Dude, You're A Fag Part 5

While hip-hop culture is often derided for its rampant misogyny, girls and women find ways to appropriate the culture and style in order to express independence and agency (Emerson 2002). This is what the Basketball Girls did in their interactional style, clothing choices, and musical tastes.

122 None of the Basketball Girls said they self-consciously dressed like boys; instead they said they dressed in baggy clothes for comfort.

Mich.e.l.le said she liked to dress in baggy clothes "'cause it's comfortable.

I don't like wearing tight stuff." She told me that other girls dressed in fitted clothing "'cause they want to look cute for people. I really don't care what people think about me, or whatever." She did say other people commented on her unusual clothing choices: "Yeah, they'll always be like, why I dress like this? I'm comfortable. That's what I like."

Rebeca told me that she had dressed this way "my whole life practically." When I asked her why she didn't dress like her girlfriend, Annie, a perky white cheerleader who wore typically feminine, low-slung, tight pants and fitted shirts, Rebeca told me, "It doesn't go right with me. I don't feel the vibe there. I don't like it." She said that her friends "dress fine. I mean, I don't care how they dress. I mean, I like the way they dress and everything. I just like the way I dress." I asked her if anyone ever commented on the fact that she didn't wear tight clothing. Rebeca told me, "I get that a lot." Her friends (not all members of the Basketball Girls) often teased Rebeca about her masculine self-presentation. On Halloween Rebeca was hanging out at basketball practice with Latasha and Sh.e.l.ly talking about whether they planned to go trick-or-treating that evening. Latasha teased Rebeca, "Are you going as a girl?" They all laughed. Sh.e.l.ley jumped in, saying, "Yeah, I wanna see you in a dress!"

Latasha modified this by saying, "No, just tight pants and a tight shirt!"

All three continued to laugh at the idea of Rebeca in "female drag."

The Basketball Girls sometimes joked about dressing like other girls at River. One morning Tanya, Rebeca, and Sheila skipped cla.s.s to sit on top of tables in the school's central quad and listen to rap music. They discussed what they were planning on wearing to the "Back to School Dance" the upcoming Friday. Rebeca asked Tanya, "You goin' to the dance?" Tanya answered, "Yeah, I'm gonna wear a skirt." Rebeca's mouth dropped open: "For real?" Sheila, Tanya's little sister chimed in, "Yeah, I'm wearin' a dress, some makeup, and my hair all down." Rebeca, flab-bergasted at this point, asked, "FOR REAL?" Both Tanya and Sheila Look at My Masculinity! / Look at My Masculinity! / 123 123 laughed loudly, "NAH!" All three of them cracked up in laughter. Such laughter was both a celebration of their gender transgressions and possibly a way to manage anxiety about it.

The Basketball Girls constantly disrupted whatever environment they were in with their never-ending (but very entertaining) energy. None of them had cars or licenses, so they ate lunch in the cafeteria. More than once they got into a food fight in the cafeteria at lunchtime. During one particularly entertaining round, they hollered at one another as their food fight turned into an impromptu soccer game. They kicked empty water bottles back and forth across the cafeteria, yelling "Goal!" every time they shot a bottle between table legs. Another time they incited a food fight by continually throwing candy eggs at the heads of a group of girls in the cafeteria, laughing raucously each time an egg pelted its tar-get. They continued this behavior down the hallway, laughing hysterically as they hit these girls with the eggs.

The Basketball Girls' high-energy antics and proclivity to fights often brought them into conflict with the school's disciplinary rules. Rebeca, for instance, said of her disruptiveness in the basketball cla.s.s, "I don't like the varsity coach 'cause she's my teacher. She hates me, I hate her. She just mugs me. I mug her back." I asked Rebeca, "What's mugging?" She answered, Like givin' me a dirty-a.s.s look. I'm just like, whatever. I be h.e.l.la loud in that cla.s.s . . . I'm seriously jumping up on the bleachers. Throwing b.a.l.l.s all over the place, just shooting wherever I want to. Not even listening to the teacher. And she just, like, sits there, like [soft voice], "I hate you. Hate you." No, she doesn't say that, but I know she's sayin'

it. She doesn't like me.

All during Hoop Skills cla.s.s, not one of the Basketball Girls stopped moving. While some of the other students tired out and wilted in the corner, these girls constantly made drum noises by pounding the bleachers rhythmically, ran up and down the court, jumped on each other, and shot baskets. In fact, one day, Tanya was so disruptive the coach asked her to 124 leave cla.s.s. Upon exiting the gym, she started to jump up and down outside, making faces in the window at the rest of the cla.s.s as they laughed at her clowning.

One day at lunch I sat with the Basketball Girls as we watched Tanya's father escort her off the school campus. Casey, a middle-aged blonde security guard, walked up to the Basketball Girls' lunch table, shaking her head and saying, "She's back for a day and then she's suspended again." Tanya had shown up late for a cla.s.s in which the teacher had locked the door to prevent disruptions. Frustrated at being locked out, Tanya started to kick the door loudly and repeatedly.

The teacher called security and she was suspended. The rest of the girls were no strangers to fights. At football games their shoving matches were frequently interrupted with p.r.o.nouncements of which girls they planned to fight, followed by furtive and intense discussions involving mediators between them and groups of girls from a rival school.

