Member-only story
I’m a Trans Man, but My Alter Ego is Courtney Love
Some darker corners of gender identity and praise for a raunchy bitch
When I was a clueless adolescent baby butch in the early 80s, there was almost zero queer representation in popular media, especially for us wee tough girls. I secretly and repeatedly rented Hotel New Hampshire on VHS just so I could watch one shadowy, fleeting kiss between Jodie Foster and Nastassja Kinski frame-by-frame, on a loop, desperately willing just one more fraction of a second with better lighting.
Summer Lovers, which no one seems to remember but me, boldly introduced a bisexual throuple to my young mind, but more importantly hinted at Daryl Hannah’s genuine, independent affection for a hot French female archeologist when she wasn’t tripping over Peter Gallagher’s eyebrows. Then I saw Joan Jett on MTV. She wasn’t even out, but I knew she was snarling just for me. After picking up the pieces of my little mind scattered over our rust velour sectional, I dared a hope for the first time I might have a chance.
I had multiple versions of myself developing and tussling with each other just then. There was the butch me, for which I did not yet have a name. Kids at school never treated me like a girl. I was too big, too strong, and kind of scary. I was better at being a boy than the boys…
