Tomboys United's topics - tribe.net

is this still a functioning tribe?

2007-12-31T00:46:26Z

just came across it when looking for tomboy girls...

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Please Share Your Tomboy Experinces/Thoughts!!!!!

2007-01-24T18:42:37Z

HI, I'm Tanya. Have always been and still am a Tomboy. I'm a photography student and am doing this terms project about Tomboys. If anyone would like to share anything at all with me about their experince of being a tomboy in childhood or adulthood it would be a great help. "Masculine" things you did, said, wore..whatever. Anyone's reactions or questions to you. "Non-feminine" or examples of rejecting what is "feminine". Here are some of my own experinces/thoughts so you can get a better idea of what I'm after.

-From day one I didn't want to wear dresses...many fights with my mom.
-Maybe I'm a tomboy because I idolised my older brother.
-Perhaps the cultual view that "feminine" is weak made me lean toward the "masculine"
-I never played with girls toys.
-The protagonist is more often than not male in kids books/movies.
-What's the fun in being a girl if boys get to do all the cool stuff?
-By 11 I had breasts and created a device that flattened them so it appeared I had none.
-I remember crying to parents that I wanted to be a boy.
-Boys in school taunted me "Are you a boy or a girl?" And called me "Tony"
-As an adult it is often assumed I am gay...I am not.
-My mom tells me that I hate myself and that I hate being a woman...this is not true.

Those are just some expamples of things I'd like to hear about.
The other day a Tomboy friend of mine told me she decided to dress like a boy at the age of 12 because she "wanted to be taken seriously" and as an adult she still does becuse with her blonde hair and blue eyes attractive Scandinavian features she'd be treated like a sex object.

Yeah, I've gone on enough. Any help would be big help.
Thanks!
Tanya

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Trans March / Volunteers Needed

2005-06-05T20:08:32Z

Trans March Friday June 24

Trans March

The 2nd Annual Trans March will take place Friday June 24th in Dolores Park, San Francisco. Live bands, transgender and gender-variant speakers, drag kings, and musicians will perform from 3 pm till 7 pm, and the March itself will begin at 7 pm.

The Trans March is a grassroots, community-building political event, welcoming transgender, genderqueer, intersex, and all genders of people, as well as allies. It is a demonstration of trans visibility, celebrating the growth of a gender movement. The purpose of this event is to:
1. Demonstrate that the violence and discrimination directed against the transgender community will not be tolerated.
2. Celebrate the struggles of the trans community for respect, acceptance, and civil rights.
3. Build a supportive, unified trans community bringing together diverse genders, ages, ethnic backgrounds along with our allies.

Last year’s historic, first-ever Trans March brought together an estimated 2000-3000 people for an amazing community-driven grassroots demonstration on the weekend of LGBT Pride. This year’s Trans March will offer live bands and performers including punk rock legends Tribe 8 on a sound stage in Dolores Park.

Organizers and supporters of this event include:
Many individual trans community activists
United Genders of the Universe
FTM International
SF TEAM
Transgender San Francisco
Good Vibrations

Volunteer Needs

during the march:

- 5 stagehands to carry sound equipment, set up and tear down stage - must arrive early, by 2 pm.
- 1 march leader, must have cell phone and be cop-friendly in case of confrontation.
- 1 march tail, must have cell phone and be cop-friendly.
- 5 cleanup crew members to collect trash before march leaves the park, including one responsible crew leader who will have keys to lock dumpster and portapotties, one with camera to photograph us leaving the park super clean, and three head count people to
estimate # of people at the march.
- 20 safety monitors on march route - must attend a training organized through tgsf.
- 2 security people to clear space for performers to get to and from the stage
- someone who is part of critical mass, to connect with critical mass because they might run into us, to suggest they join us to lead the march.

and here's what we need before the march, during the
next 3 weeks:

- sound technicians who can help get performers' instruments set up on stage
- artists to design flyers for the trans march
- folks to distribute flyers and forward emails and send out press releases and generally spread the word.
- folks to warn people that if they bring alcohol, cops might come and might pour out their beers (some new regulation about dolores park because of the
playground there?)

