I have always been somewhat girlie, however, that changed during junior high school and I started moving more away from the matching skirt and sweater sets that my great-aunt would buy me for Christmas and more towards ripped jeans and Vans sneakers.
As a preteen, my idols became rock stars, both living and dead: Kurt Cobain, Billy Corgan, Kim Gordon, Courtney Love, and Kat Bjelland. Read that list again. A majority of the people listed are women. Although they presented themselves as feminine women, there was a hint of irony to this performance. Kim Gordon came across as a no-nonsense badass bass player that just happened to wear lipstick and bleach her hair. She wore shirts with emblazoned slogans on them like, “Eat Me” with her mini-skirts. She wasn’t some willowy little girl singer, she had power in spite of her femininity. Other musicians like Courtney Love or Kat Bjelland went so over-the-top with their appearances that it reached the level of parody. They wore short baby doll dresses with ripped tights and tiaras. Instead of singing sweetly into the microphone, they shredded with their screams and guitar riffs.
Seeing this growing up, flipped a switch in me and I once said, “The only way you’ll get me into a dress is if I was holding a guitar.” Much like the second-wave femininists that Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards cite in their article, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Thong,” my 13-year-old self equated femininity with wimpyness. There had to be an indicator of my non-wimpyness in the form of an electric guitar, something loud and forceful.
However, I did not attempt to try this theory out. After guitar lessons with a varying amount of success, I still wore my uniform of too-large polo shirts, long, unkempt hair, and ripped jeans. Between 10th and 11th grade, however, I discovered riot grrrl. The riot grrrl movement was feminism specifically for girls like me. A bunch of cool young women proudly called themselves girls and started their own bands and zines. They also looked cool, although the subculture consisted mainly of white girls, I saw a lot more diversity in terms of how they talked about society and the restraints placed on all girls: middle class white girls as well as queer girls or poor girls or girls of color. These girls weren’t polite, they didn’t conform and they wore whatever they wanted: t-shirts, jeans, homemade dresses or skirts, thrift-store finds, plastic jewelry, sneakers or pumps. It was like this modge-podge free-for-all that I had never been aware of existing for girls. Like a game of dress-up, I could try on different outfits and see if they fit me.
After this revelation, I started wearing make-up in 11th grade, at the age of sixteen. It felt really empowering to lacquer my lips with bright red tints, wear tights, mini-skirts, ripped cardigans, and sneakers. My best friend and I bought vintage prom dresses and took each other to the prom, in lieu of male companions.
This brought about a confusing time in my life. I never fell in love with my best friend but I felt like companionship with a close female friend was the most intimate relationship that I needed. I had crushes on male classmates but I felt more comfortable around my female friends. Looking back, I recall becoming enamored with some friends more than others and wondering why that was. When I was 16 and 17, I started meeting new people, in real life and online, who called themselves “lesbian” or “queer” and I started to understand that perhaps I was not straight. However, a strange thing happened and as I questioned my sexuality more and more, I took on more feminine traits. Wearing jeans became a thing of the past as I sought out pleated skirts, mary jane shoes, or vintage coats with faux-fur collars. My femininity grew in scale proportional to my recognition of my queer identity.
