(no subject)
Jun. 16th, 2021 01:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolari30 Questions For Pride Month: Has your relationship to your gender identity changed over time?
This is kind of a hard one to talk about.
As Steph or Amy can tell you, when I first came out, I was a frou frou little thing. These days, you'd call it "high femme."
Steph and Amy weren't having any of that, and I'm thankful for that. Steph at the time was a hair-metal punk, Amy was a grunge activist. They didn't do Frou Frou. They taught me to dress down (while also teaching me to dress up), and the results were very good. But not high femme. And, honestly, that ended up being how I survived all these years.
I didn't begin hormones until 27, and my body at 27 was much different than at 16. The estrogen and spiro made a few things better, but the damage was done. I look ridiculous in a high femme clothing. In the end, it was Steph and Amy's teaching who helped me decide how to express myself. These days it'd probably be called butch-femme, I call it "Eh, I don't get laughed at in this."
But I'm talking all about clothes. How does this mean my relationship with my gender identity has gone?
Well, we're at odds a lot. A whole lot.
My gender identity isn't really about the clothes - it's about the EXPRESSION of that identity that it allows. A lot of people think being trans is fetishization about clothes, but it's not. Clothes is one of the ways you EXPRESS who you are. And my gender identity was a high femmey woman. I get that from my mom.
The frou-frou of my gender identity isn't gone. It's aged, but it's still there. And I've shoved it the hell down. Why? Because when I allow that expression, I'm laughed at, become "the evening's entertainment," have things done to my food, get called he and him and lots of other things that no human being should be called.
This is where I thank Amy and Steph for teaching me to tone it down. I've toned everything down. And I get called she and her a lot more. And laughed at a lot less. In one way, I've removed one mask and put on another that at least fits better, but it is as much a mask as the old one.
My gender identity and I don't agree on how we can express who we are. But at least we can agree on one thing: We're a woman.
Wish the rest of the world would see that.
https://twitter.com/gwenners/status/1399574609536503810
This is kind of a hard one to talk about.
As Steph or Amy can tell you, when I first came out, I was a frou frou little thing. These days, you'd call it "high femme."
Steph and Amy weren't having any of that, and I'm thankful for that. Steph at the time was a hair-metal punk, Amy was a grunge activist. They didn't do Frou Frou. They taught me to dress down (while also teaching me to dress up), and the results were very good. But not high femme. And, honestly, that ended up being how I survived all these years.
I didn't begin hormones until 27, and my body at 27 was much different than at 16. The estrogen and spiro made a few things better, but the damage was done. I look ridiculous in a high femme clothing. In the end, it was Steph and Amy's teaching who helped me decide how to express myself. These days it'd probably be called butch-femme, I call it "Eh, I don't get laughed at in this."
But I'm talking all about clothes. How does this mean my relationship with my gender identity has gone?
Well, we're at odds a lot. A whole lot.
My gender identity isn't really about the clothes - it's about the EXPRESSION of that identity that it allows. A lot of people think being trans is fetishization about clothes, but it's not. Clothes is one of the ways you EXPRESS who you are. And my gender identity was a high femmey woman. I get that from my mom.
The frou-frou of my gender identity isn't gone. It's aged, but it's still there. And I've shoved it the hell down. Why? Because when I allow that expression, I'm laughed at, become "the evening's entertainment," have things done to my food, get called he and him and lots of other things that no human being should be called.
This is where I thank Amy and Steph for teaching me to tone it down. I've toned everything down. And I get called she and her a lot more. And laughed at a lot less. In one way, I've removed one mask and put on another that at least fits better, but it is as much a mask as the old one.
My gender identity and I don't agree on how we can express who we are. But at least we can agree on one thing: We're a woman.
Wish the rest of the world would see that.
https://twitter.com/gwenners/status/1399574609536503810
