Gentil 1

Kelsey Gentil
Jennifer Rodrick
QS 115
24 October 2016
How and to what extent has space shaped queer identities, whether it be to confirm or, or to be
performative?
Every individual can take it upon the initiative to know and how to express themselves
depending who they are and where they are. Space identifies an individual based on how far they
can express himself/herself and show who they are really are without discrimination. Society and
the space within it has somewhat made it easy for some individuals to come out, be socially
accepted and be fine; but there has been some that took a different turn on the road and it has
made it more difficult for them. Coming out we are expected to fall in a certain category since
we are now labeled as different, we arent normal were either gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. We
shouldnt ever have to think that we have to be put under a certain category or in other words be
labeled by who we are rather just think of being part of a community that we are accepted for
who we are without any discrimination.

Sometimes people when they finally realized and think to themselves that it is time to
finally come out it can take a different reaction as we expected. The Full Spectrum Ed.
Levithan/Merrell, a girls father founds out she is lesbian through a phone conversation. He is in
shock, and right away is unaccepting that his daughter is lesbian. Since they were a religious

family her father thinks she needs to go see a priest, that makes her really mad, because she think
that now something is wrong with her
Gentil 2
when reality nothing is. A priest. I told my dad it wasnt going to do anything, but Ill go to his
church and Ill talk to his priest. Its not going to change me(Canale 43). Her father though that
by her visiting the priest and by also pushing religion onto her it will change who she is. Bottom
line, it traumatized her because she felt no support, acceptance from her dad. In the book
Composing Gender Ed. Groner/OHara another individual tells her story coming out as
transgender while she was in the bathroom, and incident that happened. When I first
transitioned, I became temporarily disabled since the administration interim solution was that I
use the single access handicapped restroom on a different floor of my building (Doan 60-61).
Her expressing the word disabled alone means a lot towards the way she felt. Disabled means
a person having a physical or mental condition that limits movements, senses, or activities. If she
felt in any way weird or unable to use the restroom, she shouldnt have, because we should feel
comfortable when going to the restroom in a ny public space. Sometimes little thing like this can
make an individual feel enclosed on who they really are, which they should never feel like that.

Sometimes when coming out to be part of the LGBTQ community we dont know what
reaction to expect. Will it be good or bad? But I believe it shouldn't matter, we are who we are no
matter what anyone says. Whether accepted or not, it should never make you feel like a different
person unless you are accepted, you should feel different but as a good different. In a video we
watched in class by Morgana Bailey, (TED Talk 2014) She expresses the way she had hid herself
for over many years because she didnt want to be defined as a gay friend, a gay coworker, she

didnt know what reactions she was going to get. Till later on she finally decided it was time, the
hiding got to her and she
Gentil 3
couldnt handle it anymore. She felt guilty for not having came out to her friend/coworker for a
bill for vote that in favor for that law that allows businesses not to serve the LGBTQ community.
I was never honest with them. That shakes me to the core. (6:45-6:55min) This made her
realize that she never tried to make a difference since she never came out to her friend, so would
never know if her dad and friend could have thought differently of her and could have helped her
dad not vote for the bill.

Growing up we have always believed you are either a girl who has to wear pink and a boy who
has to wear blue, but there has always been a more change to it throughout the years. We sometimes feel
the need to fit a particular category but the LGBTQ community has been the ones out of the category that
struggle to fit in. As stated in Trans-ventures of an F2M by Alexander Colin Rasmussen, her

grandmother continuously told her she had to be a specific type of person or comply by actions
but it was never enough for her grandmother. For me, the desire to be perfect soon became a
need. It became the reason that I lived, the reason I breathed. How, though, could I be perfect if I
had the wrong body? (Rasmussen 72 and 73) Having that thought in her head all the time that
according to her grandmother she had to fit in a certain place in order to feel normal can affect
the way she feels, she might think shes different, not perfect when we all are our own selves and
get to be them no

matter who says.

WORKS CITED

Groner, Rachael, and John F. O'Hara. Composing Gender

Levithan, David, and Billy Merrell. The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing about Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Other Identities
TED. The Danger Of Hiding Who You Are; Morgana Bailey. Online Video Clip. Youtube, 23
Jan.2015. Web. 19 Oct.
Colin, Alexander. Trans-ventures of an F2M New York: Knofp, 2006