Last night, me, my partner Raquel and daughter Luca were doing what we often do on a summer evening: sitting on the front steps and watching the world go by. As we sat there, drawing fairy princesses with sidewalk chalk, a neighbor (hi Leigh) stopped by with a gift for Luca. It was one of those plastic microphones that, through the magic of springs and spacing, turns your normal voice into a tinny projection without the use of electricity. Luca was enthralled. And she got up, walked over to our small square patch of grass - about the size of a stage - turned around to face the street and started to sing. "Look mama and mae," she said, "we can be drag queens."
And so there, on a fairly busy street fronting a public park, we shook and shimeyed and sang old favorites while giving each other dollar bill strands of grass. And we said thank you, and when we were holding a bucket because the money had turned from grass into pieces of sidewalk chalk, we mouthed our lyrics and then held out our buckets saying, "come on baby, fill it up" and "thank you, baby." And the audience rose to their feet.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Monday, June 26, 2006
Reflections of Pride
It doesn't matter how annoyed I get by the constant corporate barrage of product placement or how tired I am of the endless train of churches and campaigning politicians: I adore the Pride festival in June. It gives me the same kind of shiver that walking into a gay bar in an unknown city gives me. There are queer people here, lots of queer people I don't know, people to flirt with, people to talk with, people to just be in the same space among.
The Twin Cities Pride Festival is the fourth largest in the country. Kind of amazing considering we are way down the list on city size, but I guess we just love our queers. I was starting to get a little stale on Pride - see previous paragraph regarding more corporate and less cock-sure - but then I had Luca. Little child might be straight, queer or indifferent, but I want her raised in this. I want this to be normal for her. And it is. Like her buddy, Miguel, Luca cites the calendar by the holidays with Pride falling between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July/Miguel's birthday.
This is the first year where she really got it. Meaning, where Pride was more than following her family around, eating bad food and scooting in a short-term memory way from one stimulus to the next. This year, she made her demands. "Mama and mae," she said, "when we go to Pride every year, it's ok to march in the parade and to see our friend's sing, but really, what I want to do every day all day and not leave, is watch the drag queens." That's right, you couldn't drag Luca away from the drag queens. Big and busty, thin and sultry, old, young, Mama Cass, Judy Garland, Eartha Kitt, Christina Aguilera and Madonna: Luca was enthralled. We stopped by the Stonewall Stage a.k.a Drag Central each day and sat there long enough for my butt to get sore. And Luca watched. And didn't smile if friends came up to say hello. And she craned around the bodies of those rude people in front of us who would get up off the grass to, oh, I don't know, go pee or something. It took her awhile but then she realized that folks were going up there, getting in line, holding dollar bills out to the queens and then getting kisses and hugs. It was open-the-purses time and Luca, usually kind of shy about standing up in front of folks, was down there with her dollar bills and dewy eyes. Twice. It would have been more if we had more single bills. I love that Luca loves drag. I don't care if she is learning her feminine ways from drag queens or if she is learning about the kind of femininity that she is going to hunger for in other people: I love that she loves drag.
Saturday night I went out to dance. I, of course, freaked out when my fabulous and glamorous friends came to pick me up because there I was, in shorts and sloppied on the couch watching a movie with Rocki and our housemate, Kelly. After a cheerleading session, I went out, feeling not as hot as I used to but hotter than I often do these days. You know what's a pain in the ass? When you have been dancing the bump and grind for a whole bunch of hours with women you know, women you don't know, you are feeling so good and so fine and yes, she was packing and it was fun to rub right up there, and then you run into someone who asks first thing, "How's your baby daughter Luca?" and then proceeds to just mama you to death. I want to scream in those moments - I am happy being a mama, I love being a mama, right now I am NOT a mama, thank you very much please.
Next year, I am going dancing every night and I will flounce away should someone start mama-ing me rather than ask me to dance. Happy Pride.
The Twin Cities Pride Festival is the fourth largest in the country. Kind of amazing considering we are way down the list on city size, but I guess we just love our queers. I was starting to get a little stale on Pride - see previous paragraph regarding more corporate and less cock-sure - but then I had Luca. Little child might be straight, queer or indifferent, but I want her raised in this. I want this to be normal for her. And it is. Like her buddy, Miguel, Luca cites the calendar by the holidays with Pride falling between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July/Miguel's birthday.
