"Over the next 14 years, I began projecting on to Lolita all sorts of female traits. I didn’t see it as projection at the time, I figured that these traits were intrinsic to my female cat. From the way he sauntered around our apartment like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, to his high-pitched voice that sounded like a balloon that you pinch while letting out air, we took it as a given that Lolita was the most feminine of female cats.
Others that met Lolita, would use words like “diva” and “bitch” to describe his personality (“bitch” seems harsh, but he could get a bit hissy with strangers; especially female strangers, if that means anything). When we’d all be in bed at night, I’d watch Lolita licking his paws and cleaning himself and think: “What an elegant lady.” The gestures reminded me of a Judi Dench or a Helen Mirren. Lolita would be a “Dame” some day, I was sure of it.
Now it’s so obvious to me that all of this was created in my mind; much like America created a “Bruce Jenner” in its mind that had nothing to do with the real Bruce Jenner. When I told Mark that I didn’t know who Lolita was anymore, I was passing the buck — as if this situation with Lolita was something that had happened to me — as opposed to a situation that I had created because of my own ignorance about gender...
Mr. Lolita, as far as we know, doesn’t have a gender identity. He just has a sex: male. And the qualities that we love about him are still the very same qualities that we loved about him before, gender having absolutely nothing to do with it."
Exploring Gender with Cats :)
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