‘Where Do The Tomboys Go?’ (On ‘Lesbian’ In 2021)

For Pride Month this year, Sexual + Being commissioned pieces from four different people about how they feel about the LGBTIA+ identifiers that most closely align with their identities. This is the first, L: Lesbian.

Back in the ‘90s, we’d line in rows: one for boys and one for girls. Already, first grade, even then, I remember raising my hand: “Where do the tomboys go?”

I wasn’t “out.” I didn’t “know”: a tiny lesbian, just starting to show. Maybe nature, but there’s nurture in us too. Me? Youngest of three, only boys ahead of me. Wore their hand-me-downs, played their games. Could never quite figure out what made my nipples so profane. 

“Too many hormones,” mom would fein. “You want lego connex, AND the Barbie game?” She held out for the “fru fru” child, but ended up with just  another of the same. Happier with a kitchen spoon, in the dirt, than a delicately coordinated “girls day.”

And for a long, long while, there’s no such thing as sex. And then it appears! It’s coming for ya! You’re next!  Hold on to your hats, you fucking queers. 

So then the time comes, sleepovers slow. You’re still not “out.” You still don’t even “know.”

Cute hugs, hand holding all down the hallway: no longer for you. And all the while it really seems like she and she and she and she — they all still share that intimacy.

So, play with the boys. Maybe that’s just where you fit. You can put on football shoulder pads, but they’ll still grab your tits! And that’s sorta, precisely, what my dad had to say. “You can cut your hair and say you’re gay, but men will still try to take advantage of you.” That much is, indisputably, true. 

High school 

Wardrobe shift

Boy

Friends 

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right ween”– 

they alone know how to make you scream!

I told my mom, too, but she already knew. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I just wish if you were gonna date women that you would date w o m e n.” I think she thought I was “with” my friend Kyle, a true butch broad who just happened to luck out with a man’s name. In today’s world, I’m sure she gets “he’d”— but it pisses her off, as much as you, to not feelfelt seen.

We never did date, Kyle and I. Admittedly, still— the boudoir track record isn’t as “fru fru” as I might suggest.

 

So then there’s college and being gay is cool

Orgies in the suite’s shower

Literally 

Nothing

Left unscrewed 

The one place 

A moment in time

Where everyone is young 

And completely wild

Close quarters 

10,000 students

Some of those bitches be gay 

We used to fight about who was the biggest ”lesbian ”— quantified by the biggest Tegan and Sara fan 

 

Lesbonics 101

Gold card— 25?? Yo

 

Here’s the thing:

I do, truly, love the peen.

Lesbian? It’s not right for me. There’s dwelling, there’s denying, defending, and pretending— the boys we take for a ride. And then, eventually, there’s you, and that word just doesn’t do what it’s supposed to…

I love women.

Differently than men.

And they love

me 

too.