For some folks, going to a clothing-optional space can be liberating and empowering. People of all shapes, ages and sizes are walking around comfortable in their own skin. Tall and stort, svelte, curvy, gaunt, rotund, smooth and folded all spend time together paying more attention to what's inside their frames than what's on the surface of them.
A year ago, I was one of them. I doffed my clothing and patiently explained to folks that I prefer male pronouns despite the obvious discrepency of my form. It was a lot of work, and I'm sure I didn't catch every onlooker. The novelty of the freedom of motion and sun on my skin was more powerful than any reservation I may have had about going bare.
However, this Sirius Rising festival I found myself covering up: t-shirts and shorts, cloth to wrap around them, a harness to truss up the bobbling globes of flesh that contradict my best intentions toward sharing myself. While my friends new and old revel in not caring about the image projected by the ideosyncracies of their bodies, I find myself unable to escape the gravity of trying to let my personality speak more loudly than my anatomy.
Despite my efforts, more people address me in feminine forms than remember to speak to who I am on the inside. The freedom to bare my skin does not feel nearly so free as it did when I had the energy to speak up at every turn. My body screams propaganda.
Are you comfortable with your body? What does your body say about you? Does it speak the truth, or does it lie about what kind of person you are on the inside?
Anecdotes from running the Genesee Valley Gender Variants meetup group and being openly genderqueer in the Rochester, NY area.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Grandma's Sweater
*Picks up this blog and dusts it off*
We all have that sweater. An article of clothing knitted, crocheted, or sewn by a well-meaning relative. They put so much time and effort into it and presented it as a special gift, but no matter how hard we try it doesn't fit right. The arms are too long. It's too small in the middle. The last button doesn't line up and keeps falling open at awkward moments. We try to hide it in the back of a closet or the bottom of a drawer, but we know that we have to put it on in front of relatives. We squeeze into it. We keep tugging at the corners. The yarn is way too itchy. We cannot wait to escape it again at the end of the evening.
This is what the hearing the wrong name and the wrong pronouns is like. We're forced into them because they are labels given to us by doctors and by our parents. When we have the freedom to, we use language and names that are much more comfortable. We use terms that make us feel alive and whole, that fit us well and reflect who we are. Then we go home for the holidays and face a barrage of itchy, way-too-tight, just-plain-wrong language that makes us feel ridiculous and empty like Grandma's sweater.
Except we are not just expected to wear this guise on holidays. Every bus ride, every cashier, every server is a potential closet stuffed with awkward and ill-fitting clothing.
The day before last, my family went out for Thai food at The King and I restaurant. The food was delicious, but my son got a taste of what it is like to be misgendered. Throughout our meal, our server addressed him as "Young Lady". At 13 years old, he is going on 5'8" tall with hair just long enough to put into a small ponytail.
I asked him about how it felt for him: "The first few times, I could just shrug it off. After awhile it got very annoying."
This is what it is like when people call me "she". A time or two, is easy to smooth over. I notice the roadbump and move on. The more it occurs, especially from the same source, the more difficult it is not to stumble over it.
This would be so much easier if I didn't care about my gender identity. The feminine pronoun keeps rearing its ugly head despite shirt and tie, despite 1/8" long hair, despite posture, scent, behavior and speech that fall for the most part within masculine lines. When that pronoun comes out it feels as if the speaker isn't really looking at me, just at a small fraction of anatomy about a foot or so below the eyes. This reduces the moment to an acknowledgement of anatomy I should not possess.
This doesn't just happen to folks on the trans* spectrum. Everyone faces roles or expectations that constrict them in day-to-day life. In the comments, please share with us your own experiences with misgendering or with assumptions that rub you the wrong way.
We all have that sweater. An article of clothing knitted, crocheted, or sewn by a well-meaning relative. They put so much time and effort into it and presented it as a special gift, but no matter how hard we try it doesn't fit right. The arms are too long. It's too small in the middle. The last button doesn't line up and keeps falling open at awkward moments. We try to hide it in the back of a closet or the bottom of a drawer, but we know that we have to put it on in front of relatives. We squeeze into it. We keep tugging at the corners. The yarn is way too itchy. We cannot wait to escape it again at the end of the evening.
This is what the hearing the wrong name and the wrong pronouns is like. We're forced into them because they are labels given to us by doctors and by our parents. When we have the freedom to, we use language and names that are much more comfortable. We use terms that make us feel alive and whole, that fit us well and reflect who we are. Then we go home for the holidays and face a barrage of itchy, way-too-tight, just-plain-wrong language that makes us feel ridiculous and empty like Grandma's sweater.
Except we are not just expected to wear this guise on holidays. Every bus ride, every cashier, every server is a potential closet stuffed with awkward and ill-fitting clothing.
The day before last, my family went out for Thai food at The King and I restaurant. The food was delicious, but my son got a taste of what it is like to be misgendered. Throughout our meal, our server addressed him as "Young Lady". At 13 years old, he is going on 5'8" tall with hair just long enough to put into a small ponytail.
I asked him about how it felt for him: "The first few times, I could just shrug it off. After awhile it got very annoying."
This is what it is like when people call me "she". A time or two, is easy to smooth over. I notice the roadbump and move on. The more it occurs, especially from the same source, the more difficult it is not to stumble over it.
This would be so much easier if I didn't care about my gender identity. The feminine pronoun keeps rearing its ugly head despite shirt and tie, despite 1/8" long hair, despite posture, scent, behavior and speech that fall for the most part within masculine lines. When that pronoun comes out it feels as if the speaker isn't really looking at me, just at a small fraction of anatomy about a foot or so below the eyes. This reduces the moment to an acknowledgement of anatomy I should not possess.
This doesn't just happen to folks on the trans* spectrum. Everyone faces roles or expectations that constrict them in day-to-day life. In the comments, please share with us your own experiences with misgendering or with assumptions that rub you the wrong way.
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