I wasn't going to write anything about National Coming Out Day, because I've always found myself fairly ambivalent about the whole thing. Then I read this post over at Black Girl Dangerous, which is a really fabulous tumblr filled with radical politics, particularly the kind that's of interest to queer and trans* people of colour. I often find the writing there challenging and inspiring and difficult and brilliant, and this piece is no different.
Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts
Saturday, 13 October 2012
Monday, 24 September 2012
Studying Trauma
Reading this post from Chally over at Zero at the Bone made me think about some of my own harrowing university experiences. In the final year of my undergraduate degree I took a module called Holocaust Fiction. I don't know how anyone else in my class dealt with it - I was hardly in a place to make friends with them - but for me the module might as well have been called 'How to make yourself cry every day for 3 months'.
I am half Jewish on my dad's side, and my paternal grandparents are both Holocaust survivors. My grandma, who came to England from Vienna on one of the last Kindertransport missions in 1939, had died a few weeks before her 82nd birthday, two months before I began studying Holocaust fiction.
Now, you might think that I made a spectacularly bad decision in choosing to study Holocaust fiction at this time. And it was a spectacularly awful experience. But I had chosen my modules months before this point, and anyway, I was never interested in making life easy for myself. I knew Holocaust Fiction wouldn't be an easy module, emotionally, but I also already knew what makes me tick when it comes to literature. I chose my modules because I'm interested in grey areas, and in how history is made - how we create narratives of our pasts, both individual and collective. I adored Writing America in my second year, which focused on how writers play with America's various creation myths, exploring themes of identity, personhood, freedom, community and the 'American Dream'. Many of my second year modules and all of my third year modules (with the exception of Detective Fiction which I took for pure fun) explored similar themes, looking at ideas of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality and identity. Being part Jewish, and interested in the idea of Jewish identity itself, Holocaust Fiction seemed like an obvious choice for me.
So I spent the classes themselves in muscle-clenched, jaw-locked, tight-throated agony, and my individual study time in gasping, tear-drenched misery, trying to numb myself with whiskey and forcing myself to keep reading.
I think it's pretty clear that Holocaust Fiction came at exactly the wrong moment for me. It got tangled up in my grieving for my grandma, and it was unremittingly awful. I hated every second of it, and when I wasn't caught up in hating it, I was panicking over the knowledge that I was screwing up my final year of university. I suffered a punishing few months, berating myself constantly for my weakness whilst simultaneously hating myself for appropriating a trauma that I felt didn't belong to me. I couldn't properly articulate the cruel, nasty mixture of pains to anyone who asked me about it, or indeed myself. The module tutor tried to be kind when I went to him in desperation to ask what I should do. I couldn't complete the work; not even the reading, let alone the writing. When I did manage to write something it felt like it was being ripped out of my flesh word by word, letter by letter. I had no idea if it was any good or if it was even acceptable. I couldn't read it back to myself to check. I couldn't show it to anyone because I was so embarrassed. I threw myself into my other modules, obsessively drafting and redrafting my Detective Fiction work until it was perfect. I took it to a study advisor - something I had never done before and that I had no need of at that point - because I was so committed to dedicating all my time to that essay, mostly so that no part of my brain was ever free to drift to Holocaust Fiction and 'All Holocaust fiction revolves around issues of authority and entitlement. Discuss.'
That was my essay title, and in the end, it was one of the best things I had ever written, which seemed to surprise nobody but me. My personal tutor, a brilliant, terrifying woman, explained patiently to me how emotional investment in a topic can be a gift as often as it is a curse, forcing a deeper connection with and a more rigorous examination of the issues at hand. Of course that's not always fun. Even if your emotional investment isn't bound up in trauma, the thing about emotions is that there is always the potential for pain. Say you're deeply in love with the idea of family as it is portrayed in one novel, and while you research for your essay you discover that that notion of family is a really bad idea - or that you've misunderstood, and the portrayal is not what you thought it was. If you're truly invested in that notion of family, even in a 'happy' or positive way, there is potential for pain when rigorous academic study reveals some other ideas.
If your emotional investment in a topic is complicated and painful, particularly if it tugs at the strands of your own identity (which is very likely) the potential for pain is that much greater. You don't have the emotional distance to take a discovery 'academically' as it were: you can only receive it in your heart, and you've no defences against what that might do to you.
Personally, I'm wondering whether an emotional investment can ever be truly uncomplicated; if it can ever be unpicked from your identity. Generally if I'm deeply invested in something, there are good reasons for it: I feel that it impacts on me in some way. As such, I'm far more likely to be deeply affected by criticism of / engagement with the issues, since they will be personal. If I read a book about queer identities, I am going to be more involved, more critical, more forgiving and more emotional than if I'm reading a book about 19c bridges. Bridges are interesting. But nothing I read about a bridge can make me question the core of myself. For some people, a bridge might make them question the core of themselves. Perhaps if their mother was the one who built the bridge. Or if that bridge leads to their home town. Maybe the bridge connects them with their lover. Any of those things could make you emotionally invested in bridges, and perhaps if you read a book about them and discovered something you didn't know, or something you did know but are in denial about, or simply found that other people see bridges totally differently from how you see bridges - see, there's the pain. Can you be simply, happily invested in something? I don't think so. You can enjoy something simply and happily. But investment is different. There can be joy in it, but the joy is tenuous. Ephemeral. Perilous.
You know how you can be flying high, loving everything in the world, enjoying the cracks in the pavement and the weeds and how the road stretches out tantalising before you, and then someone looks at you or says something or you see an advert or hear a line from a song, and everything tumbles down around you and you're just standing there bemused in the dark - that's emotional investment. You're invested in that moment - enjoying it, yes, but almost too much, almost like you're dependent on it - so when it is compromised it takes everything with it. The joy and the hope and the bright.
