I just thought you should know...
Oct. 29th, 2006 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bliumchikI've been reading that book on gender issues, and it's sparked some brain processes that, probably, have been quietly whirring away back there for a while. I mean literally sparked, for some reason everything I touch today gives me a shock of static electricity.
I know an FTM trans-sexual, I met to him on a forum a few years ago. Prior to that I only had a vague idea that people whose gender didn't match their body existed - it never came up, there was never a reason to think about it. It was the same with homosexuality - at least until I started high school, probably for some time after, it didn't really dawn on me that it even existed. I knew intellectually, I knew the definition and I didn't have a problem with it, but again - it just never came up. My childhood was quite insular and not the pinnacle of stability. It's when I encountered real live people that these things crystalised, became human. I worked out my opinion on sexuality to my own satisfaction a while ago by using mathematical metaphors - the mainstream perception of it being binary, the real world more akin to probability: infinite gradations between one and zero. I've slowly been working out that gender sort of works the same way, but of course an analogy can only go so far. You can't say "I'm nine tenths girl". Maybe it averages out to that, but you can't define people both specifically and universally - it doesn't work.
Here's my new rationalisation, which is probably as close to that unattainable ideal of Truth as I really need to get: There's sex (male and female) and there's gender (man and woman). Man and Woman are NOT specific definitions. Male and Female refer to the sexual organs and exist mostly for the purpose of reproduction. Man and Woman live in your head, and they're general umbrella terms for certain personality types that seem to be vaguely divided by sex. They're both affected by hormones, but hormones are by nature erratic. So we inhabit a wider spectrum.
So how is this relevant, personally? Well, thinking about all this has made me realise that you don't have to take general terms specifically, just because society does. If you're not one thing, that doesn't automatically make you another, because people don't work like that. And I'm so incredibly lucky to live in a community that understands this. I'm going out with a guy, but I can freely admit that girls are pretty (he doesn't mind... well, he agrees XP). When have you last seen a guy with hot legs? It's rare. I can be whatever I want, in whatever mix I like. I can be contradictory. I can show masculine traits without threatening my femininity*, without being mocked for it, and without being forced to use them in the same context as men do. I prefer handshakes as a form of greeting, but I don't need to use them to initiate an arm wrestling contest or something, the way many men seem to be raised to. I'm more comfortable in pants, but I can wear a skirt over them just fine. I have no preference between the bow and the curtsy, not that either is in much use offstage, but I tend to go for the bow because it's hard to curtsy in the aforementioned pants. I have the typical girly love of clothes, but the clothes I love are neither typical nor girly in many respects. I'm fascinated by period dress - the male kind. I'd love to wear tails, a cravat and top hat (presumably with pants and a shirt, but I think it would be immensely interesting to try and co-ordinate them with a dress). I'm a very emotional person, but the thing I value most is logic, and a thing I get very emotional about is my need for clear definitions in areas where clear definitions are possible. I can be nine-tenths girl, or nine-tenths straight, or I can just say "wrong question" and call in the flying monkeys. It doesn't really matter if they never show up, I can still call them.
What I'm trying to say is - we can do these things. No matter what our government is fucking around with or who gets bashed in the metaphorical backwoods - here we are. We're none of us normal. Some of you may be thinking "why is this such a big revelation?" - but remember that insular childhood? My primary school grade from year two to six had an upper total forty four people in it. Eighteen girls. All of them were much more like each other than like me. I think I'm an extrovert by nature and an introvert by self defense. And I've spent pretty much all of high school, a bundle of nerves, growing out of that.
And it may not be a surprise to any of you, but I'm finally out of the closet. I'm not coming out as queer, I'm coming out as weird**.
Wow, it's bright out here.
*feminininininininity. hee.
**they meant the same thing, once upon a time - won't it be lovely when they're both redundant?
Which quiz are you ?
