[music: “Padam Padam” by Kylie Minogue]
Bazil Frueh: Hey Yumi…..
Yumi Tallud: Yes Bazil?
BF: I have something really important to tell you… I’m gay.
YT: Oh, wow, I would have never guessed.
BF: Really?
YT: Nah man, I’m messing with you.
BF: But how could you tell?
YT: Well just look at you… you have a big chunky patterned sweater on…
BF: Well sure I guess… but what really queer trend hasn’t been adopted by the masses these days like…
YT: Carabiners…
BF: Croptops…
YT: Doc Martens…
BF: Poppers!
YT: With queer fashion trends entering mainstream spaces more and more everyday,
gaydar has gone completely out of whack.
BF: For years, queer and straight people alike have used the term to describe their ability to recognize someone’s sexual orientation due to a number of, often, stereotypical and generalized identifiers. These can come in many forms: the fashions one wears, how someone walks, how someone talks, etc. etc.
YT: For queer people, gaydar can be a way for people to quickly identify who they may relate to and find community with. For straight people, it can be a way to label and “other” people based merely on surface-level judgments.
BF: But, really, what does queerness… or even gayness… really look like anyway? As
subcultures become more easily shared across social media, many inherently “queer”
trends have lost their status as identifiers.
YT: To hear more about this, we talked to Northwestern students to hear their thoughts
on all things gaydar… seeing whether it even existed, and if it did, does it still?
BF: We also wanted to know their thoughts on queerness entering the zeitgeist.
YT: Firstly, here’s Medill sophomore Luis Castañeda.
LUIS CASTAÑEDA: I think gaydar is to me kind of like a survival instinct. Because
as a queer person, you need to find another queer person—and I’m not saying you need a relationship to really survive—but I’m saying I like to think of things in kind of the scientific way.
BF: To Castañeda, using gaydar can be an important way to identify other members of
queer community. In recent times though, this has become a bit harder to do.
LUIS CASTAÑEDA: You run into an issue where that ability to be able to find your
group becomes a little harder, because you might think that someone is gay or
queer, because the’re acting a certain way, because they’re wearing a certain
piece of art. Because they enjoy certain music, right? And you’re completely
gooped when you find out that they’re like, they’re straight. And you’re like, wait, what?
CLARA WOOD: And I saw this woman. I was like, oh my goodness, oh my
goodness, love of my life, and she’s definitely gay. Like, yes, like, I know this. I
know this. Wrong. Kisses a man, like 5 minutes later, clearly her boyfriend. I was
like, okay… And then my other like gay friend was like, wow, our culture is not
their costume, and like, obviously that’s like, a little heinous to say, but I was
like, lowkey…
YT: That was Weinberg freshman Clara Wood. She’s crashed and burned a few times when it comes to accidentally hitting on straight women. But, in terms of big-picture, she doesn’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.
CW: The amount of times I’ve been off at this school… I have no trust in my
ability. I think like, while it’s annoying at times, I also think it’s, like, kind of cool
that like, it’s a lot more mixed together and it can also be like, hopefully less alienating for queer people. But I also think, even though I’ve lost my gaydar, it’s
also kind of like, well now it’s just like, something that you can learn about
someone rather than, like, something that separates you from the crowd. It’s just
like a part of their identity, just like everyone has other parts of their identity. It
feels a lot more stigma– a lot less, a lot less stigmatized
[music: “Good Luck Babe” by Chappell Roan]
BF: Though specific queer identifiers play a crucial role in how someone is labeled,
Medill and Weinberg sophomore Sydney Johnson expressed concerns over whether
these can become too constrictive.
SYDNEY JOHNSON: I just don’t want it to become like a thing where people feel
like they can only wear something if they are gay, or if they aren’, or if maybe
there’s somebody who’s questioning and they’re trying to, like experiment with fashion. And then they don’t feel comfortable because people are telling them they can’t wear it.
YT: In some cases, these identifiers alienate queer people who don’t fit into the
stereotypical boxes.
DANIEL CALDERON: My sophomore year, I was out at Bob’ and one of my
friends that will remain nameless… but they came to me and they went like,
y’know, I just don’t think you’re gay. And I went, well, that’s like– what does that mean? He’s like, I just don’t believe it. I just don’t– I don’t see it. Like, I don’t buy
it, whatever. And I was like, OK, that’s– well, I am, like, I don’t know what else to
do then.
YT: That was Communication senior Daniel Calderon. He’s been grappling with not
presenting as gay right off the bat, especially as a man who is very proud to be queer.
DC: It has come up a lot recently, like I went to Cancun for spring break and I was talking to the, shout out to the John Hopkins soccer team, but they were talking to us, and I was with my friend Matheus and my friend Adam, and all three of us were talking to this one guy. And we were like joking around being like, oh, like guess our major, like the three of us, like we’re all in the same major. Come on, come on, like guess it like and they couldn’t guess it. And we kept being like three of us. We like, what do we look like? Like come on like it’s like, stereotypical, like it’;s okay to go there. And then he comes up to me like whispers at me. He’s like, well, I know those two are gay but I don’t know about you. And I went what? And then I went, and I went on like a rampage. I went to every guy on this John Hopkins team and I was like, what can I do to be gayer?
YT: It’s easy to think that just because someone else is queer, it means you’ll get along
with them, whether it be for cultural reasons, or simply because you have something in
common. However, that’s not always the case. Here’s what Communication senior Maggie McKenna had to say.
MAGGIE MCKENNA: I met this Northwestern lesbian while I was studying abroad because she was in a class with my roommate and I was like, yes, another lesbian and then she was just the worst. And she still goes here, all my love to her. But I think that that experience taught me that like, not all queer people are awesome and like, just because there is another lesbian doesn’t mean I want to be friends with them.
YT: Northwestern’s queer community certainly isn’t perfect, and McKenna further expanded on her thoughts about the community.
MM: I think that a lot of people really like to talk about being gay. And sometimes I’m like, why are you talking about this so much? Like, we should all talk about our identities, but sometimes I feel like people talk about it for social capital. Yeah, I think that there are a lot of– a lot– there are some straight people who I have met at this university who I’m like, I think sometimes you’re overstepping what is okay to do and say as a straight person because you’re surrounded by a lot of queer people. There aren’t many straight people in theater, but I think a lot of them do kind of also use queerness as social capital despite not being queer.
BF: While talking about gaydar, our conversation then drifted to a broader talk on how we use the term queer, especially when identifying others. To Johnson, the term extends far beyond how most people define it.
SYDNEY JOHNSON: I feel like queerness is something that you can explore outside of simply your sexual orientation. And so it’d be something that you feel
invited to explore, in like, every facet of your life, pushing those limits. I want people to know the history of queer culture and fashion, and I also want people to not think that it’s something that’s just for gay people.
BF: Castañeda echoed a similar point, expressing that he’s okay with gaydar’s gray area status if it means more people are finding value in queerness.
LC: So maybe it is a good thing that the gaydar is broken. You know, like, maybe people should be more liberated to be more queer, do queer actions. Because at the end of the day, it dissolves that kind of word in itself. If everyone’s queer, no one’s queer.
BF: For WNUR News, I’m Bazil Frueh…
YT: And I’m Yumi Tallud.
[music: “Rush” by Troye Sivan]
