Borders

 10^th grade was not the first time I was treated differently because I was a woman, but when you don’t know what feminism really is, these inequalities are like water on a duck’s back. You think it’s just life. In the 6^th grade, I was sitting next to my best friend Ashlynn in history class. We were learning about the Alamo when the speaker called all of the girls to the auditorium. The guys were to remain in class and continue their education without us. The muffled chatter spread around the room as we found our seats in the outdated auditorium. One of our teachers made her way to the front of the room with a rose in hand. “Pass this around the entire auditorium, I want you to bite it, tear it, lick it, touch it, stomp it, whatever you want.” It got to me, and I took a bite out of it to make my friends laugh. We weren’t laughing for long. We soon learned that this rose represented our purity, that if we gave ourselves to somebody before our wedding night, our wedding night may never come. We learned we would be damaged goods. We were taught that purity was our power. We then had a long lesson about how it is our responsibility to protect the guys in our lives. That we should be modest and not cause the men in our lives to stumble. I had barely turned 12 and was quickly being put into place.

"I had to leave home so I could find myself, find my own intrinsic nature buried under the personality that had been imposed on me" – Gloria Anzaldúa

I was given a script of who I was supposed to be and what my family and the world expected of me and for 20 years I played that part. For a few seasons I loved my character, I didn’t question my role and I read my lines with pride. Slowly, but surely, I started to realize that this character was not me, nor how I wanted to be perceived. I had known I was gay for a really long time, but that was definitely not in my character description. It wasn't until I came to college and escaped the borders I had lived in my entire life. I found myself as I met queer people for the first time, I wasn't even allowed to watch Ellen growing up and hardly knew that there were other girls that liked girls, especially in real life. I took Intro to WGS with Dr. Ballard and she helped me start to see the life I dreamed of. I deconstructed my faith. I refound myself, the girl I was before society put up borders and told me who to be.