30 day genderqueer challenge

[suzifrommd]

6) When did you realize you were genderqueer?

I think I've known that I'm not typical in dozens of ways all my life. But I didn't start thinking there was a gender piece of it until this year. I was getting tired of not having many close friends and tired of following advice of a couple therapists I had years ago who told me to try to make male friends, that female friendships were not entirely healthy for me. I decided to make it a point to try to figure out why I don't fit in with males but fit in (in my mind) much better with females.

I came to realize that there were parts of me that experienced the world as female. I thought that was really strange, but one day I googled "part man part woman" and came across the term androgyne. Suddenly my issues came into much clearer focus.

[Jamie D]

Day 6

6) When did you realize you were genderqueer?

Ditto AG, above.

The terminology is new to me in the last couple of years, but the feeling has been there forever.

[aleon515]

6)When did you realize you were Genderqueer?

From my journal. I just put it all in as it isn't that long.

I saw the story about the transgirl going to Girl Scouts and that whole bruhaha. (The local troop did not let her in but the National GS did.) I started reading and just didn't stop. I started watching ftm youtube videos half the night. I wondered why the heck I was so interested in this whole thing. At first I didn't think too much about it, as I am Asperger's. We do things like this, but it did seem different. I found the term genderqueer and others. I lurked on this board and another. I realized I had always felt this way. The kid stories were revealing, since I had my own stories. I believe that I realized this in April this year sometime. It has been a pretty confusing but in some ways exciting time. I never understood why I did the stuff I did and this explained a lot of things. And I am still putting together things that have never made any sense at all.

--Jay Jay

[Pica Pica]

I also have felt myself to be 'off' or incomplete from an early age.

I descovered the term androgyne (and later that day genderqueer) sometime in 2006, about May I think. It took a few months for the ideas to take root and start to grow and bloom.

[Julian]

6) When did you realize you were Genderqueer?

In the fall of 2009 I started learning words like genderqueer and androgyne. I knew that they had something to do with me, and that I was gender-variant, non-binary, but I didn't settle on neutrois as my gender identity until maybe a year and a half later.

[Your Humble Savant]

4) Name some queer heroes, influences, or crushes.
My dad, Billie Joe Armstrong, Dustin Lance Black, Patricia Neil Warren (heroes/influences)
I have a queer crush on Amy Lee (lead singer of Evanescence), but I'm not sure of her orientation. Ah well, back to my fantasies.

5) Dysphoria and how you manage it
I'm lucky enough to not have dysphoria

6) When did you realize you were genderqueer?
This past February, rightly enough at the Western Regional LGBTQIA conference hosted at my school 

[Constance]

4) Name some queer heroes, influences, or crushes.
My dad

:icon_blush: (okay, so there isn't a blushing emoticon; the red face one just didn't seem right)

[Jamie D]

Day 7

7) What are your favorite physical features of yourself?

I have no Adam's apple.  I like my freckles.  And I have the potential for a wonderful set of jugs.

[suzifrommd]

Day 7

7) What are your favorite physical features of yourself?

Definitely my eyes.

Though I also like being thin.

[Constance]

4) Name some queer heroes, influences, or crushes.
There are too many to name. But basically, all gender/queer persons who have suffered so much and worked so hard, both my predecessors and contemporaries. Their work and pain has most certainly made my life easier.

5) Dysphoria and how you manage it
HRT, makeup, clothing, and hope.

6) When did you realize you were genderqueer?
I first identified as genderqueer about three years ago, when I was 38. I think the roots went back farther than that, and my ex-wife and I didn't have much use for traditional gender roles. I'm MTF now, but still retain some GQ qualities, but again those seem to revolve mostly around queering gender roles and expression.

[Pica Pica]

Because I am male bodied the parts of myself I like the most are the more feminine ones.

I'm fond of my hair, when it's a good hair day I have soft, strokable hair of a rich golden-blonde. Other days it is mousey-ginger frizz.

I like my eyes, despite the fact they don't work that well and are hidden by glasses, I think they are rather nice.

I also have small, delicate features as in nose, ears and mouth - the problem being that they are set in such a broad expanse of face.

