The Men's Section

 

My Aunt is funny.  The other day we talked about the time my mother wanted me to spend a summer in Illinois so I could go to charm school.  My defiance to be a girl or “that girl,” and how upset the notion made me (I think I really produced tears) kept me from Illinois that summer and any other summer. In retrospect, I should have taken her up on the offer.  It would have given me some much needed breathing room from everything that was going on during that time.

It was liberating telling my Aunt that I was gay.  I made some kind of weird analogy that included Richard Simmons, a zebra and Snow White, which at the time confused the shit out of her.  But because she is my mother’s sister and we, at the time, were just getting close, I naturally expected the worst.  She didn’t have a problem with it at all, in a way I’m sure there was some relief.  She confided, that she thought that my withdrawal and discomfort with trying on women’s clothes was because I was, “tall, awkward and had that skin disease.”  I laughed so hard, I think I dropped the phone.  Granted, I was tall, awkward and I did have eczema, but I thought makeup made me look foolish and fitted clothes? Ugh.  After our conversation about Richard Simmons and Snow White,  she never took me back the women’s section of any store.

When I look back on my pre-coming out wardrobe, I laugh.  Sagging mom jeans in a blouse with cloth buttons was NOT the business.  The mere fact that I just typed “blouse” kind of made me blush.  But I had no sense of fashion back then, because although I wanted to look like my male friends, my mother would not dare let me shop the men’s section at any store, so I had to work with what I had access to.  It was a great joy when  finally, I wasn’t self conscious about shopping the men’s section, and I wasn’t using the excuse that I only buy men’s shoes because women’s shoes don’t carry my size.

Of course, at 33, I don’t make any of those excuses.  I like how I dress and I have complete control over what I wear. And  at 5’11, with most of my school girl looks behind me, I still have to answer the inquiry of my little cousin every damn Christmas, “Are you a girl or a boy?” My answer: “It depends on the day.”