More clearly articulated
Nov. 3rd, 2007 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_fantastic_ms_fox1. "Joking" is the point where the difficult fact becomes integrated.
I'm getting back to posting more gender-related stuff here. I think that it helps me, and I know that other enjoy it.
A lot of this is naval-gazing, but, to me, it's important naval-gazing that, for me is better left said - especially better left said for anyone else who in a similar situation. Otherwise, society will erase you.
I have the worry that "I'm talking about trans stuff too much." It's possible to develop an unhealthy obsession with transition, but I don't think that the rate at which I would like to bring up my observations on, or experiences, with gender is excessive or repetitive. I also want to get to the point where I can joke about it, and maybe other people can too.
2. Something solid (or soft) to hang your coat on.
While coming out, I said that I felt to be on the feminine side of androgyny, but past experiences have shown that the further I go into transition, and the more female my body feels, and the more easily I can pass as female, the more and more I feel comfortable presenting on the masculine side, and the less I feel comfortable presenting as feminine.
I'm wondering where this will end up: just how queer am I gonna get?
But day-to-day events highlight this. When I was working with a soft butch student last week, I realized that our body language was almost identical. Wow, I thought, when I'm around other butches (note that use of language), there's some weird kinda equivalency. Then I realized that I'm not imitating her body language, she's imitating mine. When you relate to other people as cogendered, and they respect you as such, you gotta wonder whether there's something you should look at.
Other like interactions, whether in-person, or being referred to the example of someone living, fictional or dead, have produced similar experiences. We may not have always had a much else in common, but there is this feeling of "we are the same gender." I'd not felt that before. Instead there was this feeling of, oh look, a genderqueer/soft-butch female person, it feels like we are the sa(*$%(*&^#*^)*)^*)#^*---STATIC---*&%$^(*)$*^*$@---- what the fuck was that? This was one of the cues that helped me sort things out in the first place.
So. Soft butch****.
Good.
I had a lot of doubt about this, mostly due to my habit of looking for data to deny positive-feeling statements about myself. There were also weird leftover messages about overstatement and appropriation. But I know that this statement comes not out of a place of insecurity, nor the need for something to act towards, nor to emulate, nor as a means to describe my behaviour, but as a means to encapsulate this feeling of similarity and difference and explore it further. Still, there's something that still feels missing, and I don't know what it is, but it comes close. I also know that my head hosts unwanted social messages about masculinity and femininity that both promote and oppose this statement, but they're not strong enough to make me doubt it.
Once I figured out that this was about a feeling of identity, not the careful analysis of and conformity to practice, it fit. "Soft butch" doesn't mean that I will/should refuse to behave in a feminine, or androgynous fashion, and it certainly doesn't describe sexuality, which is mostly separate. It just describes. And it's right. I think.
Furthermore, adopting this seems to have banished a cluster of weird and unrelated identity/body doubts, and desires to radically change some facet of me. I've learned that these feelings tend to occur whenever I have something else that I really should deal with, and they disappear when I'm on the right track.
Good. This feels like a pleasant place to be.
Good. I am now about as queer as I wanna get.
I would now be very happy to not have any more surprises for the next few months.
On the topic of gender expression, I should write something later on why it is that when I am around highly masculine female-assigned* people, I get swishy. Really swishy. And when around very feminine trans folk, I get chivalrous. I don't know why, but this amuses me. It also doesn't compromise the above.
I also want to write something on what the shifting nature of "butch" in an age where alternate gender identities and sex changes are real possibilities. (which comes up in point three re: being read as FtM)
3. Rare, that
I had a long conversation with my prof yesterday - who is starting to become "my supervisor" in all respects but the official. After going over academic plans, we touched on the subject of this entry. Her experiences were in step with mine: while it's not difficult to find female-assigned people who identify as trans in ways that don't mean "I'm a masculine man who either has or wants all the bits now," finding anything vaguely resembling the equivalent for male-assigned people is a slow, frustrating, and isolating exercise. That I can find LJ communities for feminine FtMs, and the "Genderqueer" group is almost entirely female-assigned*, but not some sort of converse pretty much reflects most transgender spaces that aren't dealing with how-to-transition-and-pass (which are mostly feminine MtFs).
