COLAGE Summer 04

A PUBLICATION OF COLAGE (CHILDREN OF LESBIANS AND GAYS EVERYWHERE) 2 JUST FOR US # FOCUS ON GENDER Vol.2004 16 BY & FOR PEOPLE WITH LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER PARENTS BEING ONLY MYSELF ADULT SONS OF GAY FATHERS by Dakota Fine SPEAK ABOUT GENDER Orson A. Morrison, Psy.D. just think it must have been so diffi- “I t the age of “…I think we’re very similar around being nurturers cult,” she said. “What’s 3, my moth- … my dad was definitely a nurturer and he cooked that?” I respond, fully A er and father for me almost every night growing up, from clued into that which she divorced related to scratch. ….he would always hold my hand when I is referring, despite my my father’s com- was a kid when we were talking….a lot of physical feigned incomprehension. ing out as gay. contact ….It was this very active love and I “You know… growing up Although separat- definitely feel like I learned a lot about how to do without a father figure and all, I just think it must ed, both my moth- the really practical parts of love from my dad…” have been hard for you as a boy without a man to er and father Other sons talked about the differences relate to.” played significant roles in raising me. I often won- dered about the impact this family situation had on between themselves and their fathers: Elyse is my first cousin once removed, who lives in my own developing masculinity and sexual identity. “…I don’t know if there are many similarities. I can a cramped apartment on the upper west side of Now a psychologist, I had the amazing opportunity to be a little bit passive and reticent like my father, New York City. My cousin is divorced and has two study and interview other adult sons with gay dads in but I have much better communicative skills, and children, Jake and Lexie, 12 and 10 years old, hopes of illuminating our often unheard and misun- can talk better than my father. We have different respectively. They live with their cats and clutter, derstood life stories. My goal was to really get to tastes. I don’t like jewelry…. My father wears making do with what I affectionately refer to as know the subtleties and complexities that often get different types of clothes; it’s masculine wear but their “corner kitchen” — a compressed nook in the lost in traditional experimental research. I deeply it’s not my style. In behavior, I don’t know if there living room/dining room miraculously endowed appreciate the honesty and willingness to share of the are much similarities in behavior.” with a sink, oven and refrigerator stowed into an men I interviewed. Here are some of the highlights: area about the size of a small shipping container. “…Well, it’s funny but in a way he is more typically Some men talked about the characteristics masculine than I am…You wouldn’t think he was gay “I guess it all depends on what you’re used to,” I say, they share in common with their fathers: continued on page 5 “isn’t it hard for you? I mean it can’t be easy raising two children as a single mother in New York City?” FEMALE TO MALE, NOT FEMINIST I think it was at this point that my cousin began to TO MISOGYNIST sense the irony of her assumptions. People, by Jesse Carr especially family, feel like somehow they have the ver the last few years my lesbian moms and I know what to do. right to pass judgment on my upbringing because it have gone through a difficult coming out process She dreamt that she was so untraditional. They don’t expect you to turn O together: in the fall of 2001 I came out to them as should keep her it around on them, and the conversation doesn’t transgender and one year later I started taking testos- child and that it feel quite so urbane when they catch it on the terone. Most people assume that since my parents are would be a girl. I am come around. lesbians, it was easy for them to understand and her first and only daughter- her little girl. It never Invariably though, as the male child of two lesbian accept my own ‘queer’ identity. On the contrary, my bothered my mom that I was a tomboy, or that people mothers, I am most frequently probed with regards lesbian moms probably took the news harder than any- often couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl; she didn’t to the lack of a father figure in my upbringing, as if one else in my life. Many lesbians have been slow to care that I came out as a dyke or that some of her the children of lesbians might deal with the accept transgender people in their communities, friends labeled me as a baby continued on page 12 predicament differently than other children. I organizations, or women’s spaces – MtF transfolk are wonder whether my cousin would have phrased treated as suspicious trespassers, while FtMs are herself differently if she had been talking to a child thought of as butches who sold out to their internal- whose father had passed away prior to birth? ized sexism. The lesbian community that I came of age INSIDE in rarely acknowledged or discussed the lives of trans SPECIAL FEATURES So what was it like for me growing up as someone people, and, as I found out, viewed the topic with some Family Week 9 of the male gender in a household where the amount of confusion, disgust, and anger. Highlighting Trans Families 4-6 overarching vibe was decidedly female? At times it Kids Club Contest 15 was challenging. My When my mom – an unmarried lesbian in her last year continued on page 3 of college – became pregnant with me, she didn’t LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR Welcome to the gender norms from our parents and face questions Move from the personal to the political and Gender Galaxy and criticism about our gender development. Some imagine…how would the world be different if you COLAGErs actively seek to transcend and offer weren’t told from birth how to act, what to buy or Dear Friends, alternatives to our current binary model of gender what interests to have based on your assigned One of the things I and thus challenge gender norms and restrictions. gender? What if doctors, and parents, teachers and have always For most of us, our gender is integral to our lives, bathroom door signs, clothing stores and toy valued about even if we’re not always thinking about it consciously stores didn’t tell us where we belong and how we COLAGE is our unique all the time. The prevailing “wisdom” wants us to have been labeled? creativity and expressions around gender. It’s not believe there are only two gender options, masculine I know I have found the theme personally relevant. uncommon for us to strut our stuff in drag at a and feminine, which are presumed to be totally As I’ve read the articles and submissions of my LGBT Family Dance, work in alliance with different and opposite from each other. When our fellow COLAGErs I’ve been reminded of many transgender folks and organizations, or enjoy parents, peers, or even we deviate from this binary gender-defining moments, such as the time when I gender-bending in our daily lives or on stage system the whole world can seem to be turned up- was 5 and got my ears pierced. I ran out of the through theater and drama. Attempting to capture side down. Since joining COLAGE I’ve learned several beauty parlor in pain from the first ear piercing just a fraction of this creative energy while different ways to think about, understand, and and didn’t want to return to get the left ear done. sparking fresh dialogue among COLAGErs, with our describe what gender means. My mom warned me, “If you go to school with only families, and in our broader communities we What I’ve decided is that a person’s gender is very one earring, you may be teased.” When I was 10, present this issue of Just For Us focused on the personal and fluid—it can change—and can be played soccer, had very short hair and wore Adidas topic of Gender. expressed in many different ways by a single sweat-suits, people thought I was a boy. I was This topic is crucial: person over their lifetime. It is also fluid from angry then. Why couldn’t people understand that girls could play soccer and have short hair too! • BECAUSE people are discriminated against based person to person – there are as many genders as there are people on this planet. My friend Dylan Today I like when people are confused by my on their gender presentation and COLAGE is gender presentation because they are forced to committed to ending all forms of discrimination; Vade thinks there’s a gender galaxy, which means there could be as many forms of gender as there get to know me beyond whatever idea they have • BECAUSE many political questions and decisions are stars and planets. Another friend of mine about my gender. that affect us and our families are based on thinks there shouldn’t be any genders. Hopefully the articles within this issue of Just For limited cultural and societal assumptions and Us will spark dialogue with yourself, and with your narrow understandings of gender; Conversations about gender often raise more and more questions as we explore both society’s and family, friends and community about the roles that • BECAUSE the experiences of youth and their our personal relationships to gender.

Load more