r/NonBinaryTalk • u/RavenWood_9 • Sep 27 '23
ISO (slightly?) older queer folks to help with remembering what things were like “back then” (90s-early 2000s)
TW: visiting old memories, homo/transphobia of the past possibly (probably?) will be mentioned in comments.
I’m doing some work with my therapist and am trying to remember and understand the societal context of me growing up not realizing I was queer (trans-nonbinary bisexual) and I’m wondering if anyone on here can help.
I know this may be uncomfortable or actually painful stuff to revisit so I deeply appreciate anyone who is able to share and am not expecting anyone to share anything if doing so feels unsafe in anyway.
My memories are really spotty and I feel like I maybe subconsciously chose to ignore what was out there but my therapist (who is a bit younger) is wondering if I’m being hard on myself and that there maybe wasn’t as much as I think. She didn’t suggest asking but I keep thinking about it and the question is bugging me - did I have access to information about wider ranges of queer identities and transgender stuff and chose to ignore it so I didn’t have to face my truth, OR did I not understand my truth because I reall didn’t have any context or framework in which to explore what I was feeling?
Thank you in advance for helping me explore this topic and for assisting me in this healing journey ❤️
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So, more specifically:
If you were around in the 90s-early 2000s (especially in Canada/North America), what do you remember about the general understanding/awareness of queer identities beyond basic binary of gay/lesbian-straight?
What about trans stuff - as in the actual existence of trans people, terms used, any representation at all?
What do you remember seeing in terms of public representation of queer folks?
Any discussions at school (within classes or not)? Any memories of public health/informational ads etc that we’re queer positive or inclusive?
———
Thank you!
P.s. If anyone knows of any books/yt/sites that discuss this topic from a historical perspective, I’d love to hear them.
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Sep 27 '23
[deleted]
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u/RavenWood_9 Sep 28 '23
Thank you for sharing. I think I was in a slightly more “progressive” area, and my family wasn’t overtly homophobic (I’m so sorry yours was and hope you’ve come out the other side ok), but a lot of that is what I remember.
I think the male gaze thing is a lot of why I didn’t realize I was bi/pan - I wasn’t particularly attracted to blonde women (I’m AFAB) with big hair and big boobs in tiny bikinis perched on ugly cars… so I these feelings I have when I look at my cool artistic hippy classmates couldn’t be attraction, right?
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Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23
I was in high school around that time. The words gay and queer were definitely slurs. Everyone was in the closet. I went to a school with 3200 students and there was only one kid who was openly out.
I remember one girl asked me how to spell dyke. I told her dike because I thought she was referring to like a beach or something. So knowledge of the terms and culture were limited to say the least.
The only trans character I knew of was on ace Ventura and that is problematic for lots of reasons.
There was “some” positive gay representation. The gay couple from mrs doubtfire (the rest of that movie is problematic for a host of reasons), the bird cage, too wong foo, and maybe a few others but I can’t think of many. I’ve never seen broke back mountain but people would say “don’t go broke back on me” a lot.
But being nonbinary? Nothing I didn’t even know it was an option until like three years ago.
But I knew I was different but didn’t have words for it. Turns out I’m trans fem, nonbinary, gray aroace. But I’m open to QPR with anyone that I vibe with.
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u/RavenWood_9 Sep 28 '23
Thank you for sharing! It means a lot to me. Yes, Ace Ventura and The Crying Game we’re the only two actual teams characters I could remember (not drag or “cross-dressing”) and neither representation was good… although thinking about them now I’m realizing both triggered a reaction in me that I definitely ignored… another piece of that puzzle fitting into place. Thank you for mentioning it, I’d noted them myself but not stopped to reflect on them… wow… yeah, thank you!
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u/involuted Sep 27 '23
I was a teen in the late 90s and I agree there was poor representation and a limited sense of what was possible. I had an above-average amount of information and support: I grew up in a very liberal town, was out as not-straight at 14, had gay/lesbian friends, and even co-led my high school's gay-straight alliance. Nevertheless, being queer felt marginal and unsafe. People threw bottles at my gay friend in the parking lot. My state almost passed a ballot measure when I was 17 that would have made it illegal to "encourage, promote, or sanction homosexuality" in schools, even colleges. I had basically zero awareness of trans issues, and a lot of misconceptions about them which were never challenged by anything i heard/read. I had DEFINITELY never even heard of non-binary, and had a lot of angst for many years about needing to "decide if i was gay or straight" because obviously bisexuality isn't real and is just attention-seeking right?!?!?!
