Quote from: jussmoi on July 05, 2014, 03:01:39 AMLike so much of our interactions ate gender based and it's like we're told that we're obligated to this flawed perception of gender through our self portrayal/expression...and that somehow if we do anything that defies the binary our very existence is deceptive and disingenuous.
THIS is the part that gets me every time. I mean I want it to not matter. But I'm kind of a fluffy bunny deep down. I'm not a strong, independent whatever. I'm not Arnold Schwarzenegger and I ain't no Conchita Wurst. What people think matters to me, cuz I actually, legitimately, honestly care about people a lot. More than I care about myself. I diminish myself to not be that gender criminal, because frankly, it hurts. I CAN let myself be different, but it always feels like jumping off a cliff. It's not just out of my comfort zone, I just simply don't like it, I feel alone when I act apart from those boring normal people, and that's obviously a PITA, but it's true. Maybe deep down I'm just a boring normal person. But whatever, so I'm passive aggressive about the issue. I'm pissed at society for making people gender criminals and that the only way to deal with it is not to care, even though some people just do care and can't change that. I want to get more comfortable in my life but I'm stuck because gender makes me uncomfortable and life is gendered. I mean maybe it's not an active part of every interaction, but I'm carrying around the weight of "presentation." I consciously choose to dress carefully so you can't see a bulge. I consciously choose to not drop my voice as much as I could. I consciously choose to use one restroom and not the other, I consciously choose that I don't know a person well enough to not just pretend I'm a cis girl when they assume it, and then I choose to keep pretending the longer I spend talking to them, and then I choose to fib a little to support that pretense cuz I don't wanna deal with the alternative. I have to feel like I'm misrepresenting myself to a guy when he's into me. Life always tells me to pick a side, and I just feel so done with that when I feel so much that this is all stupid and not what really should matter. There are lots of trans people who just happily don't care, live their life breaking the unwritten gender rules or whatever, but I know that I'm not like them, and I sorta doubt I can be.
QuoteBut. I will say. I think things are changing for the good. Younger peeps are so apathetic these days. Luckily we live in an increasingly "anything goes" era. And its only getting better...and very quickly. Like hell things have improved a ->-bleeped-<- ton from 10 years ago. So thats something at least
This gives me a lot of hope too. Part of me really wants to believe we will be past this stuff in 10 or 20 years. Though there's the other part of me that sees how different the sexes are anyway and has to wonder. What's going to happen that will change that or make people stop noticing or caring? Most females are feminine and males masculine. What's gonna happen that makes society stop idealizing that when it's built into our biology anyway? In an official sense, gender roles are a lot better these days, but girls are still reblogging fandoms on tumblr and guys are still secretly watching weird fetishy porn. There's plenty of overlap, but who's going to stop noticing that the overlap is by far the exception, not the rule, and stop saying that men should be what most men are and women should be what most women are? Idk, not like it matters, I just don't know if I really have faith in people when in a lot of ways we're recognizing an ambiguity that most of the time is not even real.
sighhh
