I
was about ten, walking down the sidewalk of a small New Jersey town on a
warm summer afternoon, when I passed an old couple sitting on their
porch and heard one ask the other, “Is that a boy or a girl?” Walking
on, pretending I hadn’t heard, I felt scared and embarrassed. It wasn’t
a new question though. My sister called me boy/girl now and then,
and, finding the only possible niche available in my family, I had
become my father’s longed-for son.
This
inability of the culture to widen and honor the many expressions of
being female has had many repercussions, but I was never willing to give
up anything that led others to think I was a boy. I wouldn’t give up
the ease I had in my body, the feelings of strength and physical
freedom, the swagger in my walk, the effortlessness of sweeping myself
onto my bike or running at exhilarating speeds.
The
roles offered girls in the 50s and 60s were limited and made no sense
to me. The interests attributed to girls had no attraction whatsoever.
I preferred to play with pen knives with the one other tomboy girl in
my grade, preferred wrestling with boys, not only preferred, but was
compelled to hold my own in anything boys could do. But no matter how
good at sports I was, no door was open to me. Little League was closed
to girls, and unlike today, there were no girl teams.
Until
the first day of seventh grade though, I had the world to play in and a
friend to play with. But on that first day, that world vanished and
that friend disappeared, freakishly transformed into a regular girl with
prim hair and dresses and an immediate interest, it seemed, in
attracting boys.
I
had no idea what had had happened. I felt I had landed in a world as
alien to me as a different planet, a world that was to be the general
world I would be moving through for the rest of my life, a world that
still doesn’t make sense to me, where I have searched for others like me
and woven together a subculture held by the thread of being outside
conventional roles, thought, and lifestyle.
Welcome tomboy
girls and those who love them. I look forward to our conversation.