Are you a boy or are you a girl? I don’t know what you mean by that.

Do you like pink or do you like blue? I like cotton-candy colored sunsets.

Thought process one can hurt someone (and oneself) with: if you like pink, you’re a girl or a woman, or a mother, or a wife, you adore all bright shades of lipstick and you get your period once a month (uh-oh). If you like blue, you’re a boy or a man, or a father, or a husband, you have a penis and, possibly, a beard, no periods, you can’t like lipstick (of any shade, at all) and, if you do, you aren’t a “man, you’re a “f-g” (that’s what they’ll call you even if that color suits you awfully well)

Are you confused? Only by these questions.

Riddles some try to solve to figure me (and a lot of us) out: “but what’s between your legs?” and “why did you cut your hair if you’re a girl?”, and (the prize goes to) “the f-ck is wrong with you?” (many things, if you want to unpack the suitcase but I suggest we just throw the whole thing out). 

Questions to consider finding an answer to: what if you realize you’re a girl who wants to grow a beard, or a boy who’d rather wear dresses? What if you realize you’re a boy who used to be called a “girl,” or a girl who used to referred to as a “boy?” What if you realize you have absolutely no idea … about it at all? What if you start seeing purple instead of pink or blue shining through the cracks in that part of your identity that society put together? 

What happens now? Let’s hope you don’t get asked what you have between your legs.

Email Anna-Dmitry at [email protected].