Mar
27
I realize that almost everyone adopts a gender role that is consistent with their sex, but is there any good reason why I should overrule my desire to do otherwise?
There are men and there are women; it should come as no surprise that there are people in between – both man and woman/neither man nor woman/man acting feminine/woman acting masculine/man looking like woman, etc.
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Mar
12
Here’s my dating advice for those of you interested in me or a trans woman like me…
Be a gentleman. It is so rare that you will instantly become a highly desirable commodity if you do that one little thing.
I understand that your sexual interest in me may have something to do with the ways in which I am different than a woman. You must understand that my interest in you will have everything to do with the ways in which I am the same as a woman.
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Mar
04
The fluid nature of gender roles over time provides more proof that what it means to be a man changes depending on the era and the culture and probably the circumstances. It is common to cling to current sensibilities as if they were pronounced from on high, but recall that the Roman soldiers wore skirts into battle and the males in French aristocracy in the middle of the last millennium wore long hair, wigs, heels, etc.
Mind you, I am not sure the role differences changed as much as the expectations for clothes and appearance.
I respect everyone’s right to choose their gender role, but for myself, I confess to liking the idea of men and women who are distinctly different.
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Feb
25
In response to my previous post asserting that, for me, living a female life is a choice, one commentator expressed an interesting challenge to that thinking, and one that I feel deserves a post of its own in response:
I wonder if you were required to put Janie away how long it would be before her needs started to show up in ways that you might not expect or find comfortable. I’ve heard the same story from a lot of us that when their female sides were pushed out of sight she pushed back. Nothing is worse than a “T” girl scorned for she will become a real bitch until she is once again free. The free girl is pleasant and relaxed while the closeted one is anything but.
Into a not so scientific experiment? Why don’t you put Janie away and see how long it takes for the choice to become a need?
I don’t have to “put Janie away” for even a minute to realize that I would be pretty miserable without her. All I have to do is think about doing so and I start to get agitated.
That settles nothing, however.
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Feb
23
In all my recent writing about contemplating an adjustment to the way I express my femininity, there is one huge presumption: that I have a choice.
This is not a popular concept within the transgender (or even gay) community, and I am not going to undertake the futile task of even suggesting that my feelings apply to anyone but me. Suffice it to say that there are those who believe that it is a stronger statement to say “I choose to be” than it is to say “I can’t help it,” though the latter has always been a better political argument.
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Feb
18
(continued from Beyond Gender)
What we are talking about is the post-gender concept, the “Pejic Ideal,” so to speak: the relatively rare male that can, without body modification or assumption of womanhood, carry off a completely feminine look.
The guy who basically says, “I like feminine things, and if you mistake me for a woman, that’s on you not me.”
The guy who says, “I happen to enjoy the trappings of both genders and I dress in things I like and behave the way I feel. I don’t feel the need to be male or female in order to understand myself. I am just me. I realize that most others will need to put me in one box or the other, but if they do, they will find out things about me that just don’t fit their model. I can play along with people’s need to be able to understand me, but only now and then.”
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Feb
16
Most people agree that there is male and there is female, and with the exception of a precious few folks on this planet, everyone is either one gender or the other.
Then came Andrej Pejic, called by New York Magazine “The Prettiest Boy in the World. (http://nymag.com/fashion/11/fall/andrej-pejic/ )” His androgyny is well-known, being that he models high fashion for both genders, but what’s more interesting is that he says that his gender is entirely a matter of perception and, that professionally, he has left his gender open to artistic interpretation.
“It’s not like, ‘Okay, today I want to look like a man, or today I want to look like a woman,’ ” he says. “I want to look like me. It just so happens that some of the things I like are feminine.”
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Feb
09
As much as theoretically I saw a helpful gender identity distinction at the boundary-line between male and female, I have found the distinction difficult to sustain on the ground.
For me to behave in a feminine manner, I have to channel a distinctly female energy within myself. I am not able to become a feminine man other than by seeing the world from as female a perspective as I can muster, and then stepping back over the line by filtering out certain clothes.
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Feb
06
It seemed to me an awfully big deal to finally see the possibility of expressing my feminine gender identity as a man rather than as a woman. (See Trying on the Yaoi Gender Mix for Size and A New Take on My Male Gender Identity for more.)
I have expressed concerns about the latter, feeling to some degree, inauthentic, or put on. And, I have expressed the opinion that as long as I stay on the male side of the coin, the degree of my femininity is merely a question of fashion and therefore not subject to the same kinds of reactions and objections as gender questions might be.
Well, I didn’t get very far along this yaoi road before reality – at least my reality – stepped squarely in my path.
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Feb
02
I think one of the most profound realizations that came to me in the course of considering the whole yaoi thing was the idea that I have been taking for granted the effect that the changes to my hair (both on my head – where the change is to more and longer – and on my body, where the change is to less and none) have achieved already.
I have been thinking so much about the effects that I might have to encounter if people I knew found out that I was a feminine man or even a part-time female, or whichever way we decide to characterize what it is that I am or do.
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