For more information, please contact Sam Davis at samdavis66@sbcglobal.net

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makeup and employment

2005-05-15T23:50:08Z

it has been decided by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that employers can legally FIRE any woman who refuses to wear makeup on the job, for whatever reason. Also we can be fired for not doing our makeup "well" enough.
This is in effect now in CA, WA, OR, NV, AZ, ID and MT
It's not considered discriminatory by the court because it is "equal" to a law forbidding men from wearing makeup on the job. (although NOT wearing makeup takes significantly less time and money and skin irritaion than wearing it.)

posted in Tomboys United - 7 replies

silent tribe

2005-04-07T21:53:58Z

hi all,

i'm thinking of deleting this tribe, since there's not really many tomboys in it and it's not serving the function i hoped for. if anyone objects or wants to continue as a new moderator of this tribe, please let me know.

i have started a new tribe, called man-identified-woman, for masculine-identified females primarilly attracted to men. if anyone here is interested, please send me a message to join.

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abortion

2005-03-16T22:47:35Z

this is an article from alternet.org

The Real Choices Women Make

By Karen Rosenberg, AlterNet. Posted March 15, 2005.

I leaned across the small cafe table and asked, inappropriately, "So, what brings you here?" I knew better, but the laughter, clinking of glasses, lit votives and mellow trip-hop made it feel like a real party.

"I had an abortion eight months ago," the young woman said after a pause. "I just saw this in the paper and I decided to come."

"That's so great," I nodded, my social graces still on strike.

"I was living in another country and I came home for it ... the abortion." She looked away. By this point, the place was packed.

About a hundred and fifty of us – mostly women, mostly young, mostly white, mostly with hip hairstyles – crowded into Seattle's Capitol Hill Arts Center, an old brick building next to the state liquor store and across from the police parking lot. We had left the warm and Seattle evening to attend "I Had an Abortion," an event put on by Aradia Women's Health Center and co-sponsored by abortion resource and referral organization the CAIR Project, self-defense organization Home Alive and the magazine ROCKRGRL.

The gathering was part of a nationwide campaign to take the stigma out of abortion, according to Amie Newman, Aradia's communications director. She points out that "even in progressive communities, people don't talk about it" and "with our administration's excellent strategy at really stigmatizing abortion and creating this evil aura around it, [we need to] hear women's real stories."

Frankly, I approached the evening with war-weary frustration that this type of event still had any type of political resonance. I had spent my time on the front lines more than a decade ago, in the tense dance between pro-choice clinic escorts and Operation Rescue protestors. I was skeptical that an event like this could do more than preach to the choir.

But the event was held in a place that felt more like a nightclub than a women's center and the three Seattle women who told their stories added just what the abortion debate so sorely lacks: real, multi-dimensional people grappling with much more than how to handle an unintended pregnancy. It was such a relief to talk about abortion without blown up pictures of alien-like fetuses on sandwich boards, or pithy pro-choice bumper stickers.

We then screened Jennifer Baumgardner's documentary Speak Out: I Had An Abortion. The film interviews women who had abortions between 1938 and 2003. Proceeding in chronological order with a beguiling pastiche of family photos and historical footage, each woman articulately talks about her family, relationships, personal aspirations and reproductive history. I learned the most from stories that rested squarely outside of my liberal experience. Like Robin, for example, who peacefully protested abortion clinics. When she learned she was pregnant, soon before entering the University of Tennessee on a cheerleading scholarship, she called a Christian center for support to give the baby up for adoption. The woman praised her courage and expressed delight that she was college-bound. After extensive screening, she asked Robin about the race of the father. Hearing that he was black, the woman refused any assistance. "There just isn't a demand for interracial babies," she curtly informed her. Devastated, Robin talked with her boyfriend and decided to have an abortion.

There was the woman whose twenty-seven year old cousin impregnated her when she was fourteen, three years after a stranger snatched her from an amusement park and raped her. This woman chose to have the baby and earned a scholarship to Radcliffe – which was later withdrawn when they learned she was a teenage mother. She went to Howard University instead and, after her mother refused to sign a permission slip for contraception, got pregnant again. When she talked about her decision to end this pregnancy, many of us in the audience gave a sigh of relief.

Jenny grew up in a Mormon family, the middle of five children. She described herself as "the daughter of a teenage mother who was the daughter of a teenage mother" and when she got pregnant after her boyfriend pressured her into sex, she decided to have an abortion. The trauma came when a letter from "The Brotherhood" informed her parents of her decision. A tremendous family fight ensued which pushed Jenny away from her family and her community.

