When I was in middle school, we had a transitional period of a couple of years from “stay in one room all day” and “switch rooms every hour”–for two years, we would do the first half of the day in one room with one teacher, the second half in a second room with a second teacher. In one year, one of those teachers was a pretty lousy teacher (seen from my adult perspective–we loved it as kids) because at least once a week, he would drag in a TV and VCR and show us movies instead of teaching. While some of the movies could arguably be educational (such as Ghandi) most of them seem to have been just movies that the teacher wanted to see (such as Raiders of the Lost Ark.) There was this one kid in that class who had a VCR at home and would bring in a lot of the movies that we watched. This was in the days when VCRs were similar in size and price to aircraft carriers, and all of us other kids thought that he was rich.
I only knew that kid the one year (his family must have moved around) but he had an unusual first and last name. Earlier this month, I was reading a press release about a fossil discovery and one of the researchers had the same last name as the kid from middle school. It made me casually wonder “hey, I wonder whatever happened to that guy?” so I googled his name. The first hit was his obituary. He died this January at the age of 44. The obit listed that he was survived by his sister, his niece, and his “special friend.” I paused for a moment at actually seeing the term “special friend” in an obituary, then realized “ooooooh, yeah, that makes sense” when I suddenly remembered how feminine he had always acted. I had actually forgotten that he was (in retrospect) somewhat flaming, And it was because he didn’t go around going around saying “Hey, look at me, I’m feminine. See how feminine I am? Feminine feminine feminine. I’m the feminine kid. Always remember, I’m the feminine kid!” To me, he was The Kid With The VCR and the feminine part wasn’t significant enough to even keep in my conscious memory.
People are going to think of/remember you only as your gender only if you only identify/present yourself as Being Your Gender.
You knew someone as a middle school kid who was feminine. At the time, he wasn’t spending much time explaining to people that he was feminine. It appears that he happens to have been gay as well as feminine, and the fact that he was gay, not the fact that he was feminine, is reflected in his obituary. You, reading the obituary, catch the reference to him being gay and recall that he was feminine.
I was feminine in middle school. I didn’t spend much time explaining to people that I was feminine. I did not happen to have been gay. I live in a world in which people, such as yourself in this conveniently supplied example, tend to equate being feminine with being gay. My experience from middle school on through early adulthood was all angsty and complicated – beyond the normative ways in which it’s angsty and complicated for everyone, I mean – because our society does, in fact, equate being feminine with being gay (if you’re male, I mean), and does not have a mental concept of feminine straight guys for me to have been recognized as, for me to recognize myself as. People (me and others) had no model for how heterosexuality is supposed to work between feminine straight guys and whatever girls would be involved with them (who does what? how do they interpret each other’s behaviors?) (and under what circumstances do girls find feminine boys sexy, and which girls would those be, by the way?)
Perfect! If I can put it on the map, if I can get the world’s attention and inscribe my gender identity on their minds, they finally have that mental concept of a feminine straight guy, and I’ve accomplished exactly what I set out to accomplish.
1.) Has it ever crossed your mind that “the world” doesn’t give a fuck about getting your gender identity on their minds?
2.) Telling the world that there are feminine straight guys is about as productive as telling the world that the sky is blue and that grass is green. Everybody already knows that there are feminine straight guys. You are trying to “teach” people something that they already know.
And before you tar me with the brush of my thinking that all gay guys are feminine and that all feminine guys are gay, don’t waste your time. I know that. It is just that my one particular example fit that stereotype to a tee. My point was that his being feminine (or gay) wasn’t an important enough character trait to be what I remembered him for.
I used to have a male coworker who was very feminine. Even his name was feminine. He had a sing-songy voice, walked with a bounce, and insulted people with a bitchiness that would make Wendy Williams cry. The “bro” guys in the office would give him the business for sharing a bedroom with his elderly grandmother. I think we all assumed he was gay at first.
But he wasn’t. Turns out he was totally head over heels for a girl who also worked with us. The two of them ended up getting married. And no one was shocked because they made a cute couple and you could tell their love was genuine.
I think if my coworker created a blog about his life as a “prissy pretty hetereosexual boy”, I would read the first couple of entries just to be entertained by his droll sense of humor. But if all his posts were about definitions and clearing up misconceptions that only exist in his mind and rehashing ancient memories about lunch room encounters with bullies, then I’d quickly lose interest. Gender nonconformity is an interesting subject. But it is not infinitely and unconditionally interesting.
