A film student asked me the other day how I felt about the “super straight” flag.

“The what now?” I asked.

“It’s a thing on TikTok,” she said. “Look…”

Even though she’s not supposed to have her phone in sight, much less powered on, I let her show me a picture of a black and orange flag with the words “super straight” in all caps, and a dumb hashtag in front of it.

I don’t know why I feel that hashtags are dumb unless they’re used ironically. That’s a whole other blogpost.

She explained that super straight is a term some men are using to say that they are only attracted to women who were declared female at birth – not trans women. All of my students know that I’m a lesbian. I don’t talk about it every class, but I don’t make my wife a secret anymore than my colleagues who talk about their husbands and wives. So when my student asked what I thought about it, she was asking me as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

What do I think about it? Heeeeeeeell no. They don’t get a flag. You can’t have a flag to represent what you’re NOT attracted to. If I made a flag representing every kind of person that I’m not attracted to my flag would be a mile long! I would be like Penelope from The Odyssey constantly weaving because every day I find less and less people appealing.

Here would be the diary of me knitting my flag of people I’m not attracted to:

Day 157: Today I’m adding a patch to represent people who toss empty cups out of the window of their car. I shall never have sex with them.

I would never have sex with a lot of people. Most people, in fact. I’m not going to make a flag about it.

The reason why queer people have flags is because we’ve been murdered for the people we’ve been attracted to. Trans people have been murdered for saying who they are. The flag is a sign of unity. When I see a rainbow flag outside of a place of business I know I can walk in there holding my wife’s hand safely. I know that they’ll sell me a cake. When I don’t see a flag, then I’m taking my chances. But I’m not as afraid of getting murdered as I used to be. You know why? A whole generation of those before me walked down the streets with flags.

Men who only like to sleep with women who aren’t trans – you can have all the cake you want all the time. #YOU DON’T GET A FLAG FOR THAT. No one is saying that you can’t sleep with who you prefer. If all you have to do is update your Tinder profile to specify who you want but you’ve never had to be afraid of losing your job or shunned by society in any way because of who you’re attracted to, then you don’t need a flag AND be thankful that you don’t. I wish I didn’t need one to make me feel safe.

And black and orange should only be on a flag if it’s a picture of a pumpkin in the dark on October 31st. Because that signifies candy.