Their aggressiveness frequently inspired fear in other students. Ricky said of them, "They're tough! Oh, they're tough! Every time I see them they're like [deep voice], 'Yo man, whatsup!' I'm like [makes a scared face]. I'm used to 'Oh, hi!' [high-pitched female voice]." I asked Ricky if other students gave the girls a hard time. He told me, "I can't imagine that they do, because they're so tough. They have the ambition and the att.i.tude to kick some a.s.s. They [other students] know that if they say anything they're gonna get their a.s.s kicked. So they don't say anything." He was right, I never saw other students fight back against the Basketball Girls, nor did I hear disparaging comments made about them.

None of them had boyfriends. With the exception of Rebeca, who identified as a lesbian, it was unclear whether the others identified as straight or gay. However, they make it clear that boys were not high on their priority list. Mich.e.l.le said, as we talked on a metal bench outside the locker rooms one afternoon, "I don't really have no time for boyfriends.

When I did have one it wasn't fun. I like hanging out with my friends all the time, doing stuff with them. When you're with a boy you don't re-Look at My Masculinity! / 125 ally have time for them. I don't have time to be with a boy." Regardless, the prevailing view among the student body was that the Basketball Girls were gay. Calvin described them as a "hecka loud" group of girls who "all look like boys, all dress like boys," and are "all gay."

Little five-foot-high Rebeca was, in one student's words, "the leader of the pack." Jose described her by saying, "She kind of looks like a guy but it's a girl." She was well known, well liked, and almost always within earshot. She was a darling girl with a vivacious smile and tangible energy, and she made friends easily. At a football game when I said I was writing "a book on boys," one of her (nonBasketball Girl) friends squealed that "you should interview her! She dresses like a boy and she's a lesbian! She turns straight girls gay!" Indeed, both straight boys and straight girls at River High commented on her attractiveness. Her current girlfriend, Annie, had been straight until she met Rebeca, thus adding to the impression that Rebeca possessed mystical attraction.

Rebeca's lesbianism and masculine sense of self often became a joke with her friends who were outside the Basketball Girls. As I interviewed Rebeca on the lunch tables in front of the school, Lisa, one of Rebeca's nonBasketball Girl friends, approached, asking, "What are you guys recording?" She wanted to know if I was writing about Rebeca, and I said, "Sort of." Laughing, she asked what my research was about-"lesbians?" Rebeca and her friends, including me, all laughed at this. Rebeca, retorted, "You're gay, Lisa!" Ana yelled back, "Lisa's not gay, Lisa's straight!" Rebeca teased, "You sure about that?" Ana yelled, "I'M POSITIVE!" They both laughed as Rebeca concluded, "I love doing that to her!" and they laughed some more. This good-natured teasing permeated discussions of Rebeca's s.e.xuality and her gender practices. Her friends teased her, not when she acted like a boy, but when she acted like a girl. For instance, when Rebeca spoke about her recent heartbreak, Ana teased her. "She cried, she was so emotional," Ana mocked, making crying sounds, while Rebeca faked indignation.

Rebeca prided herself on being an "out" lesbian. She told me that she came out at a very young age: 126 I came out in seventh grade. I dated a lot of boys so I tried to hide it. I told everyone in ninth grade because I started dating this senior girl. I hate guys. Guys are gross to me. Eww. I mean when I was in middle school I went out with a lot of guys. I kissed 'em and everything. I didn't feel anything. I was just like, ugh, this is so gross.

Even though she was quite comfortably and publicly "out," Rebeca didn't align herself with the visible group of gay kids at the school, the kids who were active in the GSA. She told me, "I went to it a couple times, but it didn't do anything [for me]. So I really didn't care." Rebeca's experience with the GSA sums up the relations between the Basketball Girls and the GSA Girls. Neither was fully comfortable in the other's social territory. Part of Rebeca's discomfort probably stemmed from the fact that the Basketball Girls resisted politics in general. In high school, it is profoundly uncool to care deeply about most things (save for sports and dating). For instance, the Basketball Girls made light of National Coming Out Day, which fell on the same day as the homecoming football game. As they ran up and down on the bleachers, Annie, Rebeca's cheerleader girlfriend, ran up to Rebeca and yelled, teasing her, "It's National Coming Out Day!" All the girls laughed, including Rebeca, and went on with their roughhousing. This was the only time I heard the girls refer to larger political or social aspects of s.e.xuality.

Rebeca credited her lesbianism with making her more popular.

When I asked her if people treated her differently because she dated girls, she said, "I get a lot of nice comments. Like, 'You're a pimp, you have all the girls!' I get a lot of that." I responded, surprised, "So everyone's totally cool with it?" "Yeah, they're like, 'Hey hook me up with some of your girls!' " Rebeca immediately posited boys as her audience, as those who would approve or disapprove of her s.e.xuality. It seems that, as with boys' potential same-s.e.x desire, boys were the ultimate arbiters of what was acceptable and not acceptable at River High.

Mich.e.l.le also told me Rebeca didn't experience h.o.m.ophobia from her cla.s.smates. Rather, she told me that both boys and girls were attracted to Rebeca.

Look at My Masculinity! / 127 127 They know she's gay, so they don't really have anything to say. Everybody knows her as the pimp, the pimp, cause everybody be jackin' her real hard, they really do. Not boys. Girls. Well, boys be jackin' her too. When she dresses like a girl, she's cause everybody be jackin' her real hard, they really do. Not boys. Girls. Well, boys be jackin' her too. When she dresses like a girl, she's hecka hecka pretty. When she dresses like a boy all the girls will be jackin' her. But she don't like the boys, so . . . pretty. When she dresses like a boy all the girls will be jackin' her. But she don't like the boys, so . . .

