"HA HA you look like a girl..."

Brian Viglione is one half of The Dresden Dolls and therefore automatically a great hero. My opinion of Brian has increased after reading his thoughtful piece on the Matthew Shepard Foundation website for young lesbian and gay people, and those not sure about their sexuality.

Brian's short essay tells of his love for wearing women's clothing and how he used to trade clothes with his girlfriends. I like the story he tells of when he was aged 10...

The story I always tell people is I was about ten years old, swimming at my grandmother's house. My cousin and I were in front of a mirror and he had a buzz cut hairdo, I had a little kid mullet. All of a sudden, he bursts out laughing and pointing at me and the bit of wet hair that was kind of curled around my neck and says,"HA HA, you look like a girl! You look like a girl!" I did look like a girl. I had very soft features for a boy and with my hair a bit longer, it wasn't a hard sell. But his teasing didn't make me feel bad. I thought I looked kind of...cool. I was intrigued by my androgyny and felt almost empowered by it. So I grew up thinking that since I certainly wasn't born to look like some gruff, muscled out, Dude-Guy, that I might as well work with what the good lord gave me, which happened to be a good, sassy, pout and a sweet ass. So, off I went.

Having had the honour of meeting Brian a few weeks ago I can report that he doesn't look like a girl and that he does have a great pout. I can't comment on his ass, though.

He looks good in a frock. One of my favourite Dolls videos is 'Backstabber' with Amanda in man-drag and Brian in woman-drag exploring each other's tattoos of the names of previous lovers. It's marvelous fun!

I'm actually quite proud of Brian for writing that piece for the website. Not just writing it, but then promoting it and the site through the Dolls' MySpace list. As Brian says, "Don't ever give up on yourself."