Am I splitting hairs? I do feel comfortable in the nonconventional gender circles, even though I'm the only one with a Y chromosome. Usually comfortable.
Last year, Tillie (bless her) lent me "Boys like her;" a polyvocal anthology by four Vancouverites. As far as I can tell, all are dyke-identified and/or gender-variant female-assigned people. It's mostly about experiences that flow from that position. Reading it, and hoping to find something, I remember thinking, I would kill to have your problems. It hurt too much, so I put it down.
Yeah. Usually comfortable. When it comes round to discussions about childhood, or bodies though, I feel thrown out of the common experience so fast that I shift towards the blue*****. It's no ostracism on their end, though the others will sometimes steer around the above. It's awkward.
I often find that MtF spaces are founded upon the rejection of male bodies and masculinity. I'm not entirely with the former, and definitely not with the latter. It feels that female-assigned genderqueer/variant-ftm spaces are founded upon closing the distance to androgynous or male bodies, and/or androgyny or masculinity.
There is the ambiguous relationship with passing. It annoys me when I'm read as male if I interpret it as my body failing me, but not when its due to my expression, habits and/or attire.I feel I know that the biological in me should be female. The further I go into this, the less my body-sense*** is willing to compromise. But the social? I dunno. I think this is why I'm not just okay, but kinda charmed, when I'm read as FtM.
There is the feeling of being female, in the broad category, but not being of the same gender as most, or maybe all, "women." Moreover, there is the feeling of having more in common in terms of gender with people who, regardless of their bodies, identify as being partially or wholly outside our society's categories of "man" or "woman" than those within. This makes homosociality** an awkward thing. It makes the (intentional or coincidental) all-women Tuesday anxiety counseling group a titch awkward when other members hesitate before talking about "us women." I think I'm okay if I'm dropped from the category "women" on account of my identity or chosen presentation (although I'm also fine being included), but if it's on account of my body, it really bothers me. This also explains why I feel comfortable in the genderqueer circles.
4. Comfortably Trans?
The split between the body and the social also explains my mixed relationship with the category "trans." I'm quite happy to be gender-variant, and I wouldn't have it any other way (unless the "other way" is living in a society where it was accepted as healthy and common - someone get me a dream augmentor!). The transsexual part? I've come to the conclusion that I fucking hate this shit.I think that being transsexual is very interesting, and it certainly beats being male, but for me it's a necessary unpleasantry. I would drop it in a second if I thought there was an easier way to be female. So There is little pride in something that I'd rather not do/be.
The pride that I do feel comes from a feeling of common identity that stems from the feeling that "all of us" are doing or have done something incredibly difficult, caught between biology, society, economics and bureaucracy, and sometimes risking our lives. For me, this produces a feeling of cameraderie akin to being drafted into the Vietnam war (save that a brief statistical overview will show you that it was much safer and socially acceptable to be an American draftee than it is to be transsexual). We'd really rather not be here, but here we are.
I guess my attitude is kind of like going to Antarctica. It's cold, it's remote, it's inconvenient. Most people would hate it. I would like to go there. I would not like the two days of plane travel needed to get there. Antarctica is like being a gender-variant female. It's not for most people, and there's a lot of parts that suck, but it works for me. The extended cramped plane ride is like being MtF.
No wait, that's not right. This isn't temporary. I'm not visiting Antarctica, and the plane-ride won't just "end." So I guess it's more like immigrating to Northern Europe: it's cold and different, and I think that I might like it. Northern Europe's immigration system on the other hand, is not a lot of fun. In fact, it's often downright xenophobic. And even when you go through it, you're still "an immigrant," and you always will be, whether you like it or not. Fortunately, I can visually pass as ethnic Norweigan/female, though my speaking needs a little work and may never be entirely congruent - I just hope that the label of "she moved here" won't stick as much. I don't like feeling the pressure to fit in. It isn't fair. It's not fair to me, and it's even less fair to all the people who can't visually pass as Norweigan/female, but that's the way it is.
