Just Sayin'

So… the more I think about it, really think about it, the more I think I’m leaning more toward the male end of the gender spectrum. Not so much genderqueer as… just male. I keep having dreams where I’m trying to explain to my mom that I’m in the wrong body, and that I’m a man, really, I am, and that if she’d just listen she’d understand, but she refuses and pushes me away and I’m left alone. 

If I ever were to come forth with something like that, I know that she would be skeptical, and disbelieving, but as with everything else, she’d accept it eventually. I worry a little more about my brothers, but as they already consider me a brother, I don’t think it’d be a big issue. They’re already open to my being gay (…or… straight? How would that even work?) and I’ve told them the basics of pretty much anything and everything else, so while they might not be accepting, it at least won’t be a completely foreign concept? 

I’ll admit I’m confused, and in no way certain about this is any way, shape, or form. But I’ve been thinking about it for over a year. Putting together the pieces, trying to figure out where I fit into the gender spectrum. Not where other people think I should fit, but where I think I should. Difference. See?

But, as always, I’m not rushing into things, or jumping to conclusions. I’m going to try my damnedest to wait until I’m in Calgary before seeking out professional help. It’ll be more readily available there, with people who have actually dealt with gender issues before. Not to mention the LGBT community is exponentially larger there. It’s crossed my mind to try being a drag king, just to see how I feel about the whole thing. Which is sort of silly, since I consciously try to pass as male on a lot of days, but… I guess I don’t ‘present’ myself that way? I’m in a small town, it’s a risk even just being out as a lesbian. 

I just… wish I had someone to talk to this about. I do have friends who are very supportive, but I can’t help but feel like I’m… disappointing them? A lot of my friends like me as a woman. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I’d bring it up to VeyZ, and she’s one of my best friends. I don’t know. 

And I guess, in the end, that’s what keeps me from doing much of anything other than continue to think and ponder. I simply don’t know what’s going to happen. This is the sort of situation where just saying ‘Jesus take the wheel’ doesn’t quite cover your ass.

Fable: The Musings of a Mad Brain: Differences in Sexual Arousal Between Males and Females

esdafable:

I’m endlessly fascinated by the variety in how people think, and it hardly ever gets more visceral than how people behave in their most intimate moments. A pair of threads off Reddit that show the tremendous difference between male and female sexual response, detailing the physical but more so…

Holy crap, I’ve read quite a ways into both of these threads, and I relate more with  how the men feel and think than the women. The food/prey analogies, the metaphors, the picking up on visual cues from women, feeling better the more you know your partner is getting pleasure because of you… among others, but those are the strongest. 

Which I find… interesting. Perhaps I’m not so much a hypersexual and more so just… a man? 

In class I sometimes hear the most interesting conversations.

This particular time was from a lay two seats behind me, who is a widow of one year with two small children. Her deceased husbands’ best friends’ (ex?)wife has been there to support her. She even refers to her as her ‘wifey’.

So she was telling our teacher how one day they were in the park with their collective children (five or six in total between the two of them) and the wifey’s youngest son started calling my classmate daddy. All wifey had to say on it was that thank god her (ex?)husband had finally been replaced.

Apparently my classmate is now ‘pretty daddy’ to her wifey’s kids. 

And I am so totally jealous. I wish kids would call me daddy. When I do eventually have kids (some eight or so years down the road, when I’m past 30 and have a comfortable career) I don’t want to be mommy, or mom, or mama or any variation of that. I’m not maternal in my feelings toward children, but paternal, if that makes sense.

Either way, whatever kids I do have, will definitely not be coming out of me. That’s what my wife will be for lol

Are there other titles for parental units that are outside of the binary gender standards?

Intergendered explained: http://cydathria.com/ms_donna/intergen.html

”In any case, intergendered people live a life somewhere between the traditional extremes of man and woman. As we do not gender ourselves along the either/or lines of the binary gender system, we often choose not to present along these lines. Given that, our presentation can be confusing and it would seem, at times, unsettling. As we present a mixed set of signal, there is often confusion in others as to whether we are a men or women.

Well, that’s the point. We are neither and both at the same time. We have rejected the notion that one needs to be at either end of the gender spectrum and live and present accordingly. We are not really interested in passing as women or men. We want nothing more than to be able to simply be who we are without having choose between two extremes. This does not invalidate those who feel most comfortable at the end of the gender spectrum, it is simply expands the options one has. For us, it amounts to nothing more than being honest about who we are.”

—-

Hmmmm, intergendered… it really hits the nail on the head, really (yes I’m going to be redundantly redundant). I’m both male and female while being neither. All the times I’ve constantly been torn to choose between portraying myself as male or female because what else is there, and here I’ve been trying to put myself in a box that I do not fit in.

I like it better than bigendered, since that term still implies that there are only the two genders. I still like genderfluid and genderfuck though, especially that last one on the days where even I don’t know what the hell I am. Society just hasn’t made room for genders outside the binary, and it really gives those outside it mixed messages. I worry about balancing my male traits with my female traits, when I should be able to be who I am without worrying what image I’m showing everyone else. 

Honestly, India has it right with their third gender (hijiras) and a society that accepts all three genders, though their third gender isn’t quite what the majority of those outside the binary norm are.

Found another lesbian girl/straight guy/drag king that used the term gynesexual! Well, read about them in this fabulous blog: http://borngaybornthisway.blogspot.com/ but I’m still relieved I’m not the only one using it. Don’t know why, but it makes me smile anyways!

