more on growing up ugly
it was such a crime to be ugly. the worst possible thing a girl could be was ugly. and i was ugly to my peers. i felt monstrous, misshapen. broad shoulders and chest, large back, no curves to speak of. no redeeming feminizing features. i couldn't understand the vehemence with which my peers met me, the almost visceral rejection. actually, being gender queer wasn't my only social crime, but the gender queer put it over the edge. i had forgotten how important conformity is as a teenager. i had forgotten how it felt to be laughed at because i how i looked. i couldn't understand what was so wrong about me, i just knew it was irrevocable, like a stain.
feminism gave me a way to understand the power that the requirement to be beautiful has over women. if you fail at beauty as a woman, then you are outside the economy of human value. you've lost meaningfulness as a woman, thus as a person. i was failing at femininity, i didn't make for a feminine girl. that meant i had no status or worse, was a target.
it's important for me to remember this time before i was cool. so many gender queers on the internet seem to have grown up to be so cool, to make being gender queer work for them. an outsider cool, perhaps, but a cool nonetheless. i try to be cool, too. to feel like i belong. and i do belong to communities that are important to me, but my experience of being a part of is haunted by the memory of being severed from the rest. disfigured. an ugly girl is always an ugly girl somewhere inside, even if she grows up to sport funky glasses.
feminism gave me a way to understand the power that the requirement to be beautiful has over women. if you fail at beauty as a woman, then you are outside the economy of human value. you've lost meaningfulness as a woman, thus as a person. i was failing at femininity, i didn't make for a feminine girl. that meant i had no status or worse, was a target.
it's important for me to remember this time before i was cool. so many gender queers on the internet seem to have grown up to be so cool, to make being gender queer work for them. an outsider cool, perhaps, but a cool nonetheless. i try to be cool, too. to feel like i belong. and i do belong to communities that are important to me, but my experience of being a part of is haunted by the memory of being severed from the rest. disfigured. an ugly girl is always an ugly girl somewhere inside, even if she grows up to sport funky glasses.