Tell me about being genderqueer (& etc)

In My Humble Opinion
41

I have a friend who told me she’s asexual. Forty years ago. Since she still is I don’t think she was pulling my leg.
I never had a problem understanding it; for a long time, the times I felt safest were when I wasn’t in a relationship so it didn’t seem odd to me.

Thanks Johanna for an explanation I can understand for genderqueer. That it’s “a complete rejection of that binary…” (nodding) Yep, I get that and don’t blame anybody for rejecting anything that tries to pigeon hole them.

monstro I very much agree about Why can’t people just do what comes naturally? And do it without other people being judgemental—can somebody explain to me how anything I might do will adversely affect them, especially if we don’t even know each other? It seems like just looking for something to get upset about. IMHO

42

There’s a certain amount you can trangress before people start thinking you’re odd. If you crossdress, you’re obviously gay. And, from what I’ve read, for a lot of genderqueer man or woman just doesn’t fit. They’re both, or neither, or something else entirely.

I don’t know. I could usually pass, but I got the comments of ‘you just haven’t found the right guy yet’ or ‘you’ll grow out of it’ (which completely misses the point). I got the same amount of flak for it as I did for not wanting children. But I would get crushes on cute guys (usually fictional) so people assumed I was ‘normal’.

I think the most :confused: comment was ‘you need to hang out with a manly man, then his testosterone will kick your libido into gear.’ Ooo-kay.

43

Maybe it would make things clearer if you knew I originated in the 1960’s and in my youth 1950’s stereotypes were in full force?

Absolutely, it’s gotten better over the past few decades. It’s pretty rare now for me to catch flak for being a tomboy because societal mores have changed. I still remember, though, overheard whispers expressing concern about how I’d turn out (read: she might be a bull dyke like her oldest sister), not one but TWO “charm schools”, the struggles to force me into a “properly” feminine mode of behavior… It was not fun.

Yes, we have been wearing menswear for decades. The thing is, I remember when that trend was new.

44

I’m your age, born 1962. :confused:
Katherine Hepburn et al precede us by decades. Women were wearing pants and men’s clothes in the 1930s (and the fad of bloomers and bicycling attire goes back to Edwardian times).

Mine was the first class to be allowed to wear jeans to our public elementary school. I know full well the stereotypes inherent in growing up in an upper middle class white suburb in the USA. I never once wore a skirt in 4 years of HS–and never suffered a day of teasing or stigma. In fact, nobody noticed but me. My mother wasn’t thrilled, but early on she picked her battles and this was not one of them.

While it’s true that today’s teens and 20-somethings maybe can’t quite understand what the big to-do was re hair length in boys and girls etc, it has always been easier for girls to adopt more mannish dress than for boys to do the opposite. IMO, what you related (and others here) falls well within normal parameters, even for back then.

Identify any way you like, but if that is the criteria, the world is chock full of just such transgendered folk. IOW, it’s either more conventional and common than heretofore thought or the defining characteristics need some work.

45

Yep - I was born in 1958 and have been an over-the road-truck driver, a construction worker and a Navy (USNR) SeaBee (Construction Battalion) for almost four decades…I have plenty girly traits as well but I can tell stories about “discrimination” that are seriously anachronistic.

But still - I’ve always been “normal” besides the non-traditional choices I’ve made, so I have mostly fit in. With man definitely, and mostly with women. Also I’ve never had a problem telling someone to FOADIAF* if they’re tiresome or being a sexist asshole, and following up with physical force as needed so it’s never been a big deal to me.

*Fuck Off And Die In A Fire.

46

Yes, but likewise there was strong disapproval by some at the time of all of that, and depending on where you were raised in the US that disapproval extended past the 1960’s.

Yes and no - a lot depended on where you lived. Some areas are more conservative than others.

I’m perfectly willing to go with BOTH options there - the “sloppy gender category” people are more common, and some of the definitions are crap anyhow.

