In which Rey is rambling about gender issues.

[reynardo]

I have a number of friends who are non-cis. I hesitate to use "trans*" because some of them aren't - there's gender-fluid, gender-non-conforming, agendered, transitioning, deciding and just plain male and female and male-and-female. What's lovely is that over the last couple of years, this has become a more openly-discussed openly-accepted and slowly-understood matter. It fills my own heart with joy to see people I know and care about finally feeling safe and confident enough to tell us what they've known in their own hearts for years. That, at least in my various friends' groups and communities, this much of a sense of acceptance is now present is such a good and positive thing.

Alas, I've heard some people talk about "well, they're all jumping on the bandwagon, aren't they? They see something trendy, and they're trying to be a part of it." The nay-sayers don't realise that these brave and lovely people have been hiding inside themselves for years. Covering up their real souls, putting a fake front up to the world, because it can be really dangerous for someone who was born male to stand up and say "Actually, I'm a woman, and I've always known it." It is a huge step that can lose you friends and family, when you say "I've never felt comfortable looking at my female body in the mirror. I knew I wanted to be a man, but now I can." It's not a matter of jumping on the bandwagon. It's a matter of feeling supported enough to speak up.

At least one person I know has gone "I don't want to be constrained by the definitions. I'm whatever I want to be", and people are confronted and confused by this. And alas, when some people get scared or can't understand, they react by lashing out. By insisting that people around them stick to narrow, strictly-defined gender roles and expectations and assignments, they deny others and ultimately themselves so much!

I'm born female. I've certainly thought about the different possibilities. I'm happy being female - there's a lot to being female that I *don't* like, but I don't feel the need to change, be changeable. If I'd had the nerve when I was younger, I might have tried being gender-fluid, but it's not a necessary for me. But I can see where other people don't quite fit into a binary construct that has major limitations. (As a female, I hate those limitations. Don't get me started on being a woman in a male-dominated industry). But this has helped me see why some people want to be a something that isn't what I am. And while I'm content in my own skin, I can understand why some people realise that they're in the wrong skin completely.

So please, don't say that this is all coming out as a fashion, a fad. Think of it more as the dam has been broken, and all the restrictions are being washed away.

Rant over.

Comments

[red-day-dawning.livejournal.com]

Wonderful insight, Reynardo. Beautiful.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

I think that whole 'trying to be trendy' thing is such a narrow-minded, cruel thing to say. Being trendy is the safe way, the conforming way of meshing into society. Pray tell, what kind of bandwagon do they think this is? These folks are taking a very frightening, very brave step in society. If anything, they are the most un-trendy of us all. They are taking a scary leap into a world that has not treated others like them very kindly in the past.

I long for the day when society doesn't get so frightened over what it doesn't understand or what is different and doesn't view it as wrong or subversive. I live in a very biased and prejudicial part of the world, and it sickens me how people around me go to Christian churches every time the door opens, yet show such disgust and hatred and animosity toward those who have a different lifestyle than they do. I truly am afraid that my state will never acknowledge same sex marriage, because here, church and state are not separate, and church says constitution is outweighed by Christian 'law'. It depresses me to be surrounded by such narrow-minded people posing as followers of Christ. They seem to be the first to cast the stones.

[kerravonsen]

I'm born female. I've certainly thought about the different possibilities. I'm happy being female - there's a lot to being female that I *don't* like, but I don't feel the need to change, be changeable. If I'd had the nerve when I was younger, I might have tried being gender-fluid, but it's not a necessary for me.

It never crossed my mind to consider whether I might not be cis-gendered; then again it's only recently that I even knew what "cis-gendered" meant. Though even without the word, the concept still didn't cross my mind.

Honestly, cis/trans is a discussion which I like to steer clear from, especially online, because it is controversial and divisive, and really none of my business. I also feel that I'd need to be both a psychologist and a biblical scholar to even begin to understand enough about the issue to make any kind of moral judgement about it - so those who react with hatred and horror, they're morons.

Alas, I've heard some people talk about "well, they're all jumping on the bandwagon, aren't they? They see something trendy, and they're trying to be a part of it."

