Last week in my Gender and Communication class we did an exercise where we made a time line of significant events in our lives and how those experiences helped form our gender identity. I consider myself to be pretty self-aware, and yet I was surprised at some of the things I wrote about and sense of clarity I felt afterward. I talked about my pink and purple phase, when everything I owned was some combination of cotton candy hues; during the same time was the pocket knife event I have previously blogged about. At the time, it was perfectly acceptable to express both masculine and feminine traits. A couple of years later I was in the 1st grade, had a crush on a girl and beat up boys on the playground who tried to kiss her. I felt tough, protective, and more masculine than the other 7 year old girls around me. Later came the Girl Scouts, where we did domestic projects like crafts and baking, but also learned water safety and spent time outdoors camping and hiking.
In the 7th grade, I began snowboarding competitively. While I was the only girl on the team, I did dryland training and some on-mountain training with the ski team. We were all fierce competitors and our head coach insisted on referring to us as "athletes" instead of boys and girls. I traveled a lot in those years, had some amazing experiences and was somewhat isolated from my peers due to training and competing out of state. My ideal of beauty was that of an athlete - strong, muscular, fit, toned, focused, healthy, dedicated, determined. Being an athlete first and a girl second came with some sacrifices. As though puberty isn't tough already, I was muscular, obsessed with fitness, extremely concerned with nutrition and was not like the other girls at my school. My focus was on performance and not on how a 12 or 14 or 16 year old girl should be acting.
In high school I retired from competition, became quite thin and started dressing/acting like other girls my age. It was a drastic shift but I have mostly fond memories of it. After high school, I came out as a lesbian and that radically changed every aspect of my life. My hairstyle didn't change, nor did the amount of makeup I wore or how many dresses hung in my closet. In terms of gender, I felt like expectations of me changed for those who were aware of my sexual orientation. It was as though I was no longer expected to get married, bear children or be domestic. It was more acceptable to be career focused than family focused, ok to be less feminine and not unusual that I had a lot of guy friends. I was told on many occasions, in both subtle and direct ways, that expectations of beauty no longer applied to me. People have said to me, often in a hushed voice and with confused expression, "But, you don't look like a lesbian." After coming out, it seemed as though I became exempt from being a female. Society had canceled my subscription.
Moving to a larger city and making connections in the queer community allowed me to feel accepted. Even here I found an entirely new subset of gender expectations. Am I butch or femme? Do I play softball? What gym do I work out at? Do I date butch or femme women? Do I want children, and if so, do I want to carry them? I was surprised, stunned and somewhat entertained by the stereotyping and essentializing I encountered. Something that took me aback was the perception that we as lesbians are immune from problems like sexual health, STD's, domestic violence, rape and oppression. This shocked me when I heard things of this nature from people outside of the queer community, and imagine my horror when it came from the mouths of my peers.
This semester I will be volunteering with CCASA, the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault. I am so excited and can't wait to get started! Sexual assault, violence against women and oppression are issues I am passionate about; I feel honored to have to this opportunity to help, even if in a small way. It is important to me as a lesbian to raise awareness in the queer community, as a feminist to speak out and support women who are victims of violence, and as a human being to bring love and passion to this fight.
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