Exhausting

Someone wrote…

Gender can be exhausting when you feel like you have to have it turned on all the time as a gender diverse person.

Sometimes I can’t be bothered making myself look feminine even though I feel like androgynous because I’m too lazy to shave. But then I can’t blame anyone else when people don’t see past my male physiology.

What’s your experience?

And what are you thinking about gender right now?


Posted by on March 11th, 2013 at 08:00 am

Category: your voice 11 comments »

11 Responses to “Exhausting”

  1. Lynn

    Same.

    [Reply]

  2. Taylor

    i highly recommend laser/electrolysis facial hair removal if you are male bodied and androgynous/gender fluid =)

    it will make you look one thousand times more androgynous, plus once you get a few treatments you will have an incentive to shave since your beard will look patchy and weird if you don’t..

    [Reply]

    Anonymous replied:

    Seconded; if you can afford it — it’s not cheap, but probably the most satisfying one-two thousand dollars I’ve spent so far…

    [Reply]

  3. MxSer

    I feel so similar!
    Sometimes when I’ve not shaved and am just in comfortable slobby clothes, I get worried that people will think I’m “over” the whole non-binary thing and it was just a phase, which is as far from the truth as you could be.

    I’ll probably get laser some day, but only once I have a stable job tied down to pay for it!

    [Reply]

  4. Lynn

    When I was first coming out of the closet and trying to figure out how to be trans I awkwardly asked one of my transfriends “Hey, do you think it’s okay for me to be a woman AND have a beard?”. “OF COURSE!!” he replied. I wish everyone could see it that way because the only reason I don’t like my facial hair is because people associate it with maleness. If I were to shave every day to fulfill people’s ideas of what a woman is, I would go crazy. Being trans is not about conforming!

    [Reply]

    radical/rebel replied:

    thanks for your awesome comment! I agree! “being trans is not about conforming!” word!

    [Reply]

  5. Clare

    Dont beat yourself up – that is what it is to be TRANSgender!

    [Reply]

  6. syd

    Yes! In general sometimes I get very tired of the need to appear androgynously to be taken seriously as androgynous/queer. In queer circles even we all know gender is performance, how can it still be such a weight sometimes! I actually was writing some thoughts here (http://welladjustedqueerkids.tumblr.com), so I’ll just point anyone still reading there.

    [Reply]

  7. kessanra

    Ok if you are going out in public with beard and female clothing. I honestly think its bad taist. Lounging around the house all your choice. So think about it this way whenyou are out dressing full fem, if your passable or not you want people to take you seriously and give you a reasonable level respect. But there are several level of transgender. You have cd’s, cd performers aka drag queens, cd’s who dress for sexual excitement aka transvestites, and you have the gender wrong ware the body does not match the soul transsexual. I fall in the last category. And will be starting transition soon. I personally think if you go out sporting beard and female clothing. you make it harder for the heteros to take the rest of us seriously. Take from this what you will. I know not every one is passable but I love my sisters none the less. Even though it is indirect our actions do impact others.

    Kessandra Burton

    [Reply]

  8. Bloed en Melk

    For me, gender is not performance. Gender is the way I feel, breath, think, function. Gender simply runs through my veins.

    I am not a woman nor a man, at the same time I am both. I am somewhere in the middle and call myself genderfluid, genderqueer, androgynous, and can give myself more labels if I would want to.
    Born with a female body, I hardly ever wear typical female clothing. You will not see me in a dress, as it simply doesn’t feel like me. I feel awful in it. Still, I have feminine long hair, as I think it suits me better.

    Yes, I have struggled with the way ‘I should look like’ to the outside world, be it cisgendered people or transgendered people. How can I be seen as genderqueer if my breasts are obviously there and I have long hair? Shouldn’t I bind them? Shouldn’t I cut my hair?
    But I came to the personal conclusion that being taken seriously as genderqueer is nót in my clothing, breasts or my hair. I do not have to prove anything by performance. I just want to be myself. And being myself means that I have to take my sélf seriously, and do not depend on other people’s judgements or expectations. Having breasts and long hair does not make me feel less masculine or more feminine.

    I know it causes confusion to some people I come out to. But the confusion is theirs, not mine. All my best friends know I am genderfluid, and they see me as a person, not as a gender. For me, that is freedom. They all do take me very seriously. For me, it would be insane to change the way I look so to meet other people’s expectations. No matter if they are cisgendered or transgendered.
    Like Lynn said beautifully: “Being trans is not about conforming.”

    There’s this person working in the supermarket nearby. (S)he is very feminine, wears very feminine clothes, make-up, nail polish and so on. At he same time, (s)he almost always has a beard. I love it. Absolutely love it. To me that’s not bad taste. To me, this person is very true to his/her authentic self.

    For me, the ideal world would be one in which we could all be authentic. In which such judgements of ‘how we should look or act’ no longer exist. That’s what I stand for. Not for an image.

    As long as you are not hurting others, just be you.

    [Reply]

  9. Anonymous

    Yeah, gotta say…From a perspective having a body which does different stuff…I have really fuzzy, curly, long hair, which usually helps me disguise my facial structure which tends to get me read as female, (I pass too easily as female and usually aim for male, hoping to hit androgyny)…Some days it is just too hot, humid, etc…and I am too tired, so I pile the stuff up on top of my head with a hair band. Definitely gets me read as female, but at a certain point, it’s all about pragmatic living. I tend to be of the perspective that gender aesthetics can be fun to work with–it’s awesome to look your best, whatever you want that to look like–but like all aesthetic appearance, what’s in your heart counts more. If you look a little more one way or the other because that’s what your body’s doing that day, I don’t think that is in bad taste; I think that is being human.

    [Reply]


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