(no subject)
Aug. 18th, 2003 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrienmundiOne of my largest fears is that at a base level, it really doesn’t matter what I think/feel/want, but that the world really only allows certain things. I’m afraid that it doesn’t matter at all that I think gender is stupid, wrong, and coercive, or that it matters even less if that feeling is valid or accurate, because the world only allows two choices: this, or that. The fear is that no amount of logic, cleverness, mental agility or insight makes a difference; this is just how it is.
I’m also very afraid that they may be right, and this is compounded by my fear and anxiety about things that feel good. What if I like feminine pronouns? What if I like ‘feminine’ presentation in and of itself, and want it consistently? Doesn’t it necessarily mean that there are only two choices? Or worse, there may be more choices, but that really, I only want the other part of the binary equation, which would be worse, in a way; it would mean to me that all the time I’ve spent, all the pain and suffering up to this point to make a valid different way, was really for nothing (other than a very carefully constructed façade to hide my own fear).
I’m also very afraid that they may be right, and this is compounded by my fear and anxiety about things that feel good. What if I like feminine pronouns? What if I like ‘feminine’ presentation in and of itself, and want it consistently? Doesn’t it necessarily mean that there are only two choices? Or worse, there may be more choices, but that really, I only want the other part of the binary equation, which would be worse, in a way; it would mean to me that all the time I’ve spent, all the pain and suffering up to this point to make a valid different way, was really for nothing (other than a very carefully constructed façade to hide my own fear).
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no subject
Date: 2003-08-18 07:48 am (UTC)or at least that's how i try to see it, when i think about this sort of thing in relation to myself.
as for the first fear you mentioned-- i worry about that too, but i keep trying to remember how much "the way things are" can change, & has changed, historically.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-18 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-18 08:34 am (UTC)but it's hard when the personal comes up against the political in this way. i think about this a lot too.
Yea what tobi (sp?said!
Date: 2003-08-18 08:42 am (UTC)Can't help thinking that the larger lesson is that winning and loosing is irrelevant because the game system is what needs to shift.
(no zero-sum, and fuck
Re: Yea what tobi (sp?said!
Date: 2003-08-18 08:43 am (UTC)(yea i am a klutz)
once more for the sensualist/empirical chant
Date: 2003-08-18 08:37 am (UTC)The whole point of non-binarism is that there *is* no such thing as completely right or completely wrong. Just what works more or less well for the individual. Relativism is NOT meant to be an even more rigid structure than (for a lack of a more accurate word) absolutism. We are courting the open, the dynamic, the playful, the creative, the more honest because it does away with the pretense of completely knowing, completely understanding and completely describing/performing the one, unchanging, 'objective' world, after all. This is the only sense in which post-structuralism/modernism can work, anwyays-- It is still a very much positivistic system. Just one that has gained awareness of calculus instead of algebra. You were the one that used this imagery after all... it is all about approaching limits, redefining, refining... the limit will be good enough for practical purposes *at each instance*, but it is by no means an absolute expression of a teleological reality. There IS no telos.
And again, if the world allows only two choices, I bet you a pitcher of cider that you will NEVER run into two people who have the ESACT same understanding of what 'malemanboyoutieXYwhatever' and 'femalewomangirlinnieXXwhathaveyou' is, what it should act like, etc. That i am wholeheartedly with you in thinking that rigidifying, enforcing and limiting behavior is dumb-cum-inhuman. Even in the rigidest of dumbfekk cases, gender is still domain. The naming does not determine the content. The content is less immediately visible, but more important than the naming. It seems to me that you would be using the 'other' naming, to primarily signal that you want to define your domain differently, and *make it known that you do*.
Sounds like it is worth a try. So, care to try it? I am very game to start using "she" etc. Especially since this current time the issue has come up, i have begun to think it would be a very interesting experiment for my own mentality. I can keep saying that for me, gender has never been a factor or variable in anything of substance, but I've never actually *tested* this. Since I like the idea of it being irrelevant, seems that this would be a very good way to be more active and honest about it. (all this meant to say not that you should be concerned with my mental development, but that more of us could benefit from this, without burden on you).
**I am pretty sure fear for violence etc will come up here, but for the moment, shall we concider this conceptually, or rather, in the safer domain of those who want to get something out of this, i.e. see you happier and maybe understand a little soemthing themselves?
Re: once more for the sensualist/empirical chant
Date: 2003-08-18 11:24 am (UTC)Re: once more for the sensualist/empirical chant
Date: 2003-08-18 11:18 pm (UTC)It'll suck. But we'll know
no subject
Date: 2003-08-18 01:57 pm (UTC)your choice doesn't have to impact the human understanding of gender identity to be valid. your self-satisfaction is enough to make your choice, whatever it ends up being, a good one.