man, I wish I was a woman...
Jan. 24th, 2005 01:33 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
effeteifrit.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
transDespite the fact that to the untrained eye, I appear as a lesbian, (;D) there is still the fact to take into account that I don't identify as a woman.
I recently found the website http://www.glbtq.com after doing a web search on "Hothead Paisan"--my introduction to this was a short hop from viewing the contents of an antifeminist ring (I was interested. ;) And it was here that I came across Hothead Paisan: (I just find this page so hilarious that I've gotta post it: http://www.gabnet.com/lit/deich3e.htm [please don't send them hate mail now]). Despite the fact that it was posted under "Feminist Hate" (*trying not to laugh*), I found myself identifying with the character. SERIOUSLY (possibly) identifying with the character. Especially the picture on Issue #1 (scroll down). [but not with her anti-bi stance.]
I find it somewhat of interest that if I had been born twenty years earlier, I might well have ended up identifying as a lesbian, and a feminist. My own proto-trans phase ("politically a dyke, realistically bi") can attest to this. Then there is the notion--and probably a well-founded one--that even if I did have access to health care in a way that would allow me hormones (thank Deity I do), I wouldn't take the option. I don't say this to hurt anyone who doesn't have such access--but to make the point that I have the ability, and after all that I've done to get to this point, I choose not to exercise it. Part of this is due to the legal and social ramifications, but a majority of it is due to my liking my body--just not wanting to be masculinized.
However, I don't identify as a woman. And this is basically causing my exclusion from women's groups that I would otherwise be admitted to.
It seems like the answer would be simple: just say you're a woman. ...not that simple. When I thought I was a woman, I had a tendency to be quite an angry woman. (Did that just come out of my fingertips??) It was only after claiming maleness for myself that I relaxed. And I know there are women out there who are more masculine than I am. Plus, there is this issue that the more comfortable I get in my identity, the more I start doing things like wearing skirts and buying purses. PURSES (for crying out loud)! (;D *laughing* Ow--)
I'm wondering if this whole thing has been an exercise in liberation, only that I made a break from the gender I was trying to fit into and came at it from another direction. Now I'm not even really certain of what my gender is.
Then there is the fact that I tend to be attracted to guys except after I get to know them. Which has got me wondering again if I'm lesbian. And the fact that I took on a dyke identity in high school as the only mode I had of expressing masculinity...or was it just to say that I loved girls? These things are intertwined.
So my current question: Am I lesbian? What is a lesbian--a woman who loves women, or a person in a female body who loves others with female bodies? Or a person in a woman's body who loves women (wait, I'm going in circles)? Wouldn't it be weird if I started out as a dyke and then became trans and then transitioned back to womyn (as dystynct from 'woman')? I guess why the hell not?
What the hell?!
I'm not even mentioning multiple personalities, or really thinking hard on which one I might be in right now.
I have this interest in women's space. I want to be let back in. I'm tired, and I'm queer, and damn it, I would like an intimate friend. I do identify somewhat with queer women's culture. Now. It didn't used to be this way.
So this is what happens when I finally start thinking about sex and sexuality and gender again. What I thought I was may be what I don't want to be or what I no longer am.
What's the matter with swallowing your pride and being with the women?
Not that it's bad to be a woman, but--Because I'm not a woman?
How do you know? Because you associate women with what you are not, but by the very act of existence you show diversity of what those who would be called women can be? hence you're included within the moniker of "woman" even if only by ignorance?
Everybody thinks I'm a woman.
What is the distaste in calling yourself a woman? Where is it rooted? In high school notions of what men and women are, which you can now see are no longer useful definitions for what a man or what a woman is or should be? Maybe the title of "woman" is broad enough now to include you? Is your avoidance of the term "woman" as applied to yourself an outdated adaptive device that you needed when younger but can let go of now?
I'm confused. Comments appreciated...
Halon
I recently found the website http://www.glbtq.com after doing a web search on "Hothead Paisan"--my introduction to this was a short hop from viewing the contents of an antifeminist ring (I was interested. ;) And it was here that I came across Hothead Paisan: (I just find this page so hilarious that I've gotta post it: http://www.gabnet.com/lit/deich3e.htm [please don't send them hate mail now]). Despite the fact that it was posted under "Feminist Hate" (*trying not to laugh*), I found myself identifying with the character. SERIOUSLY (possibly) identifying with the character. Especially the picture on Issue #1 (scroll down). [but not with her anti-bi stance.]
I find it somewhat of interest that if I had been born twenty years earlier, I might well have ended up identifying as a lesbian, and a feminist. My own proto-trans phase ("politically a dyke, realistically bi") can attest to this. Then there is the notion--and probably a well-founded one--that even if I did have access to health care in a way that would allow me hormones (thank Deity I do), I wouldn't take the option. I don't say this to hurt anyone who doesn't have such access--but to make the point that I have the ability, and after all that I've done to get to this point, I choose not to exercise it. Part of this is due to the legal and social ramifications, but a majority of it is due to my liking my body--just not wanting to be masculinized.
However, I don't identify as a woman. And this is basically causing my exclusion from women's groups that I would otherwise be admitted to.
It seems like the answer would be simple: just say you're a woman. ...not that simple. When I thought I was a woman, I had a tendency to be quite an angry woman. (Did that just come out of my fingertips??) It was only after claiming maleness for myself that I relaxed. And I know there are women out there who are more masculine than I am. Plus, there is this issue that the more comfortable I get in my identity, the more I start doing things like wearing skirts and buying purses. PURSES (for crying out loud)! (;D *laughing* Ow--)
I'm wondering if this whole thing has been an exercise in liberation, only that I made a break from the gender I was trying to fit into and came at it from another direction. Now I'm not even really certain of what my gender is.
Then there is the fact that I tend to be attracted to guys except after I get to know them. Which has got me wondering again if I'm lesbian. And the fact that I took on a dyke identity in high school as the only mode I had of expressing masculinity...or was it just to say that I loved girls? These things are intertwined.
So my current question: Am I lesbian? What is a lesbian--a woman who loves women, or a person in a female body who loves others with female bodies? Or a person in a woman's body who loves women (wait, I'm going in circles)? Wouldn't it be weird if I started out as a dyke and then became trans and then transitioned back to womyn (as dystynct from 'woman')? I guess why the hell not?
What the hell?!
I'm not even mentioning multiple personalities, or really thinking hard on which one I might be in right now.
I have this interest in women's space. I want to be let back in. I'm tired, and I'm queer, and damn it, I would like an intimate friend. I do identify somewhat with queer women's culture. Now. It didn't used to be this way.
So this is what happens when I finally start thinking about sex and sexuality and gender again. What I thought I was may be what I don't want to be or what I no longer am.
What's the matter with swallowing your pride and being with the women?
Not that it's bad to be a woman, but--Because I'm not a woman?
How do you know? Because you associate women with what you are not, but by the very act of existence you show diversity of what those who would be called women can be? hence you're included within the moniker of "woman" even if only by ignorance?
Everybody thinks I'm a woman.
What is the distaste in calling yourself a woman? Where is it rooted? In high school notions of what men and women are, which you can now see are no longer useful definitions for what a man or what a woman is or should be? Maybe the title of "woman" is broad enough now to include you? Is your avoidance of the term "woman" as applied to yourself an outdated adaptive device that you needed when younger but can let go of now?
I'm confused. Comments appreciated...
Halon
