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Entry tags:
In which I talk about the opposite inability.
I can't stop staring at this picture.
It's Racheline. She linked to it on her blog, saying this is me as a man1 and this is me as a woman. The one I am fixated on is her as a woman. It's a photograph I've never seen --I am semi-obsessive about saving pictures of people I find friends, interesting, attractive, far-away and foreign3-- and was not in all honesty the one I was expecting. The one I was expecting is her as a dancer, red dress sharp against the walls of the subway station, strong and vivid and quite utterly in control of herself.
This is a photo of something different. This is, as she says, a photo of her as a woman. And I'm fixated, on the eyes, on the hands, on the curve of her lips and tilt of the neck.
Racheline has achieved something I simply can't seem to grasp.
She is able to be beautiful. Traditionally femininely beautiful, and quite utterly a woman.
Obviously there is only so much a photo can portray, and I don't have her on IM to ask terribly prying questions about gender and mindset and comfort in ones skin. The sideways glance could just as easily be a way to hide feeling lost, unsure, but I don't think so. She defined the photo as her as a woman. And thus it is.
During NoSuchConvention, I found myself struck with one of those decisive moments in which I suddenly know who and what I am. I wrote about one not too long ago, on my most recent Erik day. That day I knew solidly that I was not my normal absence of gender, I was decidedly male.
At the con, I knew suddenly that I was not my normal absence of gender, I was decidedly female. I was female, and I wanted to be delicate, and flirty, and pretty. I wanted ruffles and lace, a proper skirt, to try on a corset and see if I too could have breasts spilling out of my top. I wanted(want) to be traditionally femininely beautiful and quite utterly a woman.
The initial problem was that I was ill equipped to achieve that at the con. I did try --let down the hair and turn my coat back into a dress-- but at best, I could hit "barefoot hippie goddess" which is not at all the same thing as pretty woman, no matter how you view gender identity. In all honesty though, I could've had access to my entire closet and not known what to wear.
The problem, the real problem, is that I do not have the talent or the security to take clothes and hair and make-up and turn myself into a woman, into a real woman who is beautiful and can smile and mean it, who understands what it's like to be feminine, and how to turn your head and move your hands. I never learned. I have watched with fascination as my sister taught myself, as Jannyblue made posts about how to appear normal, but even following their advice, I am not sure I could achieve anything more impressive than faking it, and becoming very very quiet.
I know too many real women, women who know who and what they are, and who hold themselves with ease and understand what to do and why to do it. I have seen enough examples to know I'm not right.
The moment that feels most right from prom was getting dressed, dropping the leatherman into my purse. Just in case. Maybe you can be a woman with a leatherman, but not I. It was defiance, a tomboy's toy, a geek's little weirdness. It was pulling myself away from the femininity, from the pretty dress and well-braided hair. It was giving me something solid, usual, to latch onto.
The moment that felt most right from the Highland ball, another time wearing another pretty dress, was when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adfamiliares latched on to how lost I looked-felt-was and gave me subtle instruction. Now we go choose a table, now we put our purses down, now we go mingle, and talk with friends until you can forget that you are dressed wrong. It was a gift, from someone I admire, and it helped enough that I remember it distinct, ten months later.
I'm sure I can look like a woman, like a beautiful and feminine thing. But it comes at the cost of my voice, as I become no longer myself. Trying femininity takes effort enough that I must close myself off, hide behind eyes that are a little too wide, a little too scared. Curl to the edges of the crowd, because I can't sustain the illusion otherwise, and well, what's the point of being pretty if I ruin it by speaking?
Maybe someday I'll figure it out. I'm getting better at the boy part of things, about realizing today I am masculine and I will behave like thus. There must be similar switches to pull, things to learn (and I laugh as I wonder if maybe I shouldn't start lurking on the edges of the internet devoted to helping good little boys become lovely little girls, in whole or in part.)
I can't help but expect flames from this post. How dare I suggest all women must be feminine, be pretty (I don't think I did), that all women must be confident and self-aware and strong. And of course, I am such a lovely girl, and so beautiful and why would I think myself ugly (I don't and I'm not). Or perhaps how dare I want such a thing, why would I not embrace my body-as-is, revel in unshaven legs and unarranged hair, aspire to be a hippie goddess more than disney princess (I have always been a princess, my very name was chosen in part to let me have that identity. Children should have princess names, said Neva to my mother, and so we did, Katarina and Nikolai, and Alysandra.)
Because I am young, and still learning myself. It has not been so long since I could admit satisfaction with the shape of the meat-sack I inhabit, and I still exhibit the tendency to be unsure of that satisfaction sometimes. The mind is such a grand and glorious and more complicated organ, why would it not take me longer to come to terms? I love myself, as is, but there is an ideal that I may never reach, and it hurts to remember that, just like it hurts when I remember I will never put a rocketship on the moon.