This is the first year where she really got it. Meaning, where Pride was more than following her family around, eating bad food and scooting in a short-term memory way from one stimulus to the next. This year, she made her demands. "Mama and mae," she said, "when we go to Pride every year, it's ok to march in the parade and to see our friend's sing, but really, what I want to do every day all day and not leave, is watch the drag queens." That's right, you couldn't drag Luca away from the drag queens. Big and busty, thin and sultry, old, young, Mama Cass, Judy Garland, Eartha Kitt, Christina Aguilera and Madonna: Luca was enthralled. We stopped by the Stonewall Stage a.k.a Drag Central each day and sat there long enough for my butt to get sore. And Luca watched. And didn't smile if friends came up to say hello. And she craned around the bodies of those rude people in front of us who would get up off the grass to, oh, I don't know, go pee or something. It took her awhile but then she realized that folks were going up there, getting in line, holding dollar bills out to the queens and then getting kisses and hugs. It was open-the-purses time and Luca, usually kind of shy about standing up in front of folks, was down there with her dollar bills and dewy eyes. Twice. It would have been more if we had more single bills. I love that Luca loves drag. I don't care if she is learning her feminine ways from drag queens or if she is learning about the kind of femininity that she is going to hunger for in other people: I love that she loves drag.
Saturday night I went out to dance. I, of course, freaked out when my fabulous and glamorous friends came to pick me up because there I was, in shorts and sloppied on the couch watching a movie with Rocki and our housemate, Kelly. After a cheerleading session, I went out, feeling not as hot as I used to but hotter than I often do these days. You know what's a pain in the ass? When you have been dancing the bump and grind for a whole bunch of hours with women you know, women you don't know, you are feeling so good and so fine and yes, she was packing and it was fun to rub right up there, and then you run into someone who asks first thing, "How's your baby daughter Luca?" and then proceeds to just mama you to death. I want to scream in those moments - I am happy being a mama, I love being a mama, right now I am NOT a mama, thank you very much please.
Next year, I am going dancing every night and I will flounce away should someone start mama-ing me rather than ask me to dance. Happy Pride.
Monday, June 19, 2006
World Cup
I'm lucky that I partnered with a Brazilian. It's not just the fact that visiting family means visiting Rio. It's also all about the World Cup. At World Cup time, it pays to be on the Brazilian edge of things.
Yesterday, after Brazil beat Australia 2-0, I was walking to a nearby market to pick up some groceries. Still with my Brazil t-shirt on, I didn't think much about what it meant until a man stopped me. "Brazil! They won today! Are you from Brazil?" I explained my family connection and he smiled, "I am from Mexico. Brazil makes every Latin American proud to be a Latin American. They are the best." And he kept walking. I got to the market and a woman stopped me, in full chador. "Brazil 2-0, they're going to win the World Cup! Someday Africa will be strong, too, but there are so many Africans who live in Brazil, I vote for Brazil!" I bought my salad greens, cucumber, bread and fruit and headed for home. Outside of a church a few blocks from my house, a Nigerian family in full dress clothing were heading for a van. "Are you from Brazil?" they asked. Again, I explained my family connection to this Nigerian family in front of a Christian church. My lesbian family connection. "Oh, that's good. You are lucky to have family in Brazil." And then one of the men proceeded to break down the morning's game with me, going over every goal two and three times. "Brazilian soccer players are the best. They never stop, the whole game, they keep running. Everyone else stops. They are like dancers."
It's a good time of year to be married to a Brazilian.
Yesterday, after Brazil beat Australia 2-0, I was walking to a nearby market to pick up some groceries. Still with my Brazil t-shirt on, I didn't think much about what it meant until a man stopped me. "Brazil! They won today! Are you from Brazil?" I explained my family connection and he smiled, "I am from Mexico. Brazil makes every Latin American proud to be a Latin American. They are the best." And he kept walking. I got to the market and a woman stopped me, in full chador. "Brazil 2-0, they're going to win the World Cup! Someday Africa will be strong, too, but there are so many Africans who live in Brazil, I vote for Brazil!" I bought my salad greens, cucumber, bread and fruit and headed for home. Outside of a church a few blocks from my house, a Nigerian family in full dress clothing were heading for a van. "Are you from Brazil?" they asked. Again, I explained my family connection to this Nigerian family in front of a Christian church. My lesbian family connection. "Oh, that's good. You are lucky to have family in Brazil." And then one of the men proceeded to break down the morning's game with me, going over every goal two and three times. "Brazilian soccer players are the best. They never stop, the whole game, they keep running. Everyone else stops. They are like dancers."
