Born in the Wrong Decade Part 3: The Naked Emperor

In the first and second installments of this series, I talked about the perverse level of awareness I had by the age of nine as to how different I was, particularly as it pertained to my focused interest in Back to the Future, and the pathologizing word "obsession" that was often associated with it. These posts illustrated that I was born in the wrong decade because of the lack of acceptance of brains that operate differently; even I didn't accept my own brain, and I made fitful and fruitless attempts to change it and hide my focused interests, which felt "wrong". Had I been born in the 21st century, I would have been spared this self-criticism, as well as criticism from the adults in my life. But what about my own differences that I didn't try to hide, ones that I continually asserted that I shouldn't have to hide? 

Let's segue a little bit: As a rabid fan of the Back to the Future series growing up, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the 21st century, imagining a world of hoverboards, flying cars, and other advanced technology. Deep down, I didn't believe these particular things would be invented, but I anticipated some incredible technology that I couldn't wait to see. I wasn't disappointed; the me of the 1990s would have been thrilled to learn about the technological innovations of the 21st century, and the me of today is thrilled to witness it. But I don't associate the 21st century with advanced technology as much as I do with something else: a more open and accepting society, one in which people are owning up to their mental quirks that the social sin of thoughtcrime would have silenced them about in the 1990s and earlier. And, in contrast to my "thoughtcrime" about focused interests that I tried to hide, this "thoughtcrime" was something I didn't shut up about-- the thoughtcrime of rejecting the concept of expected gender norms.

As a gender-nonconforming girl in the '90s-- a tomboy, as was the common parlance-- I was expected by many of the adults in my life to be going through a "phase" that I would have to outgrow. Many movies of the era seemed to reflect this expectation: a 12-year-old tomboy gets her first crush on a boy, and by the end of the movie she looks, dresses, and acts more feminine; her sudden conformity a symbol of her maturity. Although I didn't question my mother's condemnation of the concept of "obsession", I vehemently questioned the orthodoxy of the concept of "tomboy" being a characteristic that I was expected to leave behind with the onset of adolescence. I also didn't understand why people even cared: I wasn't hurting anybody; why on earth should it matter to them if I dressed and acted more traditionally masculine than other girls? Sometimes my mother would comment that if I dressed and wore my hair a certain way, people wouldn't be able to tell if I was a boy or a girl. At least once, I said, "So the problem is people won't know what's in my pants? Why is it anybody's business? So they know if they can potentially reproduce with me?" And no, this isn't me retrospectively analyzing the situation as an adult. I was thinking and saying stuff like this by the time I was seventeen. Around then, I also said it shouldn't matter if a boy wants to wear a dress, which was seen as even more radical than the idea of a girl being a tomboy past the age of twelve. And, of course, all of these things that I said were dismissed by adults as the whims of a young, idealistic teenager, one who just didn't understand at all how the world worked. 

But guess what? I was just stating the obvious, that the emperor was naked.

Born in the wrong decade indeed! All these things I was vocal about and that fell largely on deaf ears are now talking points on the mainstream left, particularly as they pertain to transgender and nonbinary people. To suggest among your fellow liberals that being a tomboy at fifteen is a sign of "immaturity" won't go over very well today. Saying that your daughter should wear certain clothes so that people know that she's a girl? You would be laughed out of the room, after being told to get into the habit of asking people-- at the very least when you're not sure what gender they're presenting-- "What are your pronouns?" with the understanding that "they/them" could possibly be the correct answer to that question. 

After years of being told that, no, the emperor was not naked, and that I was the only one who thought that he was, more and more people are admitting that they, too, knew what they saw, but feared they were the only ones and so did not come forward about it. Today, hundreds of thousands-- if not millions-- of people are declaring the emperor naked, and others in their lives have to accept that, yes, he is. He's stark naked, and his nudity can be understood in many ways. It can be understood in the sense that you are someone who has weird focused interests-- or focused interests of any kind. It can be understood in the sense that you are gay, bisexual, transgender or gender nonconforming, or nonbinary. It can be understood in all of the above, or any other form of nonconformity. A lot more people than you realize always understood this.

Welcome to the 21st century. It's great to be here.

The emperor is naked.