer, which encompasses both sexual preferences and the politics of such things. For me being vegan is not just about food, it's a way of viewing/acting/participating in the world. Being queer is not just about who I sleep with--it's also about how I view/act/paticipate in the world. These seem to be, in my opinion, the more obvious connections between the two.

right on sista!! here there is a differentiation between queer and being gay/lesbian/bi that i don't see a lot of people making. queerness is about disturbing boundaries and challenging the normal within the context of how one lives their life. i think there is this assumption to easily jump to queer = gay or lesbian, but this isn't how queer works-- it is just how it has come to be understood by the general population (granted, i acknowledge here that both hetcompgirl and i are academics so (i'm assuming for RCG) study this stuff). if you take the term "genderqueer," for example, this is disruption understandings of gender. it has nothing to do with who you sleep with, etc.  however, most people assume that gender deviance is a sign of gayness because, in a society that dichotomizes understandings of both gender and sexuality with the whole "opposites attrack" bullpoop. again, not the case. i know genderqueers who are hetero.

veganism queers it up the "normal" assumptions about how people should eat and think about eating. being vegan only serves to compliment my queerness because it challenges the assumption that humans are "on top" and have the rights to the bodies of others--esp. non humans.

my queerness is in rejecting how i'm supposed to live my life. i'm not gender conventional, i don't date only men, i don't even really buy into monogamy and dyadic relationships as the right way to experience meaningful relationships. i am also sex positive, which is a stretch in a very unsex positive culture.  this is, friends, my personal example of doing queerness.

Wow. Thank you so much for clearing that up. I'd like to think of myself as being educated (well, completing my education currently anyways), and honestly, I feel a bit ashamed for now recognizing that "queer" does not automatically mean gay/bi/whatever. It traditionally meant "strange" or "unusual", "At variance with what is usual or normal". It's just that society has slapped that label with gays and lesbians, and unfortunately I'm one of the many who fell for it. However, I guess by that definition, everyone is queer in their own way, whether it be a habit, diet, preference, whatever. No one really is "normal", if we think about it. Again, thank you so much for clearing that up. You make a great teacher, Baypuppy!

I may come off as rather a curmudgeon--something I generally embrace  ;D--but this is starting to sound like queerness quite simply equals any deviation from the norm. Indeed, by that logic, everyone, literally, would qualify as queer because it is in the nature of norms to be, in the final analysis, unlivable, or maybe unrealistic. In my book, that is, in my understanding of what queer with a capital "Q" means, is that it indicates a politically resistant stance toward heteronormativity and the many many things that heteronormativity implies. Some theorists go so far as to argue that most (if not all) the world's problems are traceable to the historically fraught business of compulsory heterosexuality. According to this definition, anyway, straight people could be technically Queer, but they would probably also be, for example, polyamorous or at least critical of heteronormative institutions (marriage, most notably, though not exclusively).

Totally NOT trying to be a jerk or anything. Maybe I just have semantic anxiety.  :D

When I was in high school I became a Peer Support Person. Pretty much that meant I was an ear for my peers. We were trained on how to give sparse advise on all thing sex and sexual. Here's what I was taught about sexual orientation and/or sexual identity. Think of the bell curve, at one end of the graph you have 'gay' at the other end you have 'straight'. The majority of the population is in the middle. The theory goes like this: the overwhelming majority of people are receptive to both homosexual and heterosexual preferences/orientation. Some may lean more to one side such as Jo, might be 60:40 or 20:80. This means that we all are capable of loving without gender/sexual discrimination. But upbringing can greatly influence one's belief in their sexual identity/orientation. So, Jo may only identify with straight, when she/he is actually 40:60 on the bell curve. That's what we were taught, and for me the most important part of all that is the need to do away with binaries, opposites and pigeon holing.

I can only speak for myself. I am with a guy, but I didn't fall in love with his (rhymes with rock), I fell in love with his personality. It is my feeling that the package isn't as important as what's inside, and I do not restrict myself to any particular packaging. I feel I have to call myself straight because he is the only lover I've ever known. But if this world was a bell curve I'd probably be 50:50 - and after influence of upbringing 40:60.

I'm aware the bell curve idea has flaws and it doesn't really fit my opinions on the world. But I've not been able to ask someone who identifies with gay or queer what their thoughts on this bell curve idea are.

I think its amazing that a school would use the kinsey scale in a peer support group!  I would think most public schools would gloss over such a touchy subject in todays society.

New Zealand