“It’s a boy,” the midwife exclaimed.
My mother seemed content with that. She trusted the nurse to know the difference. My father would also be content. Two girls seemed enough for one family.
Back then there were some genetic tests to establish gender but mother seemed to rely on the good faith of the medical staff. How could anyone mistake a male baby from a female baby?
I didn’t discover my own gender until my arms grew long enough and I developed the fine motor skill necessary to grab things.
“Leave your Willy alone, Tommy. It’ll fall of if you keep playing with it”, was the concerned demand of my overly concerned mother.
“If god had meant for us blokes not to play with our willies he’d have made our arms shorter”, announced my father. Being an atheist he only used god as leverage when addressing my catholic mother. Irrespective of the biblical reference my mother was not impressed.
“Do all men do that? And for their entire lives?” she asked.
I discovered in due course that my elder sisters didn’t have a willy. Had theirs fallen off, I wondered? I didn’t want to turn into a girl so I stopped stretching the one thing I could rely on for a good grip; for a day or two.
Most information I learnt about gender was from my school mates. As unreliable as it was, it was all I had to work with. I leaned that boys were supposed to like girls, girls were nice to look at, dressed differently, didn’t have willies from birth and were nice to kiss.
I didn’t like my sisters, not all girls were nice to look at, they did dress differently but their attire also appealed to me from time to time, and although I enjoyed a kiss from my mother I couldn’t really understand why I would share that pleasure with a stranger. I certainly didn’t like it when my aunt kissed me. She left lippy all over my forehead. And I wouldn’t kiss my sisters if my life depended on it.
As I aged I discovered that some girls appealed to my senses. They smelled pleasantly different, their voices were softer, they spoke of different matters, they walked with a stride I couldn’t mimic yet found fascinating. I began to enjoy their company.
I still disliked my sisters and avoided their company at all cost.
My mates seemed somewhat obsessed with girls by the time I reached my teens. I was still unsure of what was expected so I followed their lead. It seemed that following girls around, teasing them, performing like pimple-faced dorks, singled out one girl for a time to apply affections and receive kisses in return was standard procedure and protocol for a cool teen male of any consequence.
Unfortunately, such behaviour on my part proved totally inadequate. A good thing really, as I still had little idea of why there was a need for another gender.
During those teen years I discovered there were some of my mates who had no interest in girls. So much so that chose to group together and only show interest in each other. There were times when I thought this might be a safer, at least more productive, option but I was warned against such a move. Apparently these boys were considered ‘effeminate’, yet they seemed to have easy access to the very girls my mates perused.
Such is the obfuscation of teen life for a boy.
By the time my teens were coming to a close I was troubled with an infuriating infliction: my willy had become a full blown penis and was committed to embarrassing me at every moment. At the same time, possibly coincidentally or causal, I had been thrust into a situation where males where outnumbered by females at an alarming proportion; about 1 in 20. Strangely enough I nor my penis had absolutely no objection to this ratio. In fact I thrived on it, more so because the females took extraordinary notice of my presence and the once but no longer embarrassing demonstration of my manhood.
At this point of my life I finally understood the importance of gender and how it’s relevance could affect my well being. It seemed simple: look at females, find one that looked back, pay intimate attention to female’s needs, perform appropriate male duties, indulge in sexual intercourse, have children (male and/or female). This process, if indulged in by enough of my mates would ensure the continued of the human race.
I was happy to oblige.
Through adult life my actions seemed to be well accepted and acknowledges. I was ‘normal’. But I wondered about my mates who thought differently about girls and boys; the ones who seemed to be at the butt end of jokes and name calling. How was their life now?
It turned out they formed relationships as well; with those of the same gender. Now I know it wasn’t generally accepted in the current climate and it wasn’t going to result in the birth of children but they seemed not to be overly concerned with any of this. It seemed that their relationship with another male was as satisfying as mine was with my wife at the time, a demonstrable female if there ever was one.
I also discovered there was a female counterpart to what my mates referred to as ‘poofs’ but were now referred to a ‘gay’, a suitable title I thought since most seemed to imitate the flamboyant character of Quentin Chrisp, an animated and chipper persona as you would meet in a long march.
As Quentin once said: “Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.”
I’m not sure whether lesbians became more fashionable at the time or I just started to notice them once they had been pointed out. Previously known among friends as ‘butch’ women, I assumed they were just the more robust of the gender until I came across a couple of said women kissing on a late train out of Central Station on one Friday evening in July.
“What the fuck are you staring at?” called the more masculine of the couple, although she still maintained a distinct feminine charm that would not have gone unnoticed in a street full of builders labourers.
“Eh, nothing really. I was admiring the strength of your relationship with your friend. I find it quite heartening.”
Both women looked at me with surprise in their eyes and mouths agape.
“Thanks, mister,” the other woman added and they returned to their facial contact with gusto.
It seems a shame that such people as gays and lesbians have been isolated from mainstream society for so long. My thinking is that the isolation has been brought about by mistrust, ignorance, religious persecution, stereotyping, intolerance to differences and a lack of experience with such people. Even the idea that they are ‘such people’ places them outside the general perception of what is normal behaviour.
I recall those at school who were just like me; finding their way in a very confusing world yet going with what felt right for them and mixing with those who had common interests.
But like all good wagons, there’s nothing like a band on board to draw the attention of fringe dwellers. Those who could not find a place within the current categorisation of humans in the general population began to ‘come out’ as they called it. There was a need for these people to present themselves in the face of current acceptance of the Lesbian and Gay community.
There were those who could go either way, both ways, or no way at all. There were those who just took their preferences day by day, even hour by hour, those who had no choice from birth and those that were specifically gender different through a mishmash in the fertilisation process. Then there were those who simply liked to play the part.
Although these variations seem, on the surface, to be superficial, strange and unacceptable to many, they do exist. Their origin may be genetic, physiological or psychological. But so is my gender.
I should point out at this point that gender and sexual preference are not the same.
I know know enough to clearly state that my sex is male. I have XY as my 45th and 46th chromosome. My gender preference is to be male. My sexual partnerships preference is with females. I don’t expect everyone to know that. It’s important that I know it.
But I remain confused, much like I was when I was a teen. I don’t understand a great deal about the new perspectives on gender. I can’t get my vocabulary around the possibilities of gender pronouns. I’m totally lost as to how I am supposed to tell one from the other.
Now I don’t fit. Then again, perhaps I never did. I felt out of place with my mates behaviour towards girls. I like the friendship of women more than I like the mate-ship of blokes. I have on a number of occasions been mistaken for a gay male, or at the least effeminate. But that’s just me being me.
Isn’t that the way we all act? We present to the world what we want others to see and understand. We are often judged by others based on their standards and beliefs, not our own. We also judge others poorly. We get it wrong often.
At the end of the day we can only take people for what they are. If they do us no harm we can fully accept them as we might with anyone else we meet.
My school mate, Ronny, once informed me he had punched a bloke in the nose because the bloke had made a pass at him.
Some years later, while shopping for breakfast cereal in a local supermarket I was approached by a pleasant young man who wondered if I might come home with him to share his breakfast. I declined but thanked him for the offer. I was flattered that he would ask.
I certainly hope times have changed and we can value the difference all humans contribute to our societies.
