Baby Dykes

When I came out, I was told by my very dykey first girlfriend, who at 22 years old must have been the last word in lesbians, that I would be a baby dyke until I had either A. Been out for 3 years or B. Been with 3 women. I don't know where this barometer came from, whether she made it up of her own reasoning, or if some loud-mouthed-lez imparted this to her earlier on in her own Baby Dyke career.

I threw this information right out the window with all my lady dresses and makeup, there was NO WAY, I was going to be a clueless lesbian God Dammit, and I just didn't believe that those rules applied to me. I engaged in a series of actions thought to make me look less like a baby dyke: cutting my hair, dyking up the clothes, I came-out to my parents ragin' and demanding their acceptance.

It's too bad, that thing about hindsight.

Who knew that characteristic #5 of a Baby Dyke, after all the haircutting and Tegan and Sara is that complex about having something to prove. My complex was visible 3 gay bars over: I was such a baby dyke.

Looking back at that Kaisa I realize I couldn't have emerged from 19 years in my straight cave anything but a red-faced and wailing little infant. It's like rebirth in Christ only a lot sexier. And I don't even know if 3 ladies OR 3 years changed much. Despite my perpetual desire to be in-the-know or ahead of the game, I probably spent a good 4 years and 1 or 2 women more than that truly growing my way out of baby-status. It turns out all the haircuts in the world don't make up for the experiences of love, breakups and heartache.

Perhaps 3 years or 3 women should be all it takes to make you go through it all at least once: in-love and on cloud 9, devastated by heartbreak and loss of love, and built back up into a deeper, more mature, less baby-like queer. If so I guess I was a little late to that game. I am venturing now to say that I think I'm seeing my way out of Baby Dyke status, and maybe the biggest indicator that this is true is that I'm tired of having something to prove. I'll probably always rattle off advice to young lesbians, and make fun of their newbiness to a degree, I'm too obsessed with gay things to ever stop that. But my advice and musings can only serve to celebrate and engage in discussions of queerness rather than to be true advice or woman-loving-wisdom; because if hindsight really is so clear, in another few years I'll probably realize I was full of shit all over again. Plus, if the Baby Dykes are anything like I was, they aren't listening anyway.