It wasn’t enough that I was too tall and skinny for my age: I called attention even when I was standing in a corner minding my own business. In addition to that, I was forced to beg for everyone’s eyes to land on me with obnoxious colors that didn’t suit my skin tone or complement my eyes. Whenever I asked for green or blue, the answer was always “Those colors? But they are so ugly! A little girl should always be pretty!”
I didn’t understand what the problem was. It was beyond my comprehension why my mother incessantly bought pink articles of clothing and accessories for me to wear when I clearly wanted nothing to do with them. I particularly remember sitting on the couch, little arms crossed over my flat chest, eyebrows furrowed and a deep frown on my lips.
“Oh, baby, why don’t you want to be a fairy godmother for Halloween?”
“Because they’re stoopid!”
“Come on now, they’re beautiful. You want to be Tinkerbell instead?”
“I told you, mommy! I wanna be Batman!”
“Sweetie, no! You only want to be Batman because your cousins are going to be Superman, Robin, and Spiderman. But they’re boys!” she tried to explain.
“So?! I wanna be Batman!”
“What about a Princess? You want to be a Princess instead?”
“No.” I huffed and narrowed my eyes.
“Yes, you do! Look at this beautiful Sleeping Beauty dress; it’s practically made for you. Oh, and look, it even brings a tiara!”
“I don’t like her! I don’t like ‘em! They’re boring! They can’t do cool stuff like Batman can! They don’t have a Batmobile, they have horses and cabbages!”
“What’s wrong with horses and carriages? That’s how Prince Charming comes to pick you up and sweep you off your feet.” I made a face that made it seem like I’d been pinched or slapped across the back of the head.
“I don’t want Prince Charming! He thinks he’s soooo cool but he’s not. Whatever. I wanna be Batman! Batman! BATMAN! BATMAAAAN.”
But she didn’t give up. As always, she found a way to dress me up in a poofy dusty rose colored dress, white shiny patent leather shoes, calf-length socks, a crown, and a matching wand that lit up purple and pink every time I made the slightest gesture with my hand. The next Halloween was even worse; I was forced to dress as a ballerina. The only reason why I didn’t throw a fit was because she bribed me by promising to let me dress up as a fireman the year after. That naturally backfired; my mother bought me a bubble gum nurse costume that made me look like a walking square of Double Bubble crossed with Florence Nightingale. It was something I couldn’t live down for the rest of my elementary school days.
That’s when I decided I didn’t want to be a girl anymore. I didn’t see the point in wearing flamboyant dresses and playing with Barbie, or singing in the church choir with the other little girls. I was tall, and strong, and I could win and arm wrestling battle with any of the boys in my third-grade class. I absolutely abhorred wearing white pantyhose under purple and orange dresses, hair styled in pigtails tied with fluffy scrunchies. I didn’t like being quiet and polite, and curtsy and smile at my elders sweetly. I couldn’t stand to watch As Told By Ginger or Amanda Rules, I just really wanted to catch John Cena vs. The Rock on WWE. I liked building forts and playing war, trading Pokémon cards and battling with another player on Mortal Kombat Legacy. Whenever they gave me chalk to draw hop scotch, or a hoola-hoop, I gladly traded them in for cleats and dodge balls. I was who I was, and I wanted my mother to understand that.
“¡Cuidado con la niña! Está medio rara…” my grandmother used to whisper to my mom while they did the dishes after dinner. She always seemed suspicious of something, but I never understood what it was. She gave me sidelong glances and spoke to my mother in hushed tones when I went to the park and played intense rounds of manhunt. She always frowned at me when I decided to wear jeans over flowery skirts, but never said a word directly until I was about 11 or 12, when she finally labeled me as a lost cause.
“Pareces un macho.” That was her way of telling me I looked like a man.
But, I didn’t care. I wanted to dress in red and black and blue, and wear pants and sneakers to church. I wanted to climb trees, play with dirt, run around in the park chasing a soccer ball, and play freeze tag with the boys. Nothing made me feel more complete than tying my skates and going onto the rink with my own Panthers jersey, a hockey puck and a stick, ready to challenge my best friends and cousins to a match. I didn’t want to become a ballerina, I wanted to learn ju-jitsu and become the next Karate Kid. I had explained it to my mother time and time again, I had shown her what I liked and told her that I didn’t want to do what she forced me to. Just because she signed me up for a beauty pageant didn’t guarantee that I was going to cooperate.
She already knew this, of course; I didn’t see it then, but I have an idea now. It seemed strange to me that she would sign me up for singing lessons, enroll me in a dance class, and take us to pottery barns on weekends. I didn’t know why she was so stubborn and bent on buying me every item she could find in a store that shouted GIRL. I can comprehend now why she was so offended when someone mistook me for a little boy at the grocery store one night. She was embarrassed. She tried to turn me into a little princess whenever she saw me wanting to become a warrior. She showed me how to put on lipstick and encouraged me to try on her clothes, wear her heels, and borrow her pearls whenever she saw me playing “Dad” in my childish games of House. She tried as hard as she could to sweet talk me and baby me, but I just wouldn’t let her.
Seeing there was nothing else she can do, she brought in the Matriarch to “fix” things.
“Tú no eres ninguna tortillera para estar poniéndote ropa de hombres, coño.”
You’re not a dyke, so stop wearing men’s clothing.
That was when I finally understood why my grandmother was always so disturbed when I looked like a boy: she was scared. She thought that because I played with boys and did the things boy did, I would like girls, just like boys did. This would be the worst sin I could ever commit as a Cuban woman, and I would probably have been excommunicated and removed from the family will. My grandmother’s concern wasn’t that I didn’t want to wear dresses, but that I would like what’s under them more. After I made it clear to her that I liked boys, she seemed to still be suspicious and never really felt convinced that her only granddaughter was straight.
I paid no attention to her after she very rudely called me out for being a homosexual, when I was not. Just to be cross, I started wearing cargo shorts and converse, styling my hair back into a tight ponytail, stopped wearing earrings, and befriended everyone on my cousin’s football team. I knew my mother was upset, but I never bothered to ask why. I assumed she was just having a fit similar to the one my grandmother had, and I was not willing to put up with it. I wish I would have understood her reasoning for doing everything she did then as I do now. I realized I was unfair and never gave her an opportunity, rejecting everything she did because I felt she was just being pushy. I was pushing her away when all she wanted was a little girl.
Later in high school, I discarded the baggy shorts and jeans and the oversized band tees, trading them for pencil skirts and pant suits. Getting into the Debate Team with other strong women made me realize I didn’t have to dress like a guy to be considered one of the guys. It didn’t matter anymore that I was different, that I didn’t look like the rest of them. They befriended me and paid more attention to me now that I had turned into a curvaceous teenage girl. It was even easier to get them to pay attention to my ideas and persuade them to take my advice wearing a halter top than it was if I were covering everything up.
The newfound epiphany was something I never before considered, and I was glad that I came to realize there was a balance between femininity and roughness. It now made sense to wear five-inch pumps and tight skirts with jackets and crisp button-downs that delineated my most feminine features. It wasn’t so bad to wear a pair of short shorts to field day with a purple belt, or a colorful tank top on the days it was too hot to wear a cardigan. I considered wearing sandals and flats instead of old and dirty sneakers, and the idea wasn’t foreign or implanted in my brain by my mother or my grandmother. At 15, everyone encouraged me to start wearing make-up and surprisingly, I liked it! I don’t remember ever making a conscious decision to change the way I looked and dressed, but perhaps it was just the shift from one stage in my life to another. I guess it might have been too late, but I finally came around.