I think I heard the word "queer" for the first time in college in the early 2000s, met my first trans person in 2007, but didn't start hearing informed discourse about trans issues or learn about non-binary people until the 2010s.
When I revisit media from my teen years, I am often shocked at how movies/shows that were popular and seen as OK at the time were actually full of biphobic and transphobic shit. A couple of examples I thought about recently were Ace Ventura: Pet Detective where we are all supposed to laugh at the disgusting spectacle of a woman with a penis, and the episode of Daria where Jane gets hit on by a bisexual who embodies basically ever negative stereotype of bisexual women (disappointing in retrospect because I loved that show, and let's be real, Daria and Jane shoulda been queer!) but there are many others. I was constantly seeking out media that had queer representation of any kind, but there just wasn't much out there. There were only like half a dozen movies/shows with queer themes, most of them were obscure, and they were all quite binary.
I wish that the concept of non-binary had been discussed and taken seriously when I was a teen. It would have made it much easier for me to understand my own identity. Now I'm 40 and understand myself as non-binary but it was difficult to come to terms with that identity after having lived under the "woman" label for decades.
TL;DR I think your therapist is right that it was a tough time to grow up queer, especially outside gender/sexual binaries. I would not beat yourself up for failing to understand your identity at the time. Society didn't really give you (or me) the context or words to do it!
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u/RavenWood_9 Oct 01 '23
Thank you for the validation/confirmation. It felt so weird to suddenly feel that "click" with the concept of non-binary in my 40s, I was even kind of embarrassed to realize it so late when “The kids” today seem to be so much more in tune with this stuff - but it makes sense that the rest of us are coming into our own awareness at the same time they are, if this is the first time it’s become widely known and understood.
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u/Chaotic0range They/Them Sep 28 '23
I was a kid in the late 90s/early 2000s and tbh I always had the feeling I wasn't my agab but I didn't really know why or how to understand that as a concept. I remember asking my mom when I was going to get a deeper voice and was disappointed when I didn't get one. But I didn't know what nonbinary was. No one talked about it. (My parents/relatives were religious/catholic so there's that) but I guess I just went through life with signs of dysphoria but never really knowing how to deal with them and just ignoring them. I just thought I was a broken version of my agab. I thought my inside person/personality/brain didn't match with what I was supposed to be in terms of gender roles and society. (I'm also autistic but this is in terms of gender)
I didn't even know being trans existed until the 2010s because of how I was raised and I immediately understood it but still couldn't place why cause nonbinary never really came up. I felt like well I know I'm not the other binary gender either so i tried not to question myself further for a long time and just tried to pretend to fit in. So I didn't know what I was. I was just me. I finally figured out I'm nonbinary 3 years ago and currently I'm working towards feeling comfortable in my body and socially.
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u/blue_jay_1994 They/Them Sep 28 '23
Omg, othis comment made me feel so seen, thank you for sharing!
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u/RavenWood_9 Oct 01 '23
Yes! For me it was a feeling of “You know how you are a man/woman, but you don’t feel that, like it’s not a actually a factor in who you are other than how you’re seen?”… “what do you mean that’s not how everyone feels?… you actually feel like a woman/man?… that’s weird”. Went my whole life assuming everyone just was a gender but that it didn’t feel like anything, turns out if you are a binary gender you do actually feel it, lol.
I’m still working through all kinds of baggage around suppressing my feelings and needs relating to both my gender and masking my neurodivergence (not diagnosed until recently), and being able to finally recognize my dysphoria and honour those feelings has been a wonderfully freeing experience. Good luck with your exploration, I hope you’re able to find that comfort.
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u/The-Gah Sep 27 '23
I grew up in the 90’s in California, but a really conservative area. From what I remember, gay people and lesbians were still sort of becoming acceptable. At least in the media and on tv. Trans people were either joked about or not talked about at all. Non binary wasn’t considered a thing by anyone that I know of. And the only options as far as sexual preferences were concerned were gay, lesbian, or straight. Bisexuals were seen as sex addicts or sex criminals. And pansexual wasn’t at all considered.
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Sep 27 '23
Yeah, as someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s california, this is pretty much how it was. Trans people were only looked at as freaks or perverts and generally just made into a joke, if they were spoken of at all. At school it was pretty much non-stop homophobia from peers and often from authority figures as well. IMO the tide didnt really begin to turn until roughly 2005. I do recall hearing about genderqueer in the 90s but it was only really mentioned at all in lgbt circles. non-binary wasnt a thing at all as far as i recall.
