becoming genderqueer
Jul. 16th, 2009 02:21 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
perfectfigure.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
transI hope it is ok to post this here -- I've been watching the transgender community for awhile but have not posted, mostly because my realization that I'm not quite as cis as I thought I was only came recently.
Anyway, I posted a kind of rambly journal entry about "becoming" (or realizing) genderqueer. I thought I'd share my (mostly intellectual/internal) "transition" here.
Over the last month or two, I have started identifying as genderqueer. It was kind of a slow evolution, I think, stemmed from some of the following factors:
-Realizing that "other" (in regards to the male/female binary) was an option. I may have known this intellectually before, that some people just kind of opted out of filling in a bubble, but it wasn't until after I was processing all the stuff in Whipping Girl that it occurred to me to consider my own gender identity. I knew that there were trans* people, of course, but because I never felt any particular urge to be female, I assumed I must be male. Kind of like when I first realized I was queer (sexuality-wise) -- it wasn't that I was previously adamant that I wasn't gay, I had just never thought to look inside myself and ask if I was.
-Reading the narratives of other people's gender identities, particularly those of FtM trans folks. I read a few instances of trans men discussing their blooming signs of physical masculinity with a certain amount of joy that I had never felt. I talked to Ry and Toby (who are both cis men, by the way) about it, and they echoed similar sentiments over the first time they shaved, changing voices, etc, all those signs of "becoming a man." I'd always been indifferent at best, annoyed at worst, at those kinds of things. (Shaving, ugh. I hate it!!)
-My feelings about using gender neutral pronouns in regards to myself vs other people. I've been using GNPs whenever possible in writing for well over a year now, generally in regards to people who I don't know very well or at all (and therefore have no idea their relationship with gender or their preference, or, when it comes to folks I know via the internet, I may not even have a guess as to what their gender may be). I have had no problems applying GNPs to myself or when other people use them in reference to me. But for certain other people -- say, Ry and Toby, and some awesome womenfolk I know -- it made me feel vaguely off. I know that Ryan and Toby identify strongly as men. They aren't offended at GNPs (they aren't offended when I call them "Ry" and "Toby" instead of "Ryan" and "Tobias," either), but if I know that "he" is accurate, why not use it? I began to feel the same sort of off feeling when people referred to me as "he" (or the occasional "she" on the interwebz) instead of "sie" (or "zie" or...well, whatever GNP you prefer).
So I started to, experimentally, think of myself outside the binary I had lived my life in.
I didn't feel like a woman, but the more I thought about it, I didn't feel any less like a woman than I felt like a man. I didn't really feel like either at all.
I don't think that people who have known me would say there is anything in particular different about me. I've always had feminine quirks, just enough that people who spend a little bit of time with me generally read me as gay. Most folks probably don't find it all that strange that I wear hot pink shoes. ("Real men wear pink," right?) But, to be honest, when I thought of myself in solely male terms I never would've worn them (and especially not with a Hello Kitty t-shirt, as I did last night lmao).
I've always felt rather indifferent about my body. To me, it's just a vessel -- it takes me from A to B. I still feel that way, but now I feel freer to decorate or adorn said vessel however the hell I want, to behave however the hell I want without a nagging little voice in the back of my head talking about what boys do or do not (or what girls do or do not). I feel free to rise above the restraints of patriarchy-defined man- and woman-hood. I feel like me.
Edit to fix cut because I always forget how to do them. xD
Anyway, I posted a kind of rambly journal entry about "becoming" (or realizing) genderqueer. I thought I'd share my (mostly intellectual/internal) "transition" here.
Over the last month or two, I have started identifying as genderqueer. It was kind of a slow evolution, I think, stemmed from some of the following factors:
-Realizing that "other" (in regards to the male/female binary) was an option. I may have known this intellectually before, that some people just kind of opted out of filling in a bubble, but it wasn't until after I was processing all the stuff in Whipping Girl that it occurred to me to consider my own gender identity. I knew that there were trans* people, of course, but because I never felt any particular urge to be female, I assumed I must be male. Kind of like when I first realized I was queer (sexuality-wise) -- it wasn't that I was previously adamant that I wasn't gay, I had just never thought to look inside myself and ask if I was.
-Reading the narratives of other people's gender identities, particularly those of FtM trans folks. I read a few instances of trans men discussing their blooming signs of physical masculinity with a certain amount of joy that I had never felt. I talked to Ry and Toby (who are both cis men, by the way) about it, and they echoed similar sentiments over the first time they shaved, changing voices, etc, all those signs of "becoming a man." I'd always been indifferent at best, annoyed at worst, at those kinds of things. (Shaving, ugh. I hate it!!)
-My feelings about using gender neutral pronouns in regards to myself vs other people. I've been using GNPs whenever possible in writing for well over a year now, generally in regards to people who I don't know very well or at all (and therefore have no idea their relationship with gender or their preference, or, when it comes to folks I know via the internet, I may not even have a guess as to what their gender may be). I have had no problems applying GNPs to myself or when other people use them in reference to me. But for certain other people -- say, Ry and Toby, and some awesome womenfolk I know -- it made me feel vaguely off. I know that Ryan and Toby identify strongly as men. They aren't offended at GNPs (they aren't offended when I call them "Ry" and "Toby" instead of "Ryan" and "Tobias," either), but if I know that "he" is accurate, why not use it? I began to feel the same sort of off feeling when people referred to me as "he" (or the occasional "she" on the interwebz) instead of "sie" (or "zie" or...well, whatever GNP you prefer).
So I started to, experimentally, think of myself outside the binary I had lived my life in.
I didn't feel like a woman, but the more I thought about it, I didn't feel any less like a woman than I felt like a man. I didn't really feel like either at all.
I don't think that people who have known me would say there is anything in particular different about me. I've always had feminine quirks, just enough that people who spend a little bit of time with me generally read me as gay. Most folks probably don't find it all that strange that I wear hot pink shoes. ("Real men wear pink," right?) But, to be honest, when I thought of myself in solely male terms I never would've worn them (and especially not with a Hello Kitty t-shirt, as I did last night lmao).
I've always felt rather indifferent about my body. To me, it's just a vessel -- it takes me from A to B. I still feel that way, but now I feel freer to decorate or adorn said vessel however the hell I want, to behave however the hell I want without a nagging little voice in the back of my head talking about what boys do or do not (or what girls do or do not). I feel free to rise above the restraints of patriarchy-defined man- and woman-hood. I feel like me.
Edit to fix cut because I always forget how to do them. xD