Mich.e.l.le used the word jackin' jackin' to indicate a level of attraction. She explained that depending on Rebeca's gendered presentation of self, either boys or girls were drawn to her. Like Chad, Rebeca had the ability to inspire intense desire in others. And, as with Chad, this s.e.xual desire increased her social status, conferring upon her the high-status ident.i.ty of to indicate a level of attraction. She explained that depending on Rebeca's gendered presentation of self, either boys or girls were drawn to her. Like Chad, Rebeca had the ability to inspire intense desire in others. And, as with Chad, this s.e.xual desire increased her social status, conferring upon her the high-status ident.i.ty of "pimp."

At River High when a boy dated a lot or had s.e.x with a lot of girls, he was admiringly called a "pimp." It was a term of honor and respect. At River High, if a girl dated a lot of boys, then she was called a "s.l.u.t" or a "ho," never a "pimp." Rebeca often recast herself as a "pimp" rather than a "ho." I teased Rebeca at one point by asking her if her nickname was "pimp." She replied defensively and with a smile, "I am pimp!" What follows is an interesting interchange between Rebeca and Ana (one of her nonBasketball Girl friends) on the definitions of pimp pimp versus versus ho: ho: ana: ana: You aren't a pimp. Who are you pimpin'?

rebeca: I'm not a pimp? I'm pimpin' every single girl here.

Including you!

ana: Oh yeah, right! Including me! Uh uh! Uh uh! No! You ain't pimpin' no one! You think you're pimp. You're a pimp last year. 'Cause you played hecka girls last year.

Over the summer. You know how many girls you played over the summer?

rebeca: Now, that was kind of funny.

ana: That was kind of mean! You're an H-O!

rebeca: No, I can't be a ho. Go look up definition of ho ho in the dictionary. in the dictionary.

ana: It's gonna tell me it's a gardening tool! (laughs) c. j.: Wait, why can't you be a ho?

128 rebeca: 'Cause I can't can't be! be!

ana: You're not a pimp 'cause you're not.

rebeca: Okay, Ana.

(Ana walks away) rebeca: I hate her! (smiling and shaking her head) Rebeca here engaged in a discursive contest over what it meant to be a pimp. She refused a feminized interpretation of her actions in which she had to be a girl; instead she claimed a masculine position as a pimp in s.e.xualized interactions with other girls. She wasn't chasing them. They were chasing her, because she had the virility to incite that sort of desire. Ana, good-naturedly, tried to keep Rebeca in a feminine, penetrated position.

Other Basketball Girls also repositioned themselves as masculine by invoking a "pimp" ident.i.ty. Mich.e.l.le, for example, told me about her plans to attend Winter Ball the previous year: "I was going to be like a pimp, and I had like four girls goin' with me." She said she had "rented a zoot suit and it was really cool." Mich.e.l.le, however, ended up not attending Winter Ball, seemingly because of lack of funds.

In addition to reframing her s.e.xual and romantic practices as "pimp,"

Rebeca consistently made discursive moves reframing her body as a male one. She posited herself as the center of female desire, saying, "I can't help it if I have girls on my jock!" Jock Jock is a slang term for "p.e.n.i.s." In a separate incident at lunch Rebeca and her girlfriend, Annie, were playfully shoving each other. Annie put her hands on Rebeca's chest and shoved her back, laughing. Rebeca yelled, "Stop punching my muscle!" and grabbed at her own chest defensively. All the girls laughed. Once again playing the straight person to Rebeca's gender-bending humor, Ana asked, shaking her head, "Why does she call her b.o.o.bs her muscle?" Rebeca responded, pointing to Annie, "You have b.o.o.bs. is a slang term for "p.e.n.i.s." In a separate incident at lunch Rebeca and her girlfriend, Annie, were playfully shoving each other. Annie put her hands on Rebeca's chest and shoved her back, laughing. Rebeca yelled, "Stop punching my muscle!" and grabbed at her own chest defensively. All the girls laughed. Once again playing the straight person to Rebeca's gender-bending humor, Ana asked, shaking her head, "Why does she call her b.o.o.bs her muscle?" Rebeca responded, pointing to Annie, "You have b.o.o.bs. I I have muscle." In both these instances Rebeca not only aligned herself with masculinity but refashioned her body as a male one, rejecting b.r.e.a.s.t.s and replacing them with muscle, rejecting a v.a.g.i.n.a and replacing it with a "jock." She flirted, in these instances, with embodying maleness by claiming male body have muscle." In both these instances Rebeca not only aligned herself with masculinity but refashioned her body as a male one, rejecting b.r.e.a.s.t.s and replacing them with muscle, rejecting a v.a.g.i.n.a and replacing it with a "jock." She flirted, in these instances, with embodying maleness by claiming male body Look at My Masculinity! / Look at My Masculinity! / 129 129 parts. In a way she drew on popular understandings of masculinity in which masculinity has to line up with a male body. In the end, though, she never expressed desire to actually be a boy.

