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Speak Out: I’ll do it my way

Speak Out: I’ll do it my way

By Betsy McConnell

There are a few issues which are of minor importance to some, but about which I have remained steadfast in doing it my way.

Betsy McConnell

Growing up, I was not spared from being bombarded with advertising directed at young women. Products such as cosmetics – eyeliner, mascara and foundation – garments designed to enhance your breasts and diminish your waistline, crippling high heels, cancer causing hair removal products, are everywhere. I decided early on (even before I knew what a dyke was, much less that I was one) that these products were not for me. It probably helped that I did not enjoy reading “girlie” magazines with their come-on ads sucking in young women who were trying to hurry up and become women. Perhaps this earthy attitude toward life was the influence of my Quaker grandmother – a very earthy person indeed – and a person I admired very much.

Yet, as a youngster, I had a strong tendency and still have a slight tendency to want to “fit in.” It was important to me to be accepted by most of my peers, especially the popular ones. I cannot say I never wore high heels – I did. I cannot say I never wore lipstick, but the point here is that I refused to be taken over, sucked in, controlled, if you will, by the industry. Who are they to tell me I need to enhance my natural appearance? I cannot say I never tried some of the products, but one painful pluck of an eyebrow hair, one glance at dripping mascara, one attempt to run in those spiked heels, and I knew none of it was for me. When I came out, I found that as a lesbian I was much more at home with this rebellious attitude and stubborn refusal to contribute to Ms. Elizabeth Arden or Mary Kay.

Along those lines, another practice that I refuse to submit to is wearing those tight fitting, skin-clinging, indigestion-inducing women’s pants with no pockets. I have to say, in the stores they look great on the manikins, but the manikins are always holding their breath and never sitting down. Nor do the manikins suffer the long-term effects of gravity on the body.

Also, I will not buy a pair of women’s pants if they have no pockets. That’s partly because my way is to not carry a purse. It is a nuisance and something to lose, leave behind, or have ripped off.  How did this purse-carrying practice come about? I suppose it’s because long ago women could not own property, including money, so there was no need to have a safe place like a deep pocket to carry it.

Then there are a couple of issues which are of major importance and about which I have been steadfast, albeit not throughout my entire life. Yet, it was not until I was willing to live my life honestly that I started doing things my way.

What I have in mind here is lifestyle and living a life according to who I really am. In other words: being true to myself. When I was in my late 40s, my children were almost grown and I had been married for nearly 25 years. I finally realized that being attracted to and falling in love with females, rather than males was not a fleeting, temporary phase of my development. Instead this was my true nature and was part of who I was. I also came to the realization that sexuality is a huge part of who a person is. If I was going to ever be true to myself, I needed to come out. This would not be easy because I had been married to my best friend, and a good person. I came to understand, however, that I would not survive if I did not do it my way and come out. That other woman whose role I had been playing all my life might have survived, but, it would have been in an unhappy and depressed state and that was not my way.

My way is now always to be comfortable in my skin. Although it has taken the better part of a lifetime to get there, I can now say with assurance I am just that – comfortable, happy, content and at peace. And that is my way. 

This editorial was originally published on the blog “Telling your story” through the SAGE of the Rockies, a program for elders at the GLBT Community Center of Colorado. 

Author Betsy McConnell has been active in the LGBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus and Old Lesbians Organizing for Change. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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