The power of this film and of the women who shared their stories in person comes from their ability to show that the act of terminating a pregnancy means precious little outside of the context of family, partners, friends, faith communities-that is to say, life itself. It provides a powerful counterargument to Hillary Clinton's contention that abortion is a "sad, even tragic, choice," by highlighting women who frame their choices as responsible and life affirming. The 44-year-old married mother of two in the movie who ended her pregnancy in order to enhance her ability to be a mother and partner is a perfect example of someone who can't be pigeonholed by the current abortion debate.

I reentered the warm Seattle night inspired, moved, and maddeningly still within my blue-state bubble. I have never lived in the 97 percent of U.S. rural counties that have no abortion providers. I've never had anyone I love tell me that abortion is a sin or that women who terminate pregnancies are murderers. If someone like me, who is already passionately pro-choice, is re-inspired by this event, in the swath of red-state communities, it could affect real change.

Karen Rosenberg is a writer and doctoral candidate in women's studies at the University of Washington.

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highschooler banned for wearing tuxedo

2005-03-10T22:51:22Z

the following story is taken from Alternet.org:

Not So Pretty in Pink

By Mubarak S. Dahir, AlterNet. Posted March 9, 2005

When 18-year-old Kelli Davis went to get her senior picture taken for her high school yearbook last September, she, like most prospective graduates going through the ritual, was excited about memorializing her high school experience in the most fundamental record of those days: the yearbook. She couldn't know then that the innocent and innocuous decisions she would make about her appearance that day would turn into an overblown ordeal mixing gender identity and homophobia, and ending with her getting cut out of one of the most precious pieces of memorabilia graduates take with them from high school: a picture in the yearbook.

Accompanied by her mother, Cindi Davis, a registered nurse, Kelli Davis, an out lesbian at her school, reported to Cady & Cady studios, which had been contracted to take photos for the school. The studio provided one of two choices for the photo shoot: either a black drape, or a tuxedo top. As Davis stood watching the young woman ahead of her, she made her decision: she wanted to wear the tuxedo. "Hey, if it was good enough for Sharon Stone and Sigourney Weaver, it was good enough for me," Davis says of the tux look, according to information provided by the Tampa Bay Coalition, a gay-rights group in Tampa, Fla. But the tuxedo look was anything but good enough for Sam Ward, the principal at Fleming Island High School, the suburban school in the state's growing northeast Clay County from which Davis will graduate this year.

As early as october, Davis heard rumors around school that her photo wasn't going to appear in the yearbook because she had opted to don the tuxedo top instead of the black drape. When her mother got wind of this, she asked her fiance, Scott Boggs, a neurosurgeon, to call the principal and find out what was going on. According to Boggs' account of events, the school principal, Ward, was congenial, but said he couldn't discuss the matter with Boggs because he wasn't Davis' legal guardian. Instead, he promised to get back to Cindi Davis quickly with a solution. "I felt the tuxedo issue was benign, a minor matter," Boggs told the Tampa Bay Coalition. "He chose to escalate it to a major problem." It was another month before Cindi Davis heard back from the school. When she did, the word was that her daughter would indeed be excluded from the Fleming Island yearbook because her picture was not "uniform." Shocked at the decision to exclude her daughter from the yearbook for such a trivial reason, Cindi Davis says she questioned the school's principal about his decision, suspecting it had more to do with homophobia than "uniformity." But, she says, Ward wouldn't budge from his position. That's when Cindi Davis did the only thing she knew as a mother desperate to help preserve her daughter's high school memories. If the school wouldn't run Kelli's photo in the regular section with the other students, Cindi Davis decided, she'd buy an ad and place Kelli's photo in the book herself. The day the principal called Cindi Davis and told her that her daughter's picture was being cut out of the yearbook was also the last day to place an ad in the journal. Cindi Davis wrote a check for a full-page ad and rushed it to the school.

There is no written rule in the Clay County school district guiding dress code for senior yearbook photos, but the school's superintendent and school board have supported principal Sam Ward's decision. On Feb. 25, the school board held a hearing into the matter, at Cindi Davis' request. But in the end, the school board declined to take any action to reverse the decision to keep Kelli Davis and her bow tie out of the yearbook, telling the press that school principals have wide latitude to make the rules, and that the school board isn't in the business of vetoing every decision a principal makes. Cindi Davis was able to get school lawyers to agree the $350 paid ad of her daughter in a tuxedo will stay in the yearbook. "I don't understand what she's going through," as a lesbian, Cindi Davis says. "But my job as Kelli's mother is simply to love and support my child unconditionally, and I do." The keepers of the school system continue to insist that Kelli Davis is not being discriminated against because she is a lesbian. Her picture won't be in the regular section of seniors in the yearbook, they say, because she is wearing boy's clothes instead of girl's clothes.

