By Theresa Tyree
People called me a “tomboy” when I was a little girl. I wore the title like a badge of honor. I liked it. It meant I was tough. It meant I was just as good as any boy, that I wasn’t picked last, that I didn’t throw, run or fight “like a girl.” It wasn’t until recently that I truly came to understand just how messed up the word that I thought had only meant “tough” and “cool” when I was a kid really was.
This word was my first lesson in labels and how inaccurate and binary they can be. As a tomboy, I wasn’t “pretty.” I wasn’t allowed to be. I had traded “pretty” for “powerful” and I wasn’t allowed to have both. My label wouldn’t allow for it.
As I got older, the labels changed, but the lesson remained the same. I hardly noticed, though. I was too busy being the labels: smart, outcast, band geek, nerd. Each one had its own set of attributes and behaviors, as if they were some sort of Dungeons and Dragons custom character profile. The thing was, it was always other people who were giving me these labels because they felt I “fit” them. A boy in college called me a “prude” because I hadn’t had sex in high school. Another boy in my fencing club was surprised when I mentioned an ex-boyfriend because “he had always assumed I was a lesbian because I was so aggressive.” When I began dating my first girlfriend and she told her entire friend group, suddenly half the people majoring in fine arts were giving me knowing smiles and asking me what it was like to be a lesbian. Between society and the labels everyone else bequeathed me, “bisexual” was really the first one I had decided on for myself; and it was also the first one that didn’t ask me to trade one thing for another.
Unfortunately, it was almost completely invisible to the people around me. Unless they were close friends or knew of my bisexuality tangentially, people talked to me as if I were either straight or gay with no thought to the possible in-between. Every time someone made a comment about how nice it must be to only be into girls, or about how I’d get all the boys because I looked so good in a certain top, it rubbed me the wrong way. It was even worse when I had a partner. Not only would the comments get worse because I had obviously made a “choice” about what I “preferred” sexually, but if I said anything about how people of a different gender than my partner were sexy, my partners would often become self-conscious or worried about how sexually interested I was in them.
I’ve often felt compelled to pick a sexual preference for one gender by other people for their comfort and the comfort of the people around me, and it’s honestly something that makes or breaks relationships for me. The people who stick around usually understand this about me and enjoy one of two things: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or Sailor Moon — the relevancy of which is explained by how both objects approach binaries: with an “and.” Like chocolate and peanut butter? Great! Have them both! Enjoy the full spectrum of peanut butter and chocolate. Want a show full of magic and girlish fancy that still kicks ass? Sailor Moon never compromised. She was always pretty and powerful.
Theresa Tyree is a graduate student studying book publishing at Portland State University. She is currently pursuing her focus of manga publishing by studying in Japan.