Note: the country metaphor is most only appropriate if you intend to go out of your way to make your co-nationals into your primary/sole social circle. I don't intend to do this because I think that planning the gender of your social circle is silly.
Still, if you want to get where you want to go, you have to make the trip.
Wow, I really needed to write that.
*"assigned" refers to the gender that others labelled one as a baby or young child. This includes a large number of trans folk who might also identify as intersexed, or who otherwise disagree with the idea that they ever "used to be" another gender/sex, since they've known they were their preferred identity as long as they can remember.
** the practice of socializing in same-gendered groups - as found in counseling, sports, primary schooling, stag(ette) parties, and road trips.
*** The body-sense is the feeling of the state of one's own biology. It can shout "I'm stressed" or "this sex is great." It quietly whispers "keep relaxing, I like it" or "I think I'm getting sick, give me fruit and blankets."
****While part of my point is that I do not have to adhere to a particular definition, wikipedia can serve as a coarse, and somewhat incorrect, guide if you are not familiar with this term. The article in wikipedia seems to equate it with sexuality. While there is a stroung correlation between "lesbian" and "soft butch" they are not necessarily mutual.
***** this is an astrophysics joke
[edit: and it should say red shift]
I'm getting back to posting more gender-related stuff here. I think that it helps me, and I know that other enjoy it.
A lot of this is naval-gazing, but, to me, it's important naval-gazing that, for me is better left said - especially better left said for anyone else who in a similar situation. Otherwise, society will erase you.
I have the worry that "I'm talking about trans stuff too much." It's possible to develop an unhealthy obsession with transition, but I don't think that the rate at which I would like to bring up my observations on, or experiences, with gender is excessive or repetitive. I also want to get to the point where I can joke about it, and maybe other people can too.
2. Something solid (or soft) to hang your coat on.
While coming out, I said that I felt to be on the feminine side of androgyny, but past experiences have shown that the further I go into transition, and the more female my body feels, and the more easily I can pass as female, the more and more I feel comfortable presenting on the masculine side, and the less I feel comfortable presenting as feminine.
I'm wondering where this will end up: just how queer am I gonna get?
But day-to-day events highlight this. When I was working with a soft butch student last week, I realized that our body language was almost identical. Wow, I thought, when I'm around other butches (note that use of language), there's some weird kinda equivalency. Then I realized that I'm not imitating her body language, she's imitating mine. When you relate to other people as cogendered, and they respect you as such, you gotta wonder whether there's something you should look at.
Other like interactions, whether in-person, or being referred to the example of someone living, fictional or dead, have produced similar experiences. We may not have always had a much else in common, but there is this feeling of "we are the same gender." I'd not felt that before. Instead there was this feeling of, oh look, a genderqueer/soft-butch female person, it feels like we are the sa(*$%(*&^#*^)*)^*)#^*---STATIC---*&%$^(*)$*^*$@---- what the fuck was that? This was one of the cues that helped me sort things out in the first place.
So. Soft butch****.
Good.
I had a lot of doubt about this, mostly due to my habit of looking for data to deny positive-feeling statements about myself. There were also weird leftover messages about overstatement and appropriation. But I know that this statement comes not out of a place of insecurity, nor the need for something to act towards, nor to emulate, nor as a means to describe my behaviour, but as a means to encapsulate this feeling of similarity and difference and explore it further. Still, there's something that still feels missing, and I don't know what it is, but it comes close. I also know that my head hosts unwanted social messages about masculinity and femininity that both promote and oppose this statement, but they're not strong enough to make me doubt it.
Once I figured out that this was about a feeling of identity, not the careful analysis of and conformity to practice, it fit. "Soft butch" doesn't mean that I will/should refuse to behave in a feminine, or androgynous fashion, and it certainly doesn't describe sexuality, which is mostly separate. It just describes. And it's right. I think.
