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Sayoni is a Singapore-based feminist, volunteer-run organisation that works to uphold human rights protections for queer women, including lesbian, bisexual and transgender women. We organise and advocate for equality in well-being and dignity regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity/expression and sex characteristics.

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  • 1

I got over that crush very quickly and for awhile, I found that I never encountered those inexplicable stirrings again. But like all dormant, repressed emotions, these same feelings were directed time and time again on some attractive young teacher in the third grade whom I tried hard to impress by memorizing parts of the Britannia Encyclopedia or even a homely bespectacled teacher in the fourth grade who spurred me on to win her heart by scolding me in class for talking so much. These experiences made me realise in reflection that my fleeting infatuations were results of many frustrated emotions which I could never experience at home, what with a mother whose sole concern was how we were doing at school or a contemptuous elder sister who thought me too inane to have a conversation with. All these ‘flavours-of-the-months’ represented my surrogate mothers and sisters who at least validated me for my creativity, encouraged me with even the slightest hint of a smile, or read out my essays in class, much to my quiet exhilaration. Thus, I never felt the need for female tenderness at home so long as this existed in the satisfyingly secure realms of my school life.

By the time I was in the seventh grade, I was almost convinced that women were more attractive creatures. If it wasn’t an athletic senior in the tenth grade, it was a young and pretty teacher who bowled me over with her sophistication and poise. I found that males of my age were geeky, awkward beings who could only tease and taunt as their way of communicating with the opposite gender. As for all my inherent insecurities of being slightly obese and atypically feminine, I resented this treatment even more and this added to my natural aversion for testosterony creatures.

In contrast, my heroines were all likeable beings, with a willing compliment or even mutual admiration. These positive vibes drew me closer to my sexual awareness. But never once did I see it fit to fantasize about these subjects in an erotic fashion. In fact, I used to write trashy short romances which I shared with my close pal and in them featured socially acceptable relationships between the genders. I knew then that I was not a lesbian in the truest sense of the word but I seemed more drawn to the female persona because of all the values and traits they possessed which seemed more attractive than their male counterparts. I wasn’t against all males; I just wasn’t too particularly impressed by them.

average gawky tomboy, 13


2.

By my senior year, I was almost convinced that I was indeed attracted to the female gender as well as attractive to them. Although I had my fair share of adolescent crushes on a couple of boys and a few male admirers who sought my company at social functions, I always found that the emotional impetus of the female gender held stronger in terms of its ability to sustain my interest and attention, and stir up rather tumultuous emotional reactions.

Being a student leader of sorts, I was constantly in the attention of not only my juniors but also my peers, one of whom confirmed to me my emotional inclinations. Her name was Carolyn, a 17 year old streetwise and jaded teen who had joined our school to re-take her ‘O’ Levels. She was put in my disciplinary charge by our form-teacher because I was expected to watch her every move as part of my duties as a prefect. She encompassed the rebel audacity which I found myself admiring greatly, so much so I started to compromise my position by feigning ignorance of her truant behaviour or even going out on a limb to cover-up her late arrivals by retrieving her school bag which she threw over the fence after being locked out of the school gate. All this I did because I lived through her seemingly exciting life vicariously, being the cowardly conformist I was. All my actions were met with gratitude and later, as I discovered through her subtle gestures of teasing or even casual strokes and playful pecks, admiration, brimming on infatuation.

She once confessed to me in a card when we parted ways that she thought me special and kind and found herself getting increasingly drawn to me. And had we not kept the comfortable distance, she may have said or done things which may have threatened our friendship. But what Carolyn did was to stir up very real emotions which I wouldn’t say were sexual but the warmth and fuzziness one feels inside when you are physically close to a loved one – the feeling of security, of being loved and the egotistical thrill that someone actually feels that way for the nobody you think you are.

We never kept in touch since graduation and I know why. Because I wanted to keep the pleasant memory of our close encounter which never progressed to something beyond what we could handle. And the memory that something may have developed is far more pleasant and easier to deal with than the reality of a fantasy fulfilled. That is a phenomenal emotion which I still experienced through the years which followed.

typical butchy/rockette wannabe, 16

Coming Up…Part 2

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