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Boys Like Her (Press Gang $19.95)
"I had a sex change once,"; writes Ivan Elizabeth Coyote in Boys Like Her (Press Gang $19.95), "when I was six years old."; That summer her mother bought her a bikini for a beginners' swimming class, ages five to seven. Trouble was, the top easily slid over her flat chest.
"I was an accomplished tomboy by that time,"; she says, "so I was used to hating my clothes.";
Arriving at the pool, she didn't wear the top. When the swimming instructor, a human bellhorn, blew her silver whistle, aggressively dividing them into two camps along sexual lines, short-haired 'Ivan' crossed over.
"It only got easier after that first day,"; she recalls in her story 'No Bikini'. "I wore my trunks under my pants and changed in the boys' room after that first day. The short form of the birth name my parents bestowed on me was androgynous enough to allow my charade to proceed through the entire six weeks of swimming lessons, six weeks of boyhood, six weeks of bliss.";
When her parents received a glowing report card from the swimming camp, citing their son's excellent performance -- He can tread water without a flotation device -- the ruse was discovered and her parents were upset. Since then 'Ivan' has crossed over as an adult
Ivan Elizabeth Coyote is one of four performance artists, collectively called Taste This, who have transformed their gender-bending presentations from the stage to the page. The quartet credits artist and author Persimmon Blackbridge for initial encouragement.
The troupe, featuring Coyote, Anna Camilleri, Zoe Eakle and Lyndell Montgomery, got together by accident in November of 1995 to do one show in a small East Vancouver theatre. Lyndell was the musician, Anna the wordsmith, Ivan the storyteller and Zoe the actor. "When the lights came up,"; they say, "we rubbed off on each other like paint in a car crash.";
Taste This' narratives and illustrations of body-pierced encounters in Boys Like Her are at once confessional, bold, humorous, graphically sexual and definitely not recommended for the heterosexually squeamish. 0-88974-086-0
[BCBW WINTER 1998]
"I was an accomplished tomboy by that time,"; she says, "so I was used to hating my clothes.";
Arriving at the pool, she didn't wear the top. When the swimming instructor, a human bellhorn, blew her silver whistle, aggressively dividing them into two camps along sexual lines, short-haired 'Ivan' crossed over.
"It only got easier after that first day,"; she recalls in her story 'No Bikini'. "I wore my trunks under my pants and changed in the boys' room after that first day. The short form of the birth name my parents bestowed on me was androgynous enough to allow my charade to proceed through the entire six weeks of swimming lessons, six weeks of boyhood, six weeks of bliss.";
When her parents received a glowing report card from the swimming camp, citing their son's excellent performance -- He can tread water without a flotation device -- the ruse was discovered and her parents were upset. Since then 'Ivan' has crossed over as an adult
Ivan Elizabeth Coyote is one of four performance artists, collectively called Taste This, who have transformed their gender-bending presentations from the stage to the page. The quartet credits artist and author Persimmon Blackbridge for initial encouragement.
The troupe, featuring Coyote, Anna Camilleri, Zoe Eakle and Lyndell Montgomery, got together by accident in November of 1995 to do one show in a small East Vancouver theatre. Lyndell was the musician, Anna the wordsmith, Ivan the storyteller and Zoe the actor. "When the lights came up,"; they say, "we rubbed off on each other like paint in a car crash.";
Taste This' narratives and illustrations of body-pierced encounters in Boys Like Her are at once confessional, bold, humorous, graphically sexual and definitely not recommended for the heterosexually squeamish. 0-88974-086-0
[BCBW WINTER 1998]
Submitted on July 7, 2003 in By David.
