Gender is topic of conversations lately and I was given a chance to give opinion as to how I feel about my own gender.

I never thought so much about gender as I have this year. I have always considered my gender as a girl, often labeling myself a tomboy (or boi). Society seems to want to label me differently than what I was born as. I am often confused for a boy…probably because my hair is short, I wear men’s clothes, my back pocket carries my wallet, and there is nothing female about me except what lies underneath my clothes. It is not my intentions to be called male, and it is not my intention to act like a female, the girly kind.

It was not my intention to be born gay either, but it happened and it is something that I must live with. There is no turning me into something I am not. Many are born female but have the need to become a male as well a birthed boy wanting to be a girl. This is where today I am looking at my own gender and wonder if I should be a boy, what joy to be able to stand and pee where I please and to run around without a shirt on. But then I think, well if those are the only things that I would enjoy about being a male, then I might as well just get used to the confinement of a bra and being careful not to get poison ivy on my ass when I squat to pee.

In the early years of my girlhood, my mother put me in dresses and I admit I was a cute little girl, but eventually the dresses were taken over by jeans and t-shirts, shorts and tanks, and getting more dirty and rough around the edges, as I was turning into a tomboy. I was becoming less of the girl my Mother had and more like the boy my Father was having to help out in the garage.

Was it about gender then? Did it matter if I were a boy or a girl getting grease under my nails helping my Dad in the garage? This wasn’t something I was learning about in school, there wasn’t anything I heard about on the television or read in the newspapers, but inside me, in my classroom of life, I was changing more and more. I was imagining deeply what it would be like to have sex with a girl, but confused at the same time because I didn’t have the necessary parts to do that with a girl. Took a few test tries to figure out that I didn’t need what a boy had to provide pleasure…so I stopped wishing that I wanted to be a boy.

I do think like a male and still dress like one, but my gender that is indicated between my legs keeps me grounded. I am often called a boy by people who judge me for how I wear myself and I find it OK that I am called a Sir or Dude…it is completely OK and the look on their faces when I turn around and they see I am a she…it is priceless to see their red faces. Their apologies consistent with the internal giggles and outward smiles…

I applaud the many people who identify with their gender as something beyond the normalcy of male or female. I hurt when I hear of someone taking their lives because a parent or a bully can’t adjust to what is beyond normal…why do we have to be the same as everyone else?

I will be 50 next year and I have seen a lot in those years, I have seen where I came from to where I am now, to everything beautiful and ugly, loved and hated, to being able to marry the one I love to being criticized for that same love, in between. I hope that someday in my lifetime, gender will no longer be an issue and we all can live our lives the way it was intended not by society standards.