7:59am May 19, 2014

➸ Gender and the grey area...

youneedacat:

feliscorvus:

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…

“And whether it is possible to be essentially without gender but *sometimes* kinda-sorta female (or male, or otherwise) because context.”

Well I hope it is because that’s what I do. I identify with a lot of what you guys wrote- I avoid defining gender like the plague because it’s got nothing to do with my identity, but every now and then I think, you know what, right now, right here is the time to ally with the biological sex and people’s default perception of my gender. Because feeling genderless and identifying as such doesn’t protect me from sexism and misogyny and heteronormativity, and a score of other concepts that argue about when a woman stops being a woman.

So when there’s a chance to make a stand and prove women don’t fit into a tiny box, I try to take it. Breaking down the stereotype of the ‘traditional female’ is a cause that is quite dear to me, since it is that stereotype which makes people try and label me. Woman because of body. Tomboy because of attitude. Possibly lesbian because of clothes. Possibly mentally unstable and immature because of lack of make-up (sic). Definitely ‘not like other girls’ because of this thing I did, and also definitely ‘typical female’ because of other thing I did. A million attempts to define me without consulting me, but with deference to the female stereotype, which, for some reason, must always be the starting point.

And you know what?

It’s also quite possible that I could easily identify as female if the idea of what a true woman is wasn’t so restrictive.

I don’t know, you know, I’ve never had a chance to find out.