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Jun. 4th, 2011 03:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressSo, I managed to make friends with a dude on Twitter, which is kinda weird, because...Twitter is not a friend-making site in nearly the same way here or anywhere else on the goddamn internet is. And he started e-mailing me, and I've somehow had time to respond (dear everyone I haven't been e-mailing, I'm sorry and I'm horrible, please send me e-mails chastising me so I can make it up to you with distracting photos of me making silly faces) and then he asked about Erik, who I mention occasionally on the Twitters.
Not at all! I really like babbling about myself (see also: the livejournal with well over 2k entries in it), especially when it's inspired by decent questions, and not stabby questions.
(I swear, if I have another well-meaning query of "you're dating two boys...but...do they know about each other?" I will have to do something drastic. Why is cheating more casually accepted than explicitly not cheating? This is a terrible world and makes little sense.)
Heh. I kinda think of this as the gender equivalent of bisexual erasure. It's not "boys or girls", with the magical implication that those are the only two choices. There are boys and girls and both and neither and people who shift and people who blend and dammit people are complicated.
My basic gender thing is that I consider myself to be genderneutral, until and unless I have something to gender me. The two most common things to cause this are flirting (which typically causes me to gender to what the object of my affection prefers) or dance (which causes me to gender according to costume, unless something weird happens, like flirtation).
Separate from being gendered around/because of people:
Every once in a while, I realize that I am a clear and specific gender. Okay, that's an exaggeration. Every once in a while, I realize that something is really wrong with my current presentation, and then I have to spend a good bit of time staring at my closet or otherwise introspecting until I can figure out what gender I'm trying to identify as, and how to present as it. Usually the problem is that I'm in male mode and have to go find the tight bra and the vest and stop smiling and fuck with my hair until it stops looking so goddamn femme. Occasionally the problem is that I'm in very solidly female mode (which is awful, since I have no idea how to do make-up or coordinate colours of clothing, or wear things to make me look curvy and busty and like a goddamn girl.1) Every once in a while I get something else, but usually it's either "oh huh, I appear to be a boy" or "fucking fuck why can't I pull off lady?"**
And I've been trying for ages to find a way to explain it, but thus far I just _can't_. Just...when I am a boy, I am a boy, and thinking of myself as a girl will make me unhappy. I don't generally need other people to think of me as a boy (but man is it awesome when it happens), but I have to be thinking of myself properly, or I won't be able to relax and feel like a real person, rather than an uncomfortable stranger to this planet.
Male (or anything else) mode is usually pretty unambiguous --the desperate feeling of "I need to be thinking of myself in x terms" does fade after a while, but usually it blends into my normal feeling of genderneutrality, rather than some sort of "60% male 35% female 5% other" sort of thing.
I have almost no body dysphoria, and feel really lucky for it. It helps that my body is pretty well designed to playact "boy" (not man, granted, but I could probably pass for a twelve or thirteen year old guy if I were dedicated about it) --I'm short, and small, and an A-cup, all of which help. The biggest problem for passing is the fact that I've got hair which falls to mid-thigh when wet, and not all that much shorter when dry. I'm pretty sure if I were XY instead of XX I'd still have fairly long hair, since I love it, but man, does it ever code me as female.
Actually, that being said, I get more dysphoric when I go into suddenly feeling female, of the really gorgeous feminine sort. I grew up with a best friend who had six inches of height and two cup sizes on me, I know damn well what a girl who knows how to be a girl can look like1 and I just don't know _how_. For a long time the fastest way to get me to feel like a teenager (instead of the twenty-something I've been since I was thirteen) was to put me into a really nice dress, it makes me completely lose my sense of self. I would probably do well to google some resources for mtf trans*2 folk, as I totally learned how to be a boy from reading the ftm stuff.
My sexuality changes very little, with the exception of the being-gendered-by-flirting thing. Most of my boyfriends are hetero-type, as such, I don't tend to code male around them unless I'm having a seriously weird day, or I've set myself up for a dance event in proper menswear. Most of the time when I flirt with girls, I code male --yes, this is a horrid assumption of me, but it's just what happens.
Also, Erik is hilariously bad at courting, mostly because he has zero-to-no experience with the whole thing. Certain, generally very geeky, women throw him off the most, when we have this fantastic attractive thing and the best I can get is "stammer hi you're cute stammer RUN AWAY OHGOD"
Personality also changes very little, because I am comfortable being a person who gets incredibly excited every time I see a backhoe and really really wants a pony. Assertive/passive don't change much at all, and dominant/submissive is almost completely dependent on who's there to enjoy it.
