Butterfly Cauldron

(This may ramble, sorry 'bout that. It's not my most thought-out post and I'm kinda flu-ish at the moment.)

I cannot imagine being anything other than female. I have always known that I am a woman, even though there have been times in my life when I wasn't very 'girly'. Actually, lack of 'girliness' has pretty much been my constant state. But I have always known that I am a woman. No one had to tell me that, I always knew. Luckily, I got corresponding woman parts, but even if I hadn't, it wouldn't change the fact that I, me, whatever it is that makes me Zan, would be female.

If I have always known I was a woman, why would I doubt anyone else if they told me they were too? Don't they know themselves the same way I know myself? If they were born with a body that does not match what they know about themselves to be true, should they deny that self-knowledge? Should they force themselves to conform to socially expected ideals? Who benefits from that? And do we want to support those that do benefit?

The fact is, trans people do me no harm. They don't take anything away from me. Their existence does not endanger me in any way. The world is big enough and wide enough and wonderful enough for us all to share and have what we need. If I care about the abuse transpeople suffer, that doesn't mean I care less about the abuse cisgendered women suffer. It doesn't mean I care less about the abuse PoC suffer. It doesn't mean I care less about genocide in other countries, about the effect our pre-emptive war in Iraq is having on that country and our own, about global warming, about widespread drought, about medical research. My heart is big enough to care passionately about all of those things -- with room left over for more.

In the end, I don't see how it matters that a woman was born in a male body or a man was born in a female body. That person is as deserving of respect and rights and a decent, safe life as I am. To distill their entire existence down to one aspect, while neglecting all the other things that make them who they are, is an insult to their humanity. And it is an insult to my humanity and to your own humanity. None of us can be understood or truely known by any one single aspect of ourselves. If I tell you I have green eyes -- what do you know about me know? That I have green eyes. And nothing else. If I tell you that I didn't have my first kiss until I was 18, what does that tell you about me? Or that my parents are still married after 35 years? Or that I'm allergic to grass? That I majored in rhetoric and composition? Put enough of those little details together and yes, you'll get a picture of who I am. But each of them on their own? Doesn't tell you who I am. I tell you I'm a woman, that I'm tall, that I have a chronic illness. All true, but not the whole picture. So, if I don't want myself reduced to any one aspect, why would I support doing that to anyone else?

I left the Southern Baptist Church and organized Christianity in general a very long time ago, but some things made sense, so I kept them. That bit about treating other people the way you want to be treated? That I kept. So don't try to tell me I should be threatened by transwomen. I'm just not, okay?

Labels: body acceptance, gender, transgender, women

Everyone's talking about gender lately, which is funny because it was just on my mind. Belle's talking about it and everytime she talks about something, I start thinking and there goes my night, ya know?

So, I'm thinking about what it means to be feminine -- both in regards to myself and in regards to my niece.

Kady turns 3 in March. She's at that age where she's starting to notice differences in things and so, it's time for her to learn that she's a girl. Or so says my family. Me? I'm thinking what's the rush? And the things they're pointing out to her are not the physical differences, but the actions of being female.

Like, for Christmas I was a bad, bad feminist and gave her nailpolish. Because she wanted it and I'm her aunt and how could I say no? So, she got nail polish. And had the best time with it. She painted everyone's nails and toes. And ya know, fingers too. She wanted to paint her grandpa and her daddy's nails too. And this is where the problem came in.

The men in my family, for all their areas of equality, are kinda wigged out by the notion of 'non-manly' behaviour. So, nail polish? Uh. No. My brother (K's Daddy) told her that nail polish was for girls, not boys. (To which I said, "Why?" -- at the same time Kady did.) I also pointed out that, ya know, some boys wear nail polish too. (Like, the kind Aunt Zan wants to ravish. Oh, yes. Ahem.) Anyway, B (my brother) was all like, 'well, not boys in this family."

At which point Kady, bless her adorable soul, looks at her Daddy and says "Then you're a girl."

She was totally going to paint his nails, gender be damned. There was a bit of "no no, Daddy's a boy and Mommy's a girl and you're a girl and Aunt Zan is a girl and Gramma is a girl" and finally, she was distracted by the chance to paint her cousin Kamryn's toes.

But still. I'm concerned about what she's going to learn. While the rest of the family may be quite content with her growing up learning traditional gender roles, I am not. Which is why I tend to buy her non-gendered toys. (She's totally getting a set of bongos for her birthday.) I want her to grow up to know that it's okay for her to play the drums or guitar or paint or write or run a business or run a farm or fix a car or whatever the hell it is that makes her happy, even if it's not 'feminine'.