Um, WHUT?
On what planet is non-cis gender "trendy"? And how do we get there?

At least one person I know has gone "I don't want to be constrained by the definitions. I'm whatever I want to be", and people are confronted and confused by this.

This is actually the motivation that makes the most sense to me. Because I think at least some of the people who identify as non-cis do so because the roles society pushes on them are too narrow. You and I both know what it is like to defy at least some of the stereotypes about women, because we have ventured into a male-dominated field, and we get battered by that. Me, I'm stubborn and contrary enough to want to push back. But not everyone is going to react like I do.

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

What Kerravonsen said. Exactly.

[carolinelamb.livejournal.com]

You are so very right.

I had a similar experience with sexual assault. Only recently there have been more people who have talked about been assaulted, and numerous times I heard people tell me, it's a "trend" as if anyone wanted to be a rape victim because it's so much fun. O.o When I mentioned my own sexual assault (and not in a context where I asked for sympathy) I was quickly shut down by "Ah, ok, you're just saying this to play the victim".

When friends spoke about their bisexuality and poly-amory, that was also "just a trend". Gluten intolerance, lactose intolerance—all a trend. People are only allergic to gluten because it's trendy and they're trolls. Makes sense, of course *rolls eyes*.

This ties a little bit into people quickly accusing others of being "hipsters" something that aggravates me to no end these days (also because it's so unimaginative and lazy as an accusation.)

[starduchess.livejournal.com]

Well said, dear. Well said.

[beowabbit]

Amen. Very well said.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I'm a ciswoman (I want to get that out first, so you can evaluate whatever I say in light of it). What concerns me is the idea that "not fitting into society's limited roles for women" means that one is necessarily gender-fluid or non-gendered. I am not denying that there are such people. I just worry that gender fluidity or neutrality is starting to be seen as the solution to the problem that society places unfair and harmful limits on both men and women, when that is properly society's problem.

I'm a woman. I know I got it easy in most respects because I identify happily with my birth gender. But I also have certain traits that are considered "not very feminine" by my culture's standards, and I lack other traits that are supposed to be hallmarks of femininity. I refuse to accept that this makes me any less a woman. Rather, I think it means that the notion of "woman" that society is working with is too narrow. (Men have it even worse. A certain amount of tomboyishness is permitted as "cute" in women, but so-called femininity is nearly always seen as a weakness in men.)

[kerravonsen]

Agreed, as I touched on above.

However... even if it is "properly society's problem", which is easier to change: oneself, or society? Does it really matter if gender-fluidity is "a thing" or not, if it is something that enables someone to come to terms with how they think about themselves? I'm pretty sure the phenomenon has been around for ages, it's just that people have talked about it in different ways. Gender-fluidity is the way we talk about it now; that doesn't make it "trendy", it just makes it more openly discussed; it is the framework which we currently use to look at it.

I'm not saying we shouldn't change society, not at all. But many people are not willing to wait around for that to happen, so they choose the course that will work for them in this current time.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I just don't like to hear people say things along the lines of, "I don't have [stereotypical feminine traits XYZ] so I am not female" because then, implicitly, anyone without those stereotypical traits is not fully female, and I strongly reject that. And I do hear people say such things, even if not in so many words.

[fenrischained.livejournal.com]

Goddamn, I hate that whole "fad" idea. Aside from the fact that it wouldn't be hurting anyone even if it was... I have enough neuroses about my lack of gender, and know enough other nb people with similar neuroses, that I respond really negatively to people saying it's about trends or faking or being a special snowflake. (As someone who's not just non-binary, but also demisexual, pansexual, autistic, and depressed, I have grown to hate the "special snowflake" label with an all-consuming force). Like, you're basically stabbing people right in the paranoia every time you say that.

so basically yeah I 10000% agree and thanks for putting it so succinctly into words.

[notsocraven.livejournal.com]

Great post, and it gives lots of food for thought. Thanks for sharing that.

[cheshire-bitten.livejournal.com]

Thankyou

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[reynardo.livejournal.com]

SQUEEE!