47

Have you picked up on any of the satanic and Illuminati imagery in her videos? The blasphermous stuff is pretty bad in Alejandro and utterly transparent in Judas.

48

Uh, hate to break it to you, but a big proportion of the world already rejects your “male/female dynamic”, and even more people don’t give a fuck about your ideas about coupling human reproduction to some particular gender norm. No matter how “blasphemous” or “horrifying” you find it. Turns out not everyone shares your ideas.

Not sure what the hell you’re getting at in terms of “divid[ing] and divid[ing]”, that’s not biologically possible.

Oh never mind, you’re just a nutcase.

49

As has been said, it’s more than dress and hobbies. It also involves things like posture, pitch and inflection of your voice, mannerisms, physical appearance, facial expressions, and how you interact with folks.

Tom-boyism is tolerated in our society, but it’s male analog is still stigmatized. A girl who wants to play on the football team is praised for being bold. A boy who wants to be on the drill team is sniggered at and told to sit down somewhere.

I don’t think all people who identify as “genderqueer” are necessarily victims of oppression or targets of discrimination. They are simply people who feel chaffed by some of the mores embedded in our society. They seek not just freedom to wear whatever, but to talk however, walk however, and do whatever. Some may feel very restricted and suffer from a painful existence, while for others the discomfort is more abstract, more philosophical.

You mentioned that you come from a upper middle-class background. Looser gender roles are correlated with socioeconomics. In upper tiers, you find men excelling in the kitchen and with child-raising duties, and women working in high-pressure executive careers. In less well-to-do households, you find men and women cleaving to more traditional gender roles. Contrast the Huxtables with the Bunkers, for instance.

50

This is the first time I’ve ever consciously missed a “LIKE” button for SDMB posts.

51

I’ve witnessed a candidate for a college professorship with impeccable credentials, superb presentation skills and great teaching ability get voted off because “she was wearing pants!” (a pantsuit). Miami, 1997. In Spain that would be illegal; in the US, “attired in a way that colleagues with zero fashion sense find unacceptable” is not a protected class.

Anybody care to count the gallons of ink poured by the US press on the attire of Condoleeza Rice, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama or Angela Merkel? Those papers which are supposed to be focusing on economics or politics, I mean, not the fashion mags. If they wear big skirts, bad; if a pencil skirt rides half an inch, bad; if pantsuit, bad; if cleavage, bad; if dowdy, bad and if daring, bad.

52

Since gender is a social construct, gender issues vary from one society to another. American good manners forbid the direct expression of prejudices: nobody would walk to that candidate during her after-presentation snacks and point out “next time consider a pencil skirt, it will look more professional”, but only because something isn’t said out loud doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, those unvoiced but real prejudices often become the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

In some societies, a woman who reckons she can very well wear trousers and study criminology if she wants to is a feminist (I’m thinking of a specific woman now, a Spanish criminologist of the early 20th century); in some she’s a candidate for stoning; in some, she’s a tomboy; in others, she may be genderqueer or perfectly normal. The labels used vary with society as well as language spoken, but so do the feelings triggered by certain desires upon the individual and by certain actions by the surrounding society.

And yes, I realize I’ve just spent a lot of time on the soapbox (so much I got out of edit time… again) to end up with something that for the sake of brevity comes up being absurdly general.

Simply because I enjoy using the search engine, some previous but not very old threads on gender and/or sexual identity that I think may be somewhat relevant:

Can someone explain pansexualism?
Gender Identification Disorder
HoC passes bill to protect trans people’s human rights

53

I generally identify a lot with the queer movement in general, but I’ve always found genderqueer to be an odd identification – to me, a big part of the overall queer viewpoint is that gender isn’t very important and certainly isn’t “real.” The need to identify as being “outside” something you already identify as a social construct feels kind of strange.

In a sense, it’s always felt like a term invented to communicate to people who don’t already understand what you’re talking about – except that it’s a term that’s really hard for people who don’t understand what you’re talking about to understand.

54

I’m genderqueer.

