My “Dorky” Identity

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu


My “Dorky” Identity

Little known fact: I’m a huge dork. Actually, that’s been a fairly consistent aspect of my being for as long as anyone has known me. For Halloween one year, I dressed up as a super-hero version of myself named Super Chu. I made a chest logo with puff paint, an elaborate utility belt equipped with a banana gun, and even attached a cape that the night before had served as my bed sheet. Then I insisted on wearing it all to school. Did I mention I was 16 at the time?

Of course these dorky tendencies had begun much earlier in life. At seven, I could not stop telling (and laughing about) unfunny knock-knock jokes; at ten, I sang Christmas carols to my dogs. One day when I was eleven, I was told to fold the laundry. My mother, a well-endowed and curvy lady, was quite surprised when twenty minutes later I came into the living room modeling her underwear and bra, both of which were stuffed with an assortment of clean (but unfolded) whites. A chic pair of violet suspenders brought some unity to the whole ensemble.

I could describe a large array of past dorky behavior, but there is an actual point in all of this reminiscing: my identity was not self-evident. I did not come out of the womb and into the world with the letters “D-O-R-K” tattooed on my skin and its Webster’s definition applied to my life. When I walked into school on October 31, 1997, I was labeled “dork” not because my appearance and behavior were inherently dorky. I was given that label by classmates who recognized some aspect of how I appeared and connected it with a pattern they had come to associate with words like “dork” or maybe “nerd” and “weirdo.”

What does “dork” even mean? It’s just a string of letters, some vibrations in your throat that sound a certain way. This and every word has a certain etymological history which shapes its use, but language is a living, vibrant, and changeable structure. Words come to mean different things over time and across contexts. What is dorky today may mean something entirely different ten years from now.

In this case, the word is “dork,” but in other cases the words may be “woman,” “gay,” “trans,” “Asian,” “disabled,” “queer,” or any other variety of identity categories. Every word is relational—the person being called “dork” or “gay” may claim that identity or refuse it or be indifferent about how others think of them.

The point I want to make is that identities come in a lot of different forms, and everyone probably claims multiple identities on the basis of things like race, gender, sexual orientation, maybe even occupation, sports affiliation, or hobbies. And just as every person is different, so does each person experience identities in different ways. Some people are born being called male and claim maleness and socially defined masculinity as an identity and a value. Other male-assigned people may decide to adopt traditionally feminine interests and attributes but still claim and assert masculinity in those settings. Still other people assigned male at birth may refuse to accept that identity and permanently claim a female identity or some other very personal mixture of what we commonly associate with masculinity and femininity.

The same may be true for other identities. Words are just words, and the meaning changes constantly. We may be forced to confront the words and meanings others like to assign to us, but it’s important that we as individuals name ourselves and make choices about how we want to live and be in this world.

I may have been called a dork from a young age, but I do not need to accept the whole identity. Today I claim a bit of that dorkiness, but tomorrow I may refuse to be called one.

I sent a text to T today that ended in “(smmoooch!).” When she reads it, she will probably think “Wow, I’m partnered to such a dork,” but if she doesn’t also smile and feel loved, she probably doesn’t know me very well.

I can change. I can stay the same. I can attempt to control how those close to me perceive me and maybe work to make society see me in a certain way too. Yet even when no one understands, I name myself, and I negotiate my own identities.

There are some who say “I was born this way” and feel it very strongly. I tend to think yes, you were born a certain way, but the words that people use—whether good or bad—shape how we understand ourselves.

Is there a binary or spectrum for dork to cool, gay to straight, or female to male? Frankly, it doesn’t matter. You be you or some version of yourself. Let those around you be their version of themselves. All the rest is just words.


Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.