Turistas Go Home!

Here's a story by Andie, about an incident during our trip to South America:

Lauren's favorite stories seem to mostly be about children who are confused about her gender but the child in this story wasn't confused at all. She knew exactly what Lauren's sex was: male. That was not up for debate. A nine-year old girl (read: 18 year-old frat boy) approached us in a small tourist town in southwest Bolivia and wanted to play our ukeleles. While manhandling the ukelele as Lauren cringes, we shoot the shit about mini-guitars and life in Bolivia. I refer to Lauren as she or, "ella," from time to time and she corrects me. No, "el es un el, no ella." He is a he, not a she. I assure her she is mistaken, but she had collected all the evidence she needed. She pointed to Lauren's over-sized hipster sunglasses as the first piece of proof and then to her chest. "See. Flat." This is where I start to get a little offended because frankly that is just not true. Lauren flattens her shirt out (I was kind of surprised she did this) to show her how wrong she was, but even so, the gender police was unimpressed. Sad.

Something in our interaction led a light-bulb to go off in her little girl head. "Oh. Lesbianas... Well if you are Lesbians then KISS." Meanwhile two other little girls have accumulated and it's starting to feel like that awful summer after my sophomore year at BU that I don't really like to talk about. We really threw this little angel for a loop when our male friend we were travelling with who likes to bend his gender very slightly the other way strolled up with his tall blonde bombshell fiance. He's got long hair, and PURPLE glasses. Umm will the real lesbianas please stand up? She pointed at Carwil and called him a girl, citing the purple glasses, asserted that he and his girlfriend were lesbians, not Lauren and I, and then insisted that they kiss...which they did.

No we are not gonna make out for this girl, but I get distracted and after a few minutes of us making fun of the situation amongst ourselves inevitably Lauren does something adorable and I kiss her. Frat boy (read: closet baby lesbian) wants more. We say no so she decides to remind us that we will not be able to have children. I ask her if she is aware of how babies are made and she says yes but that it is too dirty to talk about. I told her I can get the "materiales" needed for baby production from a man and then have a baby at my leisure and on my schedule. Knowingly she exclaims, "that's true! You should just get a boyfriend and then get the baby and then LEAVE the boyfriend!" FULL CIRCLE! Somehow this girl is now batting for our team. Needless to say I don't think her mother will ever let her hang out anywhere near tourists ever again.