BY KARI ANDRADE
More than 40 years before Will Smith’s son shocked the fashion world by modeling women’s wear for a Louis Vitton, there was Ziggy Stardust and David Bowie. Jaden Smith has been called the “gender queer fashion icon of 2016” by pride.com. Did David Bowie, a perennial fashion, music and art icon make this possible? He was the first gender queer person I remember.
I was about 10 years old and David Bowie made being androgynous really cool. At a time when women were burning bras and wearing jeans, he was blurring the lines of gender, refusing to be put in a box and labeled. He gave the rest of us permission to be who we really are.
In the midst of Bowie’s breaking out of stereotypes, there was a musician growing up in Minneapolis and attending Central High School who would reign in pop music for decades while wearing tight pants, ruffle shirts and platform shoes. Prince was able to be Prince, a very sexy mix of masculine and feminine perhaps because of Ziggy Stardust.
Two other stories come to my mind, which also start out at Central High School:
1. Scholar/athlete, shot put and discus champion and record holder, goes on to get an MBA and then on to careers with Cargill as a commodity trader and then IDS (now Ameriprise) as a financial advisor.
2. Begins designing and sewing clothes in high school, cheerleader, studies Chinese, works as a cook to pay for college, works for big companies and decides that the best way to not deal with office politics and unfair practices, and to have the flexibility to stay home with a young child and eventually work from home around the school’s schedule is to be self-employed.
What are your gender assumptions about the two stories? Pretty clear, right? No, both are me, and I couldn’t have done so many “male” things in my life without the lines being blurred and the gender rules being relaxed. As a girl, I felt I had more choices than the boys because I could do everything they could do (thanks to my dad telling me I could) and the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) movement of my childhood.
Boys are just now catching up, 40 years later. More and more there will be no gender specific toys and clothes. Now there are “all gender” restrooms at many colleges and universities. Gender definitions are getting broader and more inclusive. In the past year I learned a new term, “non- binary,” which means a person who is gender queer, not one gender or the other. Maybe we are all a little of both, mostly one or the other. In Daoism, there is some yin in the yang and some yang in the yin. Sexuality, which I just learned is separate from gender, is on a continuum and I am learning that gender identification can be also.
Let the walls come down, let the roles be less rigid, and in homage to David Bowie and the legacy that he has left, let us all be more accepting of all gender identifications. Really, at the end of the day, should my gender define who I am? If we get beyond the labels maybe we can then see and appreciate individuals for who they truly are.
