Gender Bending
As a kid a have a very poignant first memory. My mother, a 23 year old 5'9" goddess of a woman, laying out back of our house in a bikini, covered in baby oil, sun bathing on a lawn chair. I was probably 3 or 4. I remember thinking she looked like a movie star with a navy bandanna holding her hair back, all thin and lean, with her gigantic tortoise glasses and pink Avon lipstick. I can hear the music buzzing in the back round out of an over-sized boom box. The smell of grass, freshly mowed. I can still remember sneaking off and trying to be discreet as I snuck into our neighbors garden. I was not allowed to play in the garden and the neighbor lady had told me repeatedly to keep away from the flowers, and the strawberries, which I stole daily.
I was pretending I was a mix between a snork (I' don't know why since they lived under water) and the Lucky Charms leprechaun and this was my magical kingdom. I had made tiny houses of twigs and the tops of the strawberries I had already eaten.
Here are some snorks for those of you to young to know what I am talking about.
and the magical commercial.....lucky commercial
I had used bugs and whirly bird pods as the natives of my realm and I started pairing them off together to start their little magical families. And like it was yesterday I remember this thought.
I wonder if I will be like my mom or dad when I grow up.
Both seemed like viable options and there were pros and cons either way. That is when I started walking the line.
Adolescence is a strange, strange time for some. I spent every waking hour outside of school playing some kind of sport until the sun set and I was called inside. Categorized as a tomboy, I was rough and dirty. I had the typical boys haircut from the late 80's early 90's that resembled an inverted bowl being placed on my head and I bit my nails. I had a very snazzy wardrobe of sports jerseys, t-shirts, and cut off jean shorts with the occasional pair of Umbros . I wore grubby sneakers and baseball caps and my posture was (and still is) abysmal. I looked like your run-of-the-mill 5th grade boy.
that would be me in the seafoam green hypercolor shirt sitting down.
One day in summer after a softball game my babysitter took me to get ice cream from the Dairy Queen (now closed) off Prairie View near our suburb. (She was dating one of the boys who worked there). Everyone thought I was her little brother and she was too busy talking to her beau to say otherwise. All the girls behind the counter told me how cute I was and how I was going to be so hot in high school....they gave me winks and smiles and it was my first experience in flirting. I was 11...and a Boy?
Now don't get me wrong. I knew I was a girl. But I didn't correct them. I just smiled and walked out the door with an inflated sense of self-worth that has been hard-pressed to be matched since that day.
By 7th grade not a lot had changed. Strangely, everyone just went with it. I don't ever remember being teased. Maybe it was just more accepted for a girl to have the characteristics of a boy than it was for a boy to have the characteristics of a girl, because I clearly remember a boy in a grade below me being hassled mercilessly for displaying traditional feminine behaviors.
I had a few crushes on boys in my class and a few crushes on celebrity hotties...(see To All the Boys I Loved Before in my posts for a real treat). I was tall enough that whatever female changes were happening were easily masked (90's fashion helped as well)and the only thing about my lack of girlish looks that deserved attention was the fact that I was flat chested. There was a poem the boys singsonged to me that went:
Roses are red,
Violets are black.
why is your chest as flat as your back?
It lasted about a week and then they were bored as it elicited zero response from me. My feelings were hurt actually, but mainly because some of of the singers were friends of mine. They later apologized and all seemed well.
I did drama competitions in middle school. There was an option to tryout for the lip sync division in the Regional Fine Art Competition held in Columbia, Missouri if you were already competing in another area. I was involved in duet improve with one of my best friends and he and I had won the local competition so we were already going, as were a couple of my other closest friends. Some of the girls and I (under the guidance of my very persuasive cousin and classmate) decided to tryout for the lip sync division to represent our school and we got it. We did Rhythm is a Dancer by Snap
I got to be the male rapper....and I embraced this roll completely. On stage I strutted, pointed, raised my eye brows and acted exactly like I thought a really cool 13 year old boy would act. I wore my Mighty Ducks hat backwards, popped my cross colors collar and gave my inner boy time to shine. It worked...but not how I intended.
While waiting for results in the auditorium after the whole thing was over a giggly girl from another school came over to my friends and I and loudly informed me that her friend, name forgotten, wanted to go out with me (looks over her shoulder and some blonde girl waves and smiles).
Uhhhh. At first I think she is kidding. Then I realize that this girl also thought I was a boy. I remember making eye contact with my best friend and partner in improve and him raising his eyebrows. I knew he was thinking that I should play along. When was I ever going to see this girl again and I probably would set her up for serious harassment if I said I was actually just a really great male impersonator.
So I avoided her and all her giggly friends for what was left of the day and made it to our bus thinking I was finally safe. Out of no where, seriously first she wasn't there then suddenly she was, the blonde girl pops up in front of me with a note and put it into my hand....I smiled closed mouthed and walked around her and onto the bus.
The note read "I think you are cute. I hope we see each other next year."
and it had a purple heart drawn on it.