But regardless of their rationalizations, school officials can't dress up the discrimination against Kelli Davis in any other way. In their minds, blue is for boys and pink is for girls, and that's that. What frightens them most about Kelli Davis is that she is acting like a boy in the most non-uniform possible way: by being a lesbian. Boys are supposed to like girls and girls are supposed to like boys. But Kelli Davis and the millions of gay and lesbian high school students across the country don't fit into this tidy, "uniform" definition of sexuality. And to school officials, that's exactly why Kelli Davis' picture doesn't fit in with the rest of the graduates at Fleming Island High. Sadly, Kelli Davis' situation is not unique. Every year, similar stories surface in the press about schools trying to bar gay, lesbian or transgender kids from the yearbook or a school activity or in some cases, even from attending classes, because of their clothes. With all the problems that schools and school kids face today – from lack of reading comprehension to drug trafficking in the halls – it seems beyond ludicrous for school officials to get hung up on whether Johnny is wearing makeup or Alice is wearing a tie. But in too much of America's schools, it's still true that blue is for boys and pink is for girls. Thank goodness for brave souls like Kelli Davis who are courageous enough to choose lavender.

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warrior queen

2005-02-22T23:46:54Z

at a remote rainforest site in Guatemale last Feb., archeologists discovered a royal tomb from the 7th century AD. Amid the ruins of the city Waka, the burial chamber contained the remains of a warrior queen with an intricately carved jade helmet. Amongst only about a dozen tombs of royal Mayan women, she was the first to be found with a battle helmet. Stingray spines on the burial dais suggest this queen led traditionally male sacred ceremonies. Before battle, she would have pierced the spines through her genitals, sacrificing her blood to conjure war gods and strengthen her soldier's weapons.

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misletoe abuse

2005-01-27T21:34:06Z

In 1855 author Nathaniel Hawthorne included the following Christmas observation in his english notebooks: "There were little branches of mistletoe hanging in several parts of our house... The maids did their utmost to entrap the gentlemen-boarders, old and young, under these privileged places, and there to kiss them, after which they were expected to pay a shilling. It is very queer, being customarily so respectful, that they should assume this license now, absolutely trying to pull the gentlemen into the kitchen by main force, and kissing the harder and more abundantly, the more they were resisted. A little rosy-cheeked lass - at other times very modest - was the most active in this business. I doubt whether any gentleman but myself escaped. I heard old Mr. Smith parleying with the maids last evening, and pleading his age, but he seems to have met with no mercy, for these was a sound of prodigious smacking immediately afterwards."

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genderqueer dance

2005-01-19T17:20:02Z

This Jan. 21 and 23, Sean Dorsey performs "Second Kiss" at Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St.
The show is at 8pm and is $15-20
Sean Dorsey is out as genderqueer and has had great reviews of hir prior shows. Ze choreographs and performs, and most shows have to do with genderqueer life. It's a great way to support the community if you've got the chance and the cash.
Please pass on the info.

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genderqueer dance

2005-01-19T17:13:02Z

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encouraging stories

2005-01-13T00:36:03Z

this one is from alternet.org

"Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt." - Shirley Chisholm

When Carol Moseley Braun ran for president in 2004 few in the media or in the U.S. electorate took her candidacy seriously. The dignified Braun did not articulate either the bold policy positions or the fiery rhetoric that garner headlines or followers. In comparison Sen. Joe Lieberman and Rep. Dick Gephardt were equally bland but they were nonetheless considered viable candidates. The former U.S. senator from Illinois and former ambassador to New Zealand possessed a paltry war chest and a ragtag campaign operation, but so did fellow candidates, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and the Rev. Al Sharpton. Unlike Braun, who was quietly dismissed, these two contenders were labeled as grassroots candidates who spoke for millions of marginalized citizens. What made Braun’s run implausible to millions of voters and to the pundits seems to have had more to do with her gender than with her politics or her finances.

