I don't know again

[Emery.]

I'm posting it for the sole purpose of writing down my thoughts and venting.

As I've been presenting quite androgynous for some time, new data came into the equation and shed some light from another side. I think the usual questions one has to ask themself make no sense in my case, like the one what someone prefers to be called and how they feel about their body.

But to the point. I identify with my body, but only because it's mine. I don't identify with other women too much, because I have no reason to. My ways of thinking and choices are for the most part quite different from theirs. I can resonate with men much more. With masculine roles and so on. They make more sense to me, and part of my experiences is also connected with those ways of thinking and how they affected me. For example, the issue of army recruitment of random young men who don't want to go to the army is one that touches me. But I do identify with being female as my reality and objective experience - having this body and being treated a certain way are my experiences, my memories. I identify e.g. with issues of discrimination against pregnant women in the job market. I struggle a bit to describe it. I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. Apparently, all the socialisation and years of identifying as female have not affected my feelings, desires, instincts, mindset (which are quite masculine). Contrary to what people who claim that gender is nurture only claim to be the case. I can't jump over my own cognition, nor can anyone else.

Is it that both identifications count and then my identity is both female and male? Or is that called neither or third gender or what? Or is it that one of them is identification and the other is not? What would be a Western counterpart for two-spirit? Bi-gender has already got its own, quite specific meaning, which I don't identify with. Would that be androgyne? Or just genderqueer? Or third gender?

It's like, my gender is definitely not a neutral one, and it's not void, I'm not a fit-everywhere either. I just might equally likely be a very masculine cis woman with an unusual concept of being a woman - and a trans man with an unusual approach to his body and gender presentation. *scratches her/his/their/???????????? on the head*

[Tarfeather]

Just be you. ^^

[andreas1033]

Yep, just live your life as you, not as some label.

[jack616]

(Hug) I personally think The Big Questions can become more clear when we focus on other things :) and it will fall into place.

[Heart]

*hugs*

I wish I could help, but by now you know as much of the definitions as I do. I don't know if there is a western version of two-spirit... Maybe you can just leave it at that though? Western two-spirited?

[Emery.]

You won't believe what has happened :P I don't even know why, but I started watching videos with Judith Butler, the philosopher, and I must admit they are quite heavy. No, no, I started wondering during the day abot the whole "queer" thing and how gender is blurred and that sexual orientations and such are in fact more identities than actual rigid categories. (As a response to the two-spirit concept, and what I read&watched about it, and similar social constructs in other cultures) Because as I crossed the lines of acceptable gender presentation, and to be clear, everybody knows I'm a girl, suddenly girls started flirting with me. Maybe because of the "guy" mold, maybe because they read me as lesbian and hence as a safe bet to test their own bisexuality (there's a chance I'll reciprocate, right?). Something along these lines. That gender itself is quite similar. Then I started reading something about the whole "queer" thing and defying categorisation...

Anyway, I don't remember how I arrived at this conclusion, but it is that the wrong question is being asked and the wrong concepts applied: I never struggled with gender identity, I was and am struggling with gender expression. It has something to do with what Butler calls "recognition", "being registered in differentiability", "legibility". Which constitutes the whole point of labels. It's not about words, it's about pointing to something, making it a thing. It's great that people whose gender identities differ from those assigned at birth have this recognition at least in some queer spaces. Nevertheless, I keep on asking this question: "What do I identify as?", even though I know pretty well what I identify with and with what I don't identify. Because asking this question is a thing. It's legible. Struggling with it is a thing, and is quite close to the point but not quite. And struggling with gender expression is not seen as "a thing", especially when you're straight. Which is illustrated by the wierd phenomenon of girls flirting with me that I described above.

So to sum up, it's a shame that we don't hear voices of people who struggle with their own gender expression on its own, not as something that reflects their inner identity. Maybe even is "inconsistent" with it. Though, I admit, the effect of the gender expression, whether it is a natural and arbitrary inclination as in my case, or a reflection of an an individual's identity, is pretty much the same and we are all in the same boat.

We should stop saying that transgressing gender is only the domain of identification. The only concepts available are "transgender" and "genderqueer" - which are defined as "anyone who identifies as such". But the reality is that if we have a wider idea of gender performance, identity is one component, and expression is another. And it can bring as much trouble as identity. Imposing the idea that gender expression must align with identity, or must be an expression of identity, is in fact hurtful. Or that people have only gender identity and no preference for their own expression. To me, gender expression is pretty much like sexual orientation - a question of desires and preference, what comes naturally, of feelings that cannot just be stopped, which are very real, and which receive harassment if you happen to deviate from the assumed norm.

So once again this month, I claim to have found The Anwser: I am a genderqueer cis woman who prefers to express herself in a masculine-of-centre way. I'm comfortable not knowing exactly if I'm a demi-girl or genderfluid or an agender-female bignender person. It's enough to know that it's somewhere in this area of the spectrum. Non-normative gender expression is my piece of cake.

[Heart]

*raises glass for a toast*

Gender expression is a thing we don't talk nearly as much about as gender itself. In many ways, that's a shame.