A Butch Lesbian Reflects On Her Journey To Love

So we were just talking about your childhood and, and your experience when you were 5 and how much you loved to play baseball. And you had been waiting 2 years.

Yeah.

To get to, you know, like from age 3 to 5 to get to play baseball.

Yeah. And I don't remember the exact ages of this. But I know that I was waiting and I was going to the baseball field and watching other people play and I was just waiting for my turn, you know. And I was like, I remember my friends were all, you know, boys at the time and we were all talking about it like, next year we'll be able to play baseball. Well, T-ball. Next year we'll be playing T-ball. Next year we'll be playing T-ball. And then— It came time to sign up, and my parents took me down there to sign me up, and they were like, she can't play baseball. She's a girl. We don't accept girls. I grew up in Virginia, and it was just shocking to me. Shocking. And so my parents tried really hard to get me signed up, but it was impossible. And so they signed me up for soccer instead, a sport of which I'd never heard of. More seen, more cared about.

And you loved baseball, and you didn't get to play baseball.

And I loved baseball, and I still am angry at baseball for this, and I'll never recover. And I do love soccer now, and, you know, I watch international soccer more. I don't care about baseball because that just reminds me of what, of what I went through.

It soured you.

It soured me.

On baseball.

Yeah.

And that was just one of so many experiences.

Yeah, I feel like over and over and over again, the clothes I wanted to wear, the way I wanted to sit, the way I wanted to be, it was just never allowed. And it was always pointed out, well, it's because you're not a boy. You know, so I think that it would be very difficult to grow up in this environment without wanting to be a boy. It would just be, you know, very difficult because every time I wanted something, I was told, you can't have that unless you were a boy. Now, if you were a boy, you could have that.

Mm-hmm.

But you're a girl. You can't have that. So of course I would want to be a boy.

Of course.

I mean, that's the way I look at it.

Yeah, right, right. And then I imagine that you were basically told the same thing around relationships with girls.

Yeah, I definitely—

Like you couldn't have that.

Liked girls really young, and, you know, I didn't think anything sexual because I was just a child, but I just romantically knew I liked girls. And I knew that— I knew that— and girls liked me, frankly.

Of course they did.

I even had a girlfriend in kindergarten. She thought I was a boy because my parents would let me wear— my parents were really cool and they let me wear boys' clothes and let me get a haircut at the barbershop. So a lot of people did think I was a boy, even though I told them I was a girl.

They didn't believe you.

They did not believe me. And there were lots of girls who, that they just thought I was a boy, and if I said I was a girl, they were like, why are you kidding around? They thought I was joking. And I did have kind of a jokester personality, so it wasn't crazy that I would probably say— it was kind of within character to be like that, to be like crazy, like, I'm a girl! And they're like, obviously you're not a girl. So people didn't believe me. So I did pass as a boy a lot. And I did have a girlfriend, but I had really bad nightmares because I was like, God, I got to really tell her that I'm a girl because she doesn't believe me. And it's a really big deal because her family was really Christian and I was walking her home from like the bus stop and carrying her books home. How old were you? Kindergarten. Oh, and, um, or maybe like first grade or something.

But you sort of knew the relationship was based on this false premise?

Yeah, like, yeah. Now what exact age was I? Probably kindergarten, first grade, very young. It wasn't— it was just ridiculous. Like, girl, You know, girlfriend. And, um, I just remember we got off the bus, I would walk, and you know there were 2 ways that people carried books: the girl way. Do you remember this?

No.

Girls hold their books like, like one way, and boys held their books a different way. And I held my books the boys' way.

Of course you did.

So of course I was a boy, right? I don't know. So anyway, I carried her books the boys' way, and Mm-hmm. To her house. And her parents loved me and she loved me, you know, or liked me or whatever. Nothing ever happened, no kisses on cheek or anything like that, but just walked her home from the bus, carry her books, you know, goodbye. That was it, you know. But, and she lived like right on the same block, so it was really no big deal. And I'm sure that parents saw this because, I mean, I'm sure we weren't— anyway, I I felt really guilty, had nightmares. So I did tell her, and she didn't believe me. And it was just a drama. But yeah, I knew that it was not. So yes, that was another big thing. Not— couldn't have, because I wasn't a boy.

Yeah. Yeah, you were telling me earlier about your grandmother basically saying, like, that you weren't You weren't going to get to have love and marriage.

Yeah, she said, you know, the way your parents are raising you, you know, I disagree with it, she said. Um, they're not doing you any favors, basically, you know, like letting me wear boys' clothes, letting me have boys' haircut, letting me wear baseball hats everywhere. Um, she's like, This isn't gonna work out for you. You know, like, she did recognize, she's like, they're all— she did tell me that there were alternatives, you know, to marriage. That you could be like— You could have a career instead. An adventurer, you know, you could be an adventurer. You could be like someone who— she said you could be famous. I think she just had, she had a list of famous women.

Uh-huh.

And she said a lot of these women weren't married and that, you know, you could do something like that. Like have a big life, but you know, you wouldn't have love or a marriage or children or any of that. And I, you know, I didn't want children, so that was fine. But I was like, I don't know, Grandma, about love. But I knew that I didn't want to marry any boys, so that was like kind of okay with me. But it did leave me with a big question mark.

Mm-hmm.

Like, how is that gonna work out?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I did believe her.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, I'm so glad that that is not true.

Yeah.

And that she was wrong.

She'd probably be happy about that too. Although she'd worry about us in the afterlife.