tzone

**ice maiden** · Advisor Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 2626

'I think I can be happy in my box as long as the box isn't too rigidly defined and I allow it to overlap with other boxes from time to time.'

i can hear beavis and butthead giggling from here Wink

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Man [...] must count no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth." (Jean Paul Sartre, 1943)

**Sparkz** · Advisor Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 179

One thing that drives me round the twist is how the constructs of 'man' and 'woman' are interrelating.

A 'man' is defined partly in terms of how he compares with a woman.
A 'woman' is defined partly in terms of how she compares with a man.
'men' and 'women' are so often seen as being at opposite ends of a spectrum of 'masculinity' and 'femininity'.

This means that if you are neither a man nor a woman, you are seen simply as:
- 'part way' between being a man, and a woman - and thus you are both part man, part woman, and
- simply 'neither man, nor woman' - which denies that we actually have attributes and a solid identity

Which means that we get classified simply within the already existing structure of how cisgendered people see gender. When I'd like it that our existence re-structures the entire system of gender!

I don't like it that being a 'third gender' means that we are simply seen as being partway between the two 'major' genders. I don't want to be a part of gender at all Smile

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Gender nut and site admin...hehe

My trans research has just been published, see it under 't' in the Tzone library: http://www.transgenderzone.com/library/st.htm
(filename begins with 'Transgender People's Identity Development').

Learning how to generate inner and outer peace in the universe and myself.

**kellineil** · Advisor Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 93 Location: Edinburgh

i agree totally

thats one of the things that really annoys me

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Moderator

Augusta2B · Joined: 11 May 2007 Posts: 5 Location: Belgium

Quote:

How do you 'know' when you're androgyne/genderqueer etc? Is it like an epiphany, one moment where it suddenly strikes you that this is 'home', this is the label and community you feel comfortable with? Or is it more a gradual process of trying to understand your own identity?

I agree with Kellineil. I've always known I was different, a first inkling at age 4 or 5, and increasingly throughout later childhood.
The woman trapped in a man's body has never really been my thing though. More like being trapped in a body really.
Why shouldn't you play with dolls, dressing up, like playing with girls, having furry animals, etc?
Total incomprehension of why you shouldn't be allowed do what you want with your body, and why act in particular ways (I used to think boys were really stupid), associated with fear of disapproval and reprisal.

Ultimately all became muddled up into a sense of not being a man but at the same time no overpowering desire to be a woman either.
Not a matter of choosing either/or but of having it all.

Greedy perhaps? ???

Augusta

ArtRobinson · Joined: 22 May 2008 Posts: 8 Location: Newcastle

I have very mixed feelings about being genderqueer, because while everything I have felt and expressed points toward me being so, I'm really not at all satisfied with that. I feel as though I should be either a man or a woman, and I want to be but I can't commit to either. Its weird, one day I can be totally committed to the idea of becoming a man, living my life in a male capacity and I have total conviction that I'll do something about it, but the next day or in the next few days or weeks I'll feel the exact opposite, and just tell myself I'm inventing identity issues for myself... because I'm strange. Does anyone else have similar issues?

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"This above all, to thine own self be true." - Polonius, Hamlet.

chrissy · Joined: 18 Jun 2007 Posts: 14 Location: Sunny Bognor

I've gone through phases in how I identify;
female as a kid (that thing there is SOO wrong, and people who don't have them are girls),
male (as social reality dawned),
TV,
TS,
TG,
F2M trapped in M2F body,
TransDyke,
GenderQueerDyke,
TransDyke GenderQueer
etc...
That was when I noticed other identities were bleeding into the gendered/sexed categories, diluting gender and sex, eclipsing them.

I've found my sense of self has evolved as I've tried ID's and found they don't fit. I never had a moment of enlightenment that I was GenderQueer, I certainly didn't know from the beginning, and I don't know now. I only know gender does not apply to me, and I find it increasingly difficult to apply it to other people. It's like I'm losing the knack of thinking gender, and it's a completely inconsequential transition - it make absolutely no difference (perhaps I never could see it, I just pretended to).

Gender is rapidly becoming an OPP (other peoples problem) for me, may have already become one for all I know. It's hard to tell. It doesn't appear on my radar any more other than as an opportunity to demonstrate the ridiculousness of category/ies. Nowadays I identify as gender disidentified. And that's more a political statement than an internal truth. The only way I can meaningfull talk about my gender now is in terms of negation;
- Are you male or female? No.
- What gender are you? I'm not.
And my life has been a process of dscovering this.

Am I a punk, traveller, dyke, queer, man, feminine? No, I'm the Chrissy. Perhaps my next evolution will be to 'a revolutionary principle formerly known as Chrissy'?

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Do the opposite of the current fashion and you will nearly always do right - Jean Jacques Rousseau