Lipstick, conformity and gender

Yesterday I sent out an appeal on behalf of the National Sexuality Resource Center, asking our community to call in to reject Orrin Hatch's sneaky attempts to add $250 million for abstinence-only education into the health reform package. Thanks to all of you who made calls.

Today, I came in to work to find this email in my in box:

"Hi - I just had to comment about your cheesecake photo that went out with a letter urging people to reject abstinence-only sex education.  While I agree with the philosophy and am familiar with the research documenting the failure of that type of sex education, the style of photo you chose to include with the email was overtly sexual and undermined your message. I agree that 'sex sells' but this seems, to me, to set the wrong tone for an important issue.  A more business-like image would have convinced me, but I don't feel comfortable forwarding the letter to other friends to request their support."

I was dumbfounded. And saddened. And disappointed, that a woman anthropology professor--one who probably considers herself progressive on gender and sexuality issues (she is on our mailing list, after all)--would not take me seriously because of the way I looked. And even worse, that she would try to shame me because she perceived my appearance as being sexual. I say perceived, because I have examined and re-examined my pic--no lowcut blouse, no suggestive look, but I do have a fondness for red lipstick.

In my life, I have had blue hair, unshaved legs and pits, four or five facial piercings at a time, worn flannel shirts (they were a mistake) and tiaras, and gone to formal events wearing fake teeth. I took my bottle of tooth black on the plane to my grandmother's funeral because it made me feel safe. I have gone out in full masculine drag, including moustache, plus lipstick. I have performed as a female-born female impersonator. I got a flattop on a military base in the middle of Texas.

When my son, who is four, wanted to wear a dress to preschool, I was scared that someone would try and shame him for busting their very binary concepts of gender. Then I went out, got him a dress with big buttons that he could undo himself, practiced funny retorts with him, and sent him off to school with a shirt and jeans as backup. I am a dyke, a mom, a sexuality activist, and many, many other things--none of which require wearing lipstick, but none that preclude it, either.  Do I have to prove that I am committed to smashing the way we think about gender and sexuality? Evidently, even after twenty years of activism, my lipstick says I do.

I have been able to enjoy gender and femininity as performance--and I also understand that there are many people who don't get to 'enjoy' how their gender is expressed or perceived; that for many people the way they look is not just play, but something that poses a danger to them daily as they move through the world. That kind of courage is something that I haven't lived, but have felt viscerally as I held my butch girlfriend's hand in a public bathroom in Texas. I get that my choice to look more conventionally feminine is a choice that I am able to make, and that privileges accompany it--as does the privilege I get from being white and educated.

This woman--who claims she believes in our work-- was offered the opportunity to make a call to end abstinence-only education, a failed strategy that reinforces heteronormative behavior, waiting until 'marriage' for sex, and traditional gender roles for both men and women. Instead, she used her time and energy to write me a personal email to put me down for the way I looked, and to attempt to embarass me because she thought I was sexy. (To which I say: not embarassed, and thanks.)

When I read about the girl who was gangraped by more than twenty boys in Richmond this week, and heard girls from her school say that she 'asked for it' because she had gone off with the boys in the first place, I cried, because I thought we had gotten past the point where we tell women that because of the way they look, or the choices they make, they somehow deserve to be thought of as less human than someone else. And when the Matthew Shepard Act passed this week, I thought about my son and his dress and his barbie backpack, and all of my hot gender outlaw friends, and knew that someone is recognizing--and protecting--the courage they have to be just who they are, damned if you like it or not.

A boss once commented that he knew what Freud would say about my wearing lipstick [Freud said it was a secret desire to castrate men]. I smiled, and put on another bright red coat. If you want to find my lipstick a threat or a distraction, so be it. But you just might miss me changing the world--and you'll be missing your opportunity to do the same.