On Gender, Sexuality, and Ownership of the Self

There was no shame in my family when I said I wanted to be a mechanic and also a ballerina. My parents taught me to not define ourselves by any gender label.

Yeah, my baby Cabbage Patch was cute, and I liked to take care of her, but it was much more interesting to me to dissect the bugs, climb trees, use my kid’s tool belt to fix things, and practice my fighting punches with the boys.

The toe shoes, tiara and tutu were fun, but they came off the very day I met a dance teacher who told me the details of how the female ballerina body “should” look. Sweat pants and a T-shirt were fine thereafter.

Yes, I went through the normal “girl” phases. I tried to look like Madonna, dressed to the tilt for proms and homecomings, spent hours fixing my big 80’s hair, and went through that silly miniskirt phase. But somewhere in mid-high school, I hated to be a girl. I felt that, if I were a boy, I’d be taken more seriously.

When the time came that I noticed I had a tendency to compare my body to the models plastered on the popular magazines, a serious conflict occurred. Disgust and rage occurred when others suggested what it meant to be a girl or look like a girl. I ran like the best of them and threw a mean fastball and I did it like a girl — with as much strength as any other boy or girl.

Conflict led me through the phase of creating outfits that incorporated boy and girl looks. I rolled up the sleeves of my dad’s sport coats and wore them with a colorful skirt and a funky tie.

My attraction to boys changed too. At one point, I fell head over heels with a young musician and artist. Social constructs on gender were also frustrating to him. Sporting his lovely, long hair and wearing kilts and hippy skirts, he was lovely to me. He was not confused, and he didn’t want to just stand out. Like me, he wanted social standards. Nobody understood our brief romance, especially our parents. In our silly combo of beyond-gender attire, we were free to find our attraction to each other’s ideas, art, and that which impassioned us.

At first, college was full of fun times of attraction and romance unbound by parental rules, but when I realized I wanted to be taken seriously for my mind and my art, I quickly cut off my long, brown curly hair to a pixie cut and wore no make-up. Wanting to not conform and trying to intellectualize my feelings about sexuality and gender issues, I went through a strong feminist phase. I thought only “real women” didn’t wear make-up, I challenged my female friends to not shave their legs, and I didn’t want to be around any young man who called a woman a girl or a chic and didn’t use “she” as often as “he.”.

I challenged my college boyfriend at every moment to not use language that dishonored or objectified women. He listened when I explained that our language expresses what we think and our choice of language determines our way of perception. I still believe this to this day.

In graduate school, I was outspoken about the repercussions of the negative depiction of women in media. For my grad school thesis, I lead a series of movement exploration workshops where, through the mediums of dance and psychology, we women dancers explored the effects of media on body image, sense of self, and how we expressed ourselves through posture, gesture, and level of comfort in our own bodies. My choreography and art had a common theme of exploration of sexuality and the defiance of “gender norms”.

As time went on and as I fought to claim my gender and sexuality as my own, I, at one point, felt that I could be the “dominant sex” by using sexuality as the source of my strength. In those days, I defied sexism by sporting outrageous clothes. I looked like an extravagant, avant-garde artist, a punk, or a dominatrix. I have no regrets.

Reclaiming ownership of gender and sexuality became the basis of my art. Through dance, performance art, and photography, my role as an artist was to challenge men and women to express and reveal their sexuality and sensuality without censorship.

At that point, I came to know my true ideals: I do not believe in boundaries; I detest labels; and I find it thoroughly tiresome to abide by social rules or standard of conduct with sexual identity. My fundamental belief in non-judgment and acceptance (something rooted in my spiritual beliefs) is the foundation of my support of freedom of choice, freedom of expression, and lack of censorship.

So, here I am now, older, and I have settled into something entirely new. I paint my nails now -- even my toenails! When I go out, I wear make-up. I enjoy having long hair. At times, I dress a bit like “a lady”.

But, here’s the deal: if you think you know me by my appearance only, there’s much you don’t know. Here’s what you cannot see from my appearance: I love my combat boots and Army pants as much as my red lipstick and heels. I’d rather cut the grass over cooking any day. If I had the money, I’d probably buy that small red “chic” convertible (if that’s what you want to call it). But I’d also buy a motorcycle and muscle car and feel great in all of them. And to this day, dancing the Tango with a man is as divine as when I fought my Kendo sensei in a class full of men and as beautiful as a heartfelt hug with a woman friend.

My husband loves my independence, my strong free will, my very liberal beliefs, and is a-ok that I have guy friends and… yep, his best friends are women. My female friends are scientists, stay-at-home moms, business women, single mothers, and women in the military, to name a few. They are strong women in all of these roles. My male friends are as sensitive as they are masculine; some write poetry, some still stop talking to me mid-sentence when a woman with a large chest walks by, some have no problem helping me pick out a pretty dress, and some are married to another man; they are all remarkable.

I find all women incredibly beautiful, whether they are a subject of a nude photograph, a powerful executive in a business suit, or a tomboy with short hair and no make-up. If you are a swinger, I think you are just as wonderful as the person devoted only to their spouse for the rest of their life. I find it equally lovely to see two women or two men kissing, as I do to see a teenage boy and girl holding hands on their first date. I strongly believe that a person can know they are transgender as early as when they are a child and I do not believe that it is some sort of psychological or societal problem. Whether you go to church every Sunday or like to vacation at Hedonism, you are perfect in my eyes.

I have no shame that my ex-husband had long, black hair and tattoos, that I went through the phases of girly dresses to boys clothes to corsets, that my favorite place to go out dancing in college was a gay bar with the guys, that I wear a lot of mascara, and that, as a married woman, I hang out with other guys with no agenda other than to know them as a person.

Those who know me will often hear me say to someone else, with no hesitation, that they look beautiful, sexy, or handsome. Such comments are not an invitation. These comments are, rather, a sincere comment that I find another person’s essence truly remarkable.

Though I am just one woman with one point of view, this is what it all amounts to in my mind…

There is power in owning your individuality. Do not determine your identity by others, do not be afraid to speak your mind, and allow yourself to dress as you will. Do not be ashamed to be outrageous or different and do not let others tell you who you should love or what makes you a “real woman” or “a real man.”

You are, my friends, lovely, just as you are.