That's what it's like to study something you are invested in. It can be beautiful and validating and joyful, but there's always a lurking shadow that can tip you into the black before you know what's happened. In a way that experience is tremendously valuable, but it can also be painful and traumatic in its own right, perhaps adding to trauma you're already carrying. For myself, a lot of the pain came from a feeling of fraudulence: alongside feeling miserable about the issue itself, I was also feeling guilty about feeling miserable, which is down to the nebulous issues of Jewish identity and Holocaust guilt. This kind of double bind could just as easily be related to LGBT identity, racial identity, religious identity etc. It's rather like walking a tightrope, and the tightrope might be that much thinner if your connection to that part of your identity is unstable to start with. If you identify 100% as gay, for example, and you're happy and secure in that identity, then reading an argument that homosexuality is unnatural will almost certainly make you feel anger, sadness or despair. Or it could make you feel superiority to the person who espouses such antiquated, wrongheaded views. Or pity for them. Or a combination of the above. Your emotional reaction might be complicated, sure. But it probably won't be compromised by the little voice which asks you if you've any right to feel that way - if you're gay enough to feel legitimately insulted, if you're gay enough to feel angry about those opinions. I'm not saying that it's any easier to feel that way. Just that it's different, and having experienced both I can see the added layer of complexity that I personally struggle with when it's my ambiguous, unstable identity that is on the line.
I still wouldn't argue against pursuing studies of your personal trauma sites. For some people - for me, I think - it can be useful. Educational, enlightening, possibly even healing. It's an interesting thing to look back on. And despite the misery and the struggle, I'm not sure I would change my experience of it. But perhaps next time I will go into it with my eyes open. Perhaps next time it will be easier.
I am half Jewish on my dad's side, and my paternal grandparents are both Holocaust survivors. My grandma, who came to England from Vienna on one of the last Kindertransport missions in 1939, had died a few weeks before her 82nd birthday, two months before I began studying Holocaust fiction.
Now, you might think that I made a spectacularly bad decision in choosing to study Holocaust fiction at this time. And it was a spectacularly awful experience. But I had chosen my modules months before this point, and anyway, I was never interested in making life easy for myself. I knew Holocaust Fiction wouldn't be an easy module, emotionally, but I also already knew what makes me tick when it comes to literature. I chose my modules because I'm interested in grey areas, and in how history is made - how we create narratives of our pasts, both individual and collective. I adored Writing America in my second year, which focused on how writers play with America's various creation myths, exploring themes of identity, personhood, freedom, community and the 'American Dream'. Many of my second year modules and all of my third year modules (with the exception of Detective Fiction which I took for pure fun) explored similar themes, looking at ideas of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality and identity. Being part Jewish, and interested in the idea of Jewish identity itself, Holocaust Fiction seemed like an obvious choice for me.
So I spent the classes themselves in muscle-clenched, jaw-locked, tight-throated agony, and my individual study time in gasping, tear-drenched misery, trying to numb myself with whiskey and forcing myself to keep reading.
I think it's pretty clear that Holocaust Fiction came at exactly the wrong moment for me. It got tangled up in my grieving for my grandma, and it was unremittingly awful. I hated every second of it, and when I wasn't caught up in hating it, I was panicking over the knowledge that I was screwing up my final year of university. I suffered a punishing few months, berating myself constantly for my weakness whilst simultaneously hating myself for appropriating a trauma that I felt didn't belong to me. I couldn't properly articulate the cruel, nasty mixture of pains to anyone who asked me about it, or indeed myself. The module tutor tried to be kind when I went to him in desperation to ask what I should do. I couldn't complete the work; not even the reading, let alone the writing. When I did manage to write something it felt like it was being ripped out of my flesh word by word, letter by letter. I had no idea if it was any good or if it was even acceptable. I couldn't read it back to myself to check. I couldn't show it to anyone because I was so embarrassed. I threw myself into my other modules, obsessively drafting and redrafting my Detective Fiction work until it was perfect. I took it to a study advisor - something I had never done before and that I had no need of at that point - because I was so committed to dedicating all my time to that essay, mostly so that no part of my brain was ever free to drift to Holocaust Fiction and 'All Holocaust fiction revolves around issues of authority and entitlement. Discuss.'
That was my essay title, and in the end, it was one of the best things I had ever written, which seemed to surprise nobody but me. My personal tutor, a brilliant, terrifying woman, explained patiently to me how emotional investment in a topic can be a gift as often as it is a curse, forcing a deeper connection with and a more rigorous examination of the issues at hand. Of course that's not always fun. Even if your emotional investment isn't bound up in trauma, the thing about emotions is that there is always the potential for pain. Say you're deeply in love with the idea of family as it is portrayed in one novel, and while you research for your essay you discover that that notion of family is a really bad idea - or that you've misunderstood, and the portrayal is not what you thought it was. If you're truly invested in that notion of family, even in a 'happy' or positive way, there is potential for pain when rigorous academic study reveals some other ideas.
If your emotional investment in a topic is complicated and painful, particularly if it tugs at the strands of your own identity (which is very likely) the potential for pain is that much greater. You don't have the emotional distance to take a discovery 'academically' as it were: you can only receive it in your heart, and you've no defences against what that might do to you.
