(In)Visibility
by Nicole E. Davis

I am an interracial, black, femme lesbian.

I am invisible.

The great irony of my particular invisibility is that it allows me to live a life of great privilege, free from the overt oppression and discrimination I might face if my skin, say, were darker, or my appearance less feminine. When I walk through the world I pass: as white (well, at least as not-black) and as straight. The problem for me is that not only am I invisible to people "outside" myself (the real white and straight folks) but also to those who are "inside" myself, the black (gay and straight) and queer (black and white) communities to which I so desperately want to belong.

Like it or not, most people who are being honest with themselves will have to admit that they first take stock of a person based on what they see. In the United States, one of the most visible aspects of similarity and difference is race, or at the very least, skin color.

Most of us think sexuality has fewer overt physical manifestations than race, still the reality is that many people are judged because they "look" queer. Although people frequently think I'm non-white (often they speak to me in Spanish, whether on the streets of New York or the beaches of Mexico) my light skin precludes them from "seeing" me as black. I have come to accept this from white folks, writing it off as their own ignorance and the privilege they are afforded by not having to consider the question of race or skin color in their daily lives. I have a harder time accepting this same reality from other black folks. Most African-Americans have relatives who have lighter skin than some Caucasians (my friend Melissa's West Indian grandmother is called "the white lady" by folks at church because she is so light-skinned). Still, unless I am with my darker-skinned father, or at an event targeting mixed-race people, my black identity is met with confusion (at best) or hostility (at worst) by other black folks. Recently I was having dinner with three people of color whom I was helping to supervise through an internship program, a black/Mexican young man, a Colombian woman and a Jamaican-American woman. The Colombian woman turned to me and asked, "Which of your parents is Puerto Rican?" I smiled and responded, "Neither." Obviously confused and a bit embarrassed, she turned to the young man and said, " "You said she was Puerto Rican!" He shrugged, "I thought she was." The young woman turned to me and asked, "So what are you?" When I told them I was black and Italian and Hungarian (and technically Chinese and Native American as well), a genuinely surprised and delighted smile spread across the young man's lips. "You're black?! Oh my God, I never would have guessed you were black!" "Now you're gonna be his new best friend," the Colombian woman, clearly amused, commented.

This same invisibility occurs among queer people as well. As a femme-lesbian, I am only immediately recognized as such when I am holding hands with my (more boyish) girlfriend or in a lesbian bar (and even then there's always the chance that I'm bisexual or perhaps just a curious straight girl). Although many women go out of their way to avoid being mistakenly labeled a lesbian (especially those who play sports or otherwise engage in "boyish" activities), my struggle is how to be recognized as a lesbian when everything about my appearance allows people to immediately label me as straight.

It may seem silly to complain that the ways in which I might be discriminated against are hidden from public view, to care about not being seen as black and gay, two of the most feared, discriminated against and oppressed groups of people in this country. The problem for me is not that I want to be the target of more overt acts of discrimination and oppression; the problem is two-fold: that my invisibility isolates me from those who would otherwise be my community, and that I experience the discrimination anyway, in its more covert forms.

For most of my adult life I have been insulated from many forms of discrimination because I have worked for progressive social change organizations that focus on racial justice issues, with people of color and queer people in powerful leadership positions. Within these organizations I was immediately accepted and "seen" as a person of color, as black, as a lesbian. In some ways, I think, I took it for granted that this would always be my experience.

And then I went to social work school.

During my first year, I had an internship three days a week at an elementary/middle school on the Lower East Side. The students were mostly black and Latino, the teachers mostly white. The social worker and psychologist, with whom I shared an office, were two straight white women. They were both friendly and personable. During my first few days there we sat in the office swapping various stories about our lives. My supervisor mentioned her husband several times; I, in turn, mentioned my girlfriend several times. I was a bit nervous at first, not sure how they would react to my casual way of injecting this information into the conversation. But after another few days of casual conversation it became clear to me: they had no idea that I was a lesbian. Having been so immersed in my queer world these past several years I had all but forgotten that straight women often refer to their "girlfriends," meaning literally a friend who happens to be female.

When I realized that my supervisor and coworker had no idea I was a lesbian, I did not immediately feel I was being discriminated against. However, when a 6th-grade student told me she didn't like music class because "the teacher is gay" and a parent of another 6th grader insisted to me that she "was not a lesbian," despite having a no-men-in-the-house rule because of her teenage daughters, and when my supervisor asked me if I was dating someone, and then asked what "he" does for a living, I began to feel that I was not fully accepted and welcome in this place because I was not being fully seen. I realized I had a choice to make: deliberately "out" myself as a lesbian to my coworkers and the kids and parents with whom I was working—and risk being rejected personally and professionally, or remain vague about my personal life and sexuality, and thus remain in the closet, still unseen.

