You can always count on the lesbians - except for the bad ones

“Was there ever a time since the 1980s or even before without flannel? No", Jen Jack Gieseking asks in their marvelous book A Queer New York, pointing out the temporalities of lesbian queer life: The opening and closing of lesbian bars and feminist book shops in contrast with the everlasting certainty that lesbians will wear flannel. Reading this sentence, I lowered my gaze and looked knowingly at the flannel shirt that I was - of course - wearing.

A few minutes later my girlfriend videocalled me. “Ooooh, your shirt looks so good on you”, she exclaimed immediately with hearts almost popping out of her eyes.

Is it gay to be gay?

Me, wearing my favorite flannel shirt, and the girlfriend, not wearing a flannel shirt and thus, obviously, being a bad lesbian.