A good friend of mine is a lesbian and a cross-dresser. She received endless amounts of taunting, posturing, name-calling, and threats, simply because she chose the look and dress of a traditional masculine style. At one point in my life, while I was working in a stuffy kitchen in a restaurant that reached over 100 degrees every day, I decided to shave off my hair. I was in a supportive enough community for it: other women in the restaurant had done the same for the same reasons, although some had done it as a statement. But when I ventured outside of my politically-progressive community, I was taunted - people had more audacity with me than when I had longer hair. They were threatened by the change, by a sense of ambiguousness. Children would ask their mothers: is that a boy or a girl? Women would be horrified when I entered the bathroom. My stint looking asexual was short-lived: at times I couldnŐt stand the pressure, so I would wear dresses and hats. My boyfriend thought the attention was ridiculous because, as he put it, I "still had a woman's body." But my boyfriend missed the point. Whether I had a "woman's" body, a "man's" body, or some body along the continuum, there is no reason for anyone to feel threatened by ambiguousness.