2:00am May 19, 2014

Gender and the grey area…

If other people never made a big deal about gender, I would probably never bother thinking much about it. The extent to which I, as a person born without intrinsic gender identity, interact with the concept of gender has always pretty much been determined by external pressures and social expectations (and my relative failure/success at meeting said expectations).

That said, at this point in my life I seem to sort of go back and forth between asserting myself as genderless and figuring myself to be a gender-nonconforming female. I have never really been able to pass as a “feminine” female, regardless of what I am wearing, and in large groups of women I invariably feel vaguely alienated, like I am supposed to belong somehow but don’t. But I nonetheless do actually feel an affinity with women who would self-describe as gender-nonconforming, and occasionally I wonder if maybe “femaleness” can exist in a form that just isn’t a big damn deal.

But then I look in the mirror. And my jeans are making me anxious because they show the shape of my hips. Which I still bang into doorways all the time because my brain never really “mapped” the physical reality of secondary sex characteristics. I have gotten used to breasts and I can appreciate them through my partner’s appreciation of them, but I still preferentially wear a sports bra one size too small when clothed. And there are places I go online where I never bring up gender, and where I am sure people assume one thing or another, and I don’t ever bother asserting anything regardless of what pronouns they refer to me with.

But then I see an ad from the 1970s showing a little girl building some elaborate Lego creation, wearing overalls, no pink in sight. And I think, “that was me, and there needs to be room in the world for these girls, forever.” And I feel weirdly proud and relieved when I see articles about young girls winning science competitions and doing engineering projects. And I am not sure what that means.

So…I am wondering now about fluidity. And whether it is possible to be essentially without gender but *sometimes* kinda-sorta female (or male, or otherwise) because context. I really, really dislike that whole thing where fluidity gets misinterpreted as either betrayal or denial. If gender is not about body shape or plumbing or enforced wardrobe limitations, then why should it even have to be something a person is certain of?

I’m also genderless (and I do experience body dysphoria but I’m very loathe to talk about it for a lot of reasons). And my feelings about ‘female’ are really complicated and difficult to talk about in a world where such ideas have become extremely politically charged.

Basically, I would generally use the words that used to be perfectly acceptable in the trans community, and say that I’m a bio-female genderless person. That’s the easiest for me. I can’t master the new language.

The tricky part is that there are times when I don’t mind being considered part of 'female’ or 'women’, and there are times when I can't stand being considered part of either. And it usually has to do with socialization. When female or women is being used as a sociological category of people who are treated in a certain way, or people who have been socialized in a certain way, then I feel like it applies to me. When it’s used as a social category of gender, then I feel like it does not apply to me.

Very important note: I do not believe that being socialized female is the only way to be female or a woman. I do not believe that trans women are any less women than cis women or other people raised female. I just think there are many, many entry points to the idea of 'woman’ and one of them for some people can be the way you were raised. It’s very individual and context-dependent and I speak for nobody but myself when I talk about my relationship to it.

So basically there are times when I think that being raised female is highly relevant to my life, and at those times, being included in 'women’ works for me. There are other times when I feel totally alienated from 'women’ because it’s being used as a gender category rather than a sociological category.

And I know I’m not supposed to say any of this, because there’s a good deal of justified fear that if people let in the reality that how you were raised makes a difference, then it would undermine the reality that your actual gender identity makes an even bigger difference to who you are. But hopefully anyone who knows me can see that’s not what I’m doing, and can refrain from vomiting a furious bunch of mental widgets all over what’s an attempt to explore my own identity and that of people like me.

So anyway, if sometimes I seem to accept 'woman’, it’s not because I’m any less genderless, it’s because I read the word 'woman’ differently in different contexts. It’s one word, but it has many different meanings that are equally valid. And sometimes, it’s a word that includes but is not limited to a sociological category, not just a gender identity. (I don’t have a gender identity unless you count the absence of gender as a gender identity.) And in those contexts, I can sometimes accept it applied to me.

Notes: