*nodnodnod* yes, this, exactly. and again, I'm very aware that I'm incredibly lucky in my situation, that the level of nastiness I have to deal with as an asexual is far, far below what a lot of others have to. I think your experiences with cultural identity are pretty similar, in fact--some of them sound very familiar to my own! it's tricky to present as agender. a few people, wafishly thin 20-somethings, can pull it off easily, but for most of us it's a matter of camouflage and misdirection; a little of one, a tiny bit of the other. like that optical illusion of the rabbit-duck: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%E2%80%93duck_illusion some people see one thing, some people see another, some see one and then decide their first impression was wrong and it's actually the other. most of the time, people don't question their first impression, unless I do something to contradict it. Once Upon A Time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was on UseNet a lot, there was one person on a group I frequented who went by the handle "piranha," who declined to specify zir gender. (zie also didn't use capitals at the beginnings of sentences, and it suddenly occurred to me to wonder if I was unconsciously thinking of zir when I decided to start doing the same thing...) for a long time, I wondered which box zie would fit into. zie didn't ever share pictures online, and was extremely cagey about personal information. then one night I dreamed that I met piranha in person, and zie was--a cloud of tiny fish-words, taking up about the space of a human body, but not in a human shape; just a school of wordfish. zie "spoke" by swimming the wordfish zie wanted to say to the front, but the fish were always in motion. my dreams are usually vivid and strange, but that one was... even now, when I think about it I get--not teary, but a lump of emotion in my chest. piranha was quite pleased with the dream when I told zir, by the way. more to the point, after having that dream, I realized that was my mental image of piranha, and trying to imagine a gender with that concept was faintly ridiculous.
I just want to piss on American society real quick: It's pretty fucking shit that we can't even get beyond basic concepts, one of which being discussed in this thread. (I know, horrible sentence. Honestly, remove that subordinate clause and what's left is ugliness. But what is be ugliness still.) Seriously, could you imagine a politician trying to advocate for same-sex bathrooms to better-make character-based stance as a society, to say that we oppose ideologically such arbitrary binary conventions of distinction? Even if they (there you go @stevesh) did run, our majoritarian citizenry would maul their ass. Woo! Democracy! @elynne, Thank you for being who you are and demonstrating the baselessness of norm, and I'm sorry that as a people we cannot get over ourselves.
@Swiveltaffy heh, thanks. though I suspect that the constant pounding of cissexism into our society is more market-driven than political. advertising exists to create demand, and making people feel uncomfortable about their gender identity is a great way to sell products that emphasize extremes of masculine/feminine. REAL MEN use Y deodorant, which attracts REAL WOMEN! REAL WOMEN use X deodorant, which attracts REAL MEN! and if you're not a REAL MAN or REAL WOMAN then you might as well be a REAL SMALL FURRY CREATURE FROM ALPHA CENTAURI, as far as the ad people care. I remember at some point in my teen years, seeing a Toys-BACKWARDS "R"-Us catalog with two different models of toy pseudo-computers--one was for boys, and the other was for girls, and NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET, because the girl one was pink and covered in flowers while the boy one was blue and covered in racecars. I remember feeling sad about that, then cheering myself up by thinking that by the time I was an adult, the idea of toys "for boys" and "for girls" would be an obsolete idea, and there would just be toys for children. adult me is still a little bitter about that. Neil Gaiman nailed it on this subject, incidentally: http://www.duelinganalogs.com/infographic/how-to-tell-if-a-toy-is-for-boys-or-girls/
Oh, I'm more than willing to throw advertisers into the range my above and infantile piss stream. I'd agree that they rarely foster much of anything I find ethical.
I did and all I can say is... god damn, how fucking stupid can people be? Apparently you don't only need huge boobs to be a Real Woman, you also absolutely must have long hair too. What's next? Women shouldn't wear pants or shorts, just dresses and skirts? Women should stay in the kitchen when they aren't giving birth in the hospital? And here I thought we had moved on from the dark ages. Guess the joke's on me, huh?
Yes, of course. No one here wants you to be subjected to any kind of ugliness because of your appearance. If you'll read the article I linked to, you might have a little insight into where I'm coming from. It seems like the author wants to decide what other people think of him/her. You can't do that. If I were to see you or someone with an androgynous hairstyle, androgynous clothing and features and behavior, my first thought is going to be, "Is that a man or a woman?". You don't have the right to demand that I don't ask myself that question, any more than I have the right to demand that you conform to my expectations regarding sexual presentation. I described the author as 'narcissistic'. I'll add 'with a dollop of control freak'. You do your thing, fine, but it seems to me that you have to be willing to extend the same courtesy to others. p. s. I prefer short hair on women.