Personally, I'm wondering whether an emotional investment can ever be truly uncomplicated; if it can ever be unpicked from your identity. Generally if I'm deeply invested in something, there are good reasons for it: I feel that it impacts on me in some way. As such, I'm far more likely to be deeply affected by criticism of / engagement with the issues, since they will be personal. If I read a book about queer identities, I am going to be more involved, more critical, more forgiving and more emotional than if I'm reading a book about 19c bridges. Bridges are interesting. But nothing I read about a bridge can make me question the core of myself. For some people, a bridge might make them question the core of themselves. Perhaps if their mother was the one who built the bridge. Or if that bridge leads to their home town. Maybe the bridge connects them with their lover. Any of those things could make you emotionally invested in bridges, and perhaps if you read a book about them and discovered something you didn't know, or something you did know but are in denial about, or simply found that other people see bridges totally differently from how you see bridges - see, there's the pain. Can you be simply, happily invested in something? I don't think so. You can enjoy something simply and happily. But investment is different. There can be joy in it, but the joy is tenuous. Ephemeral. Perilous.
You know how you can be flying high, loving everything in the world, enjoying the cracks in the pavement and the weeds and how the road stretches out tantalising before you, and then someone looks at you or says something or you see an advert or hear a line from a song, and everything tumbles down around you and you're just standing there bemused in the dark - that's emotional investment. You're invested in that moment - enjoying it, yes, but almost too much, almost like you're dependent on it - so when it is compromised it takes everything with it. The joy and the hope and the bright.
That's what it's like to study something you are invested in. It can be beautiful and validating and joyful, but there's always a lurking shadow that can tip you into the black before you know what's happened. In a way that experience is tremendously valuable, but it can also be painful and traumatic in its own right, perhaps adding to trauma you're already carrying. For myself, a lot of the pain came from a feeling of fraudulence: alongside feeling miserable about the issue itself, I was also feeling guilty about feeling miserable, which is down to the nebulous issues of Jewish identity and Holocaust guilt. This kind of double bind could just as easily be related to LGBT identity, racial identity, religious identity etc. It's rather like walking a tightrope, and the tightrope might be that much thinner if your connection to that part of your identity is unstable to start with. If you identify 100% as gay, for example, and you're happy and secure in that identity, then reading an argument that homosexuality is unnatural will almost certainly make you feel anger, sadness or despair. Or it could make you feel superiority to the person who espouses such antiquated, wrongheaded views. Or pity for them. Or a combination of the above. Your emotional reaction might be complicated, sure. But it probably won't be compromised by the little voice which asks you if you've any right to feel that way - if you're gay enough to feel legitimately insulted, if you're gay enough to feel angry about those opinions. I'm not saying that it's any easier to feel that way. Just that it's different, and having experienced both I can see the added layer of complexity that I personally struggle with when it's my ambiguous, unstable identity that is on the line.
I still wouldn't argue against pursuing studies of your personal trauma sites. For some people - for me, I think - it can be useful. Educational, enlightening, possibly even healing. It's an interesting thing to look back on. And despite the misery and the struggle, I'm not sure I would change my experience of it. But perhaps next time I will go into it with my eyes open. Perhaps next time it will be easier.
Saturday, 28 April 2012
Female-Bodied
Today I have such dreadful cramps that when I get up out of my chair, I make an involuntary sound of pain. That's pretty pathetic, right? But I'm not going to talk about how pathetic I am - not today. I'm going to talk about what my body means to me.
As a confusedly-gendered person, I spend a lot of time in conflict with my body. Sometimes I hate my breasts, which no amount of binding would disguise, even if binding wasn't so preposterously uncomfortable that I never even made it out of the house whilst sporting it. Sometimes I hate my hips, which are pretty unhappy about fitting into boy-trousers. Sometimes I hate my legs, which remain uncompromisingly short, and which ensure that I have never worn a pair of trousers that I haven't had to shorten, regardless of what gender they're intended for. And yes, sometimes I have hated my periods, hated them to the point of tears. I'm not going to claim that my hatred wasn't gender-related. In a way, how could it not be? In a culture where schoolgirls are shamed for having tampons or pads in their bags, where grown men as well as schoolboys make jokes about PMS and have gross-out competitions about period-sex, where many non-period-having humans genuinely believe that menstruation makes one "crazy", how can I be sure that my resentment of my periods was divorced from that sexist nonsense? I'm sure that it affected me on some level: one can't grow up steeped in misogyny and expect to emerge unscathed.
However, for the most part, my period-hatred was to do with the inconvenience of it all. I was never the girl who belonged in a Lil-Lets advert, dancing around joyfully with nary a rusty stain in sight. I was the girl whose periods were wilfully irregular, turning up at random with no warning seemingly just to toy with me, bringing with them days of disruption, discomfort and pain. Some of that is still true today - they're still painful and annoying, and my cycle is still anything but regular. And I'm still slightly resentful of the extra planning I have to do to accommodate them. But honestly? I actually kind of love having periods. Although I don't exactly enjoy the pain and the clock-watching, I don't hate it. I like the sense of control that I get from dealing with it, even when it's so fundamentally uncontrollable. Okay, so I can't dictate (or even predict!) when my period is going to turn up, but I can predict the kind of steps I'll need to take in order to deal with it when it does happen. And that makes me feel at peace with my body in a way that has very little to do with gender.
I hear a lot of anecdotal evidence from trans-men, trans-masculine folk and the like who hate having periods, much as they hate their breasts, because for them menstruation is incontrovertible evidence of their 'female bodies', which they often don't like to be reminded of. I have a lot of sympathy for that feeling - I have felt it myself, about many aspects of my body. On the other side of the same coin, I've also heard a lot of people describing that "female bonding" thing of having periods: it's something that all women share, and men don't understand! Actually, no. Not all women have periods, for a variety of reasons, and some men do, also for a variety of reasons. I don't really subscribe to either of these views in their entirety, although I understand the drive behind both. I hope that my acceptance of my menstruation stems from a growing empathy with the idea that no biological functions are inherently male or female, meaning that my periods are not an irrefutable sign of my womanhood. They may be an indicator that I'm capable of getting pregnant, but that's an entirely different kettle of fish.
