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May. 11th, 2007 08:47 pmI don’t like labels. This really isn’t new to anyone who’s known me for any length of time, and it’s certainly not new to me. I’m suspicious of people who claim label membership as one of the first identifying things about them. This may be unfair, but it’s there, and I’m aware of it.
And yet… I look at some affiliative labels with something like yearning, all the while knowing I can’t and won’t pay the price many (or even most) seem to pay to be able to wear them. I’ve worked hard to unkink who I am from all the constrictions I’ve encountered, and I’m really reluctant to start consciously doing that again. It would make the further unfurling efforts really difficult, but ultimately, it’s because I don’t want to. Most of my group yearning, I think, is a desire for groups to work differently, work better. I’d like people to be able and willing to come together in the service of a particular goal or concern as a coalition of individuals who don’t need to be folded, spindled or mutilated to conform to some group identity, but I also know that’s rarely going to happen.
So why do I still fight to hold a place for myself under the label of transgender? Because I do (on some blogs, in definitions to myself and others, but rarely in the company of other transgendered people because, well, I don’t do well in groups). My general answer is, “because where else can I go?” As far as that answer goes, I think it’s accurate, and under some of the looser definitions of transgdered, I certainly fit, but… theory: practice.
I think buried somewhere in my response is a pretty brutal realization; it’s scary to be definitionally isolated in a world that seems to be based on overlapping affiliative memberships. In a weird way, this ties in to my issues with language in general. Past a certain point, personal usage and customization effectively becomes a personal language, which isn’t all that distant from a personal Babel. But, even if it could be held back or in check, should self knowledge be sacrificed for intelligibility or social access?
This isn’t meant to be a whiny ‘oh poor me’ thing, but more an investigation of my own relationship to groups: the idea, the reality, the promise, protection and the costs. Obviously, I don’t have an answer. I often get suggestions to connect at the points of similarity, and that’s good advice, but I have issues when the points of similarity also contain within them points of such radical dissimilarity that, taken on their own, would be antithetical to membership. I’m a wrapped package of conflict with a pretty bow.
And yet… I look at some affiliative labels with something like yearning, all the while knowing I can’t and won’t pay the price many (or even most) seem to pay to be able to wear them. I’ve worked hard to unkink who I am from all the constrictions I’ve encountered, and I’m really reluctant to start consciously doing that again. It would make the further unfurling efforts really difficult, but ultimately, it’s because I don’t want to. Most of my group yearning, I think, is a desire for groups to work differently, work better. I’d like people to be able and willing to come together in the service of a particular goal or concern as a coalition of individuals who don’t need to be folded, spindled or mutilated to conform to some group identity, but I also know that’s rarely going to happen.
So why do I still fight to hold a place for myself under the label of transgender? Because I do (on some blogs, in definitions to myself and others, but rarely in the company of other transgendered people because, well, I don’t do well in groups). My general answer is, “because where else can I go?” As far as that answer goes, I think it’s accurate, and under some of the looser definitions of transgdered, I certainly fit, but… theory: practice.
I think buried somewhere in my response is a pretty brutal realization; it’s scary to be definitionally isolated in a world that seems to be based on overlapping affiliative memberships. In a weird way, this ties in to my issues with language in general. Past a certain point, personal usage and customization effectively becomes a personal language, which isn’t all that distant from a personal Babel. But, even if it could be held back or in check, should self knowledge be sacrificed for intelligibility or social access?
This isn’t meant to be a whiny ‘oh poor me’ thing, but more an investigation of my own relationship to groups: the idea, the reality, the promise, protection and the costs. Obviously, I don’t have an answer. I often get suggestions to connect at the points of similarity, and that’s good advice, but I have issues when the points of similarity also contain within them points of such radical dissimilarity that, taken on their own, would be antithetical to membership. I’m a wrapped package of conflict with a pretty bow.
