Indypendent.org – By Eleanor J. Bader
Helen Boyd?s fascinating memoir-cum-social analysis, She?s Not the Man I Married, turns a personal dilemma into fodder to discuss what we mean ? or don?t mean ? when we pin gender labels on each other.
For starters, there are those pesky terms, ?male? and ?female.? By way of introduction, Boyd informs readers that the book is the story ?of how a tomboy fell in love with a sissy, how a butch found her femme, how a boyish girl met a girlish boy. Who is who is not always clear and doesn?t always matter. In some ways, that?s the heart of this book: the idea that a relationship is a place where people can and do and maybe even ought to become as ungendered as they can.?
Sounds great in theory. But again, there?s that pesky thing: reality. Here, we smack head-on into the blues and pinks of childrearing and the homophobia that undergirds the sexuality we develop.