Intersections of Identity and Pride: Part 3 Gender It's Complicated

 

This week I will be exploring the complexity of gender, and July 14th happened to be International Nonbinary Day, which is an interesting coincidence.

While I have a physical body that was assigned female, I feel very neutral about my gender. Personally, I go with the gender I was assigned at birth in the same way I tend to keep the generic desktop image or screensaver for my computer. Is the generic screensaver a perfect representation of me? No. Do I care enough about my screensaver to bother to change it? No. And do I care if someone else changes their screensaver to be more representative of them? Once again, NO.

I rarely, if ever, worry about living my life so it fits neatly into gendered boxes. I have always worn what I wanted to wear based on what was comfortable, and I have always been “marching to a different kettle of fish” (one of my favorite mixed metaphors) with little to no regard for whether what I did matched my perceived gender.

I don’t tend to overly identify as a woman, nor do I overly identify as nonbinary. I split the difference and use she/they/any pronouns. And unlike Jim in Our Flag Means Death, I don't mind if someone sees me as a mermaid or merman or any other magical creature, LOL.

My relationship with gender is intertwined with my other identities. Since I am aro and ace, I am not worried if I am presenting in a manner that means someone will want to have a romantic or sexual relationship with me. Since I am neurodivergent, I tend to be much more concerned with what gender expression someone finds comfortable instead of whether or not their gender expression fits some silly societal understanding of what is "proper."

Personally I think gender is like someone's shoe size. Whatever gender/shoe size is comfortable works. And if at a certain point your gender/shoe size no longer fits, pick one that does. This is why I don't understand people who are transphobic or so outraged by my nonbinary siblings, nonconforming siblings, or siblings who use their own terms to describe their gender and their relationship to their gender.

Someone might start wearing size 9 shoes but then find, say, an 8.5 wide toe box fits better. Yet we don't say, "You used to wear a size 9, so I am offended you now wear a size 8.5." Why do people care if you change your shoe size? Or if you wear different shoe sizes in different contexts? Or if you don't tend to wear shoes at all?

(Yes, shoe size is not a perfect analogy since there are contexts where you do need to wear shoes, like if you work in a kitchen serving food to the public or if you work at a construction site, but I think you understand my point.)

While I am pretty neutral about my own relationship to my gender, I do use the privilege that my gender gives me to try to stand up for those without that privilege.

When I see ridiculous posts from TERFs, I comment on how 

"As a cisgender woman, I feel totally comfortable sharing a bathroom/sharing a space with my trans siblings. And honestly, I feel safer as a cisgender woman in spaces where my trans siblings feel comfortable. If my trans siblings are being excluded intentionally or not, then I am less safe and am more worried that my cis identity will be policed."

Despite my white privilege, which means I don't tend to have to worry about how I am presenting my gender, I don't want to go back to the days where if you were not wearing enough clothing that matched what society arbitrarily said you should based on your genitalia, you could be arrested. Nor do I want anyone to have to show their genitalia or the gender on a birth certificate in order to use a restroom. I believe that all restrooms should be gender neutral. 

So in conclusion, gender is complicated, and my relationship with it is situational. I don't tend to have any particular pride in my gender unless my trans and nonbinary siblings are being targeted, in which case I feel called to use my cis privilege to help create a world where we all can take pride in whatever we identify our gender to be.

Intersections of Identity and Pride: Part 2 Being Aro, Being Ace

 

I am continuing my July series exploring the "Intersections of Identity and Pride." This week is a longer post because it is a double feature exploring both my aro and ace (aromantic and asexual) identities. 

(I have been out of town for the past week, so please pardon me if this blog is less polished.)

I first identified as ace, and then after 10+ years of trying to figure out what makes something romantic (and it feeling very much like a "you know it when you see it" situation), I basically went, "Clearly I don't have a super strong romantic interest, so I will say I'm aro for now, and that is good enough."

Defining romance is very challenging in general since, at least from my point of view, what is considered, say, romantic in a story is actually toxic behavior in real life. You should not hang out on the street corner in case the other person changes their mind. You should not tell someone really close to their wedding that you have secretly always loved them, etc.