It's a good time of year to be married to a Brazilian.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Gender again
When we had a daughter, my partner and I both had this small hope that our daughter would grow up butch. You see, my partner, Raquel, is butch. Our housemate, Kelly, is butch. We have many friends who are masculine women, transgendered men, or just plain boyish in some way. Almost all of them share the experience of being forced to be girly-girly as children, hating their dresses, their long hair, the ribbons and the bows. How cool would it be, we thought, to have a girl who grows up some form of masculine! She would be surrounded by role models. There would never be a time when she didn't feel like she could define her own body and how she dressed and decorated that body. How liberating for all of us!
Well, our daughter Luca is not at the girliest end of the spectrum, but you couldn't call her butch or boyish or any of those gendered things. She veers between dresses and skirts and shorts with t-shirts, likes to play in the dirt, and is a scrappy everyday kind of kid who also greatly enjoys being a girl. At 2 she was insistent on getting a mohawk and so had one for two summers in a row. She loves all things Harley Davidson - a gift from both Raquel and Kelly - and thinks jeans are awesome. Again, she is a specific kind of girl who breezes from pink princess to jeans and a headscarf with a Harley shirt.
She's been at a summer camp this past week through the Y. It's been a lovely summer camp full of rock climbing, canoeing, and walks in the woods. It's also full of fierce gender separation: girls eat at one side of the campground, boys eat at the other side. Girls play with girls. Boys play with boys.
It's not that Luca has never experienced this kind of gender strictness. There was some girl-boy separating happening while Luca was in school in Brazil - but the kids all wore gender-neutral uniforms and didn't seem to talk about the whole thing as much as here. Luca - with short hair and often no girl gender markers of pink hair clips or bows - is almost always seen as a boy. Even, sometimes, when she is wearing a skirt. Short hair seems to be the strongest marker when people are reading children. Anyhow, going to summercamp has been a rapid and intense introduction to this whole gender game at a far more serious level.
This morning at breakfast, she told us that a lot of the girls won't play with her because they think she's a boy. And the boys won't play with her because they think she's a girl. "There's one girl, Josephine, she plays with me and she knows I'm a girl. She thinks the other girls are sillly but she won't play with boys either."
Yesterday, Vikki who is the mother of Miguel who is one of Luca's friends and also at the summer camp, reported a conversation she had overheard between the two children. Somehow the subject of boys and girls came up. Miguel told Luca that at camp that day, some of the girls had been laughing at him and teasing him because he was a boy and they didn't want to play with him. 'And you were laughing, too, Luca, and that made me feel sad." Miguel told her. Vikki said it was impressive to listen as they processed this event: "But you're my friend and I know you so I know that you're a good person and that I like you. I think they laugh at the boys they don't know." Luca responded with some version of these words. "But it still makes me feel sad that you were laughing and that boys can't play with girls." said Miguel. What followed, said Vikki, was a general agreement conversation about how silly it was that boys and girls don't play together with Luca acknowledging that what she had done had hurt Miguel's feelings.
Now I was a fairly girly girl growing up. Not as pink as most, but certainly more interested in playing with dolls than with balls, certainly flouncy in my dresses. There is nothing wrong with being girly for anyone. In fact, as I keep telling some of my other lesbian friends with a very girly daughter, what a great opportunity to radicalize femininity. Flouncy pink dresses and a keen eye, dirty knees on top of shiny black shoes, the ability to be direct, empowered, vocal and self aware while dressed up in lace or beads or fairy wings.
It's a maze moving through this gender insanity and I feel like adults owe every child an apology for putting them through this gauntlet. Already these little bodies are drawing lines in the sand to determine who fits in and who doesn't. We are raising Luca to refuse to believe in those lines and to have the strength and assurance to challenge them wherever they appear, even if that means sometimes not fitting in. But this morning, as Luca told her story about the girls not playing with her during these four days of wearing shorts and t-shirts, we also saw that sometimes, it's ok to just plain make it simple. My awesome butch lover who really prefers that dresses and skirts not be the primary clothing and not be things that Luca defines as the badge of being a girl, went against a decision we had already made - the no dresses or skirts at summer camp because flouncy skirts seem silly while you're rock climbing rool. Hey Luca, said Rocki, do you want to wear one of your skorts or skirts today to camp? And then she went upstairs with Luca to choose it. And Luca came downstairs, happy as a clam in one of her more diaphonous numbers. And it was fine. And it means nothing. And it means a lot.