I'm getting so sick of the essentialist language that is used to describe us. Progressives often use "female-bodied" in a well-meaning attempt to show that they know that not all people who have breasts or uteri are women, and I do appreciate the intent. But it's terribly unhelpful for all sorts of people, particularly trans and genderqueer people, who often don't want or need to alter their bodies, and would rather not be put into any particular box due to their personal choices (or lack thereof). I really don't appreciate being reduced to my biology in any case, particularly when it's just yet another stick to be used to beat my supposed gender into me. On a slight tangent, could we stop referring to male-heavy spaces as "sausage-fests"? A) it's gross, and b) it's factually incorrect, disturbingly erasing and personally insulting.
I like my periods ... they don't mean I'm a woman. I don't have a cock ... that doesn't mean I'm any less of a man. I am not female-bodied, and I never have been.
As a confusedly-gendered person, I spend a lot of time in conflict with my body. Sometimes I hate my breasts, which no amount of binding would disguise, even if binding wasn't so preposterously uncomfortable that I never even made it out of the house whilst sporting it. Sometimes I hate my hips, which are pretty unhappy about fitting into boy-trousers. Sometimes I hate my legs, which remain uncompromisingly short, and which ensure that I have never worn a pair of trousers that I haven't had to shorten, regardless of what gender they're intended for. And yes, sometimes I have hated my periods, hated them to the point of tears. I'm not going to claim that my hatred wasn't gender-related. In a way, how could it not be? In a culture where schoolgirls are shamed for having tampons or pads in their bags, where grown men as well as schoolboys make jokes about PMS and have gross-out competitions about period-sex, where many non-period-having humans genuinely believe that menstruation makes one "crazy", how can I be sure that my resentment of my periods was divorced from that sexist nonsense? I'm sure that it affected me on some level: one can't grow up steeped in misogyny and expect to emerge unscathed.
However, for the most part, my period-hatred was to do with the inconvenience of it all. I was never the girl who belonged in a Lil-Lets advert, dancing around joyfully with nary a rusty stain in sight. I was the girl whose periods were wilfully irregular, turning up at random with no warning seemingly just to toy with me, bringing with them days of disruption, discomfort and pain. Some of that is still true today - they're still painful and annoying, and my cycle is still anything but regular. And I'm still slightly resentful of the extra planning I have to do to accommodate them. But honestly? I actually kind of love having periods. Although I don't exactly enjoy the pain and the clock-watching, I don't hate it. I like the sense of control that I get from dealing with it, even when it's so fundamentally uncontrollable. Okay, so I can't dictate (or even predict!) when my period is going to turn up, but I can predict the kind of steps I'll need to take in order to deal with it when it does happen. And that makes me feel at peace with my body in a way that has very little to do with gender.
I hear a lot of anecdotal evidence from trans-men, trans-masculine folk and the like who hate having periods, much as they hate their breasts, because for them menstruation is incontrovertible evidence of their 'female bodies', which they often don't like to be reminded of. I have a lot of sympathy for that feeling - I have felt it myself, about many aspects of my body. On the other side of the same coin, I've also heard a lot of people describing that "female bonding" thing of having periods: it's something that all women share, and men don't understand! Actually, no. Not all women have periods, for a variety of reasons, and some men do, also for a variety of reasons. I don't really subscribe to either of these views in their entirety, although I understand the drive behind both. I hope that my acceptance of my menstruation stems from a growing empathy with the idea that no biological functions are inherently male or female, meaning that my periods are not an irrefutable sign of my womanhood. They may be an indicator that I'm capable of getting pregnant, but that's an entirely different kettle of fish.
I'm getting so sick of the essentialist language that is used to describe us. Progressives often use "female-bodied" in a well-meaning attempt to show that they know that not all people who have breasts or uteri are women, and I do appreciate the intent. But it's terribly unhelpful for all sorts of people, particularly trans and genderqueer people, who often don't want or need to alter their bodies, and would rather not be put into any particular box due to their personal choices (or lack thereof). I really don't appreciate being reduced to my biology in any case, particularly when it's just yet another stick to be used to beat my supposed gender into me. On a slight tangent, could we stop referring to male-heavy spaces as "sausage-fests"? A) it's gross, and b) it's factually incorrect, disturbingly erasing and personally insulting.
I like my periods ... they don't mean I'm a woman. I don't have a cock ... that doesn't mean I'm any less of a man. I am not female-bodied, and I never have been.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Claiming Identity
When it comes to who I am and what that means, one of the things I struggle most with is the idea of legitimacy.
Claiming an identity can be very important within marginalised communities - it gives individuals and groups something to rally around, something to take strength and comfort from, something to claim for their own in a world which often doesn't allow them very much. It can be an extremely empowering, life-affirming thing - maybe even in some cases literally life-saving. The discovery of a community of people, no matter how loose - a local meeting, an internet group, a social event - can make all the difference between feelings of isolation, freakishness, and despondency and those of strength, belonging and hope. Sometimes all it takes is a word, discovered by mistake or by desperate search, a word which you feel describes you, something you maybe didn't know was even possible.