AHunter, I came across this article this morning, and I’m kind of interested in your opinion about it. I know that I have noticed that a lot of gender non-conformists tend to be “differently wired” (and I consider myself to be a member of both groups). People have accused you of being obsessed with your identity. Do you think there’s anything to that accusation?
Just curious: were you a kid in the 80’s? I mentioned Prince earlier and will evoke his name again. He was a textbook example of a male who expressed femininity very noticeably, while still excuding hereterosexuality. Me and my straight girlfriends had massive crushes on him. What made his authenticity unquestioned was that he didn’t type himself as a man wearing women’s makeup and clothes. He just was. It was like he rolled up on the scene wearing ruffle blouses, high heel boots, and eyeliner as if that was the norm for men.
The whole decade was like this, in my admittedly limited memory. Not just men but women too.
That said, I could see how it must have been very lonely to be a feminine boy surrounded by kids who seemingly conformed to expected gender stereotypes.
I don’t give a fuck about whether individual people give a fuck about whether I get the world to include that gender identity in their collective minds.
I accept that, and I didn’t actually mean to throw that kind of tar in your direction. My apologies for writing what I did in such a way that it’s open to that kind of interpretation. I meant only to cite that in your example, and in society in general, the two traits are linked, so that upon reading the guy’s obit and seeing a phrase that indicated he was most likely gay, it provoked a memory of him being feminine. NOT that you think ALL feminine people are gay or vice versa.
I don’t think society believes there are no straight feminine guys, not in the assertive sense of “We don’t believe any straight feminine guys exist”. It’s more that our existence is sort of elided over, that we aren’t thought of or spoken of much at all, except to make fun of us as if we were inherently embarrassing spectacles.
Here’s an exercise: List some movies, novels, and other culturally prominent portrayals that show us as proud and positive characters. Or as villains for that matter, but as something other than targets of ridicule. Seriously, I like to see/read etc as many such portrayals as I can, even now. I sure didn’t encounter any to use as role models growing up.
No, I was 21 in 1980 and that’s when I came out. I grew up in the 60s and 70s.
Yeah, he’s a good example. And David Bowie, too. I don’t know if I would have identified with either of them growing up or not. As this thread, top to bottom, has established over and over again, wearing certain clothes and adornments doesn’t “make” a person girlish. I might have seen myself in these fellows, but I might instead have thought they were trying to position themselves as attractive to the male gaze (or to be playing with that as an edgy-trendy thing). I would not have identified with Dr. Frank N. Furter from Rocky Horror for a counterexample —he seems masculine in many of his behaviors, sexually aggressive being a key factor there, and dressing in lingerie and lipstick doesn’t change that for me.
I remember that! And also Pat, the one whose gender couldn’t be determined by anyone else.
Do you imagine that I would have identified with Lyle as an affirmative role model growing up?
Depending on how one processes humor, the message of that skit could be taken in as ridiculing the idea that such a character could exist. Or that such a character is to be laughed at and mocked. Or maybe as something more positive. What do you think?
The trend towards being aware of (and diagnosing people as) autistic / Asperger’s mostly came along after I had come out —after I had my answers to my own satisfaction. But other people (including some autistic / aspie activist friends) have periodically suggested that they see a lot of overlap.
So yeah maybe. When there’s a drumbeat theme of “different different different” all throughout one’s life, I think there’s probably a craving for an explanation, an understanding. I found mine in an explanation about being differently gendered. I do occasionally wonder (I sort of have to) if I latched onto it because it explained things adequately and because, well, then I finally had an explanation, as opposed to it being clearly and definitely THE explanation. So far I keep coming back to it after questioning it, though.
smacks AHunter3 with a copy of Vogue Bad AHunter3!
(White tights are for little girls and ballerinas. Otherwise, no. There is NO excuse for being a fashion victim. And no tights of any kind should be worn with sneakers.)
I probably couldn’t make a very long list of such characters, but the first that spring to mind (all from television) are Niles Crane on Frasier, Bobby Hill on King of the Hill, and Phil Dunphy and Manny Delgado on Modern Family. With Modern Family I’d say it is fairly common for a reference to these characters’ feminine traits to be the entire joke, but they’re both supposed to be likable characters and in Phil’s case when he’s the butt of a joke it’s more often because of his general goofiness.
