A Letter to the Biological Matriach, Ms. Flow

I wrote this originally as a creative nonfiction assignment, which challenged us to write to an object or idea. It turned out to be more of a gender treatise. Let me know what you think!

A Letter to the Biological Matriarch, Ms. Flow

David Breedlove

123 Inquisition Road

Tallahassee, FL

 

Ms. Menstrual Flow

Matriarchal Force

Tides Everywhere

28 Day Ovation Way

 

Dear Ms. Flow:

 

Although I thoroughly understand that you are kept on a tight schedule, and that your global omnipresence is demanded, I hope you will find the time to absorb the following concern I am about to shed onto you, since most of my peers find the following subject a bit taboo. I anticipate that you will be able to relate to the beliefs that I have come to accept not only about myself, but the Western World that I am immersed in. But before I delve into anything too bloody, I feel the need to share a bit of my story, since we have never visited before.

 

As a young, biologically-created boy, as far back as I can remember�"probably four or five�"I discovered within me what my social surroundings would label as an abnormality: I crushed on other boys. With this innate characteristic intact, I found a strong identification not with my male counterparts, but with the girls around me. This came unconsciously as I automatically started to idolize everything considered feminine within my culture. With the house emptied of my family members, except for my mom napping on the couch, I would stealthily tip-toe my way into her closet, where rows of high heels and racks of dresses begged for my molestation. I would drown myself in a tattered night gown stored near the back of the wardrobe�"the only thing that looked reasonable on my tiny body.  Finding the perfect oversized, glistening cherry-red high heels to trot around in, I would shuffle my loose feet to my mother’s vanity, lined with boxes of makeup.

 

My face, soft and rounded, could easily be mistaken for a girl’s with the right materials. I would dare to apply only the slightest bit of lipstick, discovering a more resounding glow to my face. I was only missing the hair�"how I longed for lengthy, flowing hair that I could occasionally flip over my shoulder or better yet, let sway side to side in a ponytail as I would skip down a hall. I solved this unavoidable problem of squat hair by imitating what my older sister looked like when she emerged from the foggy bathroom after a shower: I would twist a towel over my head, flipping it behind me, and imagine that my thickened mane was just drying beneath the cloth. Almost fully adorned in my gender-bending entertainment, I would bring two balloons (or balls, depending on the available resources) into the scenario, placing them between the night gown and my flat chest. I felt like I was everything a boy would need. Everything a boy could ever want. Shuffling my heels to the full-length mirror, I would vocally improvise (quietly, of course) Pinocchio’s shrieking announcement, “Now I’m a real girl!”

 

My mother had caught me only a few times during these top-secret excursions and in response would try to appeal to my absent tom-boy, pointing me in the direction of a toy truck or, if anything else, a Barney episode. But when her old night gown mysteriously found its way to other locations, a rule was implemented, outlawing me from my parents’ bedroom. However, this did not stop my natural tendencies. I remember an instance soon after the removal of my flamboyant wardrobe, where my friend Joey and I were left alone to entertain each other in my room. Our parents were close friends, my dad having been the music pastor at our church, my mom the pianist, his father the saxophonist, and his mother our children’s church teacher. I, being a year older than Joey and therefore in charge of our idle activities, proposed we played house�"Biblical style. With a closet full of shelf-worn sheets, I insisted we dressed in traditional Israeli attire, and he could be Joseph�"since it was already his name, and I would be Mary, with my battered, stuffed bear filling the role of baby Jesus.

 

We undressed�"fully�"once again at my request, and began robing ourselves. Something about this felt normal and as Joey struggled to make his robe work, I peaked at his nude body�"similar to mine�"which somehow caused chills upon my skin. Swimming in the cotton material, with a sheet pulled over my head and held together by a clip under my chin, I could not help but feel a natural role in progression, as I serenely picked up baby Jesus. Joey looked over my shoulder at our immaculate child, and now fully robed, he uncomfortably asked “What now?” But I had nothing else planned for us to act out. I just wanted to be like this, forever.

