Got some new neck ties yesterday and while thatâs usually not an extraordinary occurrence I remember a time when the simple act of wearing a âmanâsâ necktie could have been seen as an act of defiance. In my younger days, hesitantly âsneakingâ into the menâs section of the Nordstrom Rack department store nervously looking around to make sure the older black woman at the counter didnât see and, more importantly, tell on me for being in the âwrongâ section. These were the types of women who would give me disapproving looks for wanting to wear pants all the time and would swear up and down that 1) Iâd be much more comfortable freezing my ass off in a thin linen skirt lined with an even thinner nylon slip, legs barely insulated by stockings and 2) I was still young so Iâd have plenty of time to learn how to dress appropriately for the company of men⊠a late bloomer they figured I was but in the black community there isnât really a word for it, at least not an appropriate word. Youâre just strange until youâre not or until you learn otherwise. If I had known of the interior monologue of these self proclaimed psychiatrists, my unwanted and unlicensed behavioral doctors I would have posed many thorough questions, like a good patient eager to learn of their diagnosis and of the expressions of their disease. How then was I to reconcile my future unhealthy marriage, stressed by toxic ideals and unreasonable expectations? How would I cope with the loss of the dream of womanhood they had for my future? Who was to blame when my marriage to a man worthy of their scrutiny then fell apart like there own marriages had before them? Or was that part of the process? Part of the life they had laid out for me if Iâd just follow the rules and act like a ânice young lady?â
According to the wardens of femininity in my life, the church was the cure all for strange children. Children who just didnât seem to fit in or adhere to the rhetoric the elder women of the community set forth along with rules for respectability and unceasing praise of employed men with good government jobs. Itâs easier to convince someone of something they are not, to force them to give up individuality if you can control their beliefs. I had successfully avoided that kind of indoctrination even while being under the semi-watchful eye of my elderly aunt, her age mirrored in the woman who watched me carefully from the timepiece display case of the store. They, the daughters of a dying era, where the ones that couldnât figure me out and thus I was deemed especially unmanageable. To them I didnât know how to act âlike a ladyâ and so I was the crusade they chose to take on, needlepoint having been the project that helped them navigate through there own previous personal life battles and abusive relationships and thus was exhausted as an option of preoccupation. âFixingâ a child was akin to missionary work, especially if that child was born female.
The sales woman had nearly scolded me earlier for wanting to check out a pocket watch Iâd seen behind that same display case she now leaned over, craning her neck to get a better view of my movements. And while I was at the time fully aware of the fashion rules implemented by social constraints, she took it upon herself to aggressively remind me, the young woman standing in front of her in purposefully oversized jeans and a larger-than-necessary sweatshirt that those ornate mechanical discs, hinged on one side, chain coiled underneath in its display box were in fact for men-only. The voice in me would have matched her tone in my attitude filled response of âI knowâ but I just smiled and nodded. Her disapproving glare could have been misconstrued as a shot of disgust when in reality she was probably angry that I wasted her time. But there was something in the energy of her strict tone, like a school teacher who is frustrated with a student who gives the incorrect answer to a question. The implication of knowing better and tying her patience...
Nevertheless, I added her to the list of people who my existence would forever be a protest against. Her and her ilk: the professionally dressed white women who do double takes when I enter a bathroom wearing menâs clothing including some favorites neckties of mine, the elderly men on the street corners who donât understand why âsuch a pretty girlâ has to dress âthe way you do,â the two black women, both in their 50âs who made comments behind me in the bathroom at Tedâs Bulletin during Pride (about my androgyny among other things) glossing over the fact that they were encroaching upon *my* community during *our* festival, the Asian and Hispanic migrant workers at hotel establishments who repeatedly question my gender in rapid-fire succession looking for cracks and inconsistencies only to leave less sure about my gender than I am when explaining it and finally the elderly black woman who slapped my insecure hand away from that of my reassuring cousin's grip and the shame felt there for⊠take your pick.
To this day Iâm not sure what I, a nervous child of maybe seven standing in front of the entire congregation of my family's church could have done to earn such a reaction from a stranger. Maybe I wasnât wearing enough slips to her liking. All these experiences and the ones yet to come become the proof, the assurance that I am who I am and if they have something to say I must be doing something right. Needless to say, I donât attend church anymore and havenât for several years. I now worship at the alter of menswear.
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