I was a fireman for four days

[lobolance]

I went to a rather nice high school, in the northwest. Junior and senior year, we could take these nifty short courses at the end of the year (I think it may've been an honors thing). One year, I took firefighter training. It was an amazing experience... on my knees, blinded and hooded - oops that means wearing a helmet with the shield blocked out - , carrying a pack through a smokey room, looking for survivors. It was the first time I did the first aid training where everyone who touches a downed person also goes down (find the electrical plug, dummy!). We coiled fire hose, and uncoiled it. It was a lot of hard work, and I am greatful for having had the opportunity. (and yeah I still think firefighters are hot.)

I was relating this bit of my past to a friend as we exchanged histories, and his comment was, I was "very butch!" This really gave me pause. Huh, what?? And then I put it into perspective... I was female-bodied at the time. Nominally at least, a girl. As an aside, at the time I didn't even have the concept of butch, their being no gay culture in my school. I strongly ID'd as boy-like, but there was absolutely no word for it (let alone for the idea that I really was a boy).

And thinking back... yeah at the time it was a big deal. I was the only girl who took that particular class (refusing to give up my um boyhood dream of being a fireman, right??).

So it's been a sort of double cognitive dissonance for me... the moment where I wondered where the "butch" comment came from, and then wondering again that I wondered at it. It kinda speaks to my inner reality of always having been "me", and it was that core "me" who took the class... all the outer crap was just part and parcel of the endless outer crap I lived through, which I essentially do my best not to dwell on (and yet which surely played a big part in shaping many of my responses... stuff I am still working at unlearning). Anyhow, is there a disconnect here somewhere? Where is it? I think it plays hard to get. I hold both realities in my skin.

Snapshot. Click.

Comments

Re: when I grow up

[lobolance.livejournal.com]

LMAO thanks.

when I grow up

[kingwyatt.livejournal.com]

When asked as a small child what I wanted to be when I grew up, my response was that I wanted to be a Firetruck until I got old enough to comprehend that I could not become an inorganic organism.

queer words

[ladyhilary.livejournal.com]

I love the word "butch" it is a queer word, identifies a female bodied person who projects a certain male quality and in men, it is used to tell us he is more male than a straight man.--- or at least, that is how I use it and see it.... with this gender thing I could just be coookie!

Re: queer words

[lobolance.livejournal.com]

yeah I agree around 'butch'. It literally doesn't have much of a meaning (let alone usage) in the straight world.. and I can always tell when the speaker actually understands the word or not (vs. the occasional outsider/looking down the nose one hears among certain straight people).