 

As kindergarten began, I soon discovered during P.E. an innate attraction to the hop-scotch court populated by vast amounts of girls, and that the harsher, more competitive sports weren’t my specialty. Although I could no longer dress like a girl, I could still befriend them. I was, psychologically, their equivalent�"and like them, boys made me nervous, at least when it came to the rowdy ones.

 

I then began a confusing era in my childhood development, where I can only assume that I was hopelessly waiting for your arrival, bearing gifts of crimson, to grace me. I have now come to blame this perplexity on the unsuccessful attempts made by our school nurses who tried to educate a room full of inattentive ten-year-old boys on the workings of our biological bodies. From what I could gather from these pamphlets full of word games and illustrated pictures of male genitalia was the following scenario:

 

“Upon viewing a picture or video of an attractive female, especially a female in a semi-naked condition, my peeing-unit would automatically fill with vast amounts of blood, where it would then, somehow, exude a large amount of liquid.”

 

Somewhere within my simple reasoning, I had concluded that this liquid would be blood also. I soon developed an obsession with this bloody emission after our lectures, and whenever a Victoria Secret commercial would air on television or one of my mom’s magazines would show risqué models, I would focus with all my might on creating one . After staring at the woman long enough, I would gallop to the bathroom in a wild frenzy, checking my tighty-whities for any trace of blood. When all I would see was the pure white of my cotton underpants, I would occasionally try urinating as well�"a strategy I started to employ, just in case the crimson juice had gotten stuck somewhere within the tubing.

 

After many failures, I began taking precautions for your bloody event, as I presumed that you would probably come unexpectedly. My friend Kaylee once mentioned how she kept some sort of pad in her underwear, just in case she accidentally caused a bloody emission. I never knew what the school nurses told my girlfriends when we were herded into separate rooms, but aside from the distinct fact of our genital differences, we must have been going through the same thing. So I soon took to folding lengths of toilet paper into multi-layered squares, where I would then place them in my briefs, for safe keeping. Eventually, after many years of toilet paper creasing, I experienced my first nocturnal emission, noticing the liquid’s distinct textural and color differentiation from blood, and was set straight on the differences between my bodily functions, and the bodily functions of my female counterparts, who are under your fine care.

 

I began to understand your physiological importance in females and with that I began to believe, with social encouragement, that there was a corresponding universal gender law�"and I was not following it. I was feminine, as the boys my age made me fully aware. And as I tried to befriend them, I found no interest in their talks bloated with cars, favorite athletes, video game scores, and most importantly, boobies. I was always too calm, too smart; too gay.

 

If anything, I thought, I could mimic their gestures to drive away the unwelcome accusations. So   I soon discovered in my quest of social adaptation, the human’s capability of malleability. Through my habitual imitation of what was considered to be the real boys, I reengineered myself. My limp wrists became glazed with firm casts. My free hands made their new habitat in my pockets rather than on my hips; my hips, which were trained from my childhood high-heel strutting, halted their swaying. When sitting, my legs had to cross with my ankle on my knee. My arms had to hang loosely, not close to my body. As my voice changed, I had to embrace a lower tone, rather than the naturally higher, lisping articulation of my past. This took consistent awareness of every move I made, but I had finally adapted to my environment.

 

I had developed femiphobia�"the social male’s fear of flamboyancy�"because of the strict pink or blue guidelines my society had inherited. Under this code, if you were the owner of a penis, you needed to be dominant, competitive, insensitive, and had to move stiffly. Although I had assimilated to the outward appearance of my gender role, my temperament still mimicked the compassionate and calm role usually associated with females. I had become androgynous�"socially flexible between the two genders, and I didn’t feel a full connection to either of them.