Biologically I’m male. Historically, personally, from fairly early childhood on I considered myself to be like the girls, to be as good as any girl; they were my preferred company, my competition in school (I aspired to the same things), and right on through all the years in which males and females are expected to avoid each other and disparage each other I either had, or wanted to have, a girlfriend.

Personality-wise I was (and am) often been considered by others to be more like one of the girls than like one of the boys, and thought that of myself, and was proud of it. Teasing or harassing me for being like a girl or not being like a guy wasn’t effective, I did not want to be thought of as one of the boys. I was pretty contemptuous of boys in general.

Sexually, the bodies of the people I am attracted to are biologically female. The, umm, tone of how I fantasized about things being with a girl when I hoped and yearned for a girlfriend was a whole lot less rooted in male appetite / female object of consumption or boy-as-aggressor than heterosexuality is generally portrayed and thought of. There’s a courtship / flirting / getting-it-on “script” that people, especially young people, rely on a lot, outside of which it’s rather difficult to get involved with anyone, and I was definitely outside it because of how I am, and I came out while still a virgin, figuring out that I was of a different sexual identity than straight males. I didn’t use the term “genderqueer” because in 1980 the term wasn’t in use yet.

I don’t think of myself as “born in the wrong body”. I have no problems with the physiology, only with the assumed personality and behavioral aspects of personhood that are socially connected to maleness in people’s minds. There are such connections and they are pervasive and range from blatant to subtle. Since they are real and shared as understandings, and “expected-to-be-shared”, it is fair to say I am a girl (gender) but male (sex). I’m a male girl. Or, as it put it in 1980, a “heterosexual sissy”. (Sissy intended as the inverse of ‘tomboy’, not ‘wimpy and lacking in courage’).

I’m not transsexual, gay, straight, bi, or any other term already in prior use for describing sexual identity. Genderqueer is perfect.

55

Part of why I don’t like “genderqueer” is that it doesn’t help me ID you in any useful way. If you say you’re genderqueer, all I know is that you don’t identify as a heteronormative female. That’s still a big spectrum, and I think most people, hearing “genderqueer,” will assume you’re not heterosexual, so now there’s some extra confusion.

For the record, I ID very similarly to you – lots of feminine interests and a general disdain for machismo and “manliness.” Not quite “girly,” though. I’m always liked Eddie Izzard’s term “male tomboy,” except that I have no real interest in cross-dressing. I have no strong attachment to “being a guy” and find myself feeling out-of-place among groups of both straight and gay men. I just also find “genderqueer” more hassle than it’s worth.

56

never mind…

57

I don’t really understand why you’d need to “come out” as an androgyne. What would coming out entail? What would you do differently that you aren’t doing now?

Also, why would you need to come out or be vocal about being part of BDSM? If people want to do it, that’s fine, but I don’t really understand why you need to let other people know what you’re doing in the bedroom…

58

It is illegal. Discrimination on the basis of gender–no man would be turned down because of pants–is illegal. At least… here in Washington it is. You’re talking about Florida, though.

I wonder if she sued.

59

But that’s just it. Although I’m biologically male and the people I’m attracted to are biologically female, and (additionally) I do not feel that my body morphology is wrong (i. e., not transsexual), I’m as different in my own way from heterosexual as gay people and transfolk are.

I do agree that “genderqueer” is a bit of a catchall category, like checking “Other”. But you can only say “It’s something else” in response to a question. And people who are discernably curious and/or squirmy-uncomfortable until they can categorize you won’t always ask. And, also, sometimes you want to raise the topic in order to draw attention to some sub-issue. Or, bloody hell, sometimes you want to tell an anecdote or something. Or reply to something that someone else said about gender or sex or whatever.

60

PS: I’ve been writing about my experience, because there really isn’t a good “coming out” book that explicates genderqueer. I’m seeking early readers for feedback on general readability and engrossingness and nonboringness, etc. It’s in very rough form (unedited) but let me know if any of you would be interested in having a peek at.