I crumpled it up and threw it on the floor of the rented bus. I wish I hadn't.
In eighth grade I shaved my head...and discovered make-up. This was a stage even more awkward than the last. Suddenly I had an awareness about myself that I didn't just months before. By April of my eighth grade year I liked girly things like flower babydoll dresses (just another thing we can blame on Courtney Love) and nail polish on my stubby nails. I started wearing jewelry and realized shoes also came in less practical forms then sneakers (oh Mary Janes!)...I also had my first run in with a boy (older) who asked me out, based off looks (He had totally just met me an hour before). WHAT DID IT ALL MEAN?????
But time never stands still and just like everyone else I was forced to go through all of these changes at lightning speed. So my freshman year started at a public high school (from 30 kids to 3000) and I stepped through the doors my first day of school wearing CK Jeans, Doc Martins and a crocheted cream tank top akin to a doily. I still had very short hair, but it had been complimented with mascara and matte red lipstick.
I was swimming through a sea of people and things that were so foreign to me that I didn't have to worry about being singled out....I wasn't even noticed. I had a couple of friends from my neighborhood, but other than that, I didn't exist. There were a couple of boys I liked, and a couple dates, and a couple break ups. I was overwhelmed but was staying afloat. Then I had my first girl crush. She was in one of my classes. She was smarter, and prettier than I was. Everyone liked her and she had all the nicest things. She wore clothes like a model and her hair and make up were always perfectly groomed. She was also a better athlete than I was. Actually, she was pretty much everything I wished I could be. I pined after her with no clue as to what that meant. Obviously I wasn't going to tell her, I forgot to mention she had a boyfriend....and pretty much the douchiest guy I had ever known. So that was it. The crush ended and I moved on.
I had a language arts class with the world best teacher in all of history, Mrs. VonRuden. She was amazing. She let us watch MacGyver during free time. I had a perfect score in her class. One of the assignments was a book report on a love story. I read Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden. This book has floated on and off the banned book list in schools because it is about 2 young women falling in love. My book report was well thought out and I had even put together an illustrated cover and quotes from other love stories that supported the theme of the storyline. I received a perfect score plus bonus points for the extra work and length of my report. Then she said she was going to have people with the best reports read them out loud in class. She didn't call on me to read my report, she did however call me to stay behind after class.
In the most compassionate tone she told me she didn't want me to be singled out and shunned or hurt because some people wouldn't understand why I read that book. She told me that my feelings were valid but that teenagers could suck and I still had several years left in school and she wanted them to be full of good memories. I got it.
I realized that maybe things were't black and white. I couldn't explain my feelings but I hadn't grown up in a family that condemned homosexuality if that was what it was. I had an openly gay aunt and no one batted an eye. At least not that I had noticed, so I didn't feel the need to be ashamed of what ever it was going on in me. I did need some reassurance though.
It was pretty much perfect timing when that very aunt had come to visit at my dads. She was in the parlor checking out the fish and asking me about school and I just blurted out that I "like" liked a girl once.
She looked up from the fish tank and said, "was she cool?"
I nodded.
She smiled and said. " You will "like" like a lot of people, Tammy."
um.....ok. What did that mean?
So that weekend when I caught my stepmom alone I started grilling her with scenarios that I thought would make them quit loving me....what if I murdered somebody? Would you still love me? What if I sold drugs? What if I got pregnant? (got the answer to that one) What if I dropped out of school? How about then? What if I liked a girl? Or loved her?
Her reaction was priceless...she smiled and said, parents will always love their children....oh.
As I got older I continued to flow between quite feminine and pretty much the opposite of that. In my early 20's on Halloween I dressed as Charlie Chaplin and headed to Emerald City Night Club in Pensacola with one of my closest male friends at the time and his boyfriend. For those of you from Pensacola, you know how awesomely awesome Emerald City is, for the rest of you it is a primarily gay bar with Drag Shows that know no compare. I was hit-on more that night by men than the rest of every day of my life combined. Granted, they thought I was a guy as well, but there in lies the truth to this whole post. I was pretty much comfortable acting and dressing like a man for the evening. My friends got a kick out of it and I came to an understanding.
As I have grown into my skin I have come to realize it is pretty versatile. As is my heart. I don't think everyone comes in black and white. Male and female. Sometimes the grey is just as beautiful. I am the happiest I have even been and the most in love...My husband loves me as a grubby skate punk as much as he loves me when I whip out my heels and skirt and channel my inner model. He has never tried to classify me and I have learned to quit trying to classify myself. I believe this love is called unconditional.
click link^
So when I watch my son, who currently only plays with my little ponies and has a pink pony blanket on his bed I don't bat an eye. When my daughter takes up roller derby because she likes the clothes derby girls wear and has some pent up aggression she needs to get out, I give her a high 5. When my son grows out his hair or wears eye liner or paints his nails....I mean really, is that a big deal at all? And don't get me started on unicorns.
The character is in the core. The beauty is in the details.
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