Makin' Waffles (or) Brap: Waffling Back & Forth, Vol. 2

[beatrix]

Yeah, I've been listening to my old industrial albums lately.  Is it just me, or was Skinny Puppy a better idea than band?

So, in a broad sense, biology is fixed.  Sure, surgery can be performed.  Hormones can vary and be regulated and measured and changed, too.  But how much and how fast is right?  Neurotypical?

Some days I feel like I'm a Newton's cradle, complete with clicking sounds as the balls tick back and forth, transferring motion and energy from one end to another.  As a pretty strict materialist, I believe that there is a physical reason for everything, neither soul nor spirit exists, and so there must be a physical or mental (a subset of the physical) reason for the fluid/confusing/gender screwyiness.  One day the TS label fits and I obsess and the next day I don't think about it hardly at all, and another day it's something all together different.

In a broad sense, I'm still looking for an identity that I don't know if I ever had.  It's hard being fluid, waffling, flip-flopping, discovering chunks of my own self among the driftwood. 

You dig?

[kaelin]

Personally, I think as long as you stay away from using cultural stereotypes to establish your identity, you should gain a better idea of who you are.

[Laurry]

Hey b/d.  I dig, you hep cat...you life-encrusted starlight...you, I don't know, I ran out of Beatnik terms...LOL

Like you, I am struggling for a better understanding of just what my gender identity really is.  Kaelin is right in some ways...forget the labels and stereotypes until you get a better understanding of who you are.  On the other hand, people need labels and we can't stop ourselves from assigning them...just realize that labels should be a starting point, not a destination.  The total you is no more defined by a "gender" label than it is defined by what kind of car you drive (oh, you're one of those Volvo-driving yuppie wannabes...real yuppies drive BMWs) or where you live (you bloody Americans are all alike).

For me, the best label that seems to fit is androgyne, but I'm pretty fluid.  Just yesterday evening (in a matter of around 3-4 hours) I went through feeling extremely feminine to feeling like a guy in a dress to somewhere in the middle.  It usually doesn't fluctuate quite that fast, but it's not unusual.  There are times I look in the mirror and there is a woman looking back at me, sometimes it is a man and most of the time, it's just me.  It has nothing to do with how I am dressed or whether or not I am wearing makeup...it is a sense of self that is perceived. 

Then again, I could be full of crap and just making excuses for why I like to wear my nails long and polished, wear women's clothing and makeup, and shave my body.  Sometimes I feel like a girl and other times like a guy who wishes he were a girl but isn't.  Or maybe it is how I deal with the fact that I sometimes have fantasies about sex with men and my denial that I could truly be bi-sexual...if I'm a woman it's OK??  Yes, I know it sounds bad, but these are some of the thoughts that go through my head.  Without being open and honest about these things, how can anyone understand our struggles?

Anyway, I hope this helps you know that you are not alone with questions about your gender or the flip-flopping that goes with it.  We are each following our own paths...the amazing thing was finding out it was OK to follow your own trail instead of marching down the highway with everyone else.

......Laurie
   

[nathan]

To answer your first question, SP was (and is!) a pretty damn cool band. Have you heard any recent industrial? It's crap, for the most part.

As for your other concern, I'd just go with it. Same thing happens to me, and I get the same "WTF" feelings. Feel girly one day? Feel manly the next? Just go with it. No one's standing by, waiting to judge you.

[beatrix]

I dunno, I kind of like the new Ministry album.

:-)

I will respond to Laurie & Kaelin through my answer to Nathan.

There is someone that is standing by waiting to judge me.  I love her.  She knows but does not accept.  If she even knew I was posting this, she would probably be very upset.  Hense my very regular thoughts about abandoning this account and . . . well striking out on my own.

And I admit, I messed it all up, telling her that is.  Except I didn't know what "it" was until later, after telling here merely that I was a CD, and I'm still not sure the words to use.  I hate words. 

I'm trying just to flow, but I have to hold back half of what I want to do because of these judgments.  I feel like I have to live in a mostly stereotypically masculine way (except when helping out at home) so that it remains on the down-low, trying to figure out all this stuff in the moments I can devote to myself.

And then, in what drunks call a moment of clarity, I think I may be intellectualizing it too much.  I yam what I yam.  But that doesn't help when I'm alone with my thoughts. 

Maybe my highway has an off-ramp a little further down the road, but I can't keep hoping to find it or else I may run out of gas.  (Sorry, did I push that analogy too far?)

Anyway.  Time to do the dishes.  In a few minutes.

[Casey]

I don't know if this helps or even makes any sense, but I get the feeling that people are looking for synonyms. I don't really see things that way. I see it more like looking for an adjective. I mean, androgyne does sum up this part of who I am rather neatly. I knew long before I ever went looking for a label that I'm not really a man ("really" referring to the fact that my sex is male) but I'm not a woman either. After spending 20 years or so freaking out about the fact that I was something that "wasn't possible", I decided to try to come to terms with that. Part of that process turned out to be finding a word that described me.

This isn't all of who I am. And yes, there are bits and pieces of me in all kinds of labels. But androgyne is the smallest "subset" that completely incorporates *this part* of me. It doesn't mean I am one way each moment of each day. It just means that when you allow for all the variation I naturally experience, you can call it androgyne.

I don't know, maybe it's the fact that whether I knew it or not I had a really good handle on who I am before I ever went looking in the Transgender community to "find myself". But I've started with the definition and tried to find the word.

Then too, as I reread some things here, I'm aware that I *did* spend many years in a lonely void poking and prodding this *thing* I knew to be my real self, all the while publicly conforming to stereotypes so no one would know I was in here. I don't recommend it b/d.

just realize that labels should be a starting point, not a destination

Yeah, that's sort of what I mean about finding an adjective rather than a synonym.

Bah, one day I'll be able to articulate it. Let's see, average life expectancy minus my age minus... oh bugger, I'd better step on it.