Christmas, by nature, lends itself naturally to queerness. The lights, the colours, the glitter and ballads…(and, if I’m to believe the contents of the approximate three high-street clothing stores across Durham, then sequinned outfits are en vogue this season, to boot).
Queermas holds particularly strongly for me, since it’s about this time that I first started dating her: my ‘first, real girlfriend’. And it so happened that during our time together, there was no Christmas stereotype left by the wayside. Our first date took place at Southbank Christmas Markets, where we got merry (pun much intended) on mulled wine in a faux-wooden cabin, while she educated me on the city’s vegan restaurants and the rules of roller derby. And yes, in case you’re wondering, she was the embodiment of typified, stereotyped, fabulous queerness – and I, well, I was a terrified little baby-dyke who was still mildly mindful of the familial-pressed threat of Presbyterian fire and brimstone.
(As a by-note, my overwhelming sense of feeling out-of-depth can be encapsulated by the 15-minute internal dialogue that took place prior to said date, on whether a rainbow-coloured, glitter scarf, screamed “I’m trying too hard to be queer”, or whether it was a pièce de gaysistance among the otherwise drab and heteronormative. But I digress.)
From there on-in, the glitter, in both contexts, was in full parade. Her ‘gay mafia network’ (her words) in the roller derby world produced tickets to Scottee’s Camp Christmas (which, if you don’t know, is simultaneously as, well, ‘camp’ and Christmassy as it gets). I wore a dress and then immediately regretted it, but she told me I looked pretty and we held hands, and I started to think, hey, what do you know, perhaps you can be gay and still wear dresses. I wonder what else is possible? Perhaps we can even kiss in public….and when we did, not only did I not get smited by the good Lord, but in fact, no-one gave a goddamn about another couple’s PDA. At around this point, then I came to realise that generally people have better things to do than engage on the fantasy gay witch-hunt that I had constructed in my head.
She invited me over for Christmas dinner (vegan, of course). We watched films (Christmas-themed, of course) and played our favourite music to the other, and she gave me the most wonderfully gay gift: a hand-stitched roller-derby-shaped Christmas stocking (complete with snacks (again, vegan, of course), and my first copy of DIVA. It was gay Christmas heaven. It was full-throttle queermas. No-holds-barred Gaypiphany (ok, don’t get hung upon the temporal accuracy of my noble pun attempts…It was very gay, and very awesome).
If I were a cynic, I could countenance that the above essentially boils down to the fact that “I dated someone during the winter”. But to me, it was so much more than that. I dated someone who was the perfect display of what it’s like being proud to be queer, during a season which provides a ready backdrop to this narrative. This helped a lot in beginning to unravel a whole bunch of confused identity conflict. It was also, simply, the most sparkly, magical adventure….
As for my first girlfriend, today we’re still in touch as friends. This Christmas I hope to see her perform in her burlesque troupe, which contains just as much sparkle-sequins as anyone could hope for; the seasonal queer-venture continues.
And you can too…
if you’re in London this season, you too must check out Southbank Winter Festival!: http://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/southbank-centre-winter-festival-guide
Vegan Christmas dinner is apparently now so mainstream that Jamie Oliver and the BBC are plugging it: http://www.jamieoliver.com/christmas/collection/vegan/ , http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/vegan-christmas
To keep up-to-date with Scottee’s projects: http://www.scottee.co.uk/
If you also don’t have an effing clue about roller derby, or want to try it out: http://www.durhamcityrollingangels.co.uk/ or http://www.durhamrollerderby.co.uk/ (take me along with you….)
If you haven’t heard of DIVA mag, you should’ve: http://www.divamag.co.uk/