Finally I am rather fond of my hips and arse - which was recently described as 'deliciously spankable'.

[eli77]

6) When did you realize you were genderqueer?

I don't use that word specifically. I tend to just say non-binary if I need to.

It's been a slow process over the last year as I've realized the gap that separates me from most trans women. And watching the handful of trans girls I do relate to coming out as non-binary to some degree one by one.

Day 7

7) What are your favorite physical features of yourself?

My eyes. I think it's funny how everyone says "my eyes." Mine are big and bright green.

And my height. I like being taller than everyone.

[Jamie D]

My eyes. I think it's funny how everyone says "my eyes." Mine are big and bright green.

And my height. I like being taller than everyone.

Definitely my eyes.

Personal preference varies from individual to individual, but I have always been attracted to taller people.  Men and women.

And I tend to look at faces, especially the eyes.

This is quite different from the data I reported in my blog.

[Julian]

7) What are your favorite physical features of yourself?

My bones. I have pretty bone structure. Nice cheekbones, prominent collarbones, thin bony wrists and ankles, long thin limbs, hip bones that stick out when I lie down, I even like my knobbly elbows and knees. It's kind of strange, because I'm not skinny; I'm just really bony for my size.

[aleon515]

7)What are your favorite physical features of yourself?

I have dark brown eyes and thick eyebrows. I have long fingers which come in handy when you are short.

--Jay Jay

[Edge]

7) What are your favourite physical features of yourself?
My height is short, but not unheard of for a male and average for a female. I also like my facial features.

[Jamie D]

Day 8

8.) An unpopular or unsure opinion about the GSM community

GSM = Gender & Sexuality Minority ~ GLBT

I believe that real progress for the rights and civil liberties of the GSM community will be achieved through engaging social moderates and conservatives in a constructive dialogue.  The goal is to build a political consensus, or a working political majority.  Build bridges, not walls.

The current affiliation with social liberals has utterly failed to advance our cause.

[suzifrommd]

Day 8

8.) An unpopular or unsure opinion about the GSM community

GSM = Gender & Sexuality Minority ~ GLBT

Okay, here goes.

I think we do a disservice when we claim that homosexuality or transgender is always inborn.

First let me be clear that there should be a nasty place in hell for those who offer to "cure" homosexuality or transgender. There's no evidence that that is possible and attempts at such have brought untold misery.

But that doesn't mean that being gay or being trans is *always* present at birth. True a lot of gay and trans people report feeling different among their early memories. But can we say that among the hundreds of millions of LGBT people in the world, NONE of them EVER became gay or transgender later in life? Is it even possible that among those hundreds of millions, there might be a handful who CHOSE to be gay or transgendered? (Oh my word, he said the "C" word! Light the torch. Let me find my pitchfork. It was here somewhere...)

I don't know. I do feel that my genderqueerness arrived in my teen years, that my childhood was cisgendered. I also feel that I chose my heterosexuality, though now it's an ingrained part of me.

But regardless of my personal experiences, I'm uncomfortable with blanket statements like "no transgender ever became that way during his/her life" or "Nobody every chose their sexual preference" because it risks invalidating someone's very real experience.

[Edge]

An unpopular or unsure opinion about the GSM community
I'm not sure what the question is especially since that is not a full sentence.
Um... Well, personally, it makes me feel uncomfortable when people describe gender as a spectrum. Like male, female, and somewhere in between are the only options. I feel like I don't belong because I'm all over that "spectrum" and can't settle down as just one.
I also feel uncomfortable with labels for sexuality. I believe in the Kinsey scale, but it's more than that. It's like... I have specific things I'm attracted to that are unrelated to gender and, when I think of my sexuality, those are the things I think of. There aren't any words for those though which is probably a good thing because that would get very complicated.
I feel hurt and pissed off at the idea of not being considered a male to other people because I am sometimes female.

[eli77]

Day 8

8.) An unpopular or unsure opinion about the GSM community

I think transsexualism (and any trans* variety that causes significant dysphoria) is a pretty vile disorder and I'd be delighted if medical researchers eventually find a way to cure it pre-birth.

(Please don't stone me.)