Rebeca also partic.i.p.ated in a masculinizing process when she engaged in s.e.x talk and rituals of "getting girls." Rebeca's interactions with girls outside her social circle often looked similar to the way masculine boys behaved around girls they found attractive. One day Rebeca stood outside the girls' locker room talking to a couple of boys. A thin, attractive girl walked past wearing snug, low-waisted jeans, a white tank top, and a lacy brown shawl tied tightly around her waist. Rebeca yelled to her, "LET ME SEE YOUR SHAWL!" Rebeca then turned to the boys and said, "I saw a girl wearing one of those the other day, and I thought it was for, like, . . . " She completed the sentence by reaching out as if to grab each side of the sash and pull it toward her, laughing and thrusting her hips as if imitating s.e.x. Both of the boys laughed, as one of them said, "I bet bet you did!" As the girl walked past hesitatingly, Rebeca continued talking, "You look you did!" As the girl walked past hesitatingly, Rebeca continued talking, "You look good good in that shawl." Lyn Mikel Brown (1998) calls this sort of language "ventriloquation" to refer to the ways in which girls adopt boys' points of view. In this instance, Rebeca engaged in masculinizing practices that objectified other girls and thereby enhanced her own social standing with boys. She engaged in ventriloquation in order to appropriate the social power that accompanied masculine ident.i.ties. in that shawl." Lyn Mikel Brown (1998) calls this sort of language "ventriloquation" to refer to the ways in which girls adopt boys' points of view. In this instance, Rebeca engaged in masculinizing practices that objectified other girls and thereby enhanced her own social standing with boys. She engaged in ventriloquation in order to appropriate the social power that accompanied masculine ident.i.ties.

Though she daily enacted these sorts of masculinity processes, Rebeca occasionally partic.i.p.ated in feminizing processes. She surprised me by telling me, at length, about her experience wearing both a formal dress and makeup to the Winter Ball: I had makeup on and everything. I went with two people. I went with a guy and a girl. I walked in with them. They were like, "Who's that?

Is she new?" I heard whispers and everything. Somebody went up to me and was like, "Are you new?" I was like, "No, I'm Rebeca." She was like, "ARE YOU SERIOUS? GUYS, GUYS, COME HERE-IT'S REBECA!" Everybody, like, came around me, they were like, "Oh my G.o.d! You are so beautiful!" I was like, "Thanks" [she was shrugging 130 her shoulders and looking embarra.s.sed here]. Everybody took pictures of me. I had, like, the camera on me the whole night.

When I asked Rebeca how this attention for a feminized appearance made her feel, she replied, "I was like, d.a.m.n! Oh my G.o.d, I'm famous! [laughs].

I was like, wow. 'Cause everybody's like, 'Are you gonna wear a dress?' I'm like, 'No, I'm gonna wear a tux.' They're like, 'Are you serious?' I'm like, 'Yup.' And I surprised 'em by coming." However, when I interviewed Rebeca after Winter Ball she told me she had wanted to wear a tux and not a dress to the formal dance. When I asked her, "So why'd you decide to wear a dress instead of a tux?" Rebeca displaced the responsibility onto her mother, saying, "My mom wouldn't have let me step out of the house wearin' a tux." Like other girls I spoke with at River High, Rebeca blamed her mother for restricting her desired masculine gender expression.

There was something unconvincing about her explanation, given her daily "boy" attire. While her mother may have been part of the reason she conceded to wear a dress, school ritual brought to bear its own set of power relations on Rebeca's decision to enact normative femininity.

Rebeca blamed the makeup on her sister: "My sister talked me into it.

She was like 'You'll be h.e.l.la pretty.' I'm like 'Okay. I guess.' " Rebecca laughed, saying, "It was gross! It was hecka nasty. I did not like it. It felt like blah! I did not like it! I was like sweating and I go like this [rubbing her eye] and I see my finger is black! I was like, 'Oh my G.o.d, this is not working.' Makeup's hecka nasty. I hate hate makeup." However, when I asked Rebeca what she was going to wear to the next Winter Ball, she said she was going to wear a dress and makeup again even though "it's gonna be a pain." Indeed, at the Winter Ball itself Rebeca complained to me about how she couldn't wait to get out of her dress and into a pair of pants. I asked her why she didn't bring any with her, and she said that because none of her friends wanted to, she didn't. makeup." However, when I asked Rebeca what she was going to wear to the next Winter Ball, she said she was going to wear a dress and makeup again even though "it's gonna be a pain." Indeed, at the Winter Ball itself Rebeca complained to me about how she couldn't wait to get out of her dress and into a pair of pants. I asked her why she didn't bring any with her, and she said that because none of her friends wanted to, she didn't.

Rebeca's ability to remain in gender flux certainly added to her popularity. Her capacity for revealing either her presumed core femininity, thus exposing her masculinity as drag, or revealing her femininity as drag and her Look at My Masculinity! / Look at My Masculinity! / 131 131 masculinity as real was equally intriguing. It was as if she were endowed with some sort of power that the rest of the students didn't have. Thus she became an object of intense fascination as a liminal figure who demonstrated an ability to move between the worlds of masculinity and femininity. As such, she seemed to have some sort of power, not available to most teenagers, to inhabit multiple ident.i.ties. In her study of proms at a variety of high schools, Amy Best (2004) notes a similar phenomenon in which girls "demonstrate their skills at a.s.sembling a range of signs and symbols upon their bodies in a way that transformed who they were in school" (199). Occasionally girls who refused dresses and frilly clothes in their daily lives donned these feminine symbols at proms, much as Rebeca did. As Best notes, "Part of the pleasure of prom is to be someone different from who you are at school"

(199). For Rebeca, playing with gender in this way was both pleasurable, in that she received even more attention from her peers, and uncomfortable, in that the clothes and makeup were restricting and awkward.

To my surprise, Rebeca experienced the school administration as supportive of her s.e.xuality and her relationships. She told me that even during her public and dramatic breakup with her previous girlfriend, Jana, the school administrators had helped them out. Rebeca told me that she and Jana "went out for ever. We were engaged. That's how strong our relationship was. We were engaged." Rebeca continued to tell me of her heartbreak when she found out that Jana was cheating on her with a guy.

