Was wondering if people ever felt that this whole androgyne/gender queer/ Non binary gender variant (Whatever words you wish to bring to the table) thing is just a load of rubbish. That any talk of non binary types is just allowing the delusions of failed men, women and transsexuals, that it's all just a bit of a pleasant fiction.


Sometimes I do, and I made a vidyo about it too.

I said "ocasionally", probably with a different spin to what you intended though. I don't doubt that the whole 'non-binary' thing is real but I sometimes doubt my own feelings. "What If I am not transgendered? What if I have a hormone imbalance or something similar which could be corrected? What if everyone feels like I do and I'm just missing something they aren't?"

I have too much pain for it to be just a pleasant fiction. It does not make it easier for me identifying as androgyne, though it definitly means I'm not both in pain and confused.

and what was your answer to the poll, ginger?

sometimes

and then of course a lot of the times I am thinking about other things, how to get home, where to find the thing that i lost this time, whether i prefer flipron's first album or second, whether i can squeeze a tea party round a friends and a little bit of writing into the alotted time...

and would it be so bad if it were rubbish? if you were just a 'failed male' as you put it?

it might've once. but i'm beginning to not really give a castlemaine, i think hence the thoughts on the subject, the little seismic shift that happens when you move from one way to another.

well must give you props for exploring this. the odd trait of the truly confident and self loving is that we don't fear vulnerability or exposure or being wrong. we just 'are'.

Wow, you were really uncomfortable talking about that, weren't you.  The camera is not going to judge you.

Also, position yourself facing the light source.  This vid was kinda shadowey

/photographer

*I voted 'occasionaly'. It's always a definite unless I'm upset about gender-reated things.

Quote from: nathan on October 27, 2008, 07:58:10 PM
Wow, you were really uncomfortable talking about that, weren't you.  The camera is not going to judge you.

Also, position yourself facing the light source.  This vid was kinda shadowey



/photographer

give hir a break. took a lot of guts for hir to do this and sie did fine. needn't be silver screen quality. i rather like the feel of a shadowy, homey chat in hir living room.

Relax, Nero.  I just wanted to give Pica a bit of advice.  I liked the vid, it was very...vulnerable

Good stuff Pica!

I've experienced plenty of self doubt about who I am. I long ago ceased to care about any labels, they all feel like boxes. Androgyne is a word, it has sometimes been a reasonable way to describe how I feel about my gender, and has been a way to connect with other people who might feel somewhat similarly. M2F transgender, non-op, non-hrt has also described it. Just plain queer can work too.

Ultimately, all that really matters is to figure out what makes me happy. If I someday decide to do HRT I'll do it. I won't be any different a person than I am now. I've walked through this life as male, I've walked through life as a woman identified person, I've walked through life as not male. Mostly, I'm just Zythyra, whatever this might be.

Z

I think you really struck it right at the end pica. It doesn't really matter if its a load or not, it makes you happy.

I think though that at time moments of self doubt can be beneficial. It makes you reexamine what you hold true to yourself, and I find at those times you may look at things a little differently. Kinda like looking at a busy painting, like Seurat's Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of Grand Jatte. Even if it hangs in your home and you look at it every day, live with it, sooner or later you're going to see something different in it.

I suppose in that regards once I found the term to describe what I felt, I never really had the doubt that its right. I've known from an early age that I wasn't like other boys, and gender-biased issues confused me. I remember I was in Beavers (canadian equivalent of boy scouts) when I was little and my sister got to come with us on camping trips, and when if came time for her to go to her Brownies camp came I didn't get to. My mom said that I might "see things I'm not suppose to" and the like, but that never seemed to wash with me. Further still in my teens while going through my biggest upheavals I came to recognize even more my feminine self and embrace it. In that time I learned what androgyne was and that there were others like me, and the pieces just fit.

Never know though. Perhaps I need to look a little more at my own painting =)

i've only got one lightsource, and it is shoddy. Gonna be a very dim winter.

for me I'm mostly sure of who I am when I'm told by profecionals that I'm not alowed to be both or have transexuals give feed back that excludes the alowance of non binary trans people.these are the only times that I quetion the vadility of it all after a good cry I decide they are just too small minded & I'm ok about being weird again although I'd give anything to meet someone going through the same issues as me IRL but I think I may be the only non binary in village / City & maybe state

Quote from: 6thsomatic on October 27, 2008, 10:39:45 PM
Seurat's Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of Grand Jatte.

I've the sketches and other versions of this painting That whole pointalism thing, very accurate way of looking and personality, cos in the greens you get bright red and orange spots - it's contradiction and it makes sense.

Where did you get that jingle from at the beginning of your videos? I'm certain I've heard it before and it's driving me insane trying to work out where.

With regard to the subject matter, something strikes me as rather interesting. You say that when you go with the way you feel rather than what you think, it makes you happy. That leads to one question:

Why?

I struggle at times to understand where this doubt comes from, with male identified people, female identified people, androgyne identified people, and any other variation inbetween. When you say it could all be rubbish... by whose definition? And is that definition more important than your own?

The key thing, surely, is identity. And if it is, at the very least, a psychological construct... doesn't that in itself make it real? Isn't personal reality just perception influenced by internal mechanics and thought processes?

You say that there's a feeling that this is you. Is that not enough to make your identity real, at least in terms of you as an individual?

Quote from: Leiandra on October 28, 2008, 10:50:13 AM

You say that there's a feeling that this is you. Is that not enough to make your identity real, at least in terms of you as an individual?

It's enough to make it real to me as an individual, but to me as a social beast, maybe not. Which is why I'm happy and content when I lay my head on the people, but not always when I come through the door.

The jingle is from a cd i have of library music, it's the beginning of a 30 second version of the theme. I often collect library and copywrite free music for a few pence at little out of the way record stores and things. It's probably  been used as a radio bed, or in a cheap advert or something.

Ah, I think I understand. But you're the only person who can tell you who you are, and if it's real enough to you as an individual then social constraints can, at the very worst, only make you throw a temporary veil over what you know to be true... they can never make it disappear.

Identity, particularly gender based identity, isn't like Phantasia in 'The Neverending Story'... it doesn't disappear because other people don't believe in it. And how many people do you suppose are struggling to come to terms with their own sense of identity but choose not to say anything out of a desire to conform to 'society'? We are a collective of individuals.

You're the one who you look at in the mirror, no-one else, so that is the only person whose opinion should matter to you. And if you feel instinctively and with your entire being that you are androgyne, male, or female, then that's the last word as far as I'm concerned.

Temet Nosce - Know Thyself.

I can see what your saying Leiandra, but I think it is perfectly ok to have fears. It is a little rude trying to tell people what they should be feeling, it sounds like you are saying it is wrong to feel doubt.

The doubt for me comes from being bombarded with the message that there are only two genders and that people who are born male are males and people that are born female are women. There are scientists telling me I have a mental illness, other people saying it is just a phase that everyone goes through, peers not believing me, and I am legaly not recognised. I can't see why you wouldn't have at least some doubt in your mind.

I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention. I didn't mean to be rude.

All I was trying to say was I hope that you, and everyone, can look inside yourself and let what you see there be your guiding light.

I meant no offence. You have as much right to feel the way you do as anyone else.