"Coming out" of class identity

Mother/daughter shopping trips can be exhilarating. Regardless of how old you are, when your mom says "Why don't I take you shopping?" that implies that she's probably going to be the one to pay. Not one to argue with her maternal instincts (well, at least not in this case) I took her up on the offer--even though I knew her picking up the tab was conditional on me buying "conservative clothes for work, not for the bar." Overall, a great trade--not to mention that the older I get, the more I value one-on-one time with the truly important people in my life, so it seemed like this shopping trip truly was going to be worth my flying overnight trip home.

I'm grateful to have my mother's gene of only buying expensive things when they prove to be sufficiently practical and useful--and even then, not to spend more than $30 or $40 on any one item, save the occasional winter coat (this was our incredible deal today, complete with %25 off). And, our middle class identity (hard-earned by parents who worked and went to college full-time for the first 2 years of their marriage when I was born, wow) influences both how we shop and how others expect us to shop.

As we went to ring up our purchases, my generous mom, compassionate to my current financial situation, was stunned when the computer refused to accept her check. We were told it was a security measure, because she had already written one other check that morning, so it appeared that she could be scamming checks. Instead of feeling secure, though, my mom was disempowered; her well-earned buying power was stripped of her because the people at the check insurance company didn't believe she was who she said she was over the phone.

But the most embarrassing part, I was told, was that the nearby customers overhearing her politely plead her case to the insurance company over the phone didn't believe that she actually had an entire paycheck in her checking account. We looked like people who insisted we had money when we didn't, and, my mom told the sales associate, "That is humiliating."

I couldn't help but wonder, Why is it embarrassing to look like we don't have buying power? Wouldn't it be more empowering to deconstruct class structures by being unafraid to appear/be underclass--even in front of a crowd of fellow bargain shoppers at an upper-end department store?

I'm reminded of what I learned in a guided diversity dialogue about sexual identity. One of the best ways for straight people to be allies of the queer community is to be unafraid to be presumed to be queer themselves. If a person doesn't see identities other than their own as negative, then to be mistaken for something else isn't threatening.

And yet, maybe my mom's frustration wasn't that she was presumed to be someone negatively viewed; maybe it was that she was presumed to be anybody other than who she actually is.

As we approach Coming Out Day this year, I hope that people everywhere can find the courage and the safety to be and to say proudly who they are. Identity isn't zero-sum; there's always room for flexibility and clarification. So, if there's someone in your life who is making inappropriate assumptions about you, do what you can to find your voice...or at least an alternative means of payment.