And besides all that, the difference between attractive and charismatic is very sharp sometimes. Do not lie that I am more of the former. Prettier than average, of course, but I was trained by the best from a very young age to warp people to my will. I have more power than Buttercup ever did, but still, sometimes I can't help but wish to be the most beautiful woman in the world.
And I suppose, the only closing thought I can share is how unfair it is that Racheline has two perfect red dresses, and I haven't even got one.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: this post, and here is the man2 picture
2: It's interesting how I intersect with gender and words. In that photo, he is self identifying as a man, so I will call him a man. But I wanted so bad when writing this to soften the word, to say "boy" instead. Sometime I should look at the world, and analyze the why I call you boys and girls, why I so often abandon the words man and woman.
3: I guard and treasure every photograph I've ever found of my clone. Of Thorog. Of Rackle and Harena, of DrummerDude and Jarne. Of all the people who for so long were just avatars and text, who I connected to so much easier-stronger-better than my "real life" friends.
The internet has changed since then, and I've aged enough that I've changed too. I wouldn't necessarily go back to when pictures were a treat and a phone call unimaginable delight. But I am nostalgic for then.
It's Racheline. She linked to it on her blog, saying this is me as a man1 and this is me as a woman. The one I am fixated on is her as a woman. It's a photograph I've never seen --I am semi-obsessive about saving pictures of people I find friends, interesting, attractive, far-away and foreign3-- and was not in all honesty the one I was expecting. The one I was expecting is her as a dancer, red dress sharp against the walls of the subway station, strong and vivid and quite utterly in control of herself.
This is a photo of something different. This is, as she says, a photo of her as a woman. And I'm fixated, on the eyes, on the hands, on the curve of her lips and tilt of the neck.
Racheline has achieved something I simply can't seem to grasp.
She is able to be beautiful. Traditionally femininely beautiful, and quite utterly a woman.
Obviously there is only so much a photo can portray, and I don't have her on IM to ask terribly prying questions about gender and mindset and comfort in ones skin. The sideways glance could just as easily be a way to hide feeling lost, unsure, but I don't think so. She defined the photo as her as a woman. And thus it is.
During NoSuchConvention, I found myself struck with one of those decisive moments in which I suddenly know who and what I am. I wrote about one not too long ago, on my most recent Erik day. That day I knew solidly that I was not my normal absence of gender, I was decidedly male.
At the con, I knew suddenly that I was not my normal absence of gender, I was decidedly female. I was female, and I wanted to be delicate, and flirty, and pretty. I wanted ruffles and lace, a proper skirt, to try on a corset and see if I too could have breasts spilling out of my top. I wanted(want) to be traditionally femininely beautiful and quite utterly a woman.
The initial problem was that I was ill equipped to achieve that at the con. I did try --let down the hair and turn my coat back into a dress-- but at best, I could hit "barefoot hippie goddess" which is not at all the same thing as pretty woman, no matter how you view gender identity. In all honesty though, I could've had access to my entire closet and not known what to wear.
The problem, the real problem, is that I do not have the talent or the security to take clothes and hair and make-up and turn myself into a woman, into a real woman who is beautiful and can smile and mean it, who understands what it's like to be feminine, and how to turn your head and move your hands. I never learned. I have watched with fascination as my sister taught myself, as Jannyblue made posts about how to appear normal, but even following their advice, I am not sure I could achieve anything more impressive than faking it, and becoming very very quiet.
I know too many real women, women who know who and what they are, and who hold themselves with ease and understand what to do and why to do it. I have seen enough examples to know I'm not right.
The moment that feels most right from prom was getting dressed, dropping the leatherman into my purse. Just in case. Maybe you can be a woman with a leatherman, but not I. It was defiance, a tomboy's toy, a geek's little weirdness. It was pulling myself away from the femininity, from the pretty dress and well-braided hair. It was giving me something solid, usual, to latch onto.
The moment that felt most right from the Highland ball, another time wearing another pretty dress, was when
adfamiliares latched on to how lost I looked-felt-was and gave me subtle instruction. Now we go choose a table, now we put our purses down, now we go mingle, and talk with friends until you can forget that you are dressed wrong. It was a gift, from someone I admire, and it helped enough that I remember it distinct, ten months later. I'm sure I can look like a woman, like a beautiful and feminine thing. But it comes at the cost of my voice, as I become no longer myself. Trying femininity takes effort enough that I must close myself off, hide behind eyes that are a little too wide, a little too scared. Curl to the edges of the crowd, because I can't sustain the illusion otherwise, and well, what's the point of being pretty if I ruin it by speaking?