She said that her heartbreak was so severe that we argued in the hallway and we almost got in a fistfight. Then the princ.i.p.als broke us up because everybody at this school, all the teachers, everybody knew we were together, knew we were a couple, a couple like married. Everybody at this school was like, "Congratulations!" The princ.i.p.als brought us in the office and we sat down and they started talking to us. They were like our counselors. He [Mr. Hobert, the princ.i.p.al]

sat me down and [I was] just crying. I told my princ.i.p.al, "She's really messed up for what she did!" My princ.i.p.al was like, "What do you want to do?" He asked Jana, "Do you want to be with her?" She was like, "No.

No. No. I don't love her no more." I was like, "Are you serious?!" She was like, "I don't wanna be with her. I don't wanna be with her." I was like, 132 "No! This cannot happen! You have to be with me! I gave you everything! We're married!" I ran out of that office so fast and I started crying.

Even in this midst of her heartbreak, Rebeca didn't find the school h.o.m.ophobic; rather, her lesbianism translated into popularity and extra support and counseling from the administration (in a school so large that most students never speak to the princ.i.p.al or other administrators). In some sense the administrators, much like the other students at River High, were charmed by Rebeca. Her non-normative gender practices were couched in a way that was simultaneously charming and disruptive.

But without a political critique of gender norms or heteros.e.xuality at River High, these gender transgressions were, in the end, nonthreatening to the existing gender and s.e.xual order.

In a sense, however, speaking of the Basketball Girls as masculine or feminine doesn't get at all the aspects of their gendered portrayal. The way they "did gender" also involved racialized meanings. Much like African American boys who identify with hip-hop culture, the Basketball Girls struck a "cool pose" (Majors 2001). Their interactional style, choice of sports, and favorite music and clothing all drew upon those present in hip-hop culture. Like boys identified with hip-hop, they were vaulted to popularity. However, they did not embody the threat of African American maleness. While African American boys in school were seen as threatening to the social order, the Basketball Girls were more likely to be seen as rascals, even though they self-consciously identified as not-white. Mich.e.l.le explained this to me by saying that "sometimes white girls act quieter . . . Most white girls are quiet . . . I don't know why that is." She qualified this statement with "But some of the white girls I hang around with, they act loud too, so I don't know." So while she and the rest of the Basketball Girls identified as a variety of races and ethnic-ities, they did consciously see themselves as different from most white girls.

The Basketball Girls were a high-energy, popular, and engaging group of girls. On the one hand these girls rejected prescriptions of Look at My Masculinity! / Look at My Masculinity! / 133 133 normative femininity, resisting, for instance, heteros.e.xuality, makeup, and dresses. They didn't engage in appropriately feminine sports such as cheerleading, dance, or even soccer. Instead they not only played but were pa.s.sionate about basketball, a sport a.s.sociated with men and masculinity (Shakib 2003). In this way it seems that the Basketball Girls were reconstructing what it meant to be a girl. They also engaged in practices that looked a lot like "compulsive heteros.e.xuality." Like s.e.xist and athletic boys, they were at the top of the school social hierarchy, instilling both fear and respect in other students (Connell 1996; Eckert 1989; Eder, Evans, and Parker 1995; D. Epstein 1997; Kehily and Nayak 1997; Martino 1999; Parker 1996). In this sense, their "gender maneuvering" both challenged the gender order and reinscribed it. They challenged the gender order by acting and dressing like boys. They reinscribed the gender order by engaging in many of the dominance practices that const.i.tute adolescent masculinity, such as taking up s.p.a.ce, teasing girls, and positioning themselves as s.e.xually powerful.

THE HOMECOMING QUEEN: JESSIE CHAU.

Clad in wind pants, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, Jessie Chau sat in Mrs.

Mac's advanced placement government cla.s.s like a boy-positioned sideways, her legs spread wide and her arms splayed across both her desk and the desk behind her. Jessie, a confident, attractive, Chinese American athlete and out lesbian, was River High's homecoming queen and president of the senior cla.s.s. She was a senior when the Basketball Girls were soph.o.m.ores, so she might be regarded as a sort of trailblazer for this type of gender maneuvering at River High. She didn't have a group with which to engage in non-normative gender practices but rather did so on her own-innovating and compromising gender practices at different points in her high school career. Like the Basketball Girls she was popular and well liked. Girls wanted to be her friend, boys wanted to date her. Like the Basketball Girls she dressed in "boy 134 clothes," played sports, and, like Rebeca, identified as a lesbian. Jessie, however, lived these gender and s.e.xual transgressions on her own, without the benefit of a like peer group to support her. Several years older than the Basketball Girls, she had forged this alternative set of gender practices solo.

Boys expressed a combination of confusion and admiration for Jessie.

Richard, a conservative white senior, told me, She dresses like a man. . . . It's kind of weird. She has always been popular since she was in middle school. It's inevitable for her to be number one. . . . Jessie is a great girl. She's really nice. She's really cool. I just think it's kind of weird that she dresses like a man. She's a softball player and she's h.e.l.la good. She's a tomboy.

This was one of the few times I heard the word tomboy tomboy used to describe a girl who acted like a boy at River. Jace explained her popularity by saying, used to describe a girl who acted like a boy at River. Jace explained her popularity by saying, "Most people at River, I mean, guys are going to be like, 'Hey that's cool!'

and she's friends with tons of girls." Like the Basketball Girls Jessie benefited from s.e.xist male fantasies about lesbian s.e.xuality, as Jace indicated with his "Hey, that's cool!" comment. Similarly, because same-s.e.x desire did not threaten girls' gender ident.i.ty in the way it did boys', Jessie's s.e.xuality and gender transgressions had little effect on her friendships. For instance, when Cathy talked to me about Jessie's s.e.xuality, she said, She had a boyfriend her junior year and they broke up. Then people could kind of tell. Because she was real jocky and stuff. People were just like, "I wonder if she is?" She was always with this girl, Sandra. She told me one day, "Cathy, I want to tell you something and I don't want you to think differently of me." I was like, "I'm cool with it, I don't care." Some people are a little h.o.m.ophobic. She would sit behind me and play with my hair . . . I don't think it was weird at all that she won.