Well, our daughter Luca is not at the girliest end of the spectrum, but you couldn't call her butch or boyish or any of those gendered things. She veers between dresses and skirts and shorts with t-shirts, likes to play in the dirt, and is a scrappy everyday kind of kid who also greatly enjoys being a girl. At 2 she was insistent on getting a mohawk and so had one for two summers in a row. She loves all things Harley Davidson - a gift from both Raquel and Kelly - and thinks jeans are awesome. Again, she is a specific kind of girl who breezes from pink princess to jeans and a headscarf with a Harley shirt.
She's been at a summer camp this past week through the Y. It's been a lovely summer camp full of rock climbing, canoeing, and walks in the woods. It's also full of fierce gender separation: girls eat at one side of the campground, boys eat at the other side. Girls play with girls. Boys play with boys.
It's not that Luca has never experienced this kind of gender strictness. There was some girl-boy separating happening while Luca was in school in Brazil - but the kids all wore gender-neutral uniforms and didn't seem to talk about the whole thing as much as here. Luca - with short hair and often no girl gender markers of pink hair clips or bows - is almost always seen as a boy. Even, sometimes, when she is wearing a skirt. Short hair seems to be the strongest marker when people are reading children. Anyhow, going to summercamp has been a rapid and intense introduction to this whole gender game at a far more serious level.
This morning at breakfast, she told us that a lot of the girls won't play with her because they think she's a boy. And the boys won't play with her because they think she's a girl. "There's one girl, Josephine, she plays with me and she knows I'm a girl. She thinks the other girls are sillly but she won't play with boys either."
Yesterday, Vikki who is the mother of Miguel who is one of Luca's friends and also at the summer camp, reported a conversation she had overheard between the two children. Somehow the subject of boys and girls came up. Miguel told Luca that at camp that day, some of the girls had been laughing at him and teasing him because he was a boy and they didn't want to play with him. 'And you were laughing, too, Luca, and that made me feel sad." Miguel told her. Vikki said it was impressive to listen as they processed this event: "But you're my friend and I know you so I know that you're a good person and that I like you. I think they laugh at the boys they don't know." Luca responded with some version of these words. "But it still makes me feel sad that you were laughing and that boys can't play with girls." said Miguel. What followed, said Vikki, was a general agreement conversation about how silly it was that boys and girls don't play together with Luca acknowledging that what she had done had hurt Miguel's feelings.
Now I was a fairly girly girl growing up. Not as pink as most, but certainly more interested in playing with dolls than with balls, certainly flouncy in my dresses. There is nothing wrong with being girly for anyone. In fact, as I keep telling some of my other lesbian friends with a very girly daughter, what a great opportunity to radicalize femininity. Flouncy pink dresses and a keen eye, dirty knees on top of shiny black shoes, the ability to be direct, empowered, vocal and self aware while dressed up in lace or beads or fairy wings.
It's a maze moving through this gender insanity and I feel like adults owe every child an apology for putting them through this gauntlet. Already these little bodies are drawing lines in the sand to determine who fits in and who doesn't. We are raising Luca to refuse to believe in those lines and to have the strength and assurance to challenge them wherever they appear, even if that means sometimes not fitting in. But this morning, as Luca told her story about the girls not playing with her during these four days of wearing shorts and t-shirts, we also saw that sometimes, it's ok to just plain make it simple. My awesome butch lover who really prefers that dresses and skirts not be the primary clothing and not be things that Luca defines as the badge of being a girl, went against a decision we had already made - the no dresses or skirts at summer camp because flouncy skirts seem silly while you're rock climbing rool. Hey Luca, said Rocki, do you want to wear one of your skorts or skirts today to camp? And then she went upstairs with Luca to choose it. And Luca came downstairs, happy as a clam in one of her more diaphonous numbers. And it was fine. And it means nothing. And it means a lot.
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