I wonder, though, whether the issue is lack of education. If we all grew up being taught the realities of biology (including androgynous, trans, gay etc) rather than some idealised duality that might apply to most but not all, a man encountering an androgynous person might not be as confused about it as one might be now. Acceptance is not only about individuals deciding that someone else has the right to exist. It's all about it being acceptance on institutional level, so that future generations learn from a young age about the varieties, rather than grow up in a hush-hush society, completely oblivious to the existence of a reasonably large groups of people (millions, on international level) and then when they are no longer sheltered by censorship of 'child-friendly material' become adults who are utterly confused and prejudiced about what is normal or acceptable.
I'd say that most problems with society tend to stem from a lack of perspective and appropriate education. The problem, at least in the States, is that educational reform is difficult. As well, people will conflict on what is actually good education. Personally, I'd say to disregard advanced mathematics and science, but instead teach the fundamental ideas of these things, why their important, and how they correlate to human understanding. Don't teach me the equation to figure out Jupiter's mass (when we know its distance form the sun); teach me why science is present in our society (I guess, specifically, astronomy here). Point is, we need more understanding than knowledge. A genuine understanding of sexuality would make this problem (presuming action followed that lined up with said understanding) a nonexistent thing. ETA: I'd add, I mean this regarding general education. If you're teaching people to do certain things, then yeah, they're gonna need to know some specific bits of knowledge. But, for raising a general population, I think it'd be more ideal for everyone to be, at least, moderately enlightened to the point where bombing countries in the Middle East wouldn't be seen as bombing Atlantis.
I don't think anyone is questioning the article author's (or anyone else's) 'right to exist'. One can see another person's presentation as abnormal without viewing it as unacceptable. Describing people who question or who don't accept the whole 'agender' thing (otherkin? please) as uneducated is judgmental and non-accepting itself.
@Swiveltaffy : I agree. And to be perfectly honest, I grew up with exact type of education you describe, as did my parents. Unfortunately, it came at the expense of capitalism. The state needs to be by the people for the people, not a megacorporation conglomerate, in order for altruistic ideas like excellent basic education, free healthcare, decent working conditions etc to take priority over profits. @stevesh : I wasn't talking strictly about the article, I was talking in general. You can't argue with my point that prejudices and confusions of all kinds decrease as new generations are made aware of things. This is a well known fact, education IS the most effective tool for dispelling prejudice, because prejudice always comes from ignorance, and ignorance causes fear=prejudice. The proof is in what my great grandparents thought about woman's rights, or rape, or homosexuality or other races, vs what my children will think. It is nebulous to discount the power of growing up considering something normal, vs growing up considering something abnormal, or worse - non-existant. Education is key.
I'd stress, in this instance, that education doesn't exactly equate to intelligence. One is not to say that another is idiotic because one disagrees with or is ignorant of something such as agender sexuality; but instead, I think idea is that a more complete understanding (awareness, or perspective regarding this topic of sexuality -- education in this regard) would likely reduce levels of prejudice. I'm unaware if I made sense just now; I apologize if I didn't. @jazzabel : I seriously need to start reading some socialist and communist literature. I agree with some aspects of capitalism, but this overly-American idea of "bootstrapping" and "free-market just self-regulates like a monastic hermit" is naive. ETA: I'd like to clarify: I know my use of intelligence here is controversial. Hopefully, it is understandable enough, because I don't want to try and define something as abstract and nuanced as intelligence. Essentially, I'm trying to be more functional in my communication.
Maybe I'm too old, or too Midwestern, but I can't help but wonder why people are so determined to make me aware of their sexual... gender... whatever. I worked at a place for six months before someone told me a co-worker was gay - like it was a big secret. My reaction was, "Okay. So?". Didn't change the way I interacted with him one bit. I don't know or care about the sex/gender ID/whatever of any of my coworkers or acquaintance, and frankly, if friends 'come out', it's still "Okay. So?". If someone tells me they prefer to be referred to by some word, fine. But if I'm talking to someone else, I'm not going to use something other than he or she - mainly because I'm not into keeping track of everyone's preference when I'm not around them. As to public restrooms - I'll be very blunt. If you've got a third leg, I don't want you in the same restroom while I'm in there. People have a right to be whatever they are - but I have a right not to want it shoved in my face. I don't care. If you're a good person, I'll like you. If you're an asshole, I won't.
