Mo Dao Zu Shi: Astray

Forest of Webs, Part Three

"You look ugly in a tuxedo. Please just wear a dress like a normal woman."

"If you're going to cut your hair that short and wear pants all day, you might as well change what's down there."

"Why is your voice so deep? That's weird. You're a woman. Your voice should be higher-pitched."

"Wanna-be man."

"You're boring because you're so serious and nerdy all the time! A teacher's pet! No one wants someone like that!"

"You're not one of those they/themies, are you?

"Your voice sounds weird. Girls' voices aren't that deep."

"Would it hurt you to smile and act cute?"

Turns out being tomboyish was not a phase.

Sadly, that meant Tara was considered too manly to be a real woman.

Being a tomboy was cute when she was a child. But once she reached adulthood, that was when the invasive questions and scrutiny started. Once Tara learned the existence of lesbians, bisexuals, and other sapphic women, she finally understood why the other kids made "jokes" about her dating other girls.

Tomboys were only meant to be the butt of jokes or trophy wives to cishet men and sidekicks to cishet women. Tomboys could never be the hero. Tomboys were never meant to stay the same into adulthood. Tomboys had to grow up into traditional femininity. Tomboys were never meant to discover being gender-nonconforming or butch or transmasculine.

Women were expected to be cheerful, ditzy, and docile. Tara couldn't be cheerful and full of smiles all the time. She was also too much of a smartass for men's comfort. She was just a quiet, reserved Vietnamese woman with Resting Bitch Face who wanted to be left alone to just breathe and exist in peace.

Tara felt that as a masculine & butch Asian woman, it was much more difficult for her to find romantic partners than her feminine peers. It was hard not to notice when her own family members pushed her to be more like her female cousins.

Even Tara's parents were still guilty of forcing makeup, dresses, skirts, and jewelry on her. And she wanted so badly for her parents to be happy that she silently suppressed her pain like a bunch of needles puncturing her heart.

Tara felt jealous of her feminine Asian peers because they didn't have to face the same identity crises she did.

Growing up as an introverted tomboyish Asian girl and becoming a quiet butch woman meant a constant game of catch-up. Straight and gay people younger and older than Tara were already dating or married. It felt like she was always falling behind other people.

Cishet men and women shoved femininity down butch women's throats. Calling them "Not like other girls" and "wanna-be boys". Butches had to be "real women" even at the cost of suppressing their gender expression.

A girl couldn't have short hair, fight with a sword, or even wear pants without bitching and moaning from both cishet and queer people. Simply saying they hated butch women would make things a lot simpler.

Tara felt she was being treated like a zoo animal. Entertainment for the cishet masses. A curiosity case for cishet people to dissect why she was so mannish, so unladylike. A dress-up doll.

Tara faced infantilization, both as an Asian woman and a masculine-presenting woman. She wasn't what people expected from an Asian woman in both the West and the East. She wasn't demure, submissive, or feminine. She was a butch bisexual woman...And that meant she was hideous in many people's eyes.