Maybe someday I'll figure it out. I'm getting better at the boy part of things, about realizing today I am masculine and I will behave like thus. There must be similar switches to pull, things to learn (and I laugh as I wonder if maybe I shouldn't start lurking on the edges of the internet devoted to helping good little boys become lovely little girls, in whole or in part.)
I can't help but expect flames from this post. How dare I suggest all women must be feminine, be pretty (I don't think I did), that all women must be confident and self-aware and strong. And of course, I am such a lovely girl, and so beautiful and why would I think myself ugly (I don't and I'm not). Or perhaps how dare I want such a thing, why would I not embrace my body-as-is, revel in unshaven legs and unarranged hair, aspire to be a hippie goddess more than disney princess (I have always been a princess, my very name was chosen in part to let me have that identity. Children should have princess names, said Neva to my mother, and so we did, Katarina and Nikolai, and Alysandra.)
Because I am young, and still learning myself. It has not been so long since I could admit satisfaction with the shape of the meat-sack I inhabit, and I still exhibit the tendency to be unsure of that satisfaction sometimes. The mind is such a grand and glorious and more complicated organ, why would it not take me longer to come to terms? I love myself, as is, but there is an ideal that I may never reach, and it hurts to remember that, just like it hurts when I remember I will never put a rocketship on the moon.
And besides all that, the difference between attractive and charismatic is very sharp sometimes. Do not lie that I am more of the former. Prettier than average, of course, but I was trained by the best from a very young age to warp people to my will. I have more power than Buttercup ever did, but still, sometimes I can't help but wish to be the most beautiful woman in the world.
And I suppose, the only closing thought I can share is how unfair it is that Racheline has two perfect red dresses, and I haven't even got one.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: this post, and here is the man2 picture
2: It's interesting how I intersect with gender and words. In that photo, he is self identifying as a man, so I will call him a man. But I wanted so bad when writing this to soften the word, to say "boy" instead. Sometime I should look at the world, and analyze the why I call you boys and girls, why I so often abandon the words man and woman.
3: I guard and treasure every photograph I've ever found of my clone. Of Thorog. Of Rackle and Harena, of DrummerDude and Jarne. Of all the people who for so long were just avatars and text, who I connected to so much easier-stronger-better than my "real life" friends.
The internet has changed since then, and I've aged enough that I've changed too. I wouldn't necessarily go back to when pictures were a treat and a phone call unimaginable delight. But I am nostalgic for then.
Re: reactions
2) That's an interesting way of looking at it. I don't know. I do know I use boy/girl for myself at least in part because from man/woman I infer a level of adulthood I haven't reached. But the idea of identities-vs-roles is intriguing.
3) I'd like to think I don't do this. I don't know. I'm not conscious of ever being upset with my ideals for this reason.
4a) The gain, or rather, the hope, is that someday I'll be able to affect that ideal-femme self without losing my voice. That I'll learn my place, myself well enough to be able to feel more like it matters, like I am not just playing pretend.
You do deserve femininity, in whatever parts you would like or need.
~Sor
Re: reactions
So now I'll say this (a much shorter disclaimer) with regard to #1 specifically:
Please don't ever think that I would rather you didn't do such things (dressing male) or talk about them. I have my jealousy safely captured in a little emotion-terrarium, where I study its behavior and try it out on different types of foliage to see what it likes to eat. Sometimes it bites me, but it can't really hurt me because I'm much bigger than it is and I have a safe place to leave it when I'm doing other things.
2) Interesting that there's a level of adulthood you feel you haven't achieved. I frequently come across evidence that this is also true for me -- some circumstantial, some more innate and a bit TMI-ish. The more TMI-ish ones make me wonder if it's a side-effect of the dysphoria, or at least exacerbated by it.
3) I can't picture you doing it (telling someone else how they should look because you subconsciously want them to express your identity for you), though I can picture other people doing it to you, and putting pressure on you as a result of that -- which you might then react to, whether or not you were aware of its origin. (Though the idea of you being unaware of something like this strikes me as unlikely and kind of not-Sor.)
4a) Meaning that you will have... expanded the range of (metaphorical) dances you're comfortably familiar with, to the point where you can feel comfortable and confident doing the ideal-femme dance along with the others you currently know? (This is probably a terrible metaphor...)
---
I should have made it clear that "not deserving femininity" is one of those negvox things. I know it doesn't make sense to believe it, but my knowledge of arguments against it is still kind of... "lame", in the sense that it needs a great deal of rehab in order to become effective (as opposed to the colloquial sense of being useless and a waste of resources).