Pick One
Submitted by Sarah, the model and photographer.
“To feel the pressure to choose and not want to. We don’t all need to be defined.
Things are never just black and white. Personally, I’m rather fond of grey.”
Posted by omggeek on February 22nd, 2011 at 10:00 am
Category: faces 9 comments »
February 22nd, 2011 at 10:28 am |
Colours are good, too. All the shades get left out of a binary world, compressing the reality to open or closed bits. Of course, that which is not digital is analog. How weird that an analog (noun) is a person comparable to another, while analog (adjective) is “relating to or using signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quality.”
I am a very analog person but not a close analog of anyone else.
[Reply]
February 22nd, 2011 at 12:39 pm |
Beautiful! Your words and your presentations. Both are just beautiful.
[Reply]
February 22nd, 2011 at 2:48 pm |
Your picture and caption reminded me of this:
“Just Pick One”
They ask
Who are you?
I respond
Why does it matter?
Because we don’t know
Why does that matter?
But why can’t you
Just pick one?
Why does it matter?
I ask again
Now I want to know
How do you feel about that?
How will you react when
I tell you
I will not just pick one?
There are so
Many options
Many words
Many labels
Many names
I will not be confined
By a word
Or even a few
Just so you can feel
Comfortable
I will not
I repeat
Will not
Just pick one
-October 2, 2009
(p.s. I couldn’t preserve the formatting of the poem in the comment box)
[Reply]
February 22nd, 2011 at 4:11 pm |
Trans Identity
A lot of people will take you to task
For taking their label in vain
Will really be offended, will really want to rip you
For not conforming the right way.
It’s a funny thing that the folks with
The biggest commitment to nonconformity
Get the most upset, say the cruelest things
It doesn’t bother them a bit.
But it bothers me so much to be disrespected
So much by people I respect
It harms me, it makes me want to doubt
Everything I have fought so hard to learn.
And it doesn’t help any at all in any way
To have this wall of false intimacy between you
Never meeting the people who dis you, never really
Seeing the place from which they want to move your world.
Get off me and take your anger elsewhere
Whether it was justified or not, whether it was meant to help or not
When you get to be me, in my life, in my way
You’ll understand the way I disagree with you.
Until that happens, I am afraid we’ll have to disagree
We’ll stay apart, alone, separate, each in our own world
We will leave unsaid what doesn’t matter, what won’t change
Who I think you are or who you think I am.
Jessica MacGilvray 2011
[Reply]
February 22nd, 2011 at 4:45 pm |
I totally feel like that right now. It’s like identifying as genderqueer isn’t enough for some people. They want more – a “stronger” indentity, if you will. And some people are so overwhelmed by it and deny it’s existance. Plus I never know what to put on forms and the likes. All this makes me feel like I should choose one, as that’s what society wants me to do. If I’m perfectly honest, though, I’m not sure I can. So right now I’m trying to get people to accept it and am happy living as me. :)
[Reply]
Popin replied:
February 22nd, 2011 at 4:47 pm
I just realised I phrases that badly and it sounded a little offensive. By “some people” I mean binary people, not other genderqueers.
[Reply]
February 22nd, 2011 at 8:43 pm |
Grey is my favorite color!…. well, that and purple XD
[Reply]
February 28th, 2011 at 3:33 am |
Very nicely done. :)
Chalk me up as one of the masses who spent a rather long, very stressful period trying to find a label that fit right, so that I would FIT, and could identify myself in a way that other people would nod and say “Yes, I understand, this person is THIS”, because I felt that that was what was required of me, to be able to slot neatly into society and have a clearly defined identity.
And then I realised that I didn’t need to. (Getting other people to understand that is a bit harder, but at least I know where MY head is at.)
And I must say I love those poems some of the other commenters posted. :D
[Reply]
February 28th, 2011 at 7:25 pm |
Sarah, let it be known that whatever shade you choose, you are a beautiful being worthy of respect and admiration of your peers. I pray to whichever powers that may or may not be that one day we as a society stop requiring answers from everyone on gender and the lot. Until then, i hope you can hold your head high know ing that you are ahead of the curve ^.^
[Reply]