I know for myself how important this process can be, and how much of a difference it can make to one's sense of self. I'd go as far as to say it is crucial. Obviously I can't speak for people other than myself, but that's been my impression within marginalised communities. I also know how damaging it is when people falsely claim a marginalised identity. The man who posed as a lesbian in order to run a lesbian news site, for example, and who hosted the man who posed as a young lesbian kidnapped by Syrian security forces. That incident blew a hole in the credibility of blogging as a whole, which is as nothing to the betrayal felt by the people who these men purported to represent. There is something disgusting about members of a privileged community posing as members of a non-privileged community, whatever the reasons behind it. It is hurtful to all manner of political causes, social entities, support communities and individuals whether involved with these things or not.
So where does that leave someone who hovers on the borders of identity? I am personally invested in a number of marginalised identities, and I have often found solace in identifying with these labels, engaging with the work of others who share them, and attending events where I know people who claim a particular identity will be welcome and sometimes even make up the majority. I find this a huge comfort in times of stress and pain. But I can't help feeling guilty about it at the same time, particularly when my identity is in flux.
For example, I no longer feel comfortable in woman-only spaces, where once I might have sought solidarity. I feel uncomfortable in LGBT spaces, where I am frequently read as something that I'm not. I feel desperately uncomfortable in Jewish spaces and in spaces where I engage in discussion about mental health, as in these places I feel more than anywhere else that I am claiming something that is not mine to claim.
I worry about the implications of claiming any identity for myself. I feel like I need something, because I am so clearly not the default setting for human being - straight, cis, male - and something in me needs to acknowledge that, and acknowledge it robustly. But I can't let that acknowledgement destabilise pre-existing communities that are based on shared identities that I don't necessarily share. I feel a kinship with some of these communities, an affinity, but do they feel it with me? There is, as I said previously, something disgusting about members of a privileged community claiming the identity of a non-privileged community, and as someone who routinely passes as cisgender, straight, monogamous, non-Jewish and mentally healthy, I feel like some of that disgust would legitimately fall on my shoulders if I claimed otherwise.
On the other hand, I wouldn't apply these strictures to other people. If someone tells me they belong in a certain space, then they belong in that space, no questions asked. I wouldn't delegitimise them, although I would myself, in the same way that I would never shame anyone else for not having the 'right' body shape, whilst I frequently shame myself. I subscribe totally to the idea of self-identification. If you say you are a woman, you are a woman, no matter how others read you or what your biology is. If you say you are bisexual, you are bisexual, no matter how many people of any gender you have had sex with, or how many people tell you it doesn't exist. But there is something holding me back from allowing myself the same flexibility.
There is a part of me that suspects that it is my wavering mental stability which stops me from claiming whatever identity I want to claim. Perhaps my sense of self worth is not high enough to legitimise my wholehearted embracing of a marginalised identity - which is damaging enough for me, with my supportive loving family and supportive loving friends. I wonder how many other people are out there, people with far less privilege and a much more fragile support network, if any - I wonder how many of these people are denying themselves community and warmth out of some sense of illegitimacy. I wonder if we're thoughtlessly excluding these people by the very words that we use for ourselves, the very identities that we construct and rally around. What is strength and hope for us is, by one more turn of the screw, isolation and devastation for others.
Claiming an identity can be very important within marginalised communities - it gives individuals and groups something to rally around, something to take strength and comfort from, something to claim for their own in a world which often doesn't allow them very much. It can be an extremely empowering, life-affirming thing - maybe even in some cases literally life-saving. The discovery of a community of people, no matter how loose - a local meeting, an internet group, a social event - can make all the difference between feelings of isolation, freakishness, and despondency and those of strength, belonging and hope. Sometimes all it takes is a word, discovered by mistake or by desperate search, a word which you feel describes you, something you maybe didn't know was even possible.
I know for myself how important this process can be, and how much of a difference it can make to one's sense of self. I'd go as far as to say it is crucial. Obviously I can't speak for people other than myself, but that's been my impression within marginalised communities. I also know how damaging it is when people falsely claim a marginalised identity. The man who posed as a lesbian in order to run a lesbian news site, for example, and who hosted the man who posed as a young lesbian kidnapped by Syrian security forces. That incident blew a hole in the credibility of blogging as a whole, which is as nothing to the betrayal felt by the people who these men purported to represent. There is something disgusting about members of a privileged community posing as members of a non-privileged community, whatever the reasons behind it. It is hurtful to all manner of political causes, social entities, support communities and individuals whether involved with these things or not.
So where does that leave someone who hovers on the borders of identity? I am personally invested in a number of marginalised identities, and I have often found solace in identifying with these labels, engaging with the work of others who share them, and attending events where I know people who claim a particular identity will be welcome and sometimes even make up the majority. I find this a huge comfort in times of stress and pain. But I can't help feeling guilty about it at the same time, particularly when my identity is in flux.
For example, I no longer feel comfortable in woman-only spaces, where once I might have sought solidarity. I feel uncomfortable in LGBT spaces, where I am frequently read as something that I'm not. I feel desperately uncomfortable in Jewish spaces and in spaces where I engage in discussion about mental health, as in these places I feel more than anywhere else that I am claiming something that is not mine to claim.
I worry about the implications of claiming any identity for myself. I feel like I need something, because I am so clearly not the default setting for human being - straight, cis, male - and something in me needs to acknowledge that, and acknowledge it robustly. But I can't let that acknowledgement destabilise pre-existing communities that are based on shared identities that I don't necessarily share. I feel a kinship with some of these communities, an affinity, but do they feel it with me? There is, as I said previously, something disgusting about members of a privileged community claiming the identity of a non-privileged community, and as someone who routinely passes as cisgender, straight, monogamous, non-Jewish and mentally healthy, I feel like some of that disgust would legitimately fall on my shoulders if I claimed otherwise.
