After reading nessaroe's blog "Fag-Hags and Other StraightGay Conundrums" (www.amplifyyourvoice.org/u/nessarose/2010/1/20/Fag-Hags-and-Other-StraightGay-Conundrums) I was inspired to write about my own personal experiences as a "fag-hag" so to speak.

In my years of LGBTQ advocacy (I'll be honest I'm a newbie, it's been three years), I have adopted the title of fag-hag.  For a majority of the time I identified as a straigh cissexual female and when my gay friends or fellow advocates would hear that they would automatically revert to me as a fag-hag.  Many of them could not phathom that I commit so much of my time to LGBTQ activism if I didn't identify specifically under the queer spectrum.  It didn't help very much that I have short hair and dress fairly "butch" so people automatically just assumed I was a lesbian and more often than not would get angry and upset that I wasn't (But that's another story).  So to satisfy themselves more so than me people would call me a fag hag because I needed some title in order to belong to the community.

Though they gave me this title with great reason: my closest friends are gay men, actually all of my male identifying friends are gay.  But what does that title really mean for me?  I admit the first time I met one of closest gay friends, I had the hugest crush on him, but after I figured out he was gay, the idea was the furthest in my mind.  I don't really understand this apparently large culture of women and fag-hags that seek out to get gay men.  For me, it's completely disrespectful and illogical.  It completely undermines these mens' identities.  Granted just because you identify a certain way doesn't mean you're trapped in that identity for the rest of your life, but it's ignorant to challenge how a person is.  There is no magical lever that switches people between gay or straight or bi or transgender for that matter.  You can't just convince someone that they aren't or are gay or straight (trust me I've encountered a fair number of people that still try to convince me that I'm a lesbian or this or that, my identity is my own and no one can convince me otherwise).

Yet after all this people still ask me why I surround myself with gay men and am a fag hag.  The closest answer I have come up with is completely sexist and doesn't give non-queer identifying men any credit.  So I apologize in advance.  The reason I have come up with is that I feel safer around my gay friends than around straight guys.  I know that my gay friends won't neccessarily try to make a pass at me or make me feel too uncomfortable.  In my mind they won't objectify me or judge the way I look like a straigh guy would.  But, again I come up against a roadblock in this justification.  Just because you're a gay man it doesn't mean that you won't objectify a woman, make her feel uncomfortable, or make comments that make her self conscious.  Attributing these characteristics to only gay men would be extremely ignorant of me as well because having respect for others personal space and comfortability level is a human trait that anyone can have.

This is what I've figured so far, what does everyone else think?