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Questions for which I pay
Apr. 6th, 2003 02:19 pmHWiPfI asked me this week, "What's the end goal of the changes you're making?" I didn't have an answer, which is a little unnerving for me; I like to think things out, to have an idea of the end result (usually, so I c an rush there with angel-frightening abandon). The best I could come up with on the spot was, "I'm not sure, but I think I'll know it when I get there."
This, coupled with my "passing" issues, led to the question of, "It sounds like you want to be able to pass either way, as it suits you, yet you may be heading in a direction in which you won't be able to pass as either?" That's bluntly put, but I guess that's part of that for which he's paid. It also only serves to underscore my problems with the whole stupid, yet occasionally attractive, idea of "passing" altogether. Ideally/theoretically, it just shouldn't matter, but it's my under5standing/concern/fear that it very much does, not only for most everyone else, but because of that (as well as some possible internalization), it does for me, as well. Were I in charge of reality, or at least in charge of that aspect in which it intersects with me, I'd be able to pass precisely as much or as little as I'd like, yet with no intentional shift in persona (the idea being that, by having a fuller pallete of expression, I'd be more me all the time). Alas, I don't know that this is even remotely possible (physical reality is my nemesis lately). As another point, if it were, would it be a good thing, or only reinforcement of that which I so loudly and often decry, the "continuum of gender"?
I've been thinking a lot about the first question since Friday, and thus far, the most honest answer I can come up with is, "I want more of what is traditionally assigned the 'feminine' label, but I don't know how much of it I want, yet." Of course, I'm not willing to only be able to purchase that at the expense of sacrificing the parts of that which is traditionally assigned the 'masculine' label that I find meritorious; to do that would only be reinforcing an artificial bifurcation of reality, in my opinion. (Already I can anticipate the argument, "But you can't have both; you have to sacrifice (the mythic) male privelege first". To that, I have a resoundig and heartfelt "Fuck you". I find the assumption that my life is easier so long as I pass in a role/persona that I hate offensive, compounded by the looming reality that as I come to be more myself, I can look forward to more overt disrimination than any "natural" woman I know)
This, coupled with my "passing" issues, led to the question of, "It sounds like you want to be able to pass either way, as it suits you, yet you may be heading in a direction in which you won't be able to pass as either?" That's bluntly put, but I guess that's part of that for which he's paid. It also only serves to underscore my problems with the whole stupid, yet occasionally attractive, idea of "passing" altogether. Ideally/theoretically, it just shouldn't matter, but it's my under5standing/concern/fear that it very much does, not only for most everyone else, but because of that (as well as some possible internalization), it does for me, as well. Were I in charge of reality, or at least in charge of that aspect in which it intersects with me, I'd be able to pass precisely as much or as little as I'd like, yet with no intentional shift in persona (the idea being that, by having a fuller pallete of expression, I'd be more me all the time). Alas, I don't know that this is even remotely possible (physical reality is my nemesis lately). As another point, if it were, would it be a good thing, or only reinforcement of that which I so loudly and often decry, the "continuum of gender"?
I've been thinking a lot about the first question since Friday, and thus far, the most honest answer I can come up with is, "I want more of what is traditionally assigned the 'feminine' label, but I don't know how much of it I want, yet." Of course, I'm not willing to only be able to purchase that at the expense of sacrificing the parts of that which is traditionally assigned the 'masculine' label that I find meritorious; to do that would only be reinforcing an artificial bifurcation of reality, in my opinion. (Already I can anticipate the argument, "But you can't have both; you have to sacrifice (the mythic) male privelege first". To that, I have a resoundig and heartfelt "Fuck you". I find the assumption that my life is easier so long as I pass in a role/persona that I hate offensive, compounded by the looming reality that as I come to be more myself, I can look forward to more overt disrimination than any "natural" woman I know)
