When I was little, I got bullied out of my Catholic school. The girls didn't like me, and I wasn't a boy. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was my messy hair or my goody-two-shoes attitude or obnoxious sense of humor or the fact that I knew that "the Pee Girl" was actually a nice person who was fun to play with and didn't care that she had a disorder, and maybe it was because I was a tomboy. I remember one time on the playground when I felt accepted by the boys, when I felt like I was let into the boys club and would be allowed to play with boys - because they gave me a bloody knee. I was bullied into early childhood depression until I started hitting my bullies right in their faces and the adults finally decided to do something.
When I went to hippie school, I was much happier. The school was diverse racially and in terms of the age groups who played together, and there were lots of kids with special needs. The older kids and teachers kept kids from being bullies. We were free to explore the woods and the park and the school, free to be kids and to play. On the playground I would always be Wolverine, or I wouldn't play. And a little black boy named Emilio would always be Storm.
Emilio wasn't really a boy, and I am confident that today he is not a man. He was the pink ranger for Halloween, he walked and talked with a swish. I don't remember anyone being mean to him or thinking he was weird. His mom was a cop and his older brother acted gangster.
My friends were mostly boys, so I was pretty confused when, on a camping trip, one of my friend's dads decided to cut me out of the group by pitting boys against girls. All of a sudden, I was the enemy, for no good reason. I was so angry at this man for thinking that shit was funny.
In middle school I hung with dudes and would take out my aggression on my guy friends by kicking them and joking around. I thought it was all in good fun but later realized I was kind of being a bully without realizing it. I was just trying to conform to a hyper masculine image, but the guys I hung with were more chill, sensitive, musician types.
In High School, I didn't have much sexuality, but I felt some attractions towards boys and some towards... Other girls. Mostly I was just afraid of sex, and deeply in denial that I was different sexually or gender...ly(?). So I was pretty outraged when some of the girls started a rumor about me being a lesbian. I let boys feel me up and just froze, scared they would take it further. I made friends with an older girl and worshipped her, and she did things like give me a private strip tease, but I was happy for the relationship to be unrequited. I wouldn't really be sexually mature until my late 20s, when I would figure out that I was grey-asexual, meaning I prefer to not have sex, even alone, very often. But in early high school, I tried very hard to seem normal - sexual, but not too sexual, straight, and a cis girl. I tried to do things like wear make up, and failed spectacularly. I wasn't being myself.
By Junior year I found my place, with the stoner boys. I was so, so happy to be one of the guys again, like I had been in middle school, but even more so. My friends literally would tell people I was not a girl, and I approved.
So when I grew up and learned that magic word transgender and admitted I just might be a lesbian and had a real, deep romantic relationship with a woman and started asserting myself, flirting with name and pronoun changes, wearing clothes that finally felt comfortable and like ME, I thought it was really wired to so many people close to me told me I wasn't trans or a lesbian or whatever (nobody really has thought the asexual thing was that strange though, not sure what to make of that). I've always thought it was obvious that I was queer, it was obvious to the kids who teased me, the street preachers who would look right at me when I was still in denial even to myself, maybe to some of the creeps who sexually harassed me even, since creeps do tend to pick out people they think will be an easy target... When everything snapped into place with that magical word transgender, some of the pieces that snapped were the way other people had treated me. I just don't think queer kids are invisible growing up. I think you can see us just as surely as we know ourselves.
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