For all that I was assigned female at birth and suffered through my childhood with one of the most appallingly girly nicknames imaginable, I only ever felt nominally like a girl. (The fact that I looked so much like my father since birth that people would always say “What a cute little boy!”, even when my mother dressed me in pink and ruffles, is purely coincidental.) My parents were remarkably gender progressive for mainline Protestants in Iowa in the 1980s, so in addition to my Strawberry Shortcakes and Barbies, I also had Lincoln Logs, a Tonka truck, and a set of Castillos (rounded marbled building bricks, essentially the Legos of Spain). My mother has sported short hair for her entire adult life, and while I don’t think that her gender identity has ever been in question, my primary female role model was never the femmiest of women.
Neither was I particularly much of a tomboy, though. My father would have loved for me to be an honorary son who loved to fish and hunt as much as he did, or watch Nebraska football with him. (The closest I got was having “Go Big Red!” as my first complete sentence.) A pity, truly, as I might have had a better relationship with my father if I’d been such a kid. Alas, like my mother, my mother’s mother, my mother’s sister, and both of my mother’s nieces, my childhood archetype was “bookworm”. I brought my career as Daddy’s Apprentice Fisherperson to an abrupt end in my late childhood, after a wild cast on his part resulted in a fishhook stuck in my cheek.
Since entering perimenopause about a year ago, I have felt increasingly unmoored from my putative gender. I often joke that I should get a brooch made that says “ich bin _____ Mickey”, with a slider or rotating wheel for “der” (the, masculine), “die” (the, feminine), or “das” (the, neuter). If I had such a beastie, it’d be squarely centered on “das” most days. Although I have days where I feel female, and even days where I feel male, most days I just feel human, gender unspecified.
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