"real men wear pink."
loose thoughts about coming into/affirming my trans masculine gender.
growing up, i was a tomboy. i never liked dresses, my favorite colors were purple and yellow (no i was not a lakers fan,) and i was playing basketball with the boys by first or second grade. i always had this inkling that my mother wanted me to be more “girly” based on her passing remarks, but it just never really fit with what i wanted for myself.
i grew up around a lot of boys, anyway. i have two brothers, and most of my cousins are boys. i mean, i only really have two girl cousins so it just felt more natural to fit in with the boys based on my interests. i was good at basketball, so they respected me. plus i really enjoyed skateboarding, racing games, being outside, and very stereotypical “boy-ish” things. it literally never gave girl to me. i didn’t even really feel a way when people mistook me for a boy in public spaces; it was always someone else around me who took issue with the perception of my gender.
in the grand scheme of things, we’re still in gender 101; so i don’t find it problematic to speak generally when i say, a lot of people associate the color pink with womanhood, femininity, softness, etc. girl = pink, boy = blue. and the majority of people haven’t really come too far with separating those from one another.
when i was in the 2nd grade; a boy in the class next to me wore a pink shirt to school one day. this was in the early 2000’s, and i’m honestly not too sure if cam’ron had worn the pink mink yet. and either way, i was too young to understand its serious cultural impact in the ways that i do now!
anyway, so this boy wore a pink shirt to school one day. and lemme tell you, he was THEE hot topic! i remember everyone surrounding him, saying all types of things. “pink is for girls!” “why would you wear that?” probably something homophobic thrown in the mix.
i just remember him being unfazed by it all, and he kinda puffed out his chest and said, “REAL men wear pink!”
his confidence absolutely blew my mind…but the statement itself really stuck with me. like, it kinda changed my life in a way. i’ll tell you why…
understanding my gender identity now, i can make connections to earlier in time when i was denouncing the expectations and socializations that being a Black girl involved. so i never liked pink, because it felt like a girl’s color. mind you, i had no problems with girls of course. my gay ass liked them!
but i didn’t exactly understand that i liked girls in the way that a boy would… and i wanted to treat girls in the way that boys got to. i remember one time i slept with my shirt off, dreaming of the ability to have a girl lay on my chest in my moonlit childhood bedroom. when my mother noticed in the morning, she told me, “you’re not a boy!”
it hurt for reasons i couldn’t put my finger on. part of me didn’t get what was wrong/taboo, and a part of me now feels like i had all these different moments where i felt like a distant boyhood was calling out to me, and i just didn’t understand what that meant at the time. i’m so grateful that i do now.
so when i had this experience of being around a boy who was very enthusiastic about doing something that seemed to be “for girls,”
i got so excited! i think it was even gender-euphoric for me. and i took that moment and ran with it.
we moved into a house during the summer between my second and third grade year. it was the first time i had my own room, and when we moved in it was yellow. one of my favorite colors at the time, and pretty gender-neutral i guess. but it wasn’t my favorite, and i wanted to paint my room pink!!!
my mother was literally so happy. i infer she must’ve felt like, finally, “something girly from my girl child that is a girl.”
but it really wasn’t like that for me…
in reality, it felt like there was a way around liking this very “feminine coded" thing without it being tied to this larger sense of my assumed gender / identity. it was like i had this secret affirmation with myself, kinda felt like tricking my mother into getting what ~she~ wanted so i could get what i wanted; but it was innocent in it’s nature. i didn’t suddenly become more girly or anything, i just had a pink room. but because of my experience the year before with the boy in school saying “real men wear pink!” i became a bit… obsessed with pink.
my cousin eddie, may he rest in peace, came over and painted the room for me. i laid on my stomach in the bedroom and played beyoncé music videos (per his request) on my big bulky computer to motivate and inspire him. and he did a damn good job! i was so happy with it. i felt renewed and emboldened. in my own heart and mind, i was a “real man” because i loved my pink room.
when i was driving about a week ago, i saw a group of three Black boys. the boy in the middle was wearing wide-leg pink pants. i thought to myself, “i need to find me a pair of pants like that.”
and just a fews days ago, i noticed a Black boy at the crosswalk wearing a pink t-shirt.
in both of these instances, i found something that felt pride-adjacent shining inside my chest. initially i think i just admired that there was some amount of implied acceptance in those moments.
it inspired me to write this essay, and it’s interesting to carry meaning throughout time.
happy venus day! venus is my chart ruler, and i feel like the embodiment of venus as a boy. (send love in the form of a tip if you enjoyed reading! + venmo)