The relevant TV Tropes articles are Camp Straight and In Touch with His Feminine Side, although these include negative depictions and the latter includes both straight and gay characters.
While I’m here, I’ll add that I am surprised that some posters seem to be denying that a “girly” boy/man would be bullied unless he himself chose to make a big deal about being more feminine than the average guy. I think the world is often unkind to male people who come across as feminine, and have no trouble believing that children would be cruel to a boy who behaved in a way considered to be “like a girl”.
I’m certainly not saying that a feminine boy wouldn’t be bullied. It is just that there is nothing remarkable about. Kids will be bullied if they are too thin. Kids will be bullied if they are too fat. Kids will be bullied if they are too short. Kids will be bullied if they are too tall. Kids will be bullied if they are too dumb. Kids will be bullied if they are too smart. If you stand out in any way at all, there is a damn good chance someone will bully you.
A typical school life is that a handful of kids will be your friends, a handful will be your bullies, and the majority of them will barely notice your existence because they have their own shit to deal with. It isn’t that I don’t believe that Ahunter was bullied, it is that I don’t think his experience of bullying is remarkable. His traumatic childhood isn’t a one in a million story, it is more of a nine hundred thousand in a million story.
I say it isn’t necessary the rarity of a thing that makes it interesting. It’s how that thing is told.
I don’t mind sitting through a story about bullying and how much it sucks and how it damaged the victim’s psyche. But the story better have parts in it that make me laugh or let out a gasp or make me sit on the edge of my seat. Because you’re right; there are so many bully narratives out there. I’ve got my own to contribute. So for me to really want to tune into someone else’s bully narrative, it needs to be told in a special way.
A literary example is Jane Austen’s first and most obscure novel, but one of my personal favorites, Northanger Abbey. I don’t know if the leading man, Henry Tilney, would have been perceived as feminine in Austen’s time, but the novel does indicate that his knowledge of women’s fashion and appreciation for the “chick lit” of the day are unusual. Henry’s closest friend seems to be his sister. He’s contrasted favorably with his brother, a womanizing military officer, and with his rival for the heroine’s affections, John Thorpe, who’s basically a stereotypical frat boy. There’s also an interesting scene where Henry’s ability to keep a tidy house and prepare a good dinner (presumably with the help of servants) are presented as qualities that make him a desirable husband.
On page 3, AHunter invited transgender women to respond.
Although I work in and with the transgender community almost every day, I’d have to say that such incredibly in-depth discussions and debates over gender simply are not found in my community, outside of academic discussion at one of the local universities.
With a few exceptions, transgender women don’t spend this much time thinking about our gender. We know what we are and we are what we are. No discussion nor debate will change our gender identity. For binary transgender women such as myself, we feel a strong desire to have a body that aligns with what our brain gender is. This drives transition, via hormones, anti-androgens, and surgeries. I’m in my 6th year of transition and for the most part, things are still great.
I’ve read almost everything AHunter has written on this subject, and I must say I really am struggling as to why being a “male girl” doesn’t fall under the broader umbrella of non-binary/non-conforming, or genderqueer. Or if it really does fall under that umbrella, and AHunter is carving out a safe space for their specific gender identity that they want everyone to know about, for the purpose of educating us as to a different type of human being.
But then it isn’t something that’s near and dear to my heart - I’ve really not struggled with my gender identity. Almost all of the struggles I’ve faced have been external pressures to not be transgender. Well, I do have a struggle with something related to sex (and gender) that I could talk about, but there’s significant hostility here for oversharing, so I’ll just keep it dark.
I don’t think it’s so much over-sharing Una, it’s just all the tedious, extra-detailed stuff that seem to say the same thing over and over again. And to be perfectly blunt, he really doesn’t seem to understand the concept of “TL;DR”.
Why does every permutation of traits need a label?
Now, AHunter3, are you writing for you or for others? If for yourself you don’t need to seek approval or validation. Just express yourself as you wish. If for others, take into consideration the feedback offered.
I remember that! And also Pat, the one whose gender couldn’t be determined by anyone else.
