Gender for Boys (and The Girls Who Think They Might Be): Introduction

A quick story to help you understand me and where this book is coming from:

I have an older brother who is exactly five and a half years older than me. As children my brother was tall, thin, athletic, and generally well liked by everyone except me. I thought he was a bit of a bully. To be fair, he could also be protective of his little brother. I remember once getting into a fight with a boy from my neighborhood who we called Fat Shaun who bullied smaller children. I slipped on something, fell to the ground, and he repeatedly tried to stomp on me. As I rolled from side to side, I remember my brother appearing as if from nowhere, running over, and vaulting the fence before I heard the sound of him punching Shaun and then Shaun crying. As I rose from the ground he mumbled, “you alright?” I nodded and he went back to his friends hanging out a few yards over.

My brother would sometimes say to me, “you want to be just like me.” Being somewhat naturally contrary, I was determined to be nothing like him. It was somewhat easy. I was chubby, clumsy, and didn’t think of myself as athletic at all. I had nothing like his natural talent and developed skill with basketball, developed over many hours playing with his friends. He tried other sports, football, baseball, but basketball was his love, his obsession. He joined his school teams and my mother and I would go watch him. We would listen to him being praised by his coaches and peers. They would all jokingly ask if I would follow in his footsteps, even though it was apparent that was unlikely.

When we would visit family in the south during summer vacations he was welcomed into the group of older cousins as one of them. These same cousins would make fun of me as a mama’s boy and call me Toledo Sissy, for the Ohio city where we lived. They called me that because at some point I had cried or tattled on one of them for picking on me. When I would complain that my brother was also from Toledo, they would point out that, unlike me, he wasn’t born there. For what it’s worth, my brother never joined in, at least while we were among our cousins. At home, it was another story.