On identity and labels

NOTE: This was originally posted in 2007. Identity: genderqueer.

I was thinking today about identity, and labels, and the difference between the two. I'm always searching for the words with which to describe my personhood, because words are the way we communicate to the world who we are and how we wish them to deal with us. However, on some level I accept that I don't have any real control over how people are going to see me, because when I step into someone else's space they're going to (and have every right to) bring all of their own history to their understanding of me. I can give certain clues to my chosen androgyny by my dress, appearance, mannerisms, etc., but those are merely clues. I want the people I interact with to be free to identify me in their own way. My desire to be taken as a person first and a woman second is not a terribly realistic goal in most situations, it's just something I can quietly maintain as my personal identity and hope people can catch onto.

There's another part to this, too. I say I don't want to be identified as Woman where it's not contextually relevant; I'm learning that there may be certain broader situations where it IS relevant: like, for example, fandom conventions. A slash convention like Escapade is almost exclusively a woman's space; the three or four men who go to it are remarked upon for their not-womanness, or at least regarded with some startlement, I've found. In such a space, it's easier for me to fit in if I let myself be regarded as one of the girls. Not that it's even discussed in any overt way, but I feel that the assumption is there. Hmmm.

Funny story: At work (and elsewhere) I often wear a brown bandana with a pirate symbol on it (designed by Nigel, an artist I met at Origins a few years back.) This sometimes leads people, usually dads accompanied by little boys, to ask "Hey, are you a pirate?" The other day, a Slightly Crazy Customer shouted this very question across half the store at me; startled, I said something like "Uh, yeah, I guess so!" He then came closer, stared at me, and exclaimed "You're a woman!" and then wandered away muttering to himself.

I don't know what that has to do with anything. *shrug*

The First

NOTE: This is what might be considered my first real meaty post in Eloquent Protest, also made in 2007. My identity at the time could probably be described as genderqueer; although I know some people in a very similar place would call themselves 'transgender' I didn't claim that term until much more recently. The following is also slightly edited to remove lj-specific thingies.

Well, since that post I made the other night where I said I liked talking about gender and queerness and I want to do it more, I've been thinking long and hard about what I want to say in my first post on the gender filter. Then I realized that I should just break the ice that isn't really ice and just make the post happen so I stop over-analyzing it. So here are, collected, a few thoughts about me, and things I am and am not.

[Note]I may in these posts tend to ramble on and make references to things y'all don't have the background knowledge about my inside jokes and geekish friends to get. PLEASE feel free to comment and say whuh? and I will try to clarify.[/Note]

1. I'm not angry about my gender role. I don't feel oppressed by my lack of that elusive Male Privilege that feminist writers are always pointing too; I'm not filled with a hidden rage I need to scream to the sky. When I walk into a women's bathroom and somebody does a double-take, or when the security guy at the airport gets halfway through a pat-down and then turns away with a red face to call over a female security guard to do a gender-appropriate pat-down, it brings me great glee and, occasionally, fits of evil laughter. I like being different. It's part of my charm. *g*

2. I may express my gender in a somewhat nonstandard way by (sometimes) cutting my hair short and (almost always) wearing clothing designed for men; but then I live in the world of post-feminist urban America, and sometimes I find myself surrounded by people even more radical/liberal than I am. That's my space.

3. Though I feel some affinity with the transgendered community I'm not really part of it. I actually did go through a period where I contemplated transgendering myself - changing my name, 'passing' as male and all that good stuff; this lasted for a few months and never went further than some fairly extensive daydreaming. On that part of my inner journey (woo inner journeys), I felt a surge of affection for the masculine within me, when I wanted to meet my inner boy and see what he had to say. More recently I've come to believe that the more eloquent protest against certain gender boundaries with which I disagree is to be visibly a Woman who doesn't fit certain expectations so that I may further the ongoing expansion of what Woman means. (The specifics of these I'll get into at a later time. Promise.)

4. I haven't forgotten the aforementioned inner boy, and I still talk to him sometimes. I think I'll call him Daniel. Hiya, Daniel. (Hello.) He's adorable and emo and quirky, kind of like wee!Sammy watching Thundercats or that Ethan Hawke character from Dead Poet's Society.

5. Once, a few years ago, my S.O. of the time bought me a pretty good quality softpack; I wore it to Lupercalia that year. All my friends grinned at the bulge in my pants and squeezed my crotch. This filled me with a performer's glee at achieving a pleasant audience reaction. I haven't worn it since; now I keep it in a jar labeled "The Last Guy Who Fucked With Me". This makes me smile in an ev0l way.

6. I am a female: with a cunt that I keep trimmed but not shaved, and a pair of breasts that make up about a half a handful each; but first and foremost I am a human being. Welcome to my brain, y'all.

Eloquent Protest

NOTE: This post was the origin of Eloquent_Protest, so I'm including it here for, as mentioned last post, for historicity's sake. Slightly edited to make more sense in this context.

I was scrolling through my old lj entries when I came across this post from May 2005:

On forming an understanding of human sexuality, part something-or-other.

The notion of "coming out" has never sat well with me, because I feel that it forces the queer person to say "look at me, I'm different from you." In no way does it undermine the basic societal assumption...

It's one of those posts I know I put a lot of thought into at the time, but I'd pretty much forgotten about it. Relatedly, I've lately been reading The Transgender Studies Reader. When I mentioned this to tonight, she asked me the terribly complicated question, "So what's your position on gender?" I fumbled for a few moments and then just started talking, and realized something else.

I like talking about gender theory and queerness and I want to do it more. Even in the twenty two months since I created [livejournal name deleted] my thoughts on my own gender identity and sexuality have changed, and my philosophical thoughts on the subject are ever evolving.. Not everybody will want to participate in this, however, so I am hereby [starting a gender theory blog]. The post above is probably a good measure of what these posts will be like, though I can't guarantee they'll always be that, er, eloquent or planned. I suspect the first one will be a reorganizing of the gchat conversation I'm currently having with [my girlfriend]. It perhaps goes without saying that I want to open this up as a conversation, because I am greedy when it comes to knowledge and wisdom and Ways Of Looking At Things and I want to have it ALL.

Excerpts:

*I very strongly desire to be viewed first as a Person and only secondarily as a Female person and I try to take other people in that way as well; not because I reject my womanness but because I reject the need for that identifier in situations that have nothing to do with procreation.

*I also think that the social construction of Man as strong-competitive-violent is as detrimental to the psyche of boys as is the construction of Woman as soft-nurturer-victim to girls.

So. Welcome to my brain.