Really, Erik and I are more or less the same person, except for a chromosomal palette swap. We like the same sort of things, and the only difference is how I approach them.
Also, I am extremely extremely arbitrary with pronouns. This is part of why "they" is my preferred personal pronoun, because I love compartmentalizing my brain into distinct personas who I can argue with. At any rate, they is my preferred, she or he are both totally fine, and anything else is not something I strictly identify with, but also not something I dislike.
Whew.
I'm really fucking talkative, by the way, especially about gender and sex and sexuality and kink. Also about dance or math, but I usually can temper those with the fact that most people don't know or care about the fiddly bits.
~Sor
MOOP!
**Just going on a limb here, but it probably has something to do with the fact that I use the word fuck way more often than necessary. My students are going to think I am _so cool_.
1: Before the whole real women do or don't have curves debate, please remember that my mind is not exactly what we call rational, and fuckit, when I am in very femme mode, I want to be able to look very feminine. That does not exclusively mean curves. I'd settle for good make-up and knowing how to hold myself right. But man, big tits would be a pretty useful back-up in the meantime.
2: Oh shit, I totally just realized that I was using * for both footnotes in e-mail, and for wildcard. Eh, he's clever, he'll figure it out. Obviously numbers are footnotes just for the journal. Obviously.
While I've got your attention, do you mind if I ask you a few questions re: Erik?
Not at all! I really like babbling about myself (see also: the livejournal with well over 2k entries in it), especially when it's inspired by decent questions, and not stabby questions.
(I swear, if I have another well-meaning query of "you're dating two boys...but...do they know about each other?" I will have to do something drastic. Why is cheating more casually accepted than explicitly not cheating? This is a terrible world and makes little sense.)
(Anticipating the answer yes, questions follow.)
I'm already relatively familiar with the transgender phenomenon...Few people, however, talk about the experience of one's gender being in flux.
Heh. I kinda think of this as the gender equivalent of bisexual erasure. It's not "boys or girls", with the magical implication that those are the only two choices. There are boys and girls and both and neither and people who shift and people who blend and dammit people are complicated.
How do you know when you're in male mode? Is it always unambiguous, or is there a spectrum? Does your body image change? Do you envision yourself with broader shoulders, flatter chest, and a package? Do you find your sexuality changes with it? Are you more assertive or dominant while male? Does the subset of people to whom you're attracted change?
My basic gender thing is that I consider myself to be genderneutral, until and unless I have something to gender me. The two most common things to cause this are flirting (which typically causes me to gender to what the object of my affection prefers) or dance (which causes me to gender according to costume, unless something weird happens, like flirtation).
Separate from being gendered around/because of people:
Every once in a while, I realize that I am a clear and specific gender. Okay, that's an exaggeration. Every once in a while, I realize that something is really wrong with my current presentation, and then I have to spend a good bit of time staring at my closet or otherwise introspecting until I can figure out what gender I'm trying to identify as, and how to present as it. Usually the problem is that I'm in male mode and have to go find the tight bra and the vest and stop smiling and fuck with my hair until it stops looking so goddamn femme. Occasionally the problem is that I'm in very solidly female mode (which is awful, since I have no idea how to do make-up or coordinate colours of clothing, or wear things to make me look curvy and busty and like a goddamn girl.1) Every once in a while I get something else, but usually it's either "oh huh, I appear to be a boy" or "fucking fuck why can't I pull off lady?"**
And I've been trying for ages to find a way to explain it, but thus far I just _can't_. Just...when I am a boy, I am a boy, and thinking of myself as a girl will make me unhappy. I don't generally need other people to think of me as a boy (but man is it awesome when it happens), but I have to be thinking of myself properly, or I won't be able to relax and feel like a real person, rather than an uncomfortable stranger to this planet.
Male (or anything else) mode is usually pretty unambiguous --the desperate feeling of "I need to be thinking of myself in x terms" does fade after a while, but usually it blends into my normal feeling of genderneutrality, rather than some sort of "60% male 35% female 5% other" sort of thing.
I have almost no body dysphoria, and feel really lucky for it. It helps that my body is pretty well designed to playact "boy" (not man, granted, but I could probably pass for a twelve or thirteen year old guy if I were dedicated about it) --I'm short, and small, and an A-cup, all of which help. The biggest problem for passing is the fact that I've got hair which falls to mid-thigh when wet, and not all that much shorter when dry. I'm pretty sure if I were XY instead of XX I'd still have fairly long hair, since I love it, but man, does it ever code me as female.
