rabbit's heart

[rm]

People frequently call me sir, and it took me a long time to understand this or embrace it.

In girls' school being perceived in any way that was masculine was a step well below mere ugliness; it was a blight that came with physical risk: to be mistaken for a boy or told you could be was to be afraid. And it's with a certain sort of shame I remember standing shirtless in an un-airconditioned restaurant in Little Italy with my parents as we waited for a table when I was seven; or someone's mother pulling at my clothes at You Gotta Have Park when I was eight because she did not believe me when I said I wasn't a boy; they wanted boys to paint benches.

I am narrow, like a knife, and because I am quick and nervous and possess a rabbit's heart I am too skilled at darting through crowds.

The subway, in New York, is where you learn whether or not other people think you have a right to exist. I have learnt that I do not, and I understand that this is unexceptional. It is what most women learn on the subway. Because I am slight, I am expected to turn sideways when exiting the car so people can board before I even get off. But I refuse; I do not believe it should be a woman's lot to slide through this world. God gave me shoulders, even if they are small.

I had the male lead in lots of our plays in girls' school. I was Ko-ko in the Mikado and Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream. 100 years ago my classmates would have had "smashes" on me. But I was not given to that world, and those were the first times I started to suspect that my success came from a type of ugliness.

At the bank, people call me sir. Particularly when I wear my hair long and down. It happens even when I wear lipstick. roadnotes theorizes it is because I take up space. I do not stand with my ankles crossed in heels so as to look like an insect on a pin.

A rabbit is always frightened. It doesn't mean to be. But its heart just beats so fast it can seem to tremble. It believes the lies of its body, just like I have often believed the lies of mine and the lies of the subway, our crowded streets, and a school for girls.

But I do have a right to exist. And if that makes me a man, so be it. I will take that and my vicious smile as I refuse to beg and press and cajole my way off the train over the supposed sins of my fur any day.

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[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

As a child, I think my features saved me: blonde hair and huge, sad blue eyes like a Keane painting are not masculine or adult. I spent lots of my childhood darting and fighting through airports and train stations, often with a bag wider than myself on my shoulder. I learned to use the bag and my elbows to defend myself, to create space which was not given to me. I sometimes rationalized putting a sharp elbow in someone's ribs because while I was thin enough to slip by, they should make room for my luggage.

In fifth grade I was in Africa, my peers were half Americans and half European. There was considerable argument as to whether girls had to cover their tops at the pool. THe European girls argued that they had nothing to cover yet, and knowing their mothers went to topless beaches, did not care: the Americans shrieked in horror and insisted on wearing bikini tops over their pudgy ribs, as there were boys and even men present. I agreed with the Europeans, but didn't have the guts to face the Americans' ostracism - as of course it would have been far worse for a fellow American to commit such a sin. I ordered a one-piece bathing suit to avoid the dilemna, even knowing that they were never comfortable to me, too short for my long torso. But at least my ridiculous bony ribs were covered.

I was thin and figureless, and spent several months in sixth grade (back in America, surrounded by Madonna wannabes and confused by their assumption of puberty) even more wary than usual and with my back to the wall whenever possible, because the boys had made a game of snapping girls' bra straps and I was the only girl without any.

Despite being one of the taller girls, and certainly taller than the boys, I was all bone. My heart is strong, but my blood pressure has always been too low and my lungs too weak; all too often I felt faint and dizzy, and crowds worsened it. I couldn't catch my breath, and felt that all the other people were taking up not only my space but my air. I am not claustrophobic in small spaces when I am alone, but a crowded large space makes me gasp for air.

Remember the suits in the Eighties, when women demanded workplace equality with huge shoulderpads? I didn't need them, my mother said, but they made me brave and reminded me not to slouch and slump and hide. I remember buying my first biker jacket and marvelling at how its bulk and studs made people give me extra inches. I cut my hair shorter, and secretly liked it when I was called 'sir' instead of 'miss', although it still rankled that I failed at assuming femininity when the occasion called for it.

People still judge me by my size, less skeletal now but in a wheelchair, and I tire of having to shout to make them give me space for the wheels. I like the added personal space it gives me when people are standing still, but I can no longer use shoulders and elbows to make a path in a crowd. I'm also shorter in the chair, which makes me more disregarded. Even women now ignore me, walk smash into me sometimes and look down surprised from their cellphones.

On the subway and buses I am not allowed to exist, and have to shout and scream to demand make-way and the area which says it's for wheelchairs only. Women aren't supposed to make a fuss and cause a scene, but I have no choice. People resent my presence. People tell me I shouldn't be there at all. I can't take the stairs and escalators any more, but get forced into a tiny lift the size of a closet which has been repeatedly urinated in and moves so slowly I cannot hold my breath for the time it takes.

A hat seems to help; the brim of a fedora gives me more space, I'm learning. And sometimes I just don't give a damn, and secretly enjoy hitting people with metal chair parts when they don't give me space. It jars me, but the chair takes the brunt. If I pushed a manual chair I would cover it in leather jacket spikes.