[SIZE="2"]“The simple things you see are all complicated…” (Pete Townshend)Originally Posted by Ryan A.
Perhaps the complicated things you see are all actually rather simple, or at least trying to be. My thanks to Ryan A. from the FtM area for piquing my interest along the lines of gender-confusion. I really shouldn’t be writing about this stuff, since I’m just a boy who likes to wear girl’s clothes, but I get a kick out of all this counter-productive terminology that floats around under the LGBT umbrella. Does it have to be this complicated? Really? I mean, if the goal of LGBT is to be better understood by those outside of the community, why all the misleading terms and hair-splitting labels? These terms are starting to look like a formidable ring of defensive embrasures, and I’m not talking about my femme underwear…
Bigender? Aren’t we ALL a mixture of the two genders, in varying degrees, and we express this evolutionary fact through our personal choices of clothing, comportment, or lack of same? Doesn’t everyone understand the concept of blending? You own a blender, right? IMHO, a “third” gender is not created (let’s not complicate things further) through mixture; rather we try to recognize the presence of two genders in all of us. There are two sides to everything, in this particular corner of the known Universe, so we might as well get on with it – all I can hope to achieve is a 50-50 split, in terms of gender, and this means somehow getting past the plumbing arrangement I was born with. So far, so good. We used to be together, M+F, until society split us in two and told us what clothes to wear…
Who’s keeping the genders apart, anyway? The genderealists? There’s another term for you, another way of saying “sexist.” A sexist is a person who recognizes the physical, cognitive, emotional, and reproductive differences between the human male and the human female, and a rift between the genders is subsequently created and maintained, lest we all lose our precious gender identity. A sexist cannot stomach gender-bending, or genderfluidity, or gender-unspecific anything, so we are forever banished to the confines of LGBT where the aforementioned defensive barricades have been constructed. What’s that? You’re gender-fluid? What on Earth does THAT mean? I read that genderfluid is related to being transgender (duh!). It is when people sometimes feel as if they're male and sometimes as if they're female. This does not have to be related to sexuality or physical gender in any way, and is not a result of indecision...
That’s good, or NOT, as the case may be. I thought I was just a capricious butterfly, floating from one gender flower to the other for nourishment, depending on my gender-unspecific whims, but it seems I’m fluid, no doubt flowing, by gravity, towards the human sewer (according to some)! It sounds like a physical state of matter, a clinical term dreamt up to define me, file me, and ignore me. I tell ya, we’re splitting hairs with these terms, adding more and more confusion. I think it’s safe to say that EVERYTHING is fluid, including interest in things other than what your birth gender may indicate – “I feel like a girl today: Wheee...! I feel like a boy today: Yay!” So what? Dream on, androgyne. I guess if you’re a genderealist, and you’re not budging an inch from your gender “position,” you will eschew gender fluidity and insist on either M or F – this is akin to ignorance, or prejudice against one’s own natural fluid state. Violence will ensue, usually against US, no matter what we call ourselves...
Everyone on this discussion forum is a gender-bender, or is sympathetic to gender-benders. A gender-bender is a person who seeks to define gender expression outside of the binary terms of man and woman, i.e. an androgynous person, a transsexual, a transvestite, etc. Gender-binary – that’s another term you can try to swallow. It means the social construction of gender in most societies in the world where gender is a dichotomy between male and female. Male and female gender expectations, roles, and functions are generally very rigid and the presence of alternate gender constructions are usually denigrated, ignored, or made oblivious. In this very rigid state, I feel that gender dysphoria, gender confusion, and gender-fluidity should be expected – it comes with the territory, an emergence of the natural bigender state that few “binary” people want to consider or acknowledge...
I must say I don’t mind the term genderqueer, any more than I dislike the term “queer,” but I don’t think the term is a proper fit for some MtF crossdressers. Genderqueer can be a term to describe a gender identity that is not encompassed by traditional roles of male and female. This could be a person whose sense of self is the opposite of their perceived gender. Additionally, the term can be used for someone who is poorly described by traditional labels, and also not completely described by the term “Transgendered.” Thus, someone whose sense of self is not wholly male or female, but embodies elements of each gender could also be described as Genderqueer. Isn’t this the same as bigender? Why are there two (or more) ways of saying the same thing? BTW, if I had more time, more room, and more coffee, I’d mention cisgender...
My gender identity is male, but, since I crossdress, people will assume I’m just plain queer. In order to crossdress, I have to step away from the gender binary state and enter the dark forest of queer terminology. If I said to someone, “I like to wear women’s clothes...” that person might quickly gain an understanding of who I am. Believe me, I couldn’t declare myself with any more clarity. If I said, “I’m genderfluid,” I might encounter some furrowed brows. How about, “I’m a gender-bender,” a less traditional way of saying "queer?" Does this accurately describe what’s going on? I suppose that the way of identifying as either all male or female, or M to F or F to M, has paved the way for the current level of comfort with gender being a more fluid, and less concrete concept. Theoretically, it’s better than it was, or is it? To me, present-day terminology represents confusion about concepts that should be easy to understand, and it seems like the gender-binary “system” has put up its own defenses, even going over to the offensive on occasion...
I’m gender-specific, but my crossdressing expresses the bigender reality. There is no gender confusion for me, and my CD’ing is like genderplay, or genderswitch, just for fun. When I don my girly garb, I unwillingly pass through an imaginary portal to genderfluidity, leaving the restrictive world of gender binary behind, at least temporarily. Society has provided me with a box to fit in, and I do, to a point, but this box is kinda uncomfortable. I am content to be male, in fact there is no alternative to this condition (I don’t hate my male-ness, I mean), but at least I can go on a trip now and then, leave the confines of my “box,” and enjoy being alive. My apologies to those who are on difficult journeys related to gender – this is meant to be just another investigation into the terminology that has either been adopted or constructed to elicit greater understanding. Perhaps accurate definition is the goal of all humans, simply because we are capable of doing it, and modern terminology reflects this ongoing quest, but aren’t the clear waters of blessed understanding getting a little muddy these days?
Why can’t you just say, “I’m a blend of male and female,” and leave it at that? Or, you could simplify things further by saying, “I’m a human being...”
Do you prefer simplicity, or do you like to complicate things?[/SIZE]
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