She was the nicest one out there. Being gay had nothing to do with it.

Cathy talked fondly of Jessie and of being touched by Jessie. This fond-ness couldn't be more different from the at best guarded way straight boys talked about gay boys. While, as Cathy highlighted, Jessie's s.e.xual-Look at My Masculinity! / 135 ity certainly made for juicy gossip, such tales did not seem to affect her popularity or likability. If anything, her non-normative gender practices and s.e.xual ident.i.ty bolstered her popularity among many students.

Jessie self-consciously dressed differently from other girls at River High. Her clothing reflected contemporary "lesbian" styles, mixing both feminine and masculine signs such as baggy pants and fitted shirts (Esterberg 1996). This aesthetic marked her as different from most girls at River High though not necessarily as masculine. She did not share this style with a peer group as the Basketball Girls did. She told me that her friends actively encouraged her to dress more like other girls.

It's kinda like my friends try to push it on me, 'How come you don't dress more like a lady?' and all that stuff. I don't know if you've seen me on a regular day, but I don't wear tight jeans. I don't have one pair of tight jeans in my closet. I don't have one skirt in my closet. I have dresses in my closet, but they go in a separate closet [laughs]. I don't wear the baby tees and stuff like that. On a good day I'll throw on a shirt and a pair of pants and just go.

In response to her friends' urgings, Jessie had developed a critique of typical girls' attire. She argued that other girls at River dressed in ways that emphasized their heteros.e.xual availability.

There's girls at the school who wear shirts that are too provocative. It screams attention. It's just like, what are you trying to get at, you know? I don't want to sit there and try to talk to somebody when their b.o.o.bs are hanging out at me and I'm just, okay [both of us laugh]. I mean, it's hard not to look when someone's wearing something like that! I mean it's hard to concentrate.

Jessie was most likely both distracted by and critical of such apparel choices. Given that she both was attracted to other girls and was a girl herself, she had a unique criticism of typical girls' clothing. She did not want to be looked at in the same way as these girls, so she specifically bought boys' clothing: "It's just like I don't try to impress anybody. I dress in like a turtleneck and a pair of khakis. And it doesn't look bad. But it 136 doesn't look like I'm dressing like a girl. I don't, most of the clothes I buy aren't girls' clothes. They're boys' clothes. I mean, I'm not ashamed of it." In part Jessie claimed that dressing this way was a function of her priorities. She wanted to be comfortable and spend a small amount of time on her appearance. Neither of these things were typical priorities for girls at River. She didn't understand why girls would dress in clothing that seemed so at odds with the functions of daily life: Girls will dress in skirts and stuff for school and it's like, how can you sit in a desk for, like, seven hours and wear a skirt! Gimme a break! You can't! You can't! You just can't do it! It's like, why you gonna get up an hour earlier when you can sleep in an hour later, you know? [laughs]

I mean, my hair used to be down to my b.u.t.t. I cut it to here because my day would go so much quicker if I just didn't have to deal with it.

Unlike other girls, she felt she didn't need to impress or draw attention with her body. Instead, it seemed that she saw her body as functional, active, and agentic, judging by her love of dancing and her pa.s.sion for sports. Though she lacked a coherent political critique and instead held individual girls responsible for their clothing choices, her own choices left her empowered and confident in the face of a s.e.xist and h.o.m.ophobic social world.

Like the Basketball Girls, Jessie was no stranger to fights. She and her friend Nel spoke fondly of the previous year's CAPA, during which there had been several fights. Jessie seemed to think they were great fun, talking about how she was cheering for Nel during one of the fights. Nel bragged about starting a fight, saying "it was cool" because she knew that "Jessie had my back." Jessie's on again/off again rival was Rebeca. For a while those two couldn't stand each other, in no small part because they were "talkin' to," or flirting with, the same girl, Jana, Rebeca's ex-girlfriend. Jessie explained, "Jana tried to get at me and Rebeca got p.i.s.sed off." All three of them attended a dance early in the school year, soon after Jana tried to "get at" Jessie. Jessie told me, "I was just walking out and Rebeca said I was an ugly b.i.t.c.h or something. My friend hears her Look at My Masculinity! / Look at My Masculinity! / 137 137 and slaps her. I just like, 'Oh my G.o.d.' " The fight didn't escalate because, as Jessie explained, "You know, I could have beat her a.s.s a long time ago. But I didn't, out of respect for [their] relationship. You're my friend and I don't want to start anything. I try my hardest to be nice to her." Jessie laughed at Rebeca's attempt to apologize later: "She knows I'd beat the s.h.i.t out of her if anything happens. Honestly, she's up to my hip. She's really short and she looks like this little boy." Like the Basketball Girls Jessie saw herself as tough and ready to fight. She and Rebeca never did come to blows, but both spoke often about the possibility of a fight between the two of them.

One of the reasons Jessie didn't like Rebeca was that she saw Rebeca as "flaunting" her s.e.xuality: "They flaunt it all the time at school. I don't need to flaunt my stuff to prove a point. I don't understand what their point is.

