Every day something different.
Someone wrote…
It’s only been recently that I’ve realized my androgyny and decided to act upon on. But it’s so hard to figure out how to act. I’m not a girl who wants to look like a man. I’m someone who wants to wear collared shirts and loose pants and boxers and earrings and makeup and dresses and skirts with cute flowery prints. I want the streamlined male body one day and love my curves the next. How do you explain what you are to someone when every day you wake up something different, when you cannot explain who you are to yourself?
How do you explain this to people who are firmer, or stuck, in their gender presentation?
Posted by julian on March 16th, 2009 at 08:00 am
Category: your voice 5 comments »
March 16th, 2009 at 2:34 pm |
I think of my many selves as costumes. Since I was a child I have been a gypsy one day, a dandy the next, a girl one day, a boy the next. Most people seem to understand when I tell them every day is playing dress-up for me.
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March 16th, 2009 at 5:11 pm |
i like that way of looking at it, Alaina
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March 16th, 2009 at 6:36 pm |
I feel this way exactly.
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March 16th, 2009 at 8:47 pm |
This rings so true. I sorta let people pick their own label, if they feel they need one.
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March 17th, 2009 at 9:13 am |
I’m fortunate in that the people that I care about (my boss, my family, my friends) never ask me to explain myself.
For strangers, I simply pretend that I am wearing nothing at all unusual, and react as if they were asking about me wearing a t-shirt and jeans or something. So I remember one lady at WalMart asking me if I was dressed up for Halloween, and I gave her a puzzled look and gently reminded her that Halloween wouldn’t be until the _end_ of the month, remember?
I think that people who are genuinely curious and respectful do have the right to engage me in a discussion (if I’m not in a huge hurry), but I think that most of the time these people will realize that there’s nothing to ask. “Why do you dress like that?” really means, if you give it any thought, “Why don’t you dress the way I want you to?”, and if someone is being respectful then they realize that they don’t really mean to be asking _that_.
For what it’s worth, I’m a big cis-gendered guy. Your mileage may vary.
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