I think the idea is that some are in opposition. Also, I'd suggest that this want to not have it shoved in your face points towards a certain level (albeit low) of prejudice. Granted, this is a level of prejudice that could speculated as null.
It's the same as saying 'I don't care where my co-workers are from, and I don't understand why are people trying to make me aware of their ethnic identity. Whether they are Chinese, from Luxembourg or Finland, it doesn't matter to me, and when I'm not going to spend an iota of my brain space to remember who they are. When they aren't around, I'll just call them 'American' or 'foreign'. People have every right to be who they are, but I do not want it shoved in my face. I'm not going to waste my time remembering any significant details about them, they're all Greek to me.' Obviously, you have the right to be like this, it's a free country. But for what it's worth, I don't think that your requests to not have other people's personal information 'shoved in your face' should be honoured over their right to express freely who they are. You don't want to hear it? Tough! You don't have the right to determine what information people will share about themselves, and making them feel bad about it makes you an asshole. No offence intended, since you brought up the word, I thought it bears applying.
Not unexpected replies. The fact that I can respect who they are, not make them feel bad about who they are, and yet not want to constantly hear about their 'stuff' means I'm prejudiced and an asshole. Fine. What does the fact that I don't really care to constantly hear about my heterosexual friends personal 'stuff' mean? And yes, I do have the right to determine what people share about themselves with me. And don't call me an asshole and then say "no offence intended". At least get the statement correct - I said "If you're a good person, I'll like you. If you're an asshole, I won't." If you want to assume I'm talking about a particular group, maybe you're the one with the problem.
@shadowwalker : You can dismiss a relevant comparison if you wish, it's your prerogative. Don't shoot the messenger, though. I didn't mean any offence, I mean that. It was meant as constructive criticism.
Samus says: :sim: It's time to take a step back and a few deep breaths. I don't want to close this thread or delete posts, so let's tone it down now and steer well clear from discussing the personas of other forum members for better or worse, and stick to discussing the topic at hand only (and do that in a respectful, polite manner even if you end up agreeing to disagree). Thank you.
I think if I was gay (or bi, or trans, or whatever else) and open, it would be one of the first things I told anyone I was friends with. I wouldn't want them to find out later and suddenly turn on me.
I had several lesbian friends at University and they all went through years of agony and paranoia about being kicked out if anyone was to find out. And 20 years ago, they faced much more discrimination than now. I was so upset for them, how awful it must have been to be hiding who they are, never answer truthfully to questions regarding their partners or relationship status. Not that I advertise mine, but a thought of not being able to proudly tell everyone about how wonderful my husband or a boyfriend is, if I felt like it or was asked, must feel like prison.
A few millennia, I'd wager; I found it in the ancient catacombs of Tutankattimon. I'd imagine that causes a lot of gray hairs to a lot of people; I've heard some folks say they'd end a friendship then and there if they found out one of their friends was e.g. gay and hadn't told them right away while others have essentially wanted the non-straight person to stay in the closet around them. Most folks seem to fall somewhere in-between, but how are you supposed to know beforehand to which camp your friends, class-mates, and co-owrkers belong?
(writing on a touch keyboard on a tablet while I'm on vacation, so I'll be brief & use capitals & may make errors--THIS IS DEDICATION) People can be closeted for lots of perfectly understandable reasons. I an ideal world, nobody would face actual physical violence for their relationships, gender, life choices, language, religion, skin color... but we don't live in that world. I didn't start this thread; I identified myself & offered to answer questions, because I feel safe enough to do so. And because I feel safe, I also feel an obligation to speak up, because I know a lot of others don't feel--or, in fact, have--that safety. I speak up because I'm at a point where I can take a couple of hits, & if I can change the mind of just one other person, even a little, it's worth the risk to me. It's part of what drives me to write.
I used to be scared to talk about or even hear other people mention any of this stuff because I was scared they'd think I was gay, and then I got scared that they'd see my anxiety and think I was gay for that reason, which made me more anxious. It was a really vicious cycle that left me constantly terrified of being 'outed', all without experiencing any homosexual feeling. One of the first things I did after I got some self-confidence was to make my views on this subject a lot more open. I emerged from a pit of bullying, depression, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and self-hatred. There are some people who never recovered and gained the strength that I did. I feel that I have an obligation to do something with it. And if actual gay people can face the rejection of their friends and/or families, I can sure as hell speak up against the people that hate them.