(Although, to be fair to my family, they're not all about keeping her in the gender roles. She got a guitar for Christmas, because she loves music. She showed it to me, slipping it over her shoulders and plucking on it. "It makes noise" she said. I love that kid.)

So, how do I model behaviour for her when I'm not sure about being 'feminine' myself?

Lately, I've been feeling myself drawn more to a more feminine mode of dressing. I have sudden urges for pretty sundresses and strappy sandals. (No heels though. Goddess save me from heels.) And I can't get enough lip gloss. Really, it's like a sickness. Lip gloss beckons me and I Must. Buy. It. Now. I have more purses than any woman should have and I'm so looking forward to getting the money that's coming to me because it means I can buy furniture. And I've been looking around at furniture stores for days now, just dreaming about what I want. Do you think men do that? (I don't know. Do they? I've been told they don't, but I could be wrong.)

See, in my mind I'm still equating feminine with weak. And I know, in my head, that's not right. I know that. None of the women in my family are weak, and that's where I get my idea of feminine from. But it feels so....traditional. So bowing to culture and giving up my own identity. And I know, of course, that I'm never going to let that happen. But that's how I feel, when I'm actually faced with buying a pretty dress or shoes. It's dumb. I know, when I wear this stuff, that I'm going to get lots of compliments. Which I like, but then I think, so what was wrong with me before? It's just me in a pretty dress. I'm no different. I didn't undergo a sudden personality switch when the silk went over my head, ya know. Same girl. Same brain, same abilities, but now I'm worth noticing when I wasn't before? What's up with that shit?

So, I guess, I'm resentful. I certainly don't dress for compliments. And really, I genuinely like a lot of the clothing I want to wear. So, ya know, it's not like anyone is making me do it.

And really, isn't a skirt just a skirt? Don't we have bigger problems in the world? And yet, here I am, stuck wondering about this shit when there's a war going on and people are dying and there are women and children being beaten and abused in my own damned town. It all seems so stupid and pointless, yet here I go again.

Because I know it doesn't fucking matter what you wear, it matters what you do. It doesn't matter if you never wear dresses or if you always wear them. It doesn't matter if you wear lipstick or chapstick or nothing at all. It doesn't matter if you shave or if you dye your hair or if your skin has never known a damned razor. None of those things make you feminine. None of those things make you a woman and I'm rather pissed that I'm being manipulated into feeling that those things are important.

Maybe I'm just tired of the artificial divisions. Maybe I'm just tired of being told I have to analys every fucking choice I make. Maybe a pretty green sundress is just a pretty green sundress that I'm wearing when I volunteer at the animal shelter or work the suicide prevention line. Who knows? And maybe a man wears eyeliner or nail polish or a fucking dress while he comforts an abused kid or delivers a meal to a homeless person.

Okay. Yeah. That's what I'm feeling about gender -- it pisses me off. Because everyone keeps trying to define it and put it into little boxes so they can mark us all off as X or Y or Z or whatever the fuck they can. And you know what happens when they do that? We stop being human. We stop being individuals who have personalities and quirks and passions and flaws and the power to change the godsdamned world. Putting us in pre-defined boxes strips us of our power.

So, here's what I say: define your gender however the hell you want to and I'll define mine like I want to. Aren't we all tired of dragging around those checklists anyway? "Girls do X, boys do Y, blah, blah, blah." What good do they do us? I guess, if you can check off all the boxes naturally, they work for you. So great. You be a checklist gender. I can't check off all the damned boxes and frankly, I don't want to.

But I want to be able to wear a goddamned dress without feeling like I'm either a bad feminist or turning into my mother.

Labels: feminism, gender

So. I've been thinking, after posting the entry below, that if The Possibility were a girl, I'd have already called her and set up a date, et al.

I'm not sure what to make of that. Maybe it's because I've been in a very girl-centric mood lately. Really, I was expecting to meet a girl (and hey, maybe I have. . .but that's another story). I've been awash in very feminine energy and I've been pulled toward other girls. So this whole, wait he's got a penis! thing . . .not what I was expecting.

Which is something the Universe will /so/ do to you. Hmp.

Still, there's something to the fact that, if he were a she, I would have substantially less angst about hooking up. It's not because I think hooking up with a girl would be less 'real'. Fuck that. No, it's...I never have the same sense of panic or worry with women. It's a level playing field, no power struggle.

Well, shit. That's just shit, isn't it? Because here I am, assuming about a person because he's a Man, instead of oh, I don't know, letting him just be a person and not assuming X,Y and Z about him because he's got a fucking penis.

*sigh* All this work and I still need deprograming....

Labels: feminism, gender

I'm afraid to be 'feminine'.