They're in a relationship and they're together. I just think that they try to show it off too much." The vehemence with which she said this revealed some of Jessie's coping strategies around being gay in high school. While she dressed and acted in many ways like a boy, she balanced this with a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" approach to her s.e.xuality. In large part, this approach reflected her own ambivalence about her non-normative gender practices and her lesbian ident.i.ty. This said, she did acknowledge the "double standard" applied to heteros.e.xual and gay relationships: There's straight couples all over the place and they can just go anywhere and be together and it's okay. Then you have the gay couples that get together and people just gawk and stare at you like you are some alien. I think it's okay that they are open about their relationship.

But sometimes I just think they are trying to prove a point.

Jessie was nervous enough about other students' stares that she attended the Homecoming Rally with her male friend Gary as her escort. She also attended dances with male friends, with the exception of her senior prom, when she finally took her girlfriend, Sasha. That said, Jessie also highlighted that she desired women in subtle, and possibly male-identified, ways. She was, for instance, a fan of the Playboy Bunny in-138 signia. She designed an art project in which she crafted a "bunny" out of chipped gla.s.s, saying, "I just like it! I've got one on my backpack. I've got one on my car. I just like it. It's cool." Like Rebeca, she engaged in "ventriloquation" by adopting and displaying a symbol a.s.sociated with p.o.r.no-graphic representations of women.

During homecoming, which is, like many school rituals, a time of in-tensified gender and s.e.xual norms, Jessie's non-normative gender and s.e.xual ident.i.ty caused quite a stir among the student body. When chosen as homecoming queen, Jessie told me that her clothing choices were a subject of gossip. Students saw her non-gender-normative clothing choices as contradicting the traditional requirements of homecoming queen.

The funny thing is that I get so much trash talked about me as far as homecoming goes: "Oh, like, she's gotta wear a dress." All girls that made it put on their little tight clothes. "I'm trying to get votes," you know? Me, I come in my pajamas, I don't care! I think the reason why I got votes is because I didn't fake it. I think that I was original and I was nice to people and I was myself. I'm a big, like, comedian person. I like to make people laugh. I like to talk and hang out and have a good time.

During the several weeks leading up to the Homecoming Rally and vote, Jessie almost got in several fights, for, while she was popular, there were students at River who opposed her election because she was gay: They say they don't think I'd be a good enough person to represent their school. I almost dropped out of homecoming just because I didn't want all the trash talked about me. I'm not one to not stick up for myself. I almost got in two fights before homecoming day. I would have gotten everything taken away from me, though. Because I'm senior cla.s.s president. So I would have been impeached and then homecoming and then my scholarship. I mean it's just too much to lose. If I didn't have anything to lose, then d.a.m.n, I would have done it.

Clearly, Jesse did not drop out of the homecoming race. Winning homecoming queen floored her. She said that she actually cried when she won: "I was just like, I even cried! I was totally surprised. I never cry. I take Look at My Masculinity! / Look at My Masculinity! / 139 139 after my dad. My dad's just like a really hard, stern-faced man. I just broke down in tears, and I was like, 'Oh G.o.d! Oh G.o.d!' " She fluttered her hand at her face as she imitated herself, laughing. She said that many of the other students were equally surprised, saying, it "shocked everybody" because "throughout my whole life I've always hung out with boys." Some people were rude: "They were like, man, it's just like a dude."

While Jessie prided herself on her refusal to exploit her body to gain votes, she did cave to what she felt as strong pressure to conform to normative gender self-presentation during the formal homecoming rituals, in which she wore a dress. When I asked her why, she said, "Um, I dunno. I'm a person about pantsuits. I just sit back and relax [putting her arm over the chair at this point and spreading her legs out in front of her]. Do my own thing. They were just like, 'No, Jessie, you have to wear a dress.' " I asked her who "they" were, those people telling her she had to wear a dress. In her answer, Jessie aptly highlighted how social structures have a life of their own: "It's just, it's just policy. It's like n.o.body ever . . . I was li ke, uhh [groan], might as well keep tradition and wear a d.a.m.n dress." There was not, as far as I could find, an official policy requiring that homecoming queens wear a dress. That Jessie felt there was a policy highlights the power of the interactional order and the pressure to "do gender" embedded in school rituals. She described herself as being very uncomfortable during homecoming: "The dress I wore during the day I wore during the night, and it was outside. It was freezing outside." Her dress was a tight, sparkly, floor-length gold dress with spaghetti straps. Indeed, she looked uncomfortable as the form-fitting dress and the high heels confined her usual long confident stride to short, frequent steps. Even the ladies who worked in the school office, who sat behind me at the Homecoming Rally, talked about how much Jessie didn't like her homecoming dress, saying, "You know she hates that dress. She just does not like that dress."

Jessie fittingly described how constraining the dress was when she 140 talked about sitting on the homecoming float: "Yeah, I'm sitting there and I'm getting on the float, and they're like, 'Jessie, don't spread your legs so wide!' It's hard. I'm trying to sit with my legs all crossed. I'm just like, 'Oh G.o.d, I swear I got a cramp.' " She was so uncomfortable in her dress that she changed her clothes at the homecoming dance afterwards: "I took pictures of me and one of my other friends, we, like, changed clothes. I was wearing pink pajama pants and a white shirt."4 Jessie's experience of her formal attire reflects what feminists have long highlighted about the confining and nonutilitarian nature of much of women's clothing.

