Ticks.

So first I should probably just note where I’ve been this whole semester. I had been so sure of myself: on this mission to present my community with interviews and photos. I loved doing it. But then, as some of you know, my last subject’s parents found the entries…the blog. What ensued was not the greatest of circumstances for this individual. I had the permission and everything but I couldn’t escape this feeling of guilt. I stopped writing. What right did I have to put someone in that position of pain and hurt?

I think I reflected on it too much. I was scared that I threw myself out there, and was trying to pull out everyone with me. To be supergay, or ultragay, or gay before anything else. To take the risk and out ourselves on campus, online. That’s a big step. Deep down, I still absolutely agree that being just us was the goal of my entries: to show the broader experience of queer folks at Duke.

But being more out has not been without its hate.

Reactions from family and friends and complete strangers have been interesting. Although I am perhaps more hesitant now to post online, I know these stories are important to tell. So I hope you can bear with me in this post. I hope to continue posting during the summer and make up for my absence and overcome the fears that have piled up on me this semester.

There were two events that occurred really close together. They were my most direct and blunt experience with hate speech. I tried to brush it off and not let it get to me, but I’ve kept replaying these events over and over in my mind over the past few weeks. The first—was on LDOC. For those of you who have seen Patrick’s Documentary, LDOC 2009 was a great memorable experience for me. LDOC 2010 was tons of fun too, don’t get me wrong. But while kissing a female in the crowd while the bands were playing, I suddenly became aware of the people talking around us. I tuned in to a pair of guys next to us, hearing: “They’re kissing each other, that’s fucking disgusting.”

I can delight in the attention and reaction and help show a broader spectrum of female sexuality, the girl I was kissing certainly was. But I don’t really like being told that I’m fucking disgusting. It tore through me like I didn’t know it would. I shocked myself with how much it hurt.

Then, awhile later, the second event. Walking down Markham, hand-in-hand with my partner, a gentleman took it upon himself to lean out of his car and yell, “God made Adam and Eve!”

Not so piercing, no. But what if it was? What if something happened?

The only thing you can really do is laugh it off. Crack jokes. Be stronger...somehow. How do I do that?

I went to the Eno a few days ago, on a hot humid Durham day. I jumped right in that damn river. The peace and serenity of it all was overdue. Listening to the river flow slowly by, sitting on a soggy log, watching the dragonflies dance. I even got a tick! I’ve been terrified of ticks my whole life, but somehow it felt like a milestone. I picked it off without an issue, and maybe I’m sinking too far into hippiedom for my own good but I was pretty excited.

This semester was huge for me. A coming of age with hate speech and ticks. My grades weren’t what I wanted them to be—but are they ever? And I talked to my dad yesterday and while on the subject of coming out to the family he said: Summer, I just want you to include in your life whoever you want to be in it.

I don’t think he knows what that means to me, to us. It made my big ol heart want to explode.

Transparency and honesty are hard. It’s what I’ve made out 2010 to be. So far so good I think.

Being Queer Gave Me Unrealistic Ideas About Cities

As I've been thinking of my fair San Antonio this past week I have also begun to think about cities in general. What do I want from a city? Do I even want to be in a city? Why am I so obsessed with cities?!!! (I promise y'all I will make this LGBT related!)

I live about 15 minutes from downtown San Antonio. Going downtown is an easy drive that I undertake multiple times a week. I usually stick to hip neighborhoods because literally driving in the downtown area is tricky. I am a beast at finding fun things to do. (Just ask Tiff: I found a cool, inexpensive play to see in Baltimore in a matter of hours and I don't even live there.)

I am certain I am biased towards cities because I am queer. Ever since I came out, I yearned for the neon lights of New York and the power lesbians of Los Angeles. Every show I watched, every book I read, every magazine I flipped through reminded me that I was MISSING OUT BIG TIME. It seemed that all LGBT people lived in a few fabulous cities. They had the most political clout, funnest places to meet up, most extensive resources and best overall experience. I couldn't wait to bust out of San Antonio and enter the major leagues of queerness. Only then would my sexuality stop being such a hulking "issue."

Little did I know I would get rejected from 7 colleges and end up at Duke University, my North Carolina wild card. I love Duke University and the community I have. Though Durham is a pint-sized city that most Dukies fear, it is a major hub for queer women. Do I want to stay in Durham? Probably not. I think Washington D.C. would be better suited to my career goals. But I want to leave my future location unresolved. I'll go wherever my life leads me, whether it's Portland, Boston, Berlin, Beijing or Augusta, Georgia.

Many of my relatives live in the country. They don't understand why anyone would live in a city. Whenever I express my distaste for the country, my parents remark sternly that some people prefer it. They want to be able to fish any time. They want wide open spaces to themselves. They want to see the stars. Maybe it would be nice to have natural beauty to go to when the bars close. Throughout my life many people have reminded me that you can truly feel alive in a small town. My city chauvinism is astounding and will be difficult to undo.

I know I would be incredibly lonely if I lived far away from civilization. Yet I often stay home and read a book rather than go out. I don't take advantage of all the amenities my city has to offer. How useful in an awesome alternative theater when I don't feel like making the drive? Or, more often, when my friends can't afford to buy tickets? How fabulous is a metropolis when you don't have any meaningful relationships? When you're sick from the pollution?

I'm trying to dissect what I want from a city. Do I want access to every type of restaurant imaginable? Yes! Do I want to meet diverse groups of people? Certainly. Do I want to experience cutting-edge art and design? Of course. Do I want access to a large public library? Don't get it twisted! I definitely do! When I get in my "pro-city" mentality I can't see much of anything else. I don't realize that I experience more cutting edge art and design through the internet than in person. While San Antonio is a major city in its own right something about it feels limiting. It may be huge geographically but it's not fulfilling in other, subtler ways. This is less about San Antonio and more about me. Until I find the city that feels like home I will keep searching.

