WaPo: ““The pain of not being myself,” says Rachel Fleit in her film, “Bama Rush,” “became greater than the pain of not fitting in.”
Fleit’s documentary, about sorority culture at the University of Alabama, is streaming on Max (the service formerly known as HBO). She’s referring to her experience as a bald woman — a person with alopecia — but as I watched her film, I found it hard not to think of the LGBTQ+ community, especially during this strangely bittersweet Pride month.
A lot of queer people spend a big part of our lives in just the way Fleit describes — fruitlessly trying to be the person others want us to be, trying against all odds to fit in to straight or cisgender culture. And then, when we finally come out as ourselves, sometimes we find that the members of the group we once longed to join reveal themselves as judgmental and cruel — exactly the kind of people you least want to hang around with, once you’ve found your courage.”