On the other hand, I wouldn't apply these strictures to other people. If someone tells me they belong in a certain space, then they belong in that space, no questions asked. I wouldn't delegitimise them, although I would myself, in the same way that I would never shame anyone else for not having the 'right' body shape, whilst I frequently shame myself. I subscribe totally to the idea of self-identification. If you say you are a woman, you are a woman, no matter how others read you or what your biology is. If you say you are bisexual, you are bisexual, no matter how many people of any gender you have had sex with, or how many people tell you it doesn't exist. But there is something holding me back from allowing myself the same flexibility.
There is a part of me that suspects that it is my wavering mental stability which stops me from claiming whatever identity I want to claim. Perhaps my sense of self worth is not high enough to legitimise my wholehearted embracing of a marginalised identity - which is damaging enough for me, with my supportive loving family and supportive loving friends. I wonder how many other people are out there, people with far less privilege and a much more fragile support network, if any - I wonder how many of these people are denying themselves community and warmth out of some sense of illegitimacy. I wonder if we're thoughtlessly excluding these people by the very words that we use for ourselves, the very identities that we construct and rally around. What is strength and hope for us is, by one more turn of the screw, isolation and devastation for others.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Clothes
Inspired by this as well as by some recent internet commentary, particularly at No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz?, I think it's time to hash out some of my feelings about clothing. Here we go.
1. Clothes are nice for thin people
2. Clothes are nice for (relatively) rich people
3. Clothes are nice for people who fit neatly into the gender binary
I am none of those things. And yet I love clothes! I went through most of my life thinking I hated clothes and didn't care about fashion. As it turns out, I love clothes and am pretty invested in fashion - up to a point, anyway. This revelation is linked to my adventures in gender. It's not that I fit into boy clothes any better than I fit into girl clothes - often the fit is worse, actually, due to the fact that I am short, have small feet and abundant hips and breasts. It's also much more challenging to go into shop changing rooms with armfuls of men's clothes when I am clearly be-breasted and be-hipped, than it was to go in with armfuls of women's clothes. It's possible that the odd looks I get are a product of my feverish brain rather than actual looks people are giving me, but the effect is the same. It's hard work.
The love, I think, comes from attempting to achieve a look that I actively like, rather than one that I think I ought to like (or at least aspire to). I may not be any more successful at achieving that look, but I feel better about myself - less conflicted - in this failure than I ever did in the previous failures.
So while I may weep in changing rooms when I totally fail to fit into a shirt of any combination of sizes (regular, tailored or slim fit, formal, semi-formal, work, fashion - what an endless list!) the very act of trying on shirts makes me feel a bit stronger in myself than the trying on of, I don't know, scoop-necked t-shirts or diamante-encrusted jeans.*
Having said that, I do like wearing women's clothes sometimes. One of my most enjoyable post-Ollie moments was going to a friend's barbecue party last summer wearing my favourite battered Converse, a fairly short handkerchief dress, and dangly earrings. But then, not everyone at that event knew me as Ollie at the time, meaning that I felt I had more freedom to present as femme than I did in environments where I always had been 'Ollie, the girl who wants to be a boy'. I came closer to a breakdown in that environment than I ever had before, when I was trying to decide on an outfit for a big event and felt that the whole world of femme was closed to me if I wanted to be taken seriously as a trans boy. I still feel that pressure more often than I'd like. But it's getting easier, as I expand my wardrobe incrementally when the sales are on, and start building a collection of clothes, men's and women's, that I can mix and match until I find a combination that's perfect (or at least appropriate) for the occasion.
*There's that femmephobia creeping in again! Obviously I detest diamante-encrusted jeans, because that's a totally rational reaction to such brazen femininity :-/
1. Clothes are nice for thin people
2. Clothes are nice for (relatively) rich people
3. Clothes are nice for people who fit neatly into the gender binary
I am none of those things. And yet I love clothes! I went through most of my life thinking I hated clothes and didn't care about fashion. As it turns out, I love clothes and am pretty invested in fashion - up to a point, anyway. This revelation is linked to my adventures in gender. It's not that I fit into boy clothes any better than I fit into girl clothes - often the fit is worse, actually, due to the fact that I am short, have small feet and abundant hips and breasts. It's also much more challenging to go into shop changing rooms with armfuls of men's clothes when I am clearly be-breasted and be-hipped, than it was to go in with armfuls of women's clothes. It's possible that the odd looks I get are a product of my feverish brain rather than actual looks people are giving me, but the effect is the same. It's hard work.
The love, I think, comes from attempting to achieve a look that I actively like, rather than one that I think I ought to like (or at least aspire to). I may not be any more successful at achieving that look, but I feel better about myself - less conflicted - in this failure than I ever did in the previous failures.
So while I may weep in changing rooms when I totally fail to fit into a shirt of any combination of sizes (regular, tailored or slim fit, formal, semi-formal, work, fashion - what an endless list!) the very act of trying on shirts makes me feel a bit stronger in myself than the trying on of, I don't know, scoop-necked t-shirts or diamante-encrusted jeans.*
Having said that, I do like wearing women's clothes sometimes. One of my most enjoyable post-Ollie moments was going to a friend's barbecue party last summer wearing my favourite battered Converse, a fairly short handkerchief dress, and dangly earrings. But then, not everyone at that event knew me as Ollie at the time, meaning that I felt I had more freedom to present as femme than I did in environments where I always had been 'Ollie, the girl who wants to be a boy'. I came closer to a breakdown in that environment than I ever had before, when I was trying to decide on an outfit for a big event and felt that the whole world of femme was closed to me if I wanted to be taken seriously as a trans boy. I still feel that pressure more often than I'd like. But it's getting easier, as I expand my wardrobe incrementally when the sales are on, and start building a collection of clothes, men's and women's, that I can mix and match until I find a combination that's perfect (or at least appropriate) for the occasion.
