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In retrospect, it seems odd that a tomboy should have been chicago newspaper so removed from her body. But instead of a daily, muddy, physical celebration of life, my tomboyhood was marked by a reckless disregard for the body and a strong desire to be annihilated. So chicago newspaper I reached adolescence with no physical sense of self, and no desire to make that connection. All around me, my peers and chicago newspaper former playmates were dating, fooling around, giving and getting hickeys, while I, whose puberty came in pill form, watched aghast from the sidelines. What was I? The doctors and surgeons assured me I was a girl, that I just wasn't yet "finished." I don't think they gave a thought to what that statement would mean to me and my developing gender identity, my developing sense of self. The doctors who told me I was an "unfinished girl" were so focused on the lie -- so invested in selling me "girl" -- that I doubt they ever considered the effect a word like "unfinished" would have on me.
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