I couldn't figure it out. I was hitting on a lot of straight people.

This is Anna Pulley. She's a writer. And when she moved from Chicago to San Francisco,

she didn't know who to hit on anymore.

Midwestern queer culture is extremely different than Bay Area queer culture. And one of the

things that was most noticeable to me was fashion.

Some of the queer signals from the Midwest didn't quite hold, like plaid flannel shirts.

I wear flannel and I feel gayer. In the Midwest, way more so, I think.

If you are part of a group, there are things you can wear or ways you can style your hair,

signs that show that you are part of that group.

Flannel was one way to signify, like, I exist.

But you can't really stop other people from wearing these signals. And so eventually the

power of that signal gets diluted.

So if you see someone wearing plaid now, does it mean anything to you?

Well, I might first think, are you a bicamassinger?

And then the next thing you know, you can't even tell what clothing is signaling what anymore.

Yeah, one night I was rebuffed by this straight lady. And I got upset about it. And also I'd

been thinking about hipsters a lot because they appropriate a lot of working-class culture

motifs. And flannel is one of them.

So it doesn't seem like lesbians are appropriating working-classwear?

Yeah, so that's an interesting thing. I don't know who actually owns, you know, if anyone

can own a fabric.

Articles of interest. A show about what we wear. And so maybe the idea is about clothing.

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