 

Ms. Flow, you never visited me, which I certainly accept now, but why do people confuse your arrival with an inherent set of engendered characteristics? If you were the true cause of feminine stature, wouldn’t it be impossible for any male to act effeminate? And wouldn’t all women inherently act this way, also? Has the entire Western world been duped into thinking that there are only two ways to be categorized, with no exceptions for those in-between?

 

How differently would I have experienced life if I had been born to an indigenous North American tribe? They’re a prime example of diversely gendered people, as many of these tribes believed in at least four genders, with their Two-Spirited people filling in the gender gap. The berdaches were either biologically female, with a male spirit inside of them, or biologically male, with a female spirit inside of them. This was viewed among the population as a gift from the Creator�"who allowed the honor of housing both male and female spirits in their bodies, and they were often revered as leaders, spiritual guides, and teachers because of their unique perspective.  The tribe allowed the berdache to customize his or her own gender role, which could range anywhere between that of an average man, and that of an average female.

 

In comparison to the multi-gendered Indians, many New Guinean cultures provide a richly diverse palette for viewing a society’s constructions and regulations of gender roles and sexuality. Margaret Mead’s research of the Tchambuli people showed that the women were domineering, sexual aggressors and the economic heads of the household�"while the males were preoccupied with adorning themselves for their financially independent women. Had I been born in the Tchambuli culture of New Guinea, would everything I have experienced been in reverse? Would I have also initially identified to women�"taken on their dominant persona�"and then eventually felt the social pressure to become more nurturing and dependent like the other men?

 

Much like the Tchambuli people, the Trobrianders provide a more egalitarian approach to gender roles, the two sexes working in conjunction to create a family’s wealth. Heredity descends only from the mother, who is viewed as the matriarch. Social roles within their society actually revolve around the woman. Her brothers work all season in the yam garden to build her yam wealth (one of the currencies they cling onto, even in modern day) while she works in the other garden to provide all the remaining produce that her family will eat from. The women have shaved heads, and wear family emblems made out of sea shells, which is one of the only symbols of matrilineal wealth. This custom symbolically reveals the family’s power on the matriarch’s neck, and is shown nowhere else, except in the yam garden, which is also hers.

 

Or better yet, in comparison to our heteronormative society, would I have felt the most connection to males of the Etoro tribe, who are one of twenty-eight documented New Guinean tribes known to ritualize homosexual acts? They believe that a life force resides in sperm, and until a young man has sexual relations with an older male, he will be unable to grow into a large warrior, equipped with facial hair, and vast strength. To them, part of manhood stems from homosexuality�"and they have been culturally trained to prefer it. Intercourse between a man and woman, which is only considered useful in reproduction, is only permitted about a third of the year, and is cast to the fringes of society�"it must be performed secretly in the woods, where it is risky due to the poisonous snakes that swarm there.

                             

The importance of my reflections on New Guinean tribes stems from their geographical importance. New Guinea is the world’s sixth largest landmass (following only after the four continental masses and Greenland) yet holds over a thousand distinct cultures, and almost as many languages, which has kept these tribes culturally isolated from one another, and the outside world. In a Darwinian sense, these cultures have evolved independently, due to their isolation, thus birthing a multitude of examples for the human’s capability for behavioral fluidity.

 

But even if these cultures offer a model of the flexibility of human social roles, these culturally generated beliefs continue to strive within their set limitations. And much like these culturally spawned gender roles, my society continues to thrive within its limitations; limitations that I’ve regretfully accepted, but continue to be mystified by. I especially recognized my own adopted gender boundaries one Halloween, when I was reunited with my cross dressing past. As college students on an extremely tight budget, my roommate, Gaelyn, and I decided to switch wardrobes for a costume party we had been invited too. After trashing each others’ closets, we decided on our costumes: I was going to be a Call Girl�"a classy w***e�"and she was my pimp.