Furthermore, adopting this seems to have banished a cluster of weird and unrelated identity/body doubts, and desires to radically change some facet of me. I've learned that these feelings tend to occur whenever I have something else that I really should deal with, and they disappear when I'm on the right track.
Good. This feels like a pleasant place to be.
Good. I am now about as queer as I wanna get.
I would now be very happy to not have any more surprises for the next few months.
On the topic of gender expression, I should write something later on why it is that when I am around highly masculine female-assigned* people, I get swishy. Really swishy. And when around very feminine trans folk, I get chivalrous. I don't know why, but this amuses me. It also doesn't compromise the above.
I also want to write something on what the shifting nature of "butch" in an age where alternate gender identities and sex changes are real possibilities. (which comes up in point three re: being read as FtM)
3. Rare, that
I had a long conversation with my prof yesterday - who is starting to become "my supervisor" in all respects but the official. After going over academic plans, we touched on the subject of this entry. Her experiences were in step with mine: while it's not difficult to find female-assigned people who identify as trans in ways that don't mean "I'm a masculine man who either has or wants all the bits now," finding anything vaguely resembling the equivalent for male-assigned people is a slow, frustrating, and isolating exercise. That I can find LJ communities for feminine FtMs, and the "Genderqueer" group is almost entirely female-assigned*, but not some sort of converse pretty much reflects most transgender spaces that aren't dealing with how-to-transition-and-pass (which are mostly feminine MtFs).
Am I splitting hairs? I do feel comfortable in the nonconventional gender circles, even though I'm the only one with a Y chromosome. Usually comfortable.
Last year, Tillie (bless her) lent me "Boys like her;" a polyvocal anthology by four Vancouverites. As far as I can tell, all are dyke-identified and/or gender-variant female-assigned people. It's mostly about experiences that flow from that position. Reading it, and hoping to find something, I remember thinking, I would kill to have your problems. It hurt too much, so I put it down.
Yeah. Usually comfortable. When it comes round to discussions about childhood, or bodies though, I feel thrown out of the common experience so fast that I shift towards the blue*****. It's no ostracism on their end, though the others will sometimes steer around the above. It's awkward.
I often find that MtF spaces are founded upon the rejection of male bodies and masculinity. I'm not entirely with the former, and definitely not with the latter. It feels that female-assigned genderqueer/variant-ftm spaces are founded upon closing the distance to androgynous or male bodies, and/or androgyny or masculinity.
There is the ambiguous relationship with passing. It annoys me when I'm read as male if I interpret it as my body failing me, but not when its due to my expression, habits and/or attire.
There is the feeling of being female, in the broad category, but not being of the same gender as most, or maybe all, "women." Moreover, there is the feeling of having more in common in terms of gender with people who, regardless of their bodies, identify as being partially or wholly outside our society's categories of "man" or "woman" than those within. This makes homosociality** an awkward thing. It makes the (intentional or coincidental) all-women Tuesday anxiety counseling group a titch awkward when other members hesitate before talking about "us women." I think I'm okay if I'm dropped from the category "women" on account of my identity or chosen presentation (although I'm also fine being included), but if it's on account of my body, it really bothers me. This also explains why I feel comfortable in the genderqueer circles.
4. Comfortably Trans?
The split between the body and the social also explains my mixed relationship with the category "trans." I'm quite happy to be gender-variant, and I wouldn't have it any other way (unless the "other way" is living in a society where it was accepted as healthy and common - someone get me a dream augmentor!). The transsexual part? I've come to the conclusion that I fucking hate this shit.I think that being transsexual is very interesting, and it certainly beats being male, but for me it's a necessary unpleasantry. I would drop it in a second if I thought there was an easier way to be female. So There is little pride in something that I'd rather not do/be.
The pride that I do feel comes from a feeling of common identity that stems from the feeling that "all of us" are doing or have done something incredibly difficult, caught between biology, society, economics and bureaucracy, and sometimes risking our lives. For me, this produces a feeling of cameraderie akin to being drafted into the Vietnam war (save that a brief statistical overview will show you that it was much safer and socially acceptable to be an American draftee than it is to be transsexual). We'd really rather not be here, but here we are.