This pointless quiz was made by TMO
I know an FTM trans-sexual, I met to him on a forum a few years ago. Prior to that I only had a vague idea that people whose gender didn't match their body existed - it never came up, there was never a reason to think about it. It was the same with homosexuality - at least until I started high school, probably for some time after, it didn't really dawn on me that it even existed. I knew intellectually, I knew the definition and I didn't have a problem with it, but again - it just never came up. My childhood was quite insular and not the pinnacle of stability. It's when I encountered real live people that these things crystalised, became human. I worked out my opinion on sexuality to my own satisfaction a while ago by using mathematical metaphors - the mainstream perception of it being binary, the real world more akin to probability: infinite gradations between one and zero. I've slowly been working out that gender sort of works the same way, but of course an analogy can only go so far. You can't say "I'm nine tenths girl". Maybe it averages out to that, but you can't define people both specifically and universally - it doesn't work.
Here's my new rationalisation, which is probably as close to that unattainable ideal of Truth as I really need to get: There's sex (male and female) and there's gender (man and woman). Man and Woman are NOT specific definitions. Male and Female refer to the sexual organs and exist mostly for the purpose of reproduction. Man and Woman live in your head, and they're general umbrella terms for certain personality types that seem to be vaguely divided by sex. They're both affected by hormones, but hormones are by nature erratic. So we inhabit a wider spectrum.
So how is this relevant, personally? Well, thinking about all this has made me realise that you don't have to take general terms specifically, just because society does. If you're not one thing, that doesn't automatically make you another, because people don't work like that. And I'm so incredibly lucky to live in a community that understands this. I'm going out with a guy, but I can freely admit that girls are pretty (he doesn't mind... well, he agrees XP). When have you last seen a guy with hot legs? It's rare. I can be whatever I want, in whatever mix I like. I can be contradictory. I can show masculine traits without threatening my femininity*, without being mocked for it, and without being forced to use them in the same context as men do. I prefer handshakes as a form of greeting, but I don't need to use them to initiate an arm wrestling contest or something, the way many men seem to be raised to. I'm more comfortable in pants, but I can wear a skirt over them just fine. I have no preference between the bow and the curtsy, not that either is in much use offstage, but I tend to go for the bow because it's hard to curtsy in the aforementioned pants. I have the typical girly love of clothes, but the clothes I love are neither typical nor girly in many respects. I'm fascinated by period dress - the male kind. I'd love to wear tails, a cravat and top hat (presumably with pants and a shirt, but I think it would be immensely interesting to try and co-ordinate them with a dress). I'm a very emotional person, but the thing I value most is logic, and a thing I get very emotional about is my need for clear definitions in areas where clear definitions are possible. I can be nine-tenths girl, or nine-tenths straight, or I can just say "wrong question" and call in the flying monkeys. It doesn't really matter if they never show up, I can still call them.
What I'm trying to say is - we can do these things. No matter what our government is fucking around with or who gets bashed in the metaphorical backwoods - here we are. We're none of us normal. Some of you may be thinking "why is this such a big revelation?" - but remember that insular childhood? My primary school grade from year two to six had an upper total forty four people in it. Eighteen girls. All of them were much more like each other than like me. I think I'm an extrovert by nature and an introvert by self defense. And I've spent pretty much all of high school, a bundle of nerves, growing out of that.
And it may not be a surprise to any of you, but I'm finally out of the closet. I'm not coming out as queer, I'm coming out as weird**.
Wow, it's bright out here.
*feminininininininity. hee.
**they meant the same thing, once upon a time - won't it be lovely when they're both redundant?
Which quiz are you ?
This pointless quiz was made by TMO
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-28 03:12 pm (UTC)Last time I went surfing for j-rock pictures. -ducks- xD
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 10:07 am (UTC)studyinternalise.Do you also have
4-unitextension 2?no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 10:47 am (UTC)I remember 4-unit well; I went for a novella. A cyberpunk novella, no less. Major work FTW.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 11:24 am (UTC)Er, the list was as long as my arm (metaphorically), not the poets.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-29 10:54 am (UTC)