I was born and raised in Manhattan; I didn't realize that I, in all my androgyny, was a freak to the rest of this country.
We are neurologically hardwired to seek out people like ourselves. We start forming cliques as soon as we're old enough to know what acceptance feels like. We bond together based on anything that we can - music preference, race, gender, the block that we grew up on.
It's illegal to be gay in Little Rock - this is such a reality for so many people, but once people get to these bubbles of New York or L.A. or Boulder, Colorado, they forget.
At sleepovers I would have panic attacks trying to break it to girls that they didn't want to kiss me without outing myself.