Only good picture of my new haircut that my mom managed to get on her Blackberry. Doesn’t show off the poofiness well haha

Actually I lied in the title, I just got a haircut (sorry, no picture…yet). I just got back from the hairdressers and my hair looks cute. Very cute, and much more feminine than I’m used to. I’m torn over whether I like it or not, and the only reason I’m torn? Because it’s feminine. It might be very short, but it’s poofed up and the lady did something to it that just… makes it undeniably girly. 

I’m used to cutting my hair in a style usually considered butch. I don’t know, I’m still not completely comfortable with my feminine side I guess. The hair does look really good on me though. Probably thinking too much on this, but I hate that society expects me to be feminine just because I’m female-bodied, and I hate encouraging it. Which sucks, because I do like some feminine things, but when I indulge in them, everyone makes a big deal out of it. 

Like make-up. I almost never, ever wear it, so when I do, it pretty much makes me look stunning. While I know this, I still resent those people who say I should wear it more often or that I look pretty with it on. Implying I need to be girly to be pretty. I think I can make a ‘pretty-boy’ too, but I guess in my small town that is either frowned upon or considered insulting.

Hell, I have a hard enough time convincing hairdressers that, yes, I DO want it that short, and no, really, cut it shorter. I’m not the kind of person whose so attached to their hair that I’ll freak out if you fuck up. Hair grows back. Oi vey.

(This is actually a reblog of a post from an old blog of mine. I’ll be doing new stuff soon enough, I swear.)

Dysphoria is described as having an unpleasant or uncomfortable mood, such as sadness, anxiety, irritability or restlessness. These are things I experience whenever I am made aware of my chest, which is whenever I wear a bra, whenever I am shirtless, whenever I catch someone looking, whenever I walk, run, jump, stretch, sit or lay down, whenever I wear a feminine shirt, or a myriad of other things.

Thousands of other people experience a similar feeling, though theirs may be due to gender, or body image, self image or even species. Dysphoria is generally related to conditions such as borderline personality disorder, gender identity disorder, general anxiety disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, schizophrenia, sexual dysfunction, and even premenstrual syndrome.

In today’s culture, the word breast is linked to females, while chest is linked to males. Breasts are understood to be prominent on women, though sizes of course vary, while a man’s chest is understood to be flat. Yet there are small-breasted women whose breasts are smaller then some overweight men, yet to call her flat-chested is an insult, just as it is insulting to insinuate that the overweight man has breasts. Large breasts are commonly considered attractive on women, but not on men.

It is socially expected of most women in the American culture to wear bra’s and to keep their breasts hidden, though men of any weight and build can walk around shirtless. Yet if an overweight man were to wear a bra to help with support and back problems, he would be ridiculed. But if a woman doesn’t wear a bra, not only does she risk health problems, but she opens herself up to ridicule from the public.

The double standard of today’s culture is ridiculous. Why should breasts be considered female attributes when there are as many if not more large breasted men? Why is it that breast reductions are generally frowned upon simply because it ‘lessens’ a woman’s physical attractiveness in the general populace’s eyes? Why are mastectomies reserved for those with breast cancer, gender identity disorder and certain disorders in men that cause them to have breasts? Why is one considered less feminine, or female, for wanting to have their breasts removed? Why do people automatically assume that such individuals must wish to be male?

It goes back to a flat chest equaling male and a prominent chest equaling female in society. It’s how today’s culture views peoples biological bodies. This makes one wonder how they can justify this to those cancer patients who have had to get one or both breasts removed. Does this mean they are now less of a woman? That’s what society would have you believe, that because they lost their breasts, they aren’t fully a woman anymore. I see the same thing happening with women who need to have full or partial hysterectomies. Because of society, they see it as a loss of womanhood.

What one’s chest looks like should not influence what society views the owner of that chest as. Yet it does. Perhaps one day in the future that will change, but for now, my dysphoria over my chest remains, precisely because of the stereotypes and expectations that society has for me because of it.

Hello, my name is Hilary.

I’m a 22 year old androgynous, genderqueer, genderfluid, gynesexual, or at least that’s what I am today. A lot of people say those middle three descriptors are synonymous, but each one makes me think of a slightly different self, so I use them all. Some days I only use one, or two, since it varies day to day what my gender expression is. I am slowly getting comfortable with my own skin and mind, but I struggle with chest dysphoria with a little bit of a sexual identity crisis sometimes. Due to the nature of my gender, I have chosen gynesexual, as it means attraction to femininity. There’s really nothing else that means attracted to women when your gender isn’t anything concrete, so I go with what I got.

But my gender and sexuality isn’t what makes me. I’m also an artist, a writer, a gamer and a bluntly opinionated individual. I’m intelligent, sexy, a touch narcissistic, and ever so modest as well. I live on my own in a basement suite that is home to dozens of spiders, all of which were here when I moved in, or are related to them. I love animals of all kinds, and I also love eating them. I’m pretty much a walking encyclopedia of useless but interesting animal facts.

I love my video games as much as my novels. I’m addicted to Left 4 Dead, Dead Space, Diablo, Starcraft, Pokemon, Fallout and Portal. I don’t have many ongoing series of novels other than Anita Blake and the Dresden Files, and I’ve pretty much read or own all of Stephen King’s literature. The only TV show I watch is Supernatural. I haven’t had cable or satellite in almost five years, so the internet is my friend in this case. I watch a ton (and I mean a ton) of Youtube though. Tobuscus, RayWilliamJohnson, FluffeeTalks, FPSRussia, WaysideCreations, TEDTalksDirector, MarbleHornets and a lot more. Youtube’s pretty much replaced television for me.

I either never know what to say with these introduction things, or I ramble too much. So I’ll stop there and leave some stuff for future posts!

Oh, and I’m Canadian, eh?