SFBayTimes.com – By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Jean Bobby Noble is an unusual boy.
An assistant professor in the School of Women?s Studies at Toronto, Canada?s York University, Noble co-edited The Drag King Anthology, authored Masculinities Without Men?, and 2006?s Sons of the Movement: FTMs Risking Incoherence on a Post-Queer Cultural Landscape.
So why won?t Noble grow up? ?The term boy has a softer edge to it than man?[and] with boy, there?s kind of a refusal of the imperative of masculinity. To be a man you have to grow up, get a job, get married, get a mortgage and take up this particular kind of position in culture, which is something that heteronormative culture depends on.?
Between 1978, when Noble came out as a working class lesbian and 2002 when he transitioned to male, Noble racked up an impressive activist resume. He worked with rape crisis centers, founded a sex-worker advocacy group, organized Take Back the Night marches, and Edmonton?s first Gay Pride Parade. Today Noble calls himself a ?guy who?s half lesbian? and he says, ?I do not renounce that history. I?m not going to renounce?23 years of my life.?