(no subject)

Found this online yesterday, and only just finished reading the 60+ pages today; surely a warning sign that I like it. It's a keen-o web comic that's not played for laughs, that to me, at least, contains such a brutal self-honesty as to make it almost painfully sweet and encouraging.

(no subject)

Almost a week ago (six days, to be exact), I found myself lying in bed, totally relaxed, but mind a-zoomin'. (This used to be a semiregular occurence, until I stumbled on to the semi-meditative aspects of hollowly affirmative, wish fulfillment fantasy world creation that sets my mind in the direction of sleep.) I'm not always a big fan of this sort of brain activity; at times I think I lack the trust to sit back and let my semi-unconscious go, and not worry about the intervening steps and what they might mean/connect to until it's gotten me to where it's determined to take me. I think I'm freakily paranoid about tracing the steps so as to be able to explain them to others, as I have a big problem, or at least I think I do, leading others along the path to my conclusions. And that brings me back to what I started to write about.

This time, I did sit back and watch, and saw the multiple threads of frustration (gender, mystic metaphor, interpersonal communication, insight-dependency, usw) weave together. The potential, partial truth that arose out of this was a unifying theme that I haven't quite managed to put into elegant words, but this is the best I can do for now. At the risk of sounding horribly self-aggrandizing, I see things that others don't seem to, or possibly in ways others don't seem to, and can't seem to explain them to others. I experience this disconnect all over the spectrum of interpersonal relations, with gender being just the most uncomfortable and persistent, possibly the area in which I find myself seemingly further afield from my experience of the experience of others.

So, if I'm to trust my own internal processes, that seems like the underlying thread to a lot of my issues with others. If that's so, what next?

Me and the trans community*

A friend made me aware of this a few days ago; it alleges to be the largest gathering of trans people anywhere, and for all I know, it may well be. With a slight sense of dread, and no small amount of curiousity, I checked out their schedule, and confirmed much of what I expected/feared.

I am worried that Delicious Deportment will be shockingly short on irony, that Masculinity/Femininity 101 will reinforce limited and sexist views about what is good and acceptable, that it's only ok for FTMs to want to be buff and/or toned (Getting Buff for FTMs), and I'm pretty sure I have little or no interest in being Welcome(d) to the Circle of Women, particularly by women(self defined, not bio-morpho-logically defined) for whom womanhood is so very important. It always strikes me as less-than-good when any minority limits itself or others, and this is only more pronounced as the minority group is closer to "my" concerns.

I've had bad luck in the past with trans groups. Because I don't go full on Donna Reed girly, but apparently blur lines at least a little, I'm usually taken as being a FTM by those present, and while that irony can amuse me, the attitudes that make such an assessment as common as it is both infuriates and alienates me. The ideas presented to me, both overtly and implicitly, have been that if I don't want to be a man: I must be a woman; that women are all extra femmey; that all women must like men; that all women should aspire to domesticity; that all women are, or should act, submissively; that I should want to get in touch with my nurturing, goddess-empowered self, ad nauseum. The one thing that's made most apparent is that, if I don't buy in to those ideas, I damned well better keep a low profile, or I'll fuck it up for the others who just want to be mainstreamed, at any price.

I get that there are, and should be, alternatives, but sometimes I get tired of the fight. Anyone who wants to pick it up, feel free, but it hurts too much, too often, to be rejected and made to feel unwelcome by those who should be offering support based on shared and/or similar experience. So, I tend to eschew such gatherings; I feel like I get enough pressure to conform from the gender-normative crowds, so to get it from the trans folk is often just too much.

And the irony is that I've been thinking more lately that I do want to try being a girl, at least for a while, but I don't think I can, or am willing, to do it on anyone else's terms.




*That is to say, me and what I've experienced of the trans community (as opposed to some trans-ish/-like individuals). Also, some of this experience is years and years out of date.