In my 5th grade classroom, we're studying classification systems. The students are learning all about Carl Linnaeus and big words like taxonomy and phylum. We started the lesson with shoes, classifying the student's shoes into a hierarchy from their Kingdom (they're all shoes) to their Phylum, Class, Order, Family and then finally, to the exact Genus and Species of each shoe -- they're red Nikes with pink laces, or as we came to name them, Pinkosis nikiderma.
Next, we introduced dichotomous keys -- the classification system that does exactly what its name implies -- divides things into twos. Again, we used shoes. We divided our shoes into those with laces and those without. Then we divided the without laces pile into those with leather and those without. Next we divided the without leather into white and not white shoes until eventually, working our way through all the divided piles, we ended up with 16 different types of shoes to match the 16 different students each with their own name and distinguishing features and characteristic.
"It's all about the name," I told them. "It's how we make sense of the world around us. We name it and the name becomes the thing and the thing then becomes the name. An individual. Unique and beautiful."
I like dichotomous keys. They make sense to me. Something is either this or its not, no middle ground, no ifs ands or buts. It is this or it isn't. A plant either flowers or it doesn't. A animal either has feathers or it doesn't. It's kind of like a puzzle, one concrete detail after the next until you end up at the thing itself, named and solid and uniquely it's own entity.
I think a dichotomous key would be handy for a person like myself who is gay, but who lacks "gay-dar" -- the ability to spot another gay person simply by their appearance or perhaps their energy.
I'm not sure why my gay-dar never developed or if I even had it at all, but I've always struggled with "knowing" if someone is or isn't like me -- in the same Family, so to speak.
That's why I think those of us who are "gay-dar impaired" should create a dichotomous key (or perhaps it could be called a "dyke" -chotomous key) -- a handy chart for identifying if you are or aren't gay or lesbian.
The chart might look something like this:
Two columns with separate headings -- Lesbian versus Not-Lesbian
On the Lesbian side the division would continue -- Owns a Truck; Does not own a Truck (that would be me...though it's an SUV and close to a truck)...followed by Owns a Large Dog; Does not own a Large dog.
Here's where the fluidity of the key would get interesting. I once was a lesbian with truck and a dog and now I'm a lesbian sans truck and no dog (though one is destined for my future). The usefulness of the key would be that you could flip from one side of the dichotomy to the other and still, in fact, stay on the Lesbian side. Your sexual identity would not change though your attributes would -- like a tulip that lost its leaves is still, according to the key, a tulip.
But I digress.
Continuing on, the chart would reflect other stereotypical markers --Androgynous/Non-androgynous; Short Hair/ Not Short Hair; Vests/No Vests; Fleece/No Fleece; Softball player/Not a Softball Player; Carharts/No Carharts -- until you get down to the finest details that would distinguish ME as an individual lesbian -- unique and beautiful -- but still, in essence, a lesbian.
For instance, Lesbian with Children/Lesbian without Children. At a time when lesbians and gay men are reproducing (however oxymoronic that may sound) as fast as rabbits, this category winnows out whole groups of lesbians who must now be distinguished by something other than their offspring or adopted offspring.
And so I continue: Married/Not Married; Job in the Trades/No Job in the Trades; Fashion Sense/No Fashion Sense (an important distinguishing feature in the lesbian community and perhaps even in the gay community...though maybe not so much as I've rarely met a gay-man who didn't have a fashion sense or act as if he did); Decorating Sense/No Decorating Sense (similar to Fashion Sense -- it distinguishes the Lesbians who live in purple houses with green trim from those who don't). Vegetarian/Non-vegetarian -- which can be further split into Vegan/Not Vegan.
Cultural Divisions -- Indigo Girls Music Collection/No Indigo Girls; Theater-going/Non-theater-going; Opera season ticket holder/Non-Opera season ticket holder; WNBA season ticket holder/Non-WNBA season ticket holder.
Political divisions are important as well: Democrats/Not Democrats; Radical Feminists/Not Radical Feminists, which leads right into religious distinctions -- Religious/Not Religious; Traditional Faiths/Non- Traditional Faiths from which many further divisions can be made -- Woo-woo beliefs (like Wiccan or New Age)/Non-woo-woo beliefs (like Catholics and Baptists).
I could go on, but the idea would be to sell these little Field Guides -- small hand-held books or maybe even small handheld electronic versions -- that let you calculate your observations, work your way through the key, until you figured out that yes, that woman in the short skirt wearing make-up and high heeled shoes is really a lesbian (of the category non-androgynous, long- haired, non-softball playing, truck-owning variety).
Such a key would not only help gay people like me who suffer from gay-dar dysfunction, but it might help straight people avoid embarrassing situations like the ones I've experienced:
Example#1
I'm at the University Bookstore. It's summer. It's 90 degrees outside and I am in shorts and a tank top, sandals on my feet. I walk into the restroom and a woman, who is just opening the door to come out as I'm pushing the door to go in, stops in her tracks and says, "You can't come in here! This is the woman's restroom!"
I have very broad shoulders. I have short hair. Sometimes I shave my legs, but mostly I don't. I have long hair on my legs. It's dark hair. I have muscles. I am tall. I wear tank tops that have room in them, not tight-fitting spaghetti strapped numbers that look more like underwear than shirts. My shorts are baggy-ish and the hem hits just above my knees. I can see how she'd make the mistake, glancing merely at the features that say man, not man. I fell into the category of man in her eyes and all else was disregarded -- my breasts for one, my earrings (though that doesn't always help) for another.
If she'd had a handy-dandy hand-held key, she could hold up the device, have it scan me and then say, "Have a nice day, sweetie" instead of insulting me with her ignorance.
Or
Example #2
I'm meeting prospective families at our school's open house. We call it Wooing Night and our job is to charm parents into sending there kids to our school. I'm talking with a mother of a precocious 4th grader who interrupts our conversation by twirling on her mother's arm.
"I see you're married," the mother says, pointing to my wedding ring.
"Yes, I am," I say, avoiding the details.
"What work does your husband do?" she presses on.
"I don't have a husband," I say, "but my partner teaches fourth grade."
Wedding Ring - No Wedding Ring; Husband - No Husband -- it would only take seconds for the prospective parent to assess me and then avoid my frustration and anger that I must, yet again, question the dominant culture's assumptions of me.
Of course, we'd have to include the category of Likes Labels/Doesn't Like Labels, but even the non-label-lovers could see the value of such a key I would think. Not only would people know you better, but maybe then all the negatives and bigotry that come from assuming they KNOW your labels would end.
It's all in the name, I say -- we name the world to understand it. How much happier we might all be if we could just take the guessing out of it.
Lesbionic specialous. A rare, yet beautiful flower.
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