 

I curiously picked up my black nylon tights, attempting to stab one long, hairy leg into them at a time.  My bra was severely confusing as I tried to clip the ends together, my arms struggling to control the straps behind my back. With Gaelyn’s guidance, I pulled the short black dress over my broadened shoulders, eventually tugging it down to its slightly suffocating resting point on my body. Slipping on the open ended high heels, I wobbled around our living room, as if I was an infant gazelle taking his first steps. I had bought a cheap brown, wavy wig, and as I was tying it back into a ponytail, I remembered how long ago, in a distant reality, this was one of my strongest desires. I had even measured up enough courage to ask my mother for a wig to play with one Christmas. But there were no stringy extensions sitting below the tree that year�"and the very idea eventually faded away.

 

Gaelyn, walking out in my white suit, pink shirt, and purple tie, shook her head as I declared that my costume was finally complete: “Oh no, you still need make-up.” She smirked at me with a wink. Ignorant of how to apply any makeup besides my childhood attempts, I sat still on the toilet as she colored my face in with eye liner, blush, and vibrantly red lip-stick.  I stood back to see my full appearance in the mirror. I saw a part of me that I hadn’t seen in this lifetime�"a fully concrete representation of my femininity. A slight flutter filled my stomach; I couldn’t pin-point this emotion. Aside from my slight five-o’clock shadow, and my complete lack of curvature in physique, I resembled the woman I yearned to see in my youth�"despite the small fact that this version appeared to be on testosterone.

 

When it was time to leave for the party, I had already started to feel the uncomfortable aspects of my costume�"the clothes squeezed and pressed in areas I wasn’t accustomed to. I felt unnatural, and uncomfortable. Before we left our house to walk down to the party, I insisted on throwing back a few shots�"I couldn’t leave the house looking like this in a sober mindset. Half strutting, half tripping down the road, I passed other parties, where porches full of young adults watched my amorphous silhouette march onward. I heard everything I had been fearful of in my youth: “f****t!”  “queer!” and the occasional outburst of “what the f**k is that?!”

 

At the time, the words were brushed over�"I had dealt with these in the past, and didn’t need to deal with them any longer.  But looking back, I realized that this internal response stemmed from my assembled defense mechanism: the knowledge that I had assimilated to the masculine role that was expected of me. Those clothes didn’t make me who I was. At the end of the night, I would still be David, who had habitually created his gender, and who now felt completely natural in it. The dress I was wearing, by the end of the night, only bothered me. I had to straighten out my ensemble with every move I made. This was not me anymore.

 

But if I were to have taken another path in life, embraced the “femininity” inside of me, I would have been just as guilty to assimilation. Whether they are told act this way or its implicitly learned, traditional Western women’s roles are clear: passive, timid and dependent on their powerful, broad men. They’re role in life is service, to build up their superior partner. If I hadn’t discovered, through my quest, my internal power and my internal independence, which is innate to all of us, then I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

 

I am a living example of the potential androgynous nature within everyone�"an ambiguous nature that begins to atrophy with the first union of pink or blue applied to our bodies on the very day we’re brought into this divided world. But my ultimate question to you, Ms. Flow, is why? We each naturally have a distinct uniqueness inherent to our nature�"a behavior that to a degree mimics others, but aside from that, is infused with our selfness; an individuality that sprouts from being a matchless creation.

 

After fourteen years of allowing my behavior and thoughts to be constructed for me by my Western society, I could not even endure one night as a woman. Something I once took joy in, a curiosity I once thought could not be quenched was�"at some point in the past�"forcefully dichotomized. But I stand now in the realm of the masculine, and still yet, my mind wanders in the feminine. I hope, if anything, you may reveal to our enlightened society that there is an array of roles possible for all humans�"a color wheel that fills in the green, the yellow, the orange, and the red between our obvious blue and pink. Please, Ms. Flow, bring us something other than shedding ovaries�"preferably, a better sense of reality.

 

 

Thank you for your precious time,

David Breedlove