I guess my attitude is kind of like going to Antarctica. It's cold, it's remote, it's inconvenient. Most people would hate it. I would like to go there. I would not like the two days of plane travel needed to get there. Antarctica is like being a gender-variant female. It's not for most people, and there's a lot of parts that suck, but it works for me. The extended cramped plane ride is like being MtF.
No wait, that's not right. This isn't temporary. I'm not visiting Antarctica, and the plane-ride won't just "end." So I guess it's more like immigrating to Northern Europe: it's cold and different, and I think that I might like it. Northern Europe's immigration system on the other hand, is not a lot of fun. In fact, it's often downright xenophobic. And even when you go through it, you're still "an immigrant," and you always will be, whether you like it or not. Fortunately, I can visually pass as ethnic Norweigan/female, though my speaking needs a little work and may never be entirely congruent - I just hope that the label of "she moved here" won't stick as much. I don't like feeling the pressure to fit in. It isn't fair. It's not fair to me, and it's even less fair to all the people who can't visually pass as Norweigan/female, but that's the way it is.
Note: the country metaphor is most only appropriate if you intend to go out of your way to make your co-nationals into your primary/sole social circle. I don't intend to do this because I think that planning the gender of your social circle is silly.
Still, if you want to get where you want to go, you have to make the trip.
Wow, I really needed to write that.
*"assigned" refers to the gender that others labelled one as a baby or young child. This includes a large number of trans folk who might also identify as intersexed, or who otherwise disagree with the idea that they ever "used to be" another gender/sex, since they've known they were their preferred identity as long as they can remember.
** the practice of socializing in same-gendered groups - as found in counseling, sports, primary schooling, stag(ette) parties, and road trips.
*** The body-sense is the feeling of the state of one's own biology. It can shout "I'm stressed" or "this sex is great." It quietly whispers "keep relaxing, I like it" or "I think I'm getting sick, give me fruit and blankets."
****While part of my point is that I do not have to adhere to a particular definition, wikipedia can serve as a coarse, and somewhat incorrect, guide if you are not familiar with this term. The article in wikipedia seems to equate it with sexuality. While there is a stroung correlation between "lesbian" and "soft butch" they are not necessarily mutual.
***** this is an astrophysics joke
[edit: and it should say red shift]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 07:46 am (UTC)http://community.livejournal.com/boy2boitrans
Thanks for the reminder. Input on the community profile is welcome.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 07:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 05:12 am (UTC)I think it's great how you're so open about everything - including this sailor fetish.
*ducks*
;-)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 07:51 am (UTC)Is that deliberatley non-sequitor or do you have some sort of internet time-machine that lets you read posts like
"Six years ago, I would never have thought that India would have turned Vancouvre into their base to seucer their occupation of the Haida Gwai oilpatch, but I gotta admit, I love those uniforms. There, I said it. Call me a collaborator if you must...."
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 12:22 pm (UTC)(...which of course gives you license to be ruthless about mine when I slip up! ;-)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-04 07:59 am (UTC)I analyze my own actions and beliefs, especially with work, which is my big soul-search at the moment, in many of the same ways. I'm just not brave enough to write it out and display it for so many to see.
I think maybe I should start. It looks like it's helping you clarify a bunch. You're looking more centered every time I see you, if it helps?
Joking
Date: 2007-11-04 05:02 pm (UTC)I realize coming out as gay does not really equate in magnitude to the trans process, kind of like a squall and a hurricane, but I found that joking, starting to make jokes and having others start to make jokes was a really key step to feeling comfortable with my 'out' persona. To me, I think that it signified a recognition that this was in fact who I am, and that it was accepted by the people that I cared about.
I try and remember the first joke that another person made. I can't, which makes me sad, but I remember the circumstance, and how happy i was that it had happened. Don't try to push it, but when you're ready, embrace it. It's really a remarkable feeling.
Re: Joking
Date: 2007-11-04 05:03 pm (UTC)