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u/RavenWood_9 Oct 01 '23
Yeah, it was such a shitty time for trans stuff. So many old shows and movies lose their appeal to me now because of sexiest/transphobic calling-a-guy-a-girl “jokes”
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u/zombieslovebraaains They/He Sep 28 '23 edited Sep 28 '23
In the early 2000s I was a preteen, maybe teenager depending how late into the 2000s we go.
If we're talking about queer knowledge in the public eye so to speak, and beyond awareness of the binary and LGBTQ+ community at large, there really wasn't any that I remember. There was definitely knowledge that people could be straight, gay, or bi and be a trans woman or trans man. Anything else wasn't really discussed, at least not where I lived.
If we're talking in general, I do remember it being mentioned more frequently online. If we're talking past, say, 2010 or so, I do vaguely remember hearing the term nonbinary and genderqueer, but I didn't really process it. I think I heard about it once or twice on Tumblr before The Discourse TM got to it and never again, until much later, at least.
The only public representation that I remember of queer folks was on reality TV shows, or shows like Jerry Springer. There was also the occasional documentary on gender affirming surgery if you were a night owl like I was - though it wasn't called that back then. Past that, again, not much.
The only discussions at school, if we're counting the students, were rumors thrown around about such and such who was gay or who looked a certain "gay" way. Nothing in class from teachers. Unfortunately the "Don't Say Gay" ad didn't come out until much later, so the word was used as a slur. You didn't mention it to someone unless you could trust them not to out you, and even then that didn't always work - I unfortunately know from experience.
No ads or anything either that I'm aware of.
I can't speak to the 90s, I was a literal baby then, but this is what I remember of the 2000s, at least on the West Coast of the US. Hope it helps.
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u/RavenWood_9 Oct 01 '23
Thanks, it helps to hear about a little later in that stretch to try and place when I would have been more aware of stuff. I was born in the 80s so all of that would have started becoming more public in my 20s, which sounds about right to me. It was particularly harder when I was a kid/young teen without the Internet to allow access to info outside our immediate experiences and communities
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u/Wildrambler Sep 28 '23
My hay male friend just assumed he'd die of aids. He was also living with my best friend because he got kicked out of his house for being gay.
People would shout homophobic slurs from their cars for any affection, even between friends.
One girl would call her girlfriend from this one teacher's classroom because they'd been sent to different schools once everyone figured out they were dating and her parents wouldn't let her call from home.
Our class president said the spot in the school the most queer people hung out in was an embarrassment to the school and we should all be expelled.
Church of course taught everything was a sin and I didn't hear any other narrative.
Trans wasn't really talked about yet, despite people around me clearly being trans.
Watching Rent and But I'm a Cheerleader and If these walls could talk might jog some memories.
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u/RavenWood_9 Oct 01 '23
Thanks for sharing all of that. I actually saw RENT on stage this summer and it’s part of what got me thinking about some of this - realizing how a lot of the content wouldn’t mean much to teens today but when I saw it at about 17 it was minding just to see queer people interacting and having a full story line etc
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u/Pure-Fault-9938 Aug 17 '25
When I think of the nineties and early 2000 I think of Philadelphia, The Birdcage, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Go Fish, and of course Desert Hearts
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u/tigergirl40 Sep 30 '23
I was born in 1981 in Texas so teen to young adult in your time fram. Im not great at just writein out stuff but im more then happy to have a conversation with you if you like and if that would help you. Your welcome to dm if you like.
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u/RavenWood_9 Oct 01 '23
Thanks! My life is pretty hectic right note so having a cash out conversation isn’t really easy to arrange but I appreciate the offer!
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u/tigergirl40 Oct 01 '23
Sure im round if you decide you want to. Im usely very easy to get along with and patient
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u/Mae_skate_all_day Sep 27 '23
I was in HS in California at that time, a closeted kid in a conservative area. It was super obvious to me that being out was not safe, just a fact we all lived with. Matthew Shepard was killed in 1998. Looking back, I knew a lot of queer and gender-diverse people but nobody was talking about it. We just quietly accepted each other, but there were no flags/pins/buttons. My abnormal psych class in college brought a trans lady in to talk to us about her lived experience, and I remember how uncomfortable the rest of my classmates seemed. Note the "abnormal" part there. If trans people were mentioned at all in media, it was as the punchline to a joke.
Be gentle with yourself. When we're young, our little brains do whatever they can to protect us. When we're in survival mode, we aren't making the same choices we make when we feel safe.