LOIN PRISON

Buying Rainbow Shoes Doesn’t Mean You’re Gay Or Straight

Letting go of gender obsession frees us all

Yesterday, my son and I went shoe shopping. He picked out some white Nikes and some rainbow crocs. My pea brain thought the white shoes looked like boy shoes and the rainbow ones looked like girl shoes.

I know! I’m fucked up, but I am trying to observe how crazy my gender observations are so I can heal — bear with me.

Had my son asked for brown or black expensive fleece lined crocs, I would have said no — too pricey. But because he picked rainbow ones, I thought what the hell? We can afford it.

I didn’t tell him that, but, I was glad my son felt free to buy rainbows. Back in my day, that was like overpaying to get your ass kicked.

We talk about gender a lot at home. Usually, it’s my son correcting me on which one of his friends is a they, a she, or a he. Or saying to me, What difference does it make, mom?

Recently, our discussions have turned to my explaining to him the constraints of his dads and my experience with gender when we grew up.

We were so limited, I told him. Everything was attached to gender. Our clothing, our personalities, our social gatherings.

Boy-girl parties were a thing. If you put boys and girls together in the same room, watch out! SEX! I think about that now and I’m like what the fuck? We assumed everyone was hetero. Two girls weren’t gonna get it on? Two boys had no sexual interest in one another?

I know what you’re thinking. Maybe our parents were trying to prevent pregnancy. But this gender segregation started with pre-menstrual-aged children.

Even now, I have friends who don’t want girls and boys at the same party. Knowing what we know now! Not everyone is straight. What the hell does straight mean? That gay people are crooked?

What I hated about only being a girl, I told my son, is that it was so limiting. I could feel the walls closing around me. Gender suffocated parts of my core identity. I hid my more male traits — competitiveness, opinions, and choosing who I was attracted to instead of waiting to see who picked me.

There were probably a thousand other masculine parts of myself I hid, but I’ll have to dig into that later. That’ll take some serious personal narrative spelunking. Maybe my son can explain it to me.

My gender limitations made me very angry at alpha boys. I knew they were getting away with things I wasn’t allowed to ask for. They were the kings of the hallways, secure in their dominance, and comfortable with cruelty to girls and boys — especially to boys expressing female characteristics and girls who took up too much space.

The biggest male slut in our school was considered a GOD. The biggest female slut in our school was considered a slut. Sorry if the word slut offends you. It offends me too.

The male whore was seen as gilded while we analyzed the female like she needed a diagnosis. The girl’s father died when she was young. She craved male attention. She got attention from men by giving away her body. She was, say it with me, DAMAGED! What the fuck?

I once told the male whore off. He was my friend and I told him he had problems, and that women were not there to feed his sexual needs. He was our very own Harvey Weinstein but cute, which made him even more dangerous. You couldn’t pass out or fall asleep at any of his parties because you’d wake up with his dick in your face.

He was a star! I saw him years later at a bar. We were talking and I noticed he had an obvious hard-on pressing against me. When had he moved that close to me? I wondered. How had I let him? He was still a predator. Of course, he was. He’d never been punished for his behavior, so why change?

Jesus, I said. What the fuck is wrong with you? He shrugged.

Every woman who had sex in high school was considered damaged, even if it was with him. But he walked the hallways like our very own Brad Pitt — without sin, without flaw, without blemish.

Gender is a prison. I suspected it when I was younger but I am sure of it now. And not only for women, obviously. And not only when it comes to sex.

My son is lucky to be growing up in a neighborhood where he can wear rainbow shoes without getting his ass kicked. He has a supportive community that is not as constrained by gender as I was.

Unfortunately, we live in a bubble. There are still many places where people are doubling down on oppressing gender because what I love terrifies them.