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___ vs ___
Jun. 18th, 2011 01:25 pmReally, this is about regimes of knowledge, particularly where they intersect with bodies, meaning and judgment.
The balancing act of endocrinological juggling is difficult for me, and on some level, deeply offensive. It would be difficult enough trying to balance what appears to be competing, if not somewhat exclusive, bodily pursuits just from a pragmatic perspective. In addition to that, it feels like I'm running up against embodied gender binaries, arbitrary rules that I find personally unforgiving, and frustratingly counter to some of the science of sex and gender.
There is a large and growing body of scientific work illustrating that humans are only roughly sexually dimorphic (I'd recommend Anne Fausto-Sterling's work for an entry into this; her footnotes are detailed and useful). There are very real people whose bodies do not match current models of sex and gender (even before factoring in the modern issue of phthalates in water supplies). I encountered these about the time my own sense of self was starting to chafe more and more at being shoved into one of two insufficient boxes. As I listened more to a very strident internal voice, a stronger sense of embodied self started to emerge.
Looking back on the unspoken assumptions and biases of my endocrine system tampering, it looks like I definitely favor(-ed?) that which my own body might produce, even with outside tampering, rather than the invasive/made/implanted. People would often ask me why I wouldn't just go under the knife rather than struggle with the side effects of hormones. Without really considering it, I definitely chose the Shaper side over the Mechanist (which would have surprised me back in the early 80s, but makes sense to me now). It's not "natural", per se, but maybe "natural-appearing" is enough; enough for what or whom, though?
There is definitely an aspect of defensibility to this, though that's not all of it by a long shot. A body with the contours resulting in growth, a body without surgical scarring, feels much more ding an sich, much more "of the moment" to me, for me (though I don't think I project that onto others; I often find the intentionally modified very compelling), than a constructed body. Constructed versus grown seems to be an important, unexamined contrast for me.
The uncomfortable truth seems to be that I cannot have a body that fully feels like mine, like whatever my inner sense of (constructed, albeit socially) self wants/needs/demands, without surgical intervention. Even if I were to throw down hard on the hormones and testosterone suppressors, I could get a slightly more feminine figure (apparently I've missed the breast gene everyone in both sides of my family has) but without the ability to perform sexually in the way I want to, in a way that's important to me. I know there's some cultural misogyny I'm tripping over, as well as the trickle down scorn (mainstream society>transsexuals>genderqueer>....>crossdresser/"pretender"), but I don't think that's all there is here, either. I'm not even factoring in fear of visibility and social/cultural cost; that's a whole different paralyzing thing. I don't know why I have such a problem with the idea of breast augmentation surgery for me, and not knowing troubles me, a lot.
The balancing act of endocrinological juggling is difficult for me, and on some level, deeply offensive. It would be difficult enough trying to balance what appears to be competing, if not somewhat exclusive, bodily pursuits just from a pragmatic perspective. In addition to that, it feels like I'm running up against embodied gender binaries, arbitrary rules that I find personally unforgiving, and frustratingly counter to some of the science of sex and gender.
There is a large and growing body of scientific work illustrating that humans are only roughly sexually dimorphic (I'd recommend Anne Fausto-Sterling's work for an entry into this; her footnotes are detailed and useful). There are very real people whose bodies do not match current models of sex and gender (even before factoring in the modern issue of phthalates in water supplies). I encountered these about the time my own sense of self was starting to chafe more and more at being shoved into one of two insufficient boxes. As I listened more to a very strident internal voice, a stronger sense of embodied self started to emerge.
Looking back on the unspoken assumptions and biases of my endocrine system tampering, it looks like I definitely favor(-ed?) that which my own body might produce, even with outside tampering, rather than the invasive/made/implanted. People would often ask me why I wouldn't just go under the knife rather than struggle with the side effects of hormones. Without really considering it, I definitely chose the Shaper side over the Mechanist (which would have surprised me back in the early 80s, but makes sense to me now). It's not "natural", per se, but maybe "natural-appearing" is enough; enough for what or whom, though?
There is definitely an aspect of defensibility to this, though that's not all of it by a long shot. A body with the contours resulting in growth, a body without surgical scarring, feels much more ding an sich, much more "of the moment" to me, for me (though I don't think I project that onto others; I often find the intentionally modified very compelling), than a constructed body. Constructed versus grown seems to be an important, unexamined contrast for me.
The uncomfortable truth seems to be that I cannot have a body that fully feels like mine, like whatever my inner sense of (constructed, albeit socially) self wants/needs/demands, without surgical intervention. Even if I were to throw down hard on the hormones and testosterone suppressors, I could get a slightly more feminine figure (apparently I've missed the breast gene everyone in both sides of my family has) but without the ability to perform sexually in the way I want to, in a way that's important to me. I know there's some cultural misogyny I'm tripping over, as well as the trickle down scorn (mainstream society>transsexuals>genderqueer>....>crossdresser/"pretender"), but I don't think that's all there is here, either. I'm not even factoring in fear of visibility and social/cultural cost; that's a whole different paralyzing thing. I don't know why I have such a problem with the idea of breast augmentation surgery for me, and not knowing troubles me, a lot.
