106 lines
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106 lines
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<title>Zk | 2013-09-25-identity-and-expression</title>
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<h1>Zk | 2013-09-25-identity-and-expression</h1>
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<p>type: post
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title: Identity and Expression
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slug: identity-and-expression
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date: 2013-09-25</p>
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<p>I've been seeing Dr. Johnston for almost two years now, and I think that he's
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been an incredibly grounding presence in my life, for various reasons, but
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particularly in the way in which he has of boiling his thoughts down to ideas
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that can be applied across a broad spectrum of experiences. The most important,
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of course, is this:</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Identity is psychopathological.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>I'm pretty sure that's come up before, but it was one of those short quips in
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the middle of a session that just kind of stuck with me, because it fit so well
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in so much of my life. Questioning sexual orientation is all well and good, and
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if it had been a frictionless bout of experimentation that had led to gay or
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straight or anything else, I don't think that I would have spent most of my
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high-school career feeling a sense of identity as a gay man. It <em>wasn't</em>
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frictionless, as befits an American youth in the early 2000s.</p>
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<p>Similarly, I never felt like I got along with the rest of the people in the
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music department in college specifically because of identity. In this instance,
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however, I think it came down mostly to <em>doubting</em> my identity as a musician,
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whatever that meant. I was happiest composing because that got me into the
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abstract headspace that I wound up in in music, and one of the best
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contributions I feel that I made to the music department wasn't anything that I
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wrote, but rather setting up and caring for the computers in the composition
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lab, which I even helped procure from my job working as a sysadmin in the
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library.</p>
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<p>The interactions with gender are, I think a lot more complicated than that,
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though, and I think that is due in particular do the ways in which gender
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identity and expression interact. I say gender identity here, but I've been
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starting to question that phrase recently: after all, trans* people have a
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gender identity, and cisgender people have just gender. However bear with me
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for the multiple definitions here. I have experienced my fair share of
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experiencing identity as some form of trans* person in the past, but I have
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been spared of late, and I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad
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thing, when it comes to personal growth.</p>
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<p>When I was finishing up my school career and on into the job that I held in an
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office for almost a year and a half, I was exposed to all sorts of perceived
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friction in terms of gender, and much of this was due to social interaction.
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Fitting the role I was supposed to play as best I could was the source of plenty
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of distress for me. However, starting a work-at-home career at the same time as
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I was starting to nail down the boundaries of this particular pathology (as I
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felt at the time), was a boon.</p>
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<p>Spending all day at home, able to basically be whatever I wanted to be made me
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really loosen up, and slip from distress into comfort, from pathology into a
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solid sense of self, without identity. This was also helped by forcible dip in
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sexual hormones that kept topics physical from causing much in the way of
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dysphoria. This all changed slowly and gradually, of course, as I got used to
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the situation.</p>
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<p>In the last year, I think that I've come quite a ways in terms of who I am with
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relatively little in the way of distress or a sense of identity. I have my own
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identities behind me, so of course I know their utility in a social sense, but
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here I was, personally removed from many such social senses, and the sense of
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identity as other faded.</p>
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<p>That's been good for me in a lot of ways because of the comfortable reprieve
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I've been granted, but I'm not convinced that I've grown all that much. I feel
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bad when I have to act, look, or seem a certain way, when James and I go out or
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I take part in meetings, but other than that, I have no resistance to push
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against and thus few chances to grow. It's not exactly stasis, because I'm
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hardly totally comfortable or happy with where or what I am, I just have none of
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the direction provided by identity that I used to.</p>
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<p>In that vein, I've been intentionally playing a bit more with expression. I
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borrowed a friend's sewing machine (hi, sorry, I'll get it back to you soon!)
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and made several skirts and such for myself, as well as for James and our
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housemate. I've decided to poke around a little at various other forms of
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expression - growing my hair out, painting nails, makeup, other clothing, and so
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on - to see what fits and what doesn't, because I'm starting to feel that,
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without being challenged, and without that social input, I'm liable to disappear
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within my own head and simply grow stagnant.</p>
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<p>These are all cheap to me. The worst case scenario, I feel worse rather than
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better, and I'm out the cost of a bottle of nail polish or a few yards of
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fabric. And that's the goal, really: find ways to push myself that I wouldn't
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ordinarily think of, given my current position at work. The process of
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expanding my sense of self and any definition I might have with regards to
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gender and myself has stalled, because it isn't challenged at all, and I don't
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think I'm necessarily in a position to progress without that.</p>
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<p>This is another part of this. I want to talk about it openly. I want to have
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discussions, instructions, and insults. Help me out here, even if it's to tell
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me that I'm wrong and in what ways. Tell me on Twitter, in the comments, or
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email or whatever. I just need some outside source, some direction (towards or
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away), even a little identity, and maybe I'll feel a bit more momentum.</p>
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