Current mood:	contemplative
Current music:	They Might Be Giants, "She's An Angel"

     Sometime this week (not sure of exact day) is the 10th anniversary of the first time I ever came out as genderqueer, or as not being exactly a man or a woman. Wow, I’ve really been out that long :=)

     I have someone from my first collehe to thank for being the first to encourage me. When I was growing up (the ‘80s) the only other person I really knew of was Boy George on MTV, and I didn’t think I could ever talk to anyone about my gender.
     Then one day Jill and I started talking about this MTV show “Alternative Nation” (the corporate media’s idea of “alternative” and “grunge” music/culture), she commented on the host Kennedy, “perfect hair and nails and makeup, if this really *were* a “grunge” show she’d look like me, or it’d be a guy dressed like that.” Then the conversation turned to…Boy George in the ‘80s, and I ended up telling Jill that I’d always looked up to Boy George as a kid, that I’d had at least some idea of not being exactly the guy everyone saw me as since about age four, that I’m somewhere in between or maybe even outside the “all boy/all gurl” lines I’d bveen presented with my entire lifem and told all the times I’d been made to feel like less than a person for being what at the time I caked androgynous. Jill’s reaction was “wow, it’s like you’ve spent your whole life in a huge iron ball, it’s so great that you can talk about this with me” and asked if she was the first ever…..well yeah! Jill was amazing, I wish I knew where she moved to after she graduated.

     That was only the first time I ever came out, but it made all the others possible.—Cynthya/BrianKate</p>