So what is considered romance? Here are several examples that were/are NOT romantic situations, even though if they were found in a story, they most likely would be.

Three Avenues once gave me 12 red roses that were extra after an event, which I still have after drying them.

My roommate and I often light candles during our "living room work parties," aka "body doubling," and we are sometimes eating dinner at the same time.

My loving parents often give me chocolate for the holidays.

The closest formula I can determine for romance is the following:

Romance = an action + love + being in a couple, thruple, or other arrangement.

(The last part has never applied to me, and I think it is the key ingredient).

Using Wentworth's language from last week, being aro is a loose, oversized outfit I feel neutral about but works well enough for me. I am fine with some romance in stories; I might someday want to be romantic with someone, but all in all, I prefer the idea of a nice queer platonic relationship (QPR).

On the other hand, being ace is one of my fundamental identities, which feels like an impeccably tailor-made suit. I identify as Ace because I have no interest in interacting with anybody's reproductive organs, full stop. It doesn't matter that I only learned about the term "asexual" slightly over a decade ago because, looking back, some examples from childhood include:

In middle school my frank "I am never going to have sex" comments oddly worried my school, to the point they had several conversations with my parents about it, which my parents were thankfully able to defuse. I think I knew my school was a bit worried but figured they were just being silly instead of personally internalizing feelings of brokenness.

Since I was a child, I have wished to be someone's "beard." I wanted a relationship for the perks, like going to the theater, cooking me dinner, or having long conversations, but knowing if the sweet gay guy wanted to do the "sex" thing, they could bother someone else with that nonsense, lol.

I thought discussions about sex were like childhood dreams of being an astronaut: common but rarely pursued. (Spoiler: from what I can tell, more people have had sex than have been in outer space lol.)

I would say I have an "anthropological interest" in sex and its portrayal in fanfiction. This means I don't kink-shame others, though occasionally when I am reading fanfiction, I do think, "Well, that's a choice LOL, but whatever makes the person or persons involved happy, assuming it involves enthusiastic consent between adults and is safe and sane*, is totally fine."

*Sane not in terms of anyone's mental health status but in terms of the fact there are situations that might involve what appears as enthusiastic consent and is safe as in no lasting physical harm occurs but should still be avoided like under negotiated kink, or if there is a large power gap, and in general if you have just met someone or just don't know them well typically starting slow is the way to go, with lots of check ins and aftercare instead of say jumping into a super intense scene where safe words can't be communicated easily

While I have no interest in having sex, I don't feel threatened by other people's love lives (and reading fanfiction means I have read about more configurations of relationships, kinks, etc. than most people have LOL), so I really don't understand why some people feel so threatened by other people's love lives.

I am proud of being ace, having incorporated it into my pen name, the name of this blog, etc., but this spring someone created a "new" ace flag, which caused many of us to have feelings about identity and pride. I prefer the classic ace flag because of the purple, white, grey, and black color palette, in part because purple is my favorite color.

In the end the conversation around the "new" ace flag became more a debate about what should be the proper way to express our pride. Some commented, "Well, the old flag didn't represent me," and others replied, "Who were you to create a new flag?" "The new flag doesn't represent me." "You shouldn't claim to speak for the whole community," etc.

The suggestion of a new flag issue highlights the difference between trying to create an all-inclusive identity that is supposed to fit everyone equally well and considering identity as something personal that can fit well (in my case, being ace) or fit well enough (in my case, being aro) or fit poorly.

Intersections of Identity and Pride: Part 1 Identity Is Fluid

At the end of May, I finally stayed somewhere with HBO and was able to watch the comedy "Our Flag Means Death." As I have been reading lots of fanfiction and watching many great conversations with the cast, I have been thinking about how we all contain multitudes, multitudes of identities, and our relationships with those identities can be fluid. (For example in my poem below Blackbeard, Ed, and The Kraken are all different identities of the same character)

"Our Flag Means Death" Poem (Version 3)

By Dreaming Ace

We all contain multitudes

The show “Our Flag Means Death”

