Jessica wrote in a comment regarding Quid Pro Quo: “In recent national political action, “gender non-conformity,” which I had always assumed to be a synonym for “transgender” has been claimed as part of “all things associated” with homosexuality.”
I never thought of “gender-non-conformity” as a synonym for transgender or for homosexuality.
I’ve never thought of myself as much of a conformist in much of anything. Raised Catholic, I became atheist. In spite of forced indoctrination I never became very masculine. And in spite of the expectations laid on someone who was a pretty as I was when I came out I never valued the expectaitions of femininity all that much.
I resisted the working class idea of striving to emulate the stereotype of middle class in favor of hippie/bohemian culture.
I see so many of these expected roles as being selling points aimed at attacking my insecurities.
Many years ago, a few months after I had SRS I was in the Macy’s in San Francisco buying some make-up. A very attractive hippie guy whispered to me as he walked past, “Buying make-up won’t give you better orgasms.” I shot back, “Buying make-up is my orgasm.”
I was a model at the time at the time and starting to be interested in photography. I thought a lot about what he said. I stopped spending so much on clothes and make-up and bought a Nikon and lenses instead.
Along the way I kind of abandoned the whole glamour bit and came out as a lesbian feminist.
I can cook. I can play guitar, I can paint both rooms and pictures. Look good when the occasion calls for looking good and I used to change the oil in my car before the EPA and design of cars made that one difficult for end users.
I have a WBT partner but I have had male partners in the past. I used to own a black leather jacket with many zippers and have many piercings in my ears.
I have tats and cats. I’m a left wing anarcha-feminist in Texas.
I think conformity of any sort is highly over rated.
As for what the guy said about buying make-up wouldn’t give me better orgasms.. He was right. Make-up failed miserably when it came to getting orgasms. The Hitachi Magic Wand was a hell of a lot better purchase for that desired end. Along with the lessons in self-pleasuring I got from the consciousness raising group I was in at the Women’s Building
I’m reading Phyllis Burke’s Gender Shock. The psych establishment condones torture of children to prevent gender non-conformity, something I consider important in being a whole self actualized human being so a lot of special elite interests seem to have a whole lot invested in keeping the artifice of the social constructs of gender in place.
07/26/2009 at 7:33 pm
It is difficult to work out one’s thinking–certainly my own–without trying it with those who have also lived and thought–rather rare in the areas we are speaking about.
For the longest time I could not think my way through the haze of transsexual and transgender. I simply cannot think that transgender is the foundation–rather like having surgery in the way one puts on a dress or wears makeup.
Writing about the national political action that speaks about “gender non-conformity” helped clarify for me that gender non-conformity is not the foundation of transsexualism–as many argue–rather the relationship is reversed.
Transsex people, like cissex people, can both be transgender–that is gender non-conforming–or can be gender conforming–that is, not transgender. As well as gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual or asexual, about in the same proportions.
In the advocacy I work at, I’m still working out a “true voice,” in response, often, to the arguments of others–whether ally or opponent.
07/27/2009 at 7:17 am
The idea that transgender is gender non-conforming is a fraud.
Transgender makes conforming to a social role the basis for being considered man or woman and hegemonically claims anyone who deviates from the sex role stereotypes.
Transgender reinforces stereotyping by using it as a basis for being considered a man or a woman. That is what makes the theory behind transgender so reactionary and conservative.
Men are adult males/women are adult females. Behavior has nothing to do with it.
Transgender as ideology has risen in direct ratio to the reactionary anti-feminism of the Reagan/Thatcher era. The expectations of masculinity in men and femininity in women make women less than human and cannon fodder of men.