Inland, Dreaming of Waves

Compulsory gender

Finally I'm going to reply to Callan's May 5 reply to my earlier entry about what "genderqueer" means.

In a comment, Callan wrote: "Transgender isn't rejecting male and female, at least not to me. To me, it's moving beyond complusory gender, accepting indvidual essence and choice over generalized rules about what males and females SHOULD do."

I couldn't agree more, but the problem is, gender is such an insidious thing, far more ingrained in the social fabric than race. I think that's why racial politics have changed more than gender politics since the 1960s.

I'm not sure how a person like me--as Callan said, "someone who feels that their gender is centered in their body, who feels normatively sexed/gendered"--can move beyond compulsory gender easily. I've always had what I thought were some unusual ideas about the roles men and women should play in relationships and society, and occasionally I wish I could switch to a male body so I could know what it feels like for a man to have sex, but that's about it.

Callan said: "Until you have seen your gender shift in the eyes of someone you are engaged with, like when the police officer sees your driver's license and stiffens, well, you don't know what it's like to feel the gender slip."

No, you're right, I don't. I do know what it's like to feel like a woman with a capital "W." By that I mean those times when a man tries to fit me into one of his fantasies about women when I'd really rather be doing something ordinary, like the laundry.

Take the time I was running an errand, trying to mail some letters at the Boulder post office, and two men standing nearby started discussing me. One of them thought I was cute, apparently. How unsexy it is to have a man start discussing me as if I were a piece of meat! Especially when it's dark out.

Both situations can produce fear. And I guess both situations involve somebody trying to impose perceptions on us. But I don't think mine fits into the "genderslip" category.

Maybe if I'd kicked them in the balls, it would have.

Back to Callan's post: I like the idea of feeling like both genders; it sounds wonderfully liberating, until you try to shoehorn it into the reality of everyday America.

posted by Price of Silence @ 11:51 AM