*There's that femmephobia creeping in again! Obviously I detest diamante-encrusted jeans, because that's a totally rational reaction to such brazen femininity :-/
Monday, 20 February 2012
How facebook shapes my trans identity
I have an event coming up where I will see people that I haven't seen for a long time, few of whom know that I am transgender. I want these people to know who I am, and to call me by my preferred name and pronouns. How do I go about it? "I'm changing my names and pronouns" is how I've done it before, but ever since the first time I did that, I've been aware that it sets up a whole heap of expectations - expectations that I don't want to fill, and wouldn't know how to even if I did.
Here's what I've done in the past. "I'm changing my names and pronouns", a polite request for people to try their hardest to respect it, an acknowledgement that it is hard work, a mention of my new facebook profile and the fact that I'll be inviting them to join it, and a "looking forward to seeing you soon" sign off.
Oh, did I mention? I disclose on facebook. That might seem weird, but really, I never considered any other way. I guess that says something about me! It does make sense, though. Obviously that's not how my close friends or family find out. But when it comes to wanting to be known by my preferred name and pronouns at a certain event or within a particular group of people (a temporary job, a reunion, a night out etc), there honestly is no better way to announce it to the people who are your friends, but not your friend friends. Not the ones who you call up and go for coffee with. The people you know from various corners of your life, but only see in that context. The people who you only wish 'Happy Birthday' to on facebook. Your facebook friends. A semi-formal 'note' to the least well-known ones. A little personality added to the slightly closer ones. And invitations for all to my new profile, where I am slowly growing a community of people who call me by my preferred name or, if they don't call me anything at all, get used to seeing me as that person.
I think that might be the most important part. Due to the way I work and live, I have numerous non-overlapping groups of friends and acquaintances. Some of them I see only once a year. I appreciate that getting used to calling someone by a new name is hard work, and it's proportionally harder for people who have known me for longer. So for someone who hasn't seen me for a year, but has known me for 10, getting used to interacting with Ollie, even digitally, might be quite helpful. Particularly after the occasion has passed and we might not see each other for another 12 months!
It's selfish, too, of course. I don't want to make 50, or even 10 phone calls every time I want to disclose to a new group of people. It's not just that I'm self-conscious, although I would be. I think the phone call, or even worse, the in-person disclosure, puts pressure on people to respond. Everyone has to find something to say in response, and sometimes, the only thing you might be able to come up with is "Oh. .... Good?' I wouldn't criticise that! But the facebook message doesn't put that pressure on someone. It gives them the space to read, take in, consider - in their own time. Most people reply with something casual, often including the words "no problem", and often using my preferred name. It may not sound like much, but it's surprisingly comforting!
Now, on to the problem with this approach. I don't identify as male. What I do identify as is not completely clear. Sometimes it is boy, occasionally boi, often queer, often trans, sometimes nothing at all. I'm not convinced about what pronouns I want to use, or whether I will ever have any surgery. I don't know if I'll legally change my name or my gender. But I don't know how to say that in a short, relatively formal email and, more to the point, I'm not sure I want to. It's stupid of me, because I am setting up those expectations that I mentioned earlier. My message indicates a narrative of trans identity that is at least recognisable by the mainstream: girl becomes boy. Surely if I added a few lines to explain that it's not as black and white as that for me, I could make my point. But I don't want to invite the questions. I already have to deal with plenty of ignorant, nosy, inappropriate enquiries about surgery, whether I'm 'out' to my family, what my partner thinks, etc, often from people who I barely know. I don't want to add gender-uncertainty into the mix.
Sometimes, I like to talk about my gender-identity - what it means to me, how I (want to) present, how I feel about gender roles, whether I would be a 'father' to my children. But I don't want those things to be open to all comers. I want to discuss them gently, respectfully, with my closest friends, and only when I am feeling safe and comfortable. I don't want "so, what does queer mean?" to blindside me when I'm tired or afraid or hating myself, and I can't trust my 'Facebook friends' to know when that might be. For me, it is safer to keep the border clear and defined, not to blur it with my uncertainty and doubt. It's easier to laugh/brush off questions about something I'm not (transsexual) than about something that I am ( ... ?).
Is this messed up? Yes, definitely.
Would it be easier to not disclose at all, and keep being known by a name and pronouns that I don't identify with? No, not at all.
I hope that it isn't always this way.
Here's what I've done in the past. "I'm changing my names and pronouns", a polite request for people to try their hardest to respect it, an acknowledgement that it is hard work, a mention of my new facebook profile and the fact that I'll be inviting them to join it, and a "looking forward to seeing you soon" sign off.
Oh, did I mention? I disclose on facebook. That might seem weird, but really, I never considered any other way. I guess that says something about me! It does make sense, though. Obviously that's not how my close friends or family find out. But when it comes to wanting to be known by my preferred name and pronouns at a certain event or within a particular group of people (a temporary job, a reunion, a night out etc), there honestly is no better way to announce it to the people who are your friends, but not your friend friends. Not the ones who you call up and go for coffee with. The people you know from various corners of your life, but only see in that context. The people who you only wish 'Happy Birthday' to on facebook. Your facebook friends. A semi-formal 'note' to the least well-known ones. A little personality added to the slightly closer ones. And invitations for all to my new profile, where I am slowly growing a community of people who call me by my preferred name or, if they don't call me anything at all, get used to seeing me as that person.
