I identify as… someone who is growing to be less concerned with sex (meaning male or female) and more concerned about why certain gender roles exist and why people follow them.
I’m attracted to… someone who tries to break out of their gender box and live how they want. Someone who can accept that in other people and doesn’t let it bother them. Someone who challenges why they do what they do rather than go with the motions like everyone else. If we’re talking about physicality, then I love me some androgynous-looking people.
When people talk about me, I want them to… want to think about their own actions and feelings about gender in the same way that I do rather than just go “Ew, what a fucking gross hippie dyke.”
I want people to understand… that gender roles don’t make sense, and they don’t have to abide by them.
About Erica
I’m Erica. I’m not a transsexual. I am a female, and I’m just someone who doesn’t really understand gender roles.
I work at an aftercare with elementary children ages 5-12, and I don’t know how I would be able to explain everything to them, or how their parents would react to having a transgendered person taking care of their children. It’s a hard enough concept for my adult friends and family to grasp – how can I ask second graders for the same level of understanding?
Have you ever come out to a child or youth? If so, how did they take it as compared to an adult?
I love to paint my toenails. Most people think of me as a man. A lot of the time, I do too, because that’s just simpler, but the reality of it is certainly more complicated.
I also have a Hello Kitty lunchbox. It is pink. I bring it to work every day.
How do yousubvert gender norms on a day-to-day basis?
Li Yuchun won a vote-in contest called Super Girl in 2005 and was recognized as “proudly androgynous” and has having “boyish charm.” She’s been influential in ushering in a wave of gender ambiguity in popular Chinese culture.
Another gender non-conforming contest winner in the UK was singer Alex Parks who won Fame Academy in the UK in 2003.
Posted by XylophoneGender on February 18th, 2009 at 04:00 pm
So many people have such rigid, almost bureaucratic definitions of identity. Want to be called another name? Well, you’re going to have to get it legally changed, first. Want to be referred to by different pronouns? Get ‘the surgery’ first, then we’ll talk.
Well, I don’t know about them, but I don’t need anybody else to validate my identity.
How do you fight the “bureaucratic definitions of identity”?
I identify as… I’m my parents youngest son, but my brother’s little sister. On the street, address me as “mister.” My girlfriend’s boifriend and “one of the guys” with friends. But with other queers I’m a dyke-identified transguy.
As far as third-person pronouns go, … it depends on who’s using them. Generally I prefer male ones.
I’m attracted to… tomboys, androgynes, transboys, and femme men. But really all I care about is that a person can make me laugh.
When people talk about me, I want them to… focus on me as a whole, realizing that my gender is just a small part of the package.
I want people to understand… that my gender has little to do with my personality.
About Keegsey
I’m a seventeen year old college student working towards being a civil liberties lawyer. In my free time I play the guitar and bass, read history books, and search for my own Tegan Quin. I have a transition journal up at http://femtofuckyou.blogspot.com.
I hate discussing gender, I hate disseminating it, listing it out, cataloging it, verifying it and putting new spins on it. Gender is boring and complicated and tangly. I wish I was privileged enough to never have to think about it again.
I want to exist in a state of neutrality, crossing to male or female whenever I desire. Wearing female clothes on a female body feels too much like locking me to one gender over the other.
Do you exist in a state of neutrality? If not, how do you reconcile gendered clothing with your internal vision of yourself?
This user, Pica, has intro videos here and here leading up to this one which detail Pica’s journey through cis and trans spaces to find a label that rings true. Readers, do you have any wisdom regarding the pronunciation?
Posted by XylophoneGender on February 13th, 2009 at 04:00 pm
You may have noticed that each piece of content on this blog now has a line of text below it that says, “Posted by [name]”. You may have also noticed that “[name]” isn’t “Sarah” so much anymore. That’s because we’ve made this project self-sustaining with a team of seven — count em! SEVEN! — amazing volunteers who are offering their time and vision to help curate the content. I’ll formally introduce you to them soon.
But before I do that, I want to make sure we’re covering all our bases. We’ve got space for at least one more volunteer: a Profiles Curator. Profiles are the brilliant identity snapshots that we collect through the Define Yourself form and post here.
The job involves
receiving and organizing the submissions
deciding which ones to run
inputting them into our blogging system
lightly editing and formatting them
The work is probably an hour or two a week (although you can organize it differently — 5 hours a month in one sitting works, too). And I’ll tell you everything you need to know.
If you’re interested, please email me: sarah at genderfork com
It will help if you can tell me a little about yourself, give me links to your presence(s) elsewhere on the web, and tell me why you want to help. Also, since this is just a one-person job, if you’d be interested in helping in other ways please let me know that, too.
The work is creative and rewarding, and the team is really fun. We’re looking forward to building Genderfork with you!
Thanks and love,
Sarah
Edit: We got someone! Thanks! If you want to be on my radar for help with other stuff, though, you should still email me! xoxo
Posted by Sarah Dopp on February 13th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
