An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (Series Q)

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We lived as a family. Smithy and my mother were both with my father when he died – all holding hands and taking care of him.” It sounds shallow to imply that, in the beginning, I fell for her simply because of her style, her stuff. But what attracted me was the care and attention to detail she demonstrated via a lifetime’s accumulation and curation of these things. Together they made up the way she wanted to be seen in the public eye, the way she wanted to move through the world. She was not a boy but a full-grown butch who, at 53, was confident in who she was and what she wanted.

When we boarded, Dana introduced me to the adorable boomer-millennial pair in charge of Olivia’s Solos Program, which caters to women (single or partnered) who decide to go on trips alone. I got my own Solos dog tag and a pink Olivia bracelet to signify my newbie status. It took me years to accept ‘lesbian’ as a label. Even now it can make me feel uncomfortable, but I try to embrace it as an act of defiance.I would tell my partner that I cared about them deeply, and the past five years were among the best of my life. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But I also felt like we had come to a crossroads, and we weren’t facing the same futures. I had tried so hard to see myself in their dreams, but now I was having dreams of my own. And I didn’t think I saw a future, even a part-time one, in Montana. He assured me he had no problem with gay people, and he really didn’t; the three guys running the catamaran all day were amazing. But he did occasionally seem to forget about the realities of the situation.

Two years later, Niya felt she had to tell one person in her immediate family. She chose one of her brothers. I would decide that it was over, and say so, and it would feel like a sort of death, but it would also, I knew, be the right thing to do — so much so that I’d feel it in my bones.I said: ‘What?’ And she said: ‘Lesbians! You know, women with women.’ So I was, like: ‘Really? Really?’” Then somehow, all of a sudden, years passed. We became two professionals in our late twenties, living in our dream apartment on the top floor of a Brooklyn brownstone. We weren’t allowed to have pets, but, like good millennials, we had plenty of plants, and interests outside of each other: my roller derby, their ultramarathons. We were busy, stable. Happy enough. When the club closed, Gina was very sad but knew that she couldn’t take it over by herself. The documentary Gateways Grind is a way of restoring its history, which is enmeshed with her own, and to see her parents again. I wasn’t into it,” she says, “I thought maybe it was because the guy wasn’t cute. So I dumped him and started dating a cute guy.” Growing up, I used to wish that I was ‘normal’,” says Leila. “Now we joke about how we’re not normal. We say we’re aliens and we have superpowers.”