I think that might be the most important part. Due to the way I work and live, I have numerous non-overlapping groups of friends and acquaintances. Some of them I see only once a year. I appreciate that getting used to calling someone by a new name is hard work, and it's proportionally harder for people who have known me for longer. So for someone who hasn't seen me for a year, but has known me for 10, getting used to interacting with Ollie, even digitally, might be quite helpful. Particularly after the occasion has passed and we might not see each other for another 12 months!
It's selfish, too, of course. I don't want to make 50, or even 10 phone calls every time I want to disclose to a new group of people. It's not just that I'm self-conscious, although I would be. I think the phone call, or even worse, the in-person disclosure, puts pressure on people to respond. Everyone has to find something to say in response, and sometimes, the only thing you might be able to come up with is "Oh. .... Good?' I wouldn't criticise that! But the facebook message doesn't put that pressure on someone. It gives them the space to read, take in, consider - in their own time. Most people reply with something casual, often including the words "no problem", and often using my preferred name. It may not sound like much, but it's surprisingly comforting!
Now, on to the problem with this approach. I don't identify as male. What I do identify as is not completely clear. Sometimes it is boy, occasionally boi, often queer, often trans, sometimes nothing at all. I'm not convinced about what pronouns I want to use, or whether I will ever have any surgery. I don't know if I'll legally change my name or my gender. But I don't know how to say that in a short, relatively formal email and, more to the point, I'm not sure I want to. It's stupid of me, because I am setting up those expectations that I mentioned earlier. My message indicates a narrative of trans identity that is at least recognisable by the mainstream: girl becomes boy. Surely if I added a few lines to explain that it's not as black and white as that for me, I could make my point. But I don't want to invite the questions. I already have to deal with plenty of ignorant, nosy, inappropriate enquiries about surgery, whether I'm 'out' to my family, what my partner thinks, etc, often from people who I barely know. I don't want to add gender-uncertainty into the mix.
Sometimes, I like to talk about my gender-identity - what it means to me, how I (want to) present, how I feel about gender roles, whether I would be a 'father' to my children. But I don't want those things to be open to all comers. I want to discuss them gently, respectfully, with my closest friends, and only when I am feeling safe and comfortable. I don't want "so, what does queer mean?" to blindside me when I'm tired or afraid or hating myself, and I can't trust my 'Facebook friends' to know when that might be. For me, it is safer to keep the border clear and defined, not to blur it with my uncertainty and doubt. It's easier to laugh/brush off questions about something I'm not (transsexual) than about something that I am ( ... ?).
Is this messed up? Yes, definitely.
Would it be easier to not disclose at all, and keep being known by a name and pronouns that I don't identify with? No, not at all.
I hope that it isn't always this way.
Monday, 6 February 2012
A little more on femininity
As I was walking down the highstreet today, feeling another little flutter of femme-loathing, it occurred to me to wonder whether there is possibly an element of jealousy mixed up in my hugely emotional reaction to extravagant femininity.
If I was female-identified, I would almost certainly put that down to poor body-image, low self esteem or something in that area. I'm not convinced that there isn't a little bit of that going on, but I don't think it's the main cause.
I think that some part of me believes that I am not allowed femme*. I think that, in my brain, identifying as male/masculine/boy means that I can't embody anything femme without compromising that identity in some way. I have noticed this in the past, particularly, for some reason, when I'm dressing more formally. I have rejected wearing a dress to a formal occasion, choosing instead a more traditionally masculine ensemble of shirt/tie, not because I thought I'd be more comfortable in those clothes but because I felt pressure to present the gender I had announced rather than the gender I had been assigned. This has only been the case since I've been more open in more places about my gender identity. I don't want to undermine myself.
On a more rational level, I don't believe wearing a dress (for example) detracts from my masculinity or my boy-ness one bit. And to that end, I am going to try and do those things more often. I've no doubt that this will confuse people, and maybe they will ask me questions about it, and maybe I will say, "You know what? Today I'm a boy in a dress".
*That sounds grammatically incorrect, but I mean it to encompass all the things I'm not allowed: to be femme, to wear femme things, to have femme traits, to walk, talk, feel, breathe femme. Perhaps that doesn't actually make my meaning any clearer. And perhaps it is feeding into a false narrative of what femme even is - perhaps there will have to be more thoughts on this later.
If I was female-identified, I would almost certainly put that down to poor body-image, low self esteem or something in that area. I'm not convinced that there isn't a little bit of that going on, but I don't think it's the main cause.
I think that some part of me believes that I am not allowed femme*. I think that, in my brain, identifying as male/masculine/boy means that I can't embody anything femme without compromising that identity in some way. I have noticed this in the past, particularly, for some reason, when I'm dressing more formally. I have rejected wearing a dress to a formal occasion, choosing instead a more traditionally masculine ensemble of shirt/tie, not because I thought I'd be more comfortable in those clothes but because I felt pressure to present the gender I had announced rather than the gender I had been assigned. This has only been the case since I've been more open in more places about my gender identity. I don't want to undermine myself.
On a more rational level, I don't believe wearing a dress (for example) detracts from my masculinity or my boy-ness one bit. And to that end, I am going to try and do those things more often. I've no doubt that this will confuse people, and maybe they will ask me questions about it, and maybe I will say, "You know what? Today I'm a boy in a dress".
*That sounds grammatically incorrect, but I mean it to encompass all the things I'm not allowed: to be femme, to wear femme things, to have femme traits, to walk, talk, feel, breathe femme. Perhaps that doesn't actually make my meaning any clearer. And perhaps it is feeding into a false narrative of what femme even is - perhaps there will have to be more thoughts on this later.
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