Which is why I half-decided to stay in San Antonio this summer. Most of my family lives in Central Texas. Though I fantasied about moving up North in high school, I know that leaving my family will be a slow and painful process. I have friends who need me right now who won't take kindly to me running away from them. I have half-entered the real world and feel like I need to realistically assess who I am and where I'm going. If I can't do meaningful academic research in San Antonio, why would I assume that I would do it in Boston? If can't meet new people in San Antonio, why would I meet them in New York? If I can't find fun shit to do in San Antonio, why would the fun shit fall on my lap in Chicago? If I can't handle being called a "dyke" in San Antonio, why would I handle it with perfect poise when I'm in Portland? Of course I'll discriminated against in all of these cities. Of course I will encounter homophobia. Sometimes I get to thinking the grass is the perfect shade of neon green everywhere but San Antonio.

I stayed in this city as a challenge. I mistakenly believed that if I left San Antonio I would be able to achieve my dreams. I feel profound satisfaction that San Antonio seems riper with possibilities because it means I have acquired better eyes and better tools. I am fortunate to be from such a culturally complex city and near my family. Whether you are in New York City or the middle of nowhere this summer, I encourage you to take advantage of your location. I know what it's like to find your home stale and limiting. Keep searching. And if all else fails, there's always the internet. I am so excited for the people going to South Africa, England, China, Kenya, Ecuador, Vietnam, Tibet, Germany and everywhere else in the world this summer. I can't wait when I too will be able to say I am going to [insert awesome country here] to do [awesome thing.] For someone like me who is so internationally minded (I have a world map on my fucking wall!) staying in my hometown for the summer sounded completely counterintuitive. That's also why it makes perfect sense.

Back to the LGBT message: I firmly believe that no part of America should be left behind in the quest for gay rights. While I can't blame anyone for flocking to a "gay mecca" the migration of LGBT people to certain cities just serves to make the less desirable places even less desirable. If it wasn't for natural beauty, family connections and moving for jobs I fear that some places would lose all their LGBT citizens. I know I'm a hypocrite because I have have an escape plan in my back pocket. Who knows, maybe I won't have to use it.

Let's talk about Womyn.

You are an 18 year-old female, and you’ve just been accepted by Duke University. It’s the morning of Blue Devil Days, and you’ve somehow managed to escape your parents for a few moments. (Success!) And hey, just for fun, let’s throw in something else to make this story a little more interesting-you also happen to identify as a bisexual woman.

So, you’re on the Main Quad, and you look around you. This place is awesome. Wow, it’s Duke! You’re still shocked that you even got accepted (or at least, I certainly was). You decide to go inside Perkins library and check out the Duke Chronicle to see what’s going on at campus this weekend. After flipping through a few of the pages, you determine that you really need to look up LDOC on urbandictionary.com when you get home. You set the Chronicle back in the newsstand and start to walk away.

And that’s when it catches your eye.

“WOMYN: An undergraduate publication for queer women at Duke.”

Your heart stops. Could it even be possible?

Yes, it is absolutely possible! And it is happening this Fall! The idea to do a publication was Janie’s, the namesake was Michelle’s, but the publication is ours. There are two rules to the publication. The first, is that every piece submitted needs to have a queer women’s focus. (And also, that it’s nonfiction. So no unicorns.) We’ll accept anonymous submissions, but hopefully most students will recognize the importance of using their full name. The second “rule” is that anybody can submit a piece! Faculty, university staff, graduate students, undergraduate students, women and men alike-submit your voices! Whether that is your personal testimony, photograph, poem, essay, or straight-allied support, we want to hear about it from you.

We would love to see this publication become embraced by the University. Let’s put ourselves back into the Keds of that prospective freshman. She would see the Womyn publication as she passed the newsstands on her tour of Duke, but this is not the only thing that she sees. She would also see a larger, confident, and powerful queer women’s presence at Duke. She would feel empowered, because she would know that all of her belongs at Duke, not just part of her. It would be revolutionary.

And this doesn’t affect just queer women either; what if I’m a gay man who sees this publication? Or maybe a straight woman? A straight man? How do I change? Maybe I realize I’m free to be me as well? Or maybe I just find that kind of honesty and confident openness a breath of fresh air at Duke.

Or, to take a different example, think about how Womyn might affect closeted queer women at Duke. Let’s say I’m in a sorority, and I happen to be straight. But I’ve recently picked up on the fact that my “Little” probably isn’t. What do I tell her? I want her to know that I love her just the way she is. We, as a sorority, love her just the way she is. But she’s afraid to come out. She isn’t ready yet-she needs something to affirm her. So, I pick up my pen and I write an article to Womyn: “I know one of my sorority sisters is gay, and I just wish she would know that it wouldn’t change a thing if she came out. We love her, and we’d always love her. I hope she knows she has our support.”

The excitement for this project is almost hard to contain-the examples from above are just a few of the things we’d like to accomplish. Come August, we’ll start soliciting for submissions, selecting pieces for the upcoming issue, and working on the publication of the very first edition of Womyn. =) On the listserv, we’re going to email with scheduled meetings and ways we can all help!

Feel free to contact our managing editor, Jack Grote (jack.grote@duke.edu), myself (megan.weinand@duke.edu) or Summer Puente, our Senior Layout Editor (summer.puente@duke.edu) for more information. Also, if you’re in the area this summer, Jack, Summer and I will be working here in Durham to hit the ground running in August with layout, ideas, etc! Stop by the Center or email if you’re interested in making Summer 2010 the summer of Womyn (to quote Ms. Puente).

Interested? Me too.

Let’s make queer women an integral part of Duke.