If there was ever a time for acceptance and love it would be now. I recently came out to my friends and family and it was the best decision I could have ever made. I have never been so overwhelmed in my life with so much love, but for some reason, people who have known me for years have completely shut me out because of the "new lifestyle" I have decided to live. The only thing I have changed in my life, besides being my true self, is that I made my hair a little shorter and I wear more comfortable clothing. And yet, people seem to still get their panties in a twist because I decided to live my life with the truth.
My whole entire life I wore tomboyish clothing and associated myself with the guys. I grew up with two brothers so their clothes were the only ones I could steal. They are ten times more comfortable than the form-fitting clothes that designers put on the shelves of retail stores for women.
So today I come to you, as someone who would like to tell you that gender does not have to influence everything we do. Biologically, sure, sex is a thing. Anything else – not so much. Gender is a social construction after all. I mean, we are millennials and we should be at the standpoint where gender is unimportant as it is innate. Decades upon decades of protestors did not bring us into new history only to have their work forgotten. I really do feel that we place far too much emphasis on gender than is healthy. I mean heck, if a man decides he wants to wear something a little "un-masculine" he's a fruitcake. Oh, you don't want to shave your legs? Girl, you better get your life together.
Thankfully from a young age I was taught to love people the way I wanted to be loved. I was never taught to judge people for what the wear, the color of their skin or who they are as long as they treated you with the same respect as you treated them.
So, yes lovely haters, I will not be wearing a dress to my sorority formal and it's not because I like women and am trying to make a statement. I am wearing suspenders and a bowtie because that is what I feel comfortable in and life isn't just about the label on your clothes. Life is about loving your neighbor for exactly who they are.
“Straight men did not find me attractive. I think they were scared of me because I was different. I’ve always asked, ‘Why? Why do I have to do that? Why do I have to look this way? Why do I have to dress this way? Why do I have to behave this way?'” -Kimberley Jolaoso
Blue is for boys and pink is for girls.
Sometimes, just sometimes, I think that we are not the colors we wear. Wouldn’t you agree?