Introduction

On my first day in Ms. Stein’s fourth-period class, I could feel the eyes of several students on me. I was particularly aware of a nearby student who was partly facing me, smiling slightly. I smiled in response and then spent the next several minutes covertly staring. I was already becoming accustomed to encountering teenagers whom I was unable to classify ethnoracially, but I was not used to being unable to classify them by gender. I found few clues to settle the question definitively. Long hair might suggest a girl, but many boys at Bay City High wore their hair long. No jewelry, no makeup; strong features and heavy brows; a thin frame clad in nondescript jeans and a loose T-shirt – the student was attractive in a way that quietly evaded gender requirements. It was only when Ms. Stein introduced me to the class and the teenager turned fully toward me, caught my eye, and smiled broadly that the ambiguity was resolved. With a clear view of her face, I could see that the friendly student was a girl.

As I got to know Fred and her group of friends, it amazed me that I had ever had trouble recognizing her gender; certainly, her version of femininity excited no comment or confusion among her peers. It soon became clear that Fred was one of a number of Bay City High School students who were not interested in participating in the high-pressure, rigidly gendered social worlds of cool European American youth. Fred and other teenagers skirted these issues by adopting a nerdy identity that rejected trendy youth styles and instead prized intelligence (especially but not exclusively of a scientific or academic nature), eccentric nonconformity, and a zany brand of humor. Nerdiness resolved several problems for these students: it freed them from keeping up with youth trends, it attenuated the gender differentiation mandated by cool styles, it removed the pressure to engage in practices like drinking, drug use, and heterosexual activity, and it enabled them to pursue their intellectual interests.