Page 29 - Letter to My Father Curriculums_Neat2

Am I a man?

I like to cook, bake my own bread. Any time I have company at my place I try to feed
them - cookies, soup, casseroles, a cup of tea – motherly, comforting, foods. I prefer
satins. I like pastels - silk, lace, flower prints, all the pretty clothes I am rarely allowed to
wear. There are a lot of gay men who dislike women, so much so that they not only
refuse to be associated with them, but also physically mistaken for one. I like to be
around women. I wonder if we’d sat down and talked, back when we still could, when I
was so frightened of my own reaction that I couldn’t even look at yours, what your
insight might have been. Why do I call myself a woman? Maybe it’s the combination –
sex, clothes, concern.

Am I a woman?

For a long time, society did not allow me to find out for sure who or what I
was. Definition is so important in our world, but the defining only appears as a workable
solution if everyone agrees on the answer beforehand. I know you don’t think much of
teaching as a profession, which is ironic because you are one of the best teachers I
know. The most important lesson you ever taught me was to be true to myself. If I had
learned that better and earlier, you would have already known me as a third daughter;
and I think, become proud of my becoming a teacher. It’s a good job for a woman too,
dad.

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