People feel comfortable telling me their homophobic thoughts because they do not recognize me as gay. Because overt forms of homophobia are more socially acceptable than overt forms of racism (although overt racism most certainly still exists) I am not often privy to this same "insider" talk about black folks from white folks. Still I have a long list of times that being black (no matter how white I look) was unacceptable to people in my life. Whether it was my first boyfriend's mother thanking God there wouldn't be black children in her family after we broke up; or my white grandfather barely acknowledging my existence and not attending my parents' wedding; or any number of kids taunting my sister and me with the words "zebra" amd "Oreo" we were growing up.

As a social worker, I know that my first responsibility is always to think about what is in the best interests of my clients. My supervisor and I came head-to-head over this issue when I told her that I planned to come out to some of my students during a series of anti-bullying workshops I was conducting. Students in this school (and in most schools) notoriously teased each other by using the words "gay", "faggot", and "dyke." I told her that I believed one of the main reasons kids felt so comfortable using these words to tease each other was because they were convinced that they didn't know any gay people (the key exception in this school being the music teacher, whom none of them liked), and that by coming out to them as a lesbian, in the context of a workshop about bullying around sexual orientation, would prove to be a powerful experience for all of us. I had worked with these kids for several months and was well-liked and trusted by them. I felt safe and secure in making this decision.

My supervisor responded to my suggestion with a flat-out, unequivocal, "No." She felt it was inappropriate and unnecessary, and would make me the target of taunts and hostility by the students. When I told her that I was not afraid of sixth graders, and in fact saw any potential hostility as yet another teaching opportunity, she told me that I was being naïve, and that perhaps I didn't understand "these kids." She challenged my motivation for coming out the students, asking me if it was more about my own need than about their need. "Why do they need to know?" She asked me. "Just do the lesson without telling them about yourself." The message was clear: it was OK to talk the kids about why it was bad to tease each other about being gay, but not OK to tell them that someone they knew, liked and trusted was an actual gay person.

Until this time I had never spoken with my supervisor about race either. I asked her what she suggested I do if a kid came to me and said,"I think I'm gay, and it would really help me to talk to another gay person. Do you know someone I can talk to?" "Refer them to an outside agency,"she told me. "What should I do if a kid says to me, 'I'm interracial, and I am having a hard time. It would really help me to talk to someone else who's interracial. Do you know someone I can talk to?" "That's different," she said. "It's only different because you choose to make it different," I told her.

I had never discussed race with my students, who were all black, Puerto Rican or Dominican, and actually never felt the need to. I'm sure they all thought I was white, and until that conversation with my supervisor, I'm sure she did as well. I often wondered if my students thought at all about my racial identity, but I also felt certain that knowing I was mixed would not make any difference to our relationship. These kids did not often tease each other about race, and even if they did, knowing I was black would not help to change that. Several of the students were themselves interracial and there was nothing taboo, sinister or evil about this. I was sure, however, that knowing I was a lesbian could have a very powerful impact on some of them.

A few of them asked about my racial background, and I told them that I was mixed black and white, to which they had absolutely no reaction. In one of the sixth grade classes, we had an extremely interesting and enlightening conversation about teasing kids by calling them "gay," faggot," or "dyke." I used a lesson plan designed to help students talk bullying around sexual orientation by teaching them the history of the words "dyke" and "faggot." They were all shocked to learn that a faggot is really a bundle of sticks, and were completely dismayed as to how the term ever came to mean gay. Several of them decided the word was just plain stupid, and swore to never use it again. I doubt that will happen, but I'm pleased that the idea ever even crossed their minds.

Although my supervisor threatened to fire me from my internship if I told my students I was a lesbian, I decided that if the time seemed right, I would do it anyway. I told her that I certainly would not lie to them, and that if asked directly I would absolutely tell the truth. To this she had no comment. I regret that I left that school without revealing the whole of my self to my students. If I had it to do again, I most certainly would have done it differently from the start. Some of them would have been surprised, no doubt, but most of them would likely have reacted in the way kids react to most pieces of new information: ask a few questions, listen to the answers, and then go about their business just as they did before. But at least this time none of them could ever claim that they didn't know someone who was gay.

About Nicole E. Davis

Nicole is a proud native New Yorker with a love of extra-dark dark chocolate. She has an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College and is currently getting her Master's in Social Work at New York’s Hunter College.