Anyone who has spent any length of time in black communities knows that despite highly visible male leaders, it is the women who are chiefly responsible for organizing and maintaining the numerous ad hoc programs and committees that benefit, children, women and the disadvantaged. Particularly in churches, which remain important social centers for millions of black Americans, it is the women who regularly cook sumptuous meals that are distributed to the needy in their neighborhoods. Black women around the country can still be found teaching the next generation in Sunday schools and arranging for their churches to participate in free lunch programs for children during the summer. In an earlier time when black churches were local command posts for the civil rights movement, thousands of unsung black women performed the unglamorous work of canvassing neighborhoods, making photocopies, passing out flyers and proofreading speeches. By playing supporting roles to male leaders, women helped organizations such as the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) to have the capacity to be strong advocates for political and social change. Later when many black Nationalist organizations, on ideological grounds, discouraged black women from assuming leadership roles, they still undertook the administrative tasks and field duties that were crucial to the development of the Black Power movement.

In 1968 Shirley Chisholm officially stomped on the idea that leadership was the sole prerogative of black men by becoming the first black women elected to the U.S. Congress. Three years later, by announcing her intention to seek the Democratic nomination for president, Chisholm publicly defied conventional notions about race, gender and class in asserting her right to run for the nation’s highest office. In her 1972 presidential bid Chisholm failed to win one primary and the Democratic nomination subsequently went to George McGovern. However, Chisholm’s then quixotic candidacy opened the door for future presidential aspirants: the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, former Ambassador Alan Keyes and Carol Moseley Braun.

Not surprisingly, in 1968 many black nationalists opposed her candidacy stating that the first black president should be a man. In a December, 1981 interview with the Associated Press, Chisholm reflected on the impact of race and gender on her political career sayings, "When I ran for the Congress, when I ran for president, I met more discrimination as a woman than for being black. Men are men."

Chisholm, who served seven terms in Congress, died this week in Florida at the age of 80. In 1982 she decided not to seek re-election in a political environment that was becoming increasingly conservative. In a scene that could have played out in the 2004 election cycle, Chisholm left Washington after saying that moderate and liberal legislators were "running for cover from the new right." Chisholm retired to Williamsville, N.Y. and in 1984 she was elected the first chairperson of the National Political Congress of Black Women.

Born Shirley Anita St. Hill in Brooklyn, N.Y., Chisholm worked as a nursery school teacher before being elected to New York State Assembly in 1964. In 1968, Chisholm ran for Congress in New York’s 12th Congressional district in Brooklyn. In the Democratic primary, as a slap to her opponents she used the slogan, “Fighting Shirley Chisholm: UnBought and UnBossed.” In the general election she would defeat the well-known civil rights leader, James Farmer, who ran as an independent on the Republican and liberal lines, and Ralph Carrano, who ran as the conservative candidate.

Chisholm’s slight frame and demure appearance camouflaged the blunt and unflinching politician that she was. As a freshman representative, Chisholm challenged the House’s seniority system, which had relegated her to its Agriculture Committee, an assignment she considered irrelevant to the Bedford-Stuyvesent district that she served. Rather than quietly going with the program, Chisholm instead issued a parliamentarian assault on Wilbur D. Mills, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (who would later be toppled in a sex scandal), who parceled out the committee assignments. Soon thereafter Chisholm was reassigned, first to the Veterans Affairs Committee, and eventually to the Education and Labor Committees.

Chisholm was an outspoken advocate for labor, women and children. As a member of the House of Representatives she constantly fought for increased funding for education and childcare services. Chisholm sought to include domestic workers in minimum wage legislation, and delivered a passionate speech to her congressional colleagues about her own mother's experiences as a domestic worker. She also co-sponsored the Adequate Income Act of 1971, which would have guaranteed a minimum income to all families. Chisholm was also an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. She joined a group of 15 U.S. Representatives who introduced a bill to end the draft and replace it with an all-volunteer military. Chisholm also publicly called for the U.S. to end arms sales to apartheid-era South Africa.

In her 1970 autobiography, “UnBought and UnBossed” Chisholm stated, "Our representative democracy is not working ... because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men."

It is not easy to assess how Chisholm’s career impacted the political landscape for black or female candidates. Braun is only the second black woman to run for president and although Geraldine Ferraro joined Walter Mondale’s presidential ticket in 1984, no white woman has run for president since Victoria Woodhull in 1872. The presidential prospects for white women however are distinguished from those of black women by the fact that there are several white female senators and governors in the pipeline, but not one black woman is similarly positioned.

