No Gender November №10: Baubie
Liv’s Baubie’s honey cake is kosher and acceptance free.
Note: This is part of the November 2018 “No Gender November” portrait series on my 6yo’s lunch notes. Follow along and learn non-binary with me!
< №9 Batman is Trans| << Start at the beginning | №11 Silly Pants
Liv love’s her Baubie, painfully so. She’s the classic stereotypical Baubie type that comes rife with pride over her wonderful grandchildren’s accomplishments and Jewish guilt (pronounced “shame”) for the many things they don’t yet should be doing. Baubies fled Russian/Romanian pogroms, Nazi Germany, and all kinds of dehumanizing horror so their grandchildren could be ashamed at the thought of missing thanksgiving (I’m mostly kidding, My Baubie was a very sweet person that I miss very much)
Liv’s Baubie comes with that special flavor of shame one only gets from wanting to skip a Yom Kippur break-fast their 3rd cousin once-removed is coming to because it reflects poorly on her. Liv’s tattoos “are going to kill me” according to Baubie. Loving Baubie and being Liv means never having her queerness accepted, acknowledged or spoken out loud because she’ll never marry that nice Jewish boy. Liv says she’s desensitized to the shame, yet lives with thoughts of regretting life everyday.
Liv is part creature of the night and creature comfort. The skull neck tattoo flashing, big leather jacket and shades wearing, septum pierced guitar shredding tomboy is the same person who perkily handed me her Baubie’s honey cake recipe. She’s a lot of people in one skin suit, a really special one that I’m happy to recognize as colleague, friend and queer.