Actually, that being said, I get more dysphoric when I go into suddenly feeling female, of the really gorgeous feminine sort. I grew up with a best friend who had six inches of height and two cup sizes on me, I know damn well what a girl who knows how to be a girl can look like1 and I just don't know _how_. For a long time the fastest way to get me to feel like a teenager (instead of the twenty-something I've been since I was thirteen) was to put me into a really nice dress, it makes me completely lose my sense of self. I would probably do well to google some resources for mtf trans*2 folk, as I totally learned how to be a boy from reading the ftm stuff.
My sexuality changes very little, with the exception of the being-gendered-by-flirting thing. Most of my boyfriends are hetero-type, as such, I don't tend to code male around them unless I'm having a seriously weird day, or I've set myself up for a dance event in proper menswear. Most of the time when I flirt with girls, I code male --yes, this is a horrid assumption of me, but it's just what happens.
Also, Erik is hilariously bad at courting, mostly because he has zero-to-no experience with the whole thing. Certain, generally very geeky, women throw him off the most, when we have this fantastic attractive thing and the best I can get is "stammer hi you're cute stammer RUN AWAY OHGOD"
Personality also changes very little, because I am comfortable being a person who gets incredibly excited every time I see a backhoe and really really wants a pony. Assertive/passive don't change much at all, and dominant/submissive is almost completely dependent on who's there to enjoy it.
Really, Erik and I are more or less the same person, except for a chromosomal palette swap. We like the same sort of things, and the only difference is how I approach them.
Also, I am extremely extremely arbitrary with pronouns. This is part of why "they" is my preferred personal pronoun, because I love compartmentalizing my brain into distinct personas who I can argue with. At any rate, they is my preferred, she or he are both totally fine, and anything else is not something I strictly identify with, but also not something I dislike.
Whew.
I'm really fucking talkative, by the way, especially about gender and sex and sexuality and kink. Also about dance or math, but I usually can temper those with the fact that most people don't know or care about the fiddly bits.
~Sor
MOOP!
**Just going on a limb here, but it probably has something to do with the fact that I use the word fuck way more often than necessary. My students are going to think I am _so cool_.
1: Before the whole real women do or don't have curves debate, please remember that my mind is not exactly what we call rational, and fuckit, when I am in very femme mode, I want to be able to look very feminine. That does not exclusively mean curves. I'd settle for good make-up and knowing how to hold myself right. But man, big tits would be a pretty useful back-up in the meantime.
2: Oh shit, I totally just realized that I was using * for both footnotes in e-mail, and for wildcard. Eh, he's clever, he'll figure it out. Obviously numbers are footnotes just for the journal. Obviously.
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I haven't emailed you either...
on 2011-06-05 12:03 am (UTC)I think the bit I wanted to respond to here was about how your genderbrain sees "solidly female" as involving makeup, color-coordinated clothing, and busty-curvyness -- mainly to contrast it with what "female" (when we're using that word to talk about what I covet and envy) seems to mean to my genderbrain, which sees those things as unfortunate byproducts of socialized ideas of "female" in our society, and associates them primarily with the word "woman", which is distinct from "adult girl" (and of course a subset of "female [human]"), and the phrase "fashion victim".
To put it less drily: I can see a girl with no makeup, minimal or no hips, with or without "chest", and wearing work-clothes,* as being gloriously feminine. (You probably knew this, but I don't think I've managed to say it this way before.)
*I feel obliged to put a comma here for clarity, although I think it's technically wrong
Not that this is obviously any more rational than what your genderbrain thinks, but I think my genderbrain just wanted to get that in there in the hope of offsetting any socialization that might be contributing to your genderbrain's take on things.
Anything else? Oh, yes. I envy small chests (versus those that are either large or male-style... especially the latter), because that gives you something to show if you want to show it, but makes it possible to hide it if you want to do that instead. (You've said as much; I'm just adding the envy.) My genderwiring is pointedly very... reactive on this subject.
One more thing. I think the only time I experience any kind of gender-identity-flux are at certain times when I just wish gender would go away. (The rest of the time just I wish it were adjustable, of course.)
no subject
on 2011-06-05 11:26 pm (UTC)Serious reply to rhetorical question: because it's what people have experience with. It fits into a predefined pattern. Multiple-relationships-but-not-cheating requires a new pattern, and that takes effort.
... other than that I deeply enjoy reading other people's meditations on gender etc since it's something I have little idea how to approach myself. So, yay, and thanks.
no subject
on 2011-06-07 04:01 am (UTC)I'm insanely behind on LJ
on 2011-06-08 04:22 pm (UTC)*hug*