Rite Queer:

Passages Through the Queer Lifetime

As a 35-year old photographer and videographer who has, as of this year, been out of that closet longer than she was in, I’ve directed much of my creative energy towards exploring queer narratives of aging and adulthood.

For sure, stories of self-discovery through coming out and existing in the world as our authentic selves offer many of us a rainbow beam of light into what can initially feel like a cold, bitter darkness. 18 years later, though, that lesbian skin I’m in fits like those worn jeans you just can’t bear to part with. I’ve been blessed with laugh lines etched into my face from years of kitchen-party-dance-floor/radio bingo/dinner party/living-room-karaoke-fuelled laughter with my chosen queer Fredericton family. Queer adulthood can sometimes feel like travelling without a map or framing a house without a blueprint. One part lost, two parts adventure. There hasn't always been a rainbow picket fence.

I remember the year same-sex marriage became legal in my home province of Nova Scotia. It was 2004. I was 19 years old and just two years into the “great gay migration” (a nod to anthropologist Kath Weston) that thrust me, and many other rural Maritime queers, from the rural fishing village where my roots had been planted and into the bustling sidewalks and dingey basement gay bars of Halifax. New Brunswick followed suit in July of 2005, just weeks before the Civil Marriage Act would legalize same-sex marriage across Canada.

There is something strangely unsettling yet profoundly encouraging to be able to remember a time when something we as a nation now take for granted was so deeply impossible to the point of being illegal. On the one hand, queer people have been queering marriage since long before it was legal. Traditional markers of successful (heterosexual) aging such as marriage and children for a long time marginalized us. For a long time we were legally prevented from marrying or adopting children, and so us queer folks have had to carve out our own narratives of kinship, family, commitment, and community. That has sometimes involved turning that map upside down or outlining our blueprint in pink ink.

Now, as a wedding and family photographer, I bear witness to the rituals that mark various rites of passage into life’s stages. Births, engagements, marriages, and family portraits – these moments carry deep importance throughout our lifetimes. Through them, we continually construct our sense of self and our relationship to those close to us. Photographic memories – be them tangible or digital – say:

This is meaningful.

This must be remembered.

As an artist whose professional practice includes crafting the visual traces that comprise our personal archives of these events, I often consider my role in shaping these memories. As a queer artist, I take seriously how important these memories are in helping queer people eke out a record of our past and future existence. Photographs demand remembrance but also recognition – they say:

I was here.

And I am still here.

Queer Marriage

Marriage is a tricky subject, not just for queer people. All kinds of folks are visiting the historic underpinnings of the institution and are questioning whether its associations with ownership, hierarchy, and moreover, sexism, sit comfortably with them and their relationship. Yet queer archivists have unearthed decades-old photographic records of legally unofficial yet exquisitely formal queer wedding ceremonies, complete with the white dresses, tailored suits, and extravagant cakes we've come to expect. For as long as we’ve had queer people we’ve had queer weddings – symbolic celebrations of our own versions of kinship and commitment.

Now, 16 years after legalization, here we are. Our weddings are no longer symbolic – they are legal. We are now privileged to abstain from marriage, if we wish, based on choice, not force. Access to these rites and rituals matters and the right to choose to refuse matters. And as queer people are increasingly welcomed into these traditionally "straight" narratives, we breathe new meaning into them.

There is something delightfully queer about a wedding whose guests are comprised of equal parts biological and chosen family – and they're tearing up the dance floor together. I’ve seen a father weep like a baby during a speech where he welcomed the husband of his son into his family using a delightfully rural driving metaphor that likened his own journey of accepting his son’s queerness to “letting go of the wheel.” "I didn’t know where you were going,” he choked. “But I’m so proud of where you’ve gone.”

Queer Divorce

My short film with Sabine Lebel explored the difficult themes surrounding lesbian divorce. The film, “Breaking Up is Hard to Do,” conveys the end of a 20-year lesbian relationship and is, in her words, “a celebration of queer femme, middle-aged resilience.”

“Breaking up a 20-year lesbian relationship sucks!” she exclaims. This is evidenced in the video, Sabine solo dancing to an acoustic medley of covers of classic break-up songs including: “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to,” “Breaking up is hard to do,” and “Dancing with myself.” The strobe lights in the kitchen are a nod to the queer kitchen dance parties the artist and her former partner used to host and attend.

The complexities of chosen family experienced by the artist during her lesbian divorce aren’t reflected in dominant portrayals of what middle-aged divorce looks like, which is often intertwined with biological family and children.

Queer Family

“In our family portrait,” musician P!nk sings, “we look pretty happy. Let’s play pretend – act like it comes naturally.” The family portrait is often thought of as just that – an idealized, perfect, and “pretend” depiction of something that is always more flawed and complex beneath the surface. Yet the queer family portrait says something a little more. When you’ve had to fight for your family to be legally and socially considered a family, the family portrait is, in fact, the opposite of “pretend.” It says:

We are here.

We are real.

And we are a family.

- Kelly Baker
www.kellybakerphoto.com
@kellybakerphotography

Issue 16 - Queer+ | FREE Preview

Rite Queer:

Passages Through the Queer Lifetime

Queer Marriage

Queer Divorce

Queer Family

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