butch

queer girl

Sparkle and Shine

I’m wearing a dress to a Christmas party tomorrow, and I feel super weird about it.

Remember back when I wore dresses?

Of course you do. It was just last year, and all the years before that too. The tights always worked with the belt always worked with the boots always worked with the sweater. I swished, I swirled, I planned out my necklaces. I got a lot of compliments from my very girly boss.

I went out and got myself some nice tall boots. I got them to wear with my skirts. And they looked lovely.

But then I also got a magic pair of jeans — my first pair of skinny ankle zips. Their close cuffs slid smoothly into my boots. And with those jeans…my whole world changed.

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queer girl

Bad Butch

Screen Shot 2014-11-21 at 9.32.13 PMI’m really good at taking care of babies. I’m intuitive, and emotionally fluent, and when something mechanical breaks, I call the men in my life. Am I selling myself short on self-sufficiency because I’m allowed to, as a “girl?”

So the other day I had another blind first date. She was definitely the girliest woman that I’ve dated so far; when I took in her classic librarian dress and bright red purse, somehow I was glad I had skewed a little

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queer girl

The Hair Thing

Did I cut it all off just to look “more queer?”

“She scissored the curls away, and – toms, grow easily sentimental over their haircuts, but I remember this sensation very vividly – it was not like she was cutting hair, it was as if I had a pair of wings beneath my shoulder-blades, that the flesh had all grown over, and she was slicing free…”

–Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet

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