(This article appeared in the Alyson Books anthology "Telling Tales Out of School: gays, lesbians, and bisexuals revisit their school days", edited by Kevin Jennings and published in 1998. The Afterword was not part of the original.)
I've gone through a wide range of sexual identities during my life, and what I consider myself at present doesn't fit neatly into any easily recognized category. However, during most of my adolescence I was what one could only call a "gentleman tomboy." In other words, while I wasn't the rough-and-tumble, sports-oriented, physically active stereotypical tomboy, from about sixth grade on, I consciously wanted to be a man. Not a boy, mind you, but a man. There's a big difference, especially considering that I came of age in the late '50s, amid beehive hairdos, black leather jackets, and the suburban housewife/working husband culture.
Being an intensely serious, scholarly type, I saw nothing worth emulating in the typical teenage boy. But a grown man -- ah, now there was a proper role model! Strong, silent, competent, emotionally reserved. I could picture myself like that, except for the unfortunate fact of having been born female. This attitude made me a total misfit, especially when I reached high school, where I did my best to dress like my father. I wore tailored jackets, shirts, silk scarves knotted around my neck to look like ties, and oxfords; carried a brief case; and slicked my short hair back with-- believe it or not! --Brylcreem.
The only thing that ruined my pseudo-masculine image was the fact that I was forced to wear skirts to school and on other formal occasions. I hated wearing skirts with a passion, because they totally destroyed the possibility that I might be mistaken for a male, something that did happen now and then when I wore pants. However, these were the bad old days before the Women's Movement came along. It never occurred to anyone that wearing pants should be an option, except at home and in other such informal situations.
High school became the bane of my existence. Being both the class scholar and the strangely-dressed freak did nothing to endear me to my peers. While I had a few friends, most others just stared, laughed at, or made fun of me. All this was before knives, handguns, and violence became routine in classrooms, so I was never physically assaulted. The worst anyone ever did was throw a firecracker at me. (It landed at my feet, where I ignored it with the proper disdain when it went off.)
Although I certainly never thought in terms of being homosexual -- Gay wasn't even in my vocabulary back then -- I can recall a rather attractive girl who asked if l wanted to kiss her. Such a thought had never even crossed my innocent mind, but when I said yes, she presented her cheek, in full view of a classroom of students. So what could I do? I kissed her. It was nice, but no big thrill. To this day I wonder about her motives, since I barely knew her. Perhaps she was struggling with her own sexual identity, or perhaps she was simply attempting to embarrass me.
Mostly, however, it was the contempt and mockery of the other students that bothered me. I really didn't want to be a freak and an outcast, but I simply couldn't dress and act like the other girls without doing violence to my own self-image. I never got used to the stares, whispers, and laughter that greeted me wherever I went. It took many years before I could hear strangers laugh and not feel sure their laughter was directed at me, even after I had learned to dress like an ordinary woman.
And yes, I did finally realize I couldn't get by in adult society if I didn't change my appearance, but I waited until graduation day to do it. No scholarly caps and gowns for our class. The girls had to wear white dresses, much to my disgust. I changed my hairstyle that very day to something at least reasonably feminine, and I left high school determined to be a "normal" girl --a decision which got me into no end of trouble further down the line!
Although I walked off with a majority of the academic awards during that graduation ceremony, the whole thing represented no triumph to me, for I had compromised my ideals and integrity by finally giving in to society's pressure.
Were my experiences in school major factors in forming my sexual identity? No, not really. If anything, it was the books, the movies, the TV shows that told me what it was to be a man or a woman. Men did all the interesting and daring things. Women took care of people, as wives and mothers, if they were lucky. If they weren't so lucky, they got into trouble and had to be rescued by a man. To my mind, this was a no-brainer -- why would anyone choose to be female?
What I learned in school was only bitterness and hatred, not only for the popular culture into which I could not fit, but for myself as well.
Although it took many years for the bitterness to dissipate and the hatred to be set aside, I'm happy to say that I did make a sort of peace with myself, thanks largely to the changes brought about in society by feminism and the gay movement. I still don't fit in, but now I know that's all right. It would have been so much easier to have learned that lesson as a teenager.
AFTERWORD
Clearly, that "sort of peace" I made with myself didn't last long, since it was barely two years later that I decided I was transsexual, something I think I knew all along but wasn't in a position to pursue until fairly recently. Oh well, better late than never, no?