In assessing her legacy Shirley Chisholm was quoted in the 1990 book, "Shirley Chisholm: Teacher and Congressman," as saying, “I’d like to be known as catalyst for change, a woman who had the determination and a woman who had the perseverance to fight on behalf of the female population and the black population because I am the product of both being black and a woman.”

The lesson of Chisholm’s political career is that a black woman running for political office must be both intelligent and audacious in her belief that she is best person to do the job. Moreover she must be willing fight the fights necessary to wrest power from the establishment as a means to improving her constituents’ lives. Gender and its potentially hindering affects, therefore, was not the main theme of Shirley Chisholm’s journey, but rather it was the futility of playing the old boy game unless you are an old boy.

Yvonne Bynoe is the author of "Stand and Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip Hop Culture." She is also the former president of Urban Think Tank Institute.

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action assistance

2005-01-11T17:42:42Z

hi.
one reason i started this group was so women could share our traditionally-male skills with one another in safe and fun settings. So i'd like to invite you all to share things you'd be willing to teach to others, whatever that might be.
i myself have some rudimentary carpentry skills. like, if you want to make a bunk bed we could do that. no knowledge of power tools beyond an electric drill. but who needs power tools? is the human body not powerful enough?
what else? simple web-page design, i guess.

posted in Tomboys United - 9 replies

confusion of Tomboys

2005-01-10T04:23:53Z

Hi everybody, it's me Ariel, first off I would like to say this tribe if full of wonderful people. I'm so glad to have the invite, and this rocks, glad to be a part of this tribe.

Yesterday, I had an interesting experience. This guy I know, who I see often at the Castro Country Club who's kinda an asshole, kinda sexually inappropriate, but also at times very funny and an enjoyable person to play spades with from time to time approached me and spoke to me a little bit. He argued with what my identity is, yet again, though I've explained that I'm a genderqueer lesbian. I havn't really talked to him much about being intersexed, he's kinda hard headed and most likely wouldn't understand. Another friend, who's an artist and a binary gay male does a lot of naked gay male sensual art. Particularly, muscular men between the ages of early 20's to late 30's sensual pictures. Tattoos seems to also be a theme that each person has in his sketches. He is a very good artist, and I enjoy looking at his art. Partially cause I do some of the same art, just with female bodied people, havn't yet gotten freehand down, nor "expert shading" but outlines and contours of the body comes naturally to me when drawing. Though I don't think I'm good enough to actually want to draw female bodied models, I usually just shuffle through my porn magazines, find a good picture at the moment and attempt to draw the picture. ID myself as a silver rose omnisexual lesbian, it's definitely a dual enjoyment.
Anyway, what ended up happening is I asked this fellow artist if I could see what he's done so far, and expressed my gratitude about the art piece. When the time approached around closing. The other man, who had just finished up another game of spades, walked over to me and started talking about how yummy men are and assumed I agreed with him on the matter. Of course depending on the indivisual I can have different kind of sensuality with them. Though with male bodied people I have strong limitations for many reasons. I have mislead men in the past, particularly, male binary folks. When I told him that I'm a lesbian/dyke(I do consider myself a dyke as well, more on that later) and a tomboy. He responded with
"I thought you wanted to see, girl you confuse me, first your a lesbian then your not. You confuse me, but I still love ya."
He then walked off before I could respond much, I told him I've always been a lesbian, and was going to point out to him that I was just admiring art for art. He left briskly and laughed to me jokingly. Only recently coming to terms with being intersexed and realizing that my parents and/or doctors picked me to be male sexed. Which of course never really worked as they intended to, I've only begun to accept this about me no more then three weeks ago, almost four. Regardless, the fact that I definitely fit comfortably in the femme butch tomboy catagory seems to baffle a lot of people. Especially binary gay men. It's almost like they want me to be something different. I don't especially mind the confusion, sometimes it's comfortable sometimes it's not. This particular time he was very nonchallant and has always spoken to me like he knows everything about anybody. He seems to not be able to grasp who I am and it drives him crazy, and he responds somewhat demeaning. He also makes implications to me as if he can somehow change who I am, tempt me to be straight, to be bi, to be male, to be feminine. Which is definitely uncomfortable.

Has anybody else had experiences like this?

How did you handle it?

How do you cope with the confusion that others have about us?

Hope conversations can come from this.

Hugs,

Sincerly,
Ariel Archaicflame

posted in Tomboys United - 4 replies