I am so glad that Newsweek is writing about gender. Kudos to a mainstream publication like Newsweek to cover the timely issue of gender identity and transgender issues. I would have expected an article like this in Utne Reader or Mother Jones magazine. Why do I bother to blog about this important issue? I have always been fascinated by gender. How and when gender identity is formed and what it means?
Gender and sports have not mixed well throughout history. Don’t get me started on all of the gender stereotypes that I faced as a female althlete in the 60s and 70s. (I have been labeled a dyke many times, because I am a jock). I have not forgotten the looks on the neighborhood boys faces when I showed up one afternoon in a T-shirt, cut off jeans, and my broken in first baseman’s glove, ready for a pick up game of baseball. They smirked and looked at eachother incredulously. One of them threw a swift curveball at me and I caught it quickly without batting an eye. I fired it right back at him. They were impressed. “Wow, you can catch,” one of them exclaimed tentatively. I sharply retorted, “You’re damn right I can. My mother taught me!” (Ha! I’ll show them!”)
I am proud of being a woman. I can be just as tough, gritty, masculine or sensitive and gentle as any man, woman or trans! Sports or no sports, my gender is fluid. I identify as a woman, but I possess and express many male characteristics and certainly am not bound by my gender. Who am I to decide for or judge someone’s gender? As a fitness trainer I am constantly reminded that many of us are bound by rigid gender roles. Roles and expectations that are often determined and created by society/culture.
My best advice is to break out of the roles – play and experiment. Challenge your assumptions about your gender. You might be surprised by what you discover and learn.
