The Social Position of Tomboys

I don’t know that every tomboy ends up deciding to be a guy, I think it always varies. Some do get all girly, but not all of them. I think there’s an idea that if you feminize a tomboy you can neutralize what that person learned when playing with the boys, but it’s not true, because then they just go on and teach the girls how to play like the boys. It is so tricky, you can’t ever contain that. And some tomboys I grew up with are women now, so you never know. I think the key is tomboys will choose a position of power based on what they learn from their lives. Not always though, some totally choose a non-powerful role, but even then it has a reason.

The two boys I grew up with treated me like two spirited children would have been treated in the old days. As in, they told stories to me about their lives. And we did rituals. And they basically played charades waiting to see if I could guess what happened to them, because they could not say it. I played all kinds of weird boy games trying to figure out what the hell they were on about. I walked around and around in a circle with a broom and a tea towel for four hours repeatedly trying to learn Luke’s story. And it was an interesting story, in the symbolic form. I totally got it. And the funny thing is they were sure I was a girl, because no one ever taught them about two spirited kids. So I was unfortunately their model for ALL women. And I was bad! If they punched me I punched them right back, I didn’t take their shit. But it was so hard for them to clue in to the fact that they were just playing with another boy. I think if they were playing with another boy they wouldn’t have tried to explain so much in so many bizarre ways. On the other hand, if they knew I was a boy maybe they wouldn’t have been such bad boyfriends! But you know, a lot of men base their future relationships on the tomboys they played with as kids, which is why they are so weird. Because women get two spirited friends too and they abandon them later on in life, which means they miss out on part of what they are supposed to know. It’s a bad tactical error, because transwomen know some intense stuff!

But the fail safe device is ALWAYS tomboys, because tomboys can insinuate themselves in male society from day one, practically. And tomboys with other tomboys confuse the heck out of each other because that’s when the other genders start showing up that don’t equate. That’s when gender starts falling apart. I mean, crap, Heather takes 911 calls for a living! That takes balls man, I just sold leftist memberships on the phone.

I like talking to guys actually, the ones who don’t have that gender barrier up, because they can talk intelligently to women too, if they learn how.

Anyway, when Luke went to the bin I finally found out what they were trying to tell me. And that was intense. Basically there was no more gender differences as soon as they showed up, but that kind of gender indifference was so horrifying that they didn’t know how to relate to the girly feelings guys usually have. They had split brains, one side to deal with this horrible thing that happened to them and the other side that was all nice happy things. And I’m finally realizing that a lot of those guys I grew up with, they don’t remember ANY of the happy things we did. Some of the things we did weren’t happy, if you look at it in a girl way, but in a boy way they did have the total guy childhood in a decent way. They just don’t remember the good boyhood they had because they don’t know where to place me in it. Because I would put on lipstick to freak them out! I went all contrary, because I had to, I had to figure out if girls were having just as much horrible shit happen. And they were! And girls didn’t know how to talk to guys either because suddenly they got all the hate and angry feelings, and they didn’t know that guys were putting their girl feelings in stasis until someone could mediate.

I can’t believe I’m mediating, I feel kind of silly. But I watched Luke go crazy and Steven turn into an alcoholic and I was like “Fuck, what happens to guys when they grow up? How come they turn into instant asshole? I don’t want to do that!” And I didn’t, so I became the tranny Peter Pan and put off transitioning until I could figure out what happens to these girls that guys are mean too.