Jessie both resisted normative definitions of femininity and engaged in them in her varying bodily comportments, clothing choices, and romantic relationships. Like the Basketball Girls she was an athlete, though she drew on the "cool pose" to a more limited extent than they did, and she remained somewhat of a liminal figure, moving in and out of masculine and feminine bodily comportments. Also like Rebeca, she was engaging, beautiful, and charming, all traits that allowed her some leeway in a non-normative gendered presentation of self. She engaged, though to a lesser extent than the Basketball Girls, in s.e.xist practices. She also, I think, exhibited quite a bit of bravery as she bucked many school norms of gender and s.e.xuality to serve as an out gay homecoming queen.

THE GAY/STR AIGHT A LLIANCE GIRLS.

Where the Basketball Girls and Jessie espoused a sort of hip-hop ethos, the girls in GSA displayed a more "goth," alternative, or "punk" ethos.

The GSA Girls, Genevieve, Lacy, Riley, and T-Rex, often dressed in black clothing with rainbow accents, Doc Martin shoes, or army fatigues.

Three of them sported multicolored hair that often changed hue. Riley, a self-described "riot grrl," favored bright pink or blonde short hair accented with barrettes, whereas Genevieve and Lacy tended toward deeper browns, burgundies, and reds for their long dark hair. Tall and imposing, T-Rex wore baggy "skater" clothes, had long blonde hair, and Look at My Masculinity! / Look at My Masculinity! / 141 141 often wore contacts with stars on them. T-Rex was the guardian of the group, describing herself as "their bodyguard." Lacy dressed more traditionally feminine, often wearing long flowing dresses and occasionally wearing baggy cut-off jean shorts and old T-shirts. Genevieve wore b.u.t.ton-down shirts and a daily changing variety of ties. Like the Basketball Girls, the GSA Girls were almost always together in and out of school. They were an emotionally intense group of girls, deeply committed to social justice and equality.

They were all active members of the school's GSA. GSAs are school clubs that are increasingly popping up throughout the country. They function as "safe zones" for students where they can be free from gender-and s.e.xuality-based teasing and taunts. The meetings consisted of planning political and social activities such as the Day of Silence, movie nights, get-togethers with other GSAs, and the Gay Prom. As many as seventeen kids came to the biweekly GSA meetings, and about five to ten attended regularly. The GSA Girls and Ricky formed the core of the GSA. Students who attended the GSA were a racially diverse group.

While many of the members of the GSA did not identify as gay, lesbian, bis.e.xual, or transgendered, T-Rex was the only straight-identified girl in the GSA Girls group.

GSA Girls purposefully challenged the s.e.xualized and gendered authority of the school. In one meeting Lacy, the GSA president, helped a boy who said that his friend was hara.s.sed by a h.o.m.ophobic teacher. Lacy told him and the rest of the partic.i.p.ants in the meeting about California's AB 537, an a.s.sembly bill that protects gay students from h.o.m.ophobic hara.s.sment in school. Lacy encouraged the boy to speak to school administrators, invoking that law for protection. The GSA Girls constantly challenged norms, especially those having to do with gender and s.e.xuality. They often said things like "Why be normal?" and "Normal is bad."

The students and administration at River High were antagonistic to the existence of the GSA. The girls were keenly aware of this antagonism, experiencing both violence and lack of acknowledgment from school authorities and other students. The previous year one of the GSA 142 Girls had had her locker broken into. Other students tore down posters advertising GSA meetings. The GSA Girls perceived that the administration made it difficult for them to advertise their group. Lacy often worried in second period, as announcements were read over the inter-com, that the GSA announcement would not be read, an omission that had in fact happened many times. Once, while enduring the daily ritual of waiting to hear the GSA meeting announcement, she explained that GSA members did not even know about the special lunch organized to highlight student groups until shortly before lunchtime on the day of the event.

GSA meetings provided time for students to discuss inequality and social change. One day Lacy ran an exercise about socialization in which she asked the a.s.sembled group of fifteen to brainstorm how they were taught, as children, right versus wrong behaviors. She wrote their answers on the whiteboard at the front of the cla.s.sroom. On the "right" side students suggested marrying a rich Catholic man, going to school, making money, going to church, morality, respecting adults, no smoking, no lying, no stealing. On the "wrong" side were listed eating yellow snow, Internet p.o.r.n, playing doctor, dirty walls, cussing, drugs, premarital s.e.x. This sp.a.w.ned a discussion of right and wrong in general. Ricky shouted out that he learned that "eye shadow going on before eyebrows was wrong!"

The group laughed as Ricky explained, "That's what happens when you grow up in show business!" Ally contributed: "I learned that girls were supposed to have long hair and wear skirts, and pants go on the boys."

Again Ricky chimed in, "I totally break that rule!" flipping his shoulder-length hair dramatically. Lacy then asked them what they still thought was wrong from that list. The students said that playing doctor was not wrong, premarital s.e.x was not wrong, and that eating snow was not wrong. They then turned back to the "good" side and said that going to church wasn't necessarily good. And when Lacy pointed to "being normal," the whole group shouted out "No! No! No! No!" Lacy used this as an opportunity to discuss where h.o.m.ophobia comes from. Some students suggested that people were raised that way. Others suggested the government was re-Look at My Masculinity! / 143 sponsible. GSA meetings served as a place to both challenge norms and explore possibilities for social change. It also gave these youth a place to be with other kids like themselves and to plan a social life outside school.

For Genevieve, Lacy's girlfriend, the GSA was a safe s.p.a.ce at school where she could be with people like her. When I asked her, "What does it feel like for you to be in a GSA meeting?" she answered: It's really weird, being with people that are like me and then being around people that aren't like me. A lot of times I forget that everybody, that there's a lot of people that aren't gay. I go to GSA and it's normal to me. Then it's like, wow, there's a guy and a girl. That's weird.