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<title>Zk | 2013-06-15-self.update</title>
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<h1>Zk | 2013-06-15-self.update</h1>
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<p>type: post
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title: self.update
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slug: self-update-2
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date: 2013-06-15</p>
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<p>I told myself when I started writing more that I’d spend less time writing about
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myself and more time writing about the things that I was learning. There is
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use, however, in being able to think things through in the process of trying to
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form them into words. The effort it takes to translate things into language
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from thinking or feeling is sometimes enough to tease them into greater clarity.
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Besides, I’ve written one of these before, and I suppose I should document at
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least some of the stuff that’s going on.</p>
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<p>It’s kind of amazing watching the way identity and dysphoria shift. I’ve been
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off what hormones I was on for the last seven or so months and that’s led to
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quite a few changes. Of course, there’s the strange roller-coaster that’s been
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my libido as things shift around chemically, but other aspects, as well, such as
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hair growth, skin texture, energy levels, and temperature tolerance. Hair, of
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course, seems to be at the center of its own well of dysphoria, as I think it
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might be for many. I remember friends talking excitedly about being able to
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shave for the first time, and here I am struggling with a mix of too much body
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hair and too little hair on my head; genetics is really working against me here,
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and it’s exasperating how bad it can make me feel (and how stupid I feel for
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feeling bad about hair).</p>
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<p>Really, though, I’m not sure what that means for myself, or what it should mean.
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I know for a fact from hard-won experience that one is hardly pinned to a gender
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identity or affinity, and that it’s the type of thing that fluctuates over time,
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but it’s hard to internalize that sometimes. Being able to just say “Oh, I’m
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$IDENTITY” at all times would be a helpful sort of thing, in social situations.
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People I’ve known for a long time could then easily assume that it’s safe to
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call me the pronouns that fit with $IDENTITY down the road, just as it was
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before. It’s hardly that simple, of course, and even setting time aside, I’ve
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found myself using different pronouns in different aspects of my life.
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Masculine, of course, for unsafe spaces and work/professional life,
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singular-they for some other places online, and more aggressively gender-neutral
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pronouns elsewhere, though to be honest, I’ve yet to run across a pronoun that
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doesn’t make me feel awful, so I guess it really doesn’t matter which.</p>
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<p>All this by way of saying that I’ve been drifting more and more aggressively
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neutral, or something like it, and I don’t know what that means. I’ve got these
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things that make me feel bad, and no real way forward for dealing with them,
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since it often feels as though there’s no way forward that doesn’t involve
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expressing <em>something</em>. I’ll always be this dumb 6‘2” man-shape with a receding
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hairline (or “high forehead” if we’re being generous). What way out of feeling
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bad is there? So far it seems to involve pretending to be a fox-person on the
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Internet a lot of the time, which is helpful that it’s so easy, but certainly
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involves less getting-out-of-the-house-ness than I’d like.</p>
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<p>So how does that really fit in with the whole trans* thing, anyway? I still
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suppose I identify as such in a broad and general sense, an umbrella term
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encompassing gender-queer and so on, and I know I’m not <a href="http://gendermagick.tumblr.com/">necessarily</a>
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<a href="http://cnlester.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/beyond-the-binary-question-four/">alone</a>. There’s a lot to be gained from the label, such as the sense of
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identity, the community, the support, the recognition, and so on. After all,
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transgressive matches that expression, and transgressive as it is, I really
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don’t feel strong enough to push forward without that community and identity.</p>
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<p>However, along with all that comes the question of whether or not I really am
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part of such a community, and whether I’m really entitled to all of that. I
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know that there are groups within the community that would strongly disagree, of
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course. There seems to be a very ardent group gatekeeping the label, along with
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many others out there, which disagrees with myself, others like me, and even
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allies from being able to identify as such, speak on the matter, or even feeling
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like they have the right to think about it. My partner, delightful as he is,
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was notably called on the fact that he had no place talking about issues
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surrounding the trans* community, which is hardly a good thing to have to
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watch, or be a part of. </p>
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<p>I count myself extremely lucky for the people in my life, to be sure,
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whether they’re in the role of ally or along the same path as myself. I would
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be nowhere without them, really, and for them to not be welcome in the
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conversation surrounding a community of which I’d like to consider myself a
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part, even as staunch allies, makes me feel decidedly unwelcome in the community
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as a whole. Sometimes, it feels like it’d be easier to leave all that behind,
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cheer silently from the sidelines, and just man it on up. It’s really hard to
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take an idea that crops up primarily when I’m feeling bad seriously, though.</p>
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<p>I understand where a lot of this is coming from, especially as I watch the
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directions in which the culture (identity to a lesser extent, but definitely
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culture) surrounding the rest of the LGB community has taken - or, rather, has
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been drawn, with intense focus on marriage and other ways of being more
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effectively subsumed into heteronormative culture. The argument is that the
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fight of the minority should not be cast in the majority’s terms. What that
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loses, I feel, is the complexity of social interaction within and between
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identities. I am not solely someone who identifies as trans*, of course, and
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even though I have identified as such in the past, and am currently primarily
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(though not exclusively) in sexual relationships with other enpenised folk, I
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hardly solely identify as ‘gay’. I guess I just feel that gatekeeping denies
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interaction between identities as an unnecessary expense of focusing on
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interaction solely within an identity. After all, things like sexuality, or
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even gender, do not happen in a solipsistic world: I am not only confused about
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gender in the context of the trans* community, but also in the company of those
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close to me, and even those around me wondering “how <em>did</em> he get his legs so
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silky smooth?”</p>
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<p><a href="http://blackgirldangerous.org/new-blog/2013/6/17/8-ways-not-to-be-an-ally">Allies</a> make up my community, too, is what I mean to say. Allies who
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understand that there are imbalances in my world, and there are some that can
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and ought to be fixed. Allies who understand that language means a lot, that
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intersectionality is a thing and “cisgender” is a word we need if we don’t want
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everyone reduced to “trans*” and “normal”, and allies that will talk me down
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when I’m at my frumpiest. The goal, after all, is not to force trans* into
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being what’s considered normal now, but to add it to the list of things embraced
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in the future.</p>
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<p>I try not to talk in manifestos most of the time, I promise. I just want to
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feel comfortable, and I want those who are closest to me, or can at least
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commiserate with me, to be able to say “that’s okay.”</p>
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<p>I guess it comes down to the fact that I’m still just as confused about all this
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stuff as I ever ways, and that confusion is often expressed as a sort of
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malaise, a feeling of being upset: upset that this is even really a thing. When
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I feel like that, I think about it from the standpoint of cost-benefit analysis:
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what would be the cost of just going with the most privileged option? Is it
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worth feeling bad to just pretend like this isn’t a thing? Of course, it
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doesn’t really work that way, but that doesn’t stop me from considering it when
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things look bad.</p>
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