Featuring Queer Disabled and Neurodivergent Pirates 

Who also have a ship full of Mental Health struggles

Reminding us that we all contain multitudes

Multitudes of selves, of identities

We all contain Blackbeards

Blackbeards that represent us feeling burned out

Feeling stuck in lives filled with day to days that seem 

To endlessly repeat, over and over, over and over again

But yet not knowing who else we can/could be 

We all contain Eds

Eds that represent who we once were

And to whom we might return someday

Our more vulnerable, evolving selves

Our more “gentle, gentle” selves

We all contain Krakens

Krakens that represent us in crisis, overwhelm

Feeling like we want to destroy absolutely everything

Krakens containing our more harmful impulses

Harmful to others, Harmful to ourselves

We all contain Stedes

Stedes that represent when our lives become untenable

When to thrive, to be our best selves, to yet even stay alive

We have to escape our current lives, current situations by

Running off to be our true selves, to be a gentleman pirate

We all contain Izzys

Izzys that represent us loving too much, holding too tight

Represent pining to return to something, to relationship dynamics

That shall never be again, sacrificing toes for unacknowledged/

Unrequited love means you are deep into an ocean of trauma

We all contain The Crew

A motley assortment of found family

Sometimes which makes us wonder WTF?

WTF is happening right now?

But who in the end remind us we are still Unicorns

Who am I? A question I ask myself

Who is this queer neurodivergent poet with messy mental health?

I am Blackbeard, Ed, The Kraken, Stede, Izzy and The Crew too

I contain multitudes and thankfully my parasocial support network

Is always there to support all of me, all of those multitudes

We all contain multitudes

The show “Our Flag Means Death”

Featuring Queer Disabled and Neurodivergent Pirates

Who also have a ship full of Mental Health struggles

Reminding us that we all contain multitudes

Multitudes of selves, of identities

Even if we never actually become pirates, we all contain multitudes of versions of ourselves over the many seasons of our lives. It can be fascinating to explore who we have been, who we currently are, and who we might want to be in the future. 

This month I am going to explore my relationship to being ace, aro, neurodivergent, and disabled. Some of those are core fundamental identities, some are what might be called placeholder identities, and some are more situational identities. 

I started my May blog series, The Power of Sharing Mental Health Stories, by sharing a Wentworth Miller post, and this month I am starting this blog series by sharing another of his recent posts, which was the inspiration for some deeper reflection.

There is a video online of a woman making dumplings, careful rows of delicious-looking bites. As she works, she speaks of teaching her daughters the culinary techniques she learned from her mother... who learned from her mother... This person seemed (to me) to cherish their place on a continuum of tradition/customs/rituals stretching back centuries, framing and informing a deep, deeply detailed sense of self. Bedrock on which to stand.

Identity can be a gift...

There is a video online of someone selling themselves as a "proud (fill in the blank)." This person seemed (to me) less person than persona, a performer unaware of the performance. As if they'd bought the hat/tee/tote, memorized the lingo/choreo and you imagined, if you spent an hour in their company, every word would be about their experience as a "proud (fill in the blank)." Like watching a parade in a cul-de-sac... On the march, going nowhere.

Identity can be a trap...

Or a closet full of coats, collecting dust. "Michael." "Leonard." "Celebrity." "Mental Health Something-or-other." (Much of this is seasonal wear, as it turns out.) Here's "Princeton," a scratchy tweed in the wrong size. Handsome tho.

At the back, a row of hand-me-downs looking worse for wear. "Wentworth." My best-rehearsed and most convincing (?) role, written/directed/produced by a man in authority who told me where to stand/what to say/how to say it. A long line of suits-cum-straitjackets, pits stained and pockets stuffed with sh-t lessons and values I spent decades voiding out...

I considered changing it once (that name), even downloaded legal docs. But every alt. felt similarly forced and ill-fitting, like pouring a lake into a shot glass, switching out one costume for another. "Coleman Silk" for "Captain Cold."

The truth is when I'm by myself and most myself, I don't have a name. I just am.

Before venturing out into the world I pull one of these coats from the rack, shuffle into it - tight in the shoulders, elbows shot - because we're expected to answer to something.