I don't mean I'm afraid to be girly, because I'm not -- I just don't like being girly. That's not true to who I am. I mean 'feminine' -- vulnerable, nurturing, forgiving. All those stereotypical things I was taught a woman is supposed to be. For the longest time, that didn't bother me. But lately, I'm beginning to feel cut off from parts of myself that I know, instinctively, will make me stronger, more complete.

I'm better than I used to be, with being 'feminine'. (And I realize, the word may not mean to others what it does to me. That's fine. I'm just dealing with my own issue here.) I'm learning there's a very specific sort of peace in being able to forgive people for the hurt they've done to me, even if they don't realize they hurt me or even if they never realize they've been forgiven. I've begun to realize my capacity for nurturing and helping people heal is actually a gift, not a burden I'm forced to bear because I was born with two X chromosomes.

I had never considered my inborn sense of justice and fairness to be nurturing before. I'd always assumed it was something...different. Because I was always told that, for a woman to be nurturing, she had to have children or tend a home or be a nurse or a teacher or something stereotypically feminine.

I've never really doubted I was strong. Or smart. Or capable. But I've never thought of myself as a nurturer. Is that strange? I don't know. I know I grew up wanting my life to look nothing like my mother's. Not that my mother's life is bad. In fact, her life is pretty sweet. She's been married to my father for 35 years, they're happy, her children are both responsible, productive adults. She has friends, a job she likes, a granddaughter she absolutely adores. I'm sure she'd say she's got just the life she wants, and I'm glad she does. But when I was growing up -- things were different.

I think we learn most from the people closest to us. And when I was a girl, my mother had a problem saying no. Not to me, unfortunately, but to everyone else. She taught Sunday School, she was the head of the Social Committee, she was always, always, always cooking for...someone. Anyone, really. She did all sorts of things at our school, whatever anyone asked her to do -- she did it. She felt that she could not tell anyone no. (I understand her motivation. She wanted everyone to like her, because her own father was an abusive asshole who was disappointed she was a girl, not a boy, and never let her forget it.)

And she was miserable. Completely, totally, miserable. She was also very depressed, but I couldn't know that as a child. So, what I saw, was my Mother giving all her time and energy to these projects and people who never told her they appreciated what she did, who often times didn't even ask her to help, just assumed she would and I never, ever saw her stand up to them and tell them to stop. She would cry at home, but she'd be all smiles around them. The stress would get to her and she'd snap at us (my brother and I, although mostly me since I was the one expressing the most disagreement). To a child, it seemed an easy situation. She was unhappy, I wanted to be happy. Therefore, I would do the opposite of what she did.

My father worked offshore until just before I graduated high school. He would usually work two weeks away, then be home for two weeks. It was like I lived two different lives. When Dad was gone, my mother was less stressed. We'd have ceral for supper, or cinnamon rolls or pancakes or whatever we wanted. We'd watch movies or cartoons or go visit my grandparents. She wasn't as concerned about having the house look Just So. She wasn't concerned about what we were wearing, so long as it was clean and covered everything. It was just much, much more relaxed with my father away at work.

When Dad came home, the world flipped. Suddenly, my mother was all about making sure everything was perfect. The house had to be clean, supper had to be hot every night, we had to dress better, we had to go and do whatever my father wanted. The stress level jumped about a dozen notches. Suddenly, we couldn't watch what we wanted on t.v. Suddenly, we were going to visit my father's friends, who didn't have kids and I'd never meet before, so I'd sit there bored out of my mind for hours on end. For a child, that's a big deal. I saw my mother as two different people. On, when she was with us, I liked. She was fun. The other, when my dad was around, eh. She wasn't all that much fun. Partially, I'm sure it was because I was a child and wanted all my mother's attention. That's pretty normal. But partially, I felt that I was supposed to immulate this behaviour. Like I was supposed to drop everything and mold myself to fit his (and by extension, any man) expectations of his family.

So, again, following kid logic I decided -- this did not make me happy. I want to be happy. Ergo, I'll do the opposite.

Unfortunately, it's been that way the rest of my life. Even as I get older and realize the compromises necessary in any relationship, somewhere inside me I'm that little girl, thinking she doesn't want to mold herself into someone else to make someone else happy. A little girl whose mother was held up as what it means to be feminine and a woman.

So, this all makes me angry. I've got this block inside me, keeping me from parts of myself that I want to get to, dammit. To parts of me what I'm not afraid of anymore, and yet....it's still there. I know life and relationships are about finding balance. That's what I'm trying to do, I suppose. Find the balance between who I really am and the assumptions I've been engrained with.

(Frankly, I'm starting to feel like a basketcase when I read what I'm writing. I don't think I'm really that messed up, but sometimes? Eh. I'm not sure.)

Labels: childhood memories, fundies, gender, religion