This is my New Year's Queer, Genderqueer and Trans whatever Post (it's a bit long)
So mostly what i've been doing for the past few days in researching gender, genderqueer(1) and trans issues, particularly ftm(2), and trying to con people into driving me to Barnes and Noble so that I can finish reading Gender Outlaw which is really good, and also, I'm sort of in love with Kate Bornstien.

I've been sort of meditating on what it means to be genderqueer, because that's what I've called myself for ages but lately I've been feeling like I don't have the proper theory background to back that up. I've been struggling with conceptualising myself as genderqueer, and how that impacts the other social identity catagories I consider myself a part of.

I am a part of the queer community, and I don't have a problem calling myelf queer in any sense, but when you get down to labling my sepecific type of queerness - gay, lesbian, bi, pan, omni, etc - I have problems. I'm not gay, lesbian or bi, despite the fact that I consider myself a part of the lesbian community, because all of those titles acknowledge and reinforce the gender binary(3) construct, which I reject. I usually define my sexuality as pan(4), which is technically a true assesment, but I feel like it is an incomplete one. (and I'm not sure what I mean by that, either.)

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I also feel like I have a lot of internalised gender issues. The issues I have are probably the same ones that most people have, but still. I don't want to be that person, I hate that person.

I think a lot of the conflict I keep having about this, and the reason I am so obsessed right now is that my fear of transgressing gender and my desire to, and my conviction that it is a social construct which can and should be disregarded, and my fear that I'm actually a bigot (which even I can admit is probably ridiculous) get all tangled up in each other and confused. And I tend to retreat into logic when I'm freaked out, hence my recent labeling/semantics frenzy. Anyway, the english language is so painfully incapable of describing what I want it to describe, as limited by our culture as it is, and I just. I'm having identity issues.

The problem is I can define myself by what I'm not, but I can't define myself by what I am because I don't know the word for it, or even if there is one. I am not female, or male, or gay or straight or lesbian. I'm not particularly butch or femme, but I hesitate to call myself androgynous/ an androgene because it tends to reaffirm our gender system; this is the same problem I have with genderqueer, even thought I like the word and the concept.

Meh, I don't know. I'm running out of ways to fail to articulate this.

So, my pretty flisties, what are your thoughts on the matter of gender? Do you believe it exists naturally or is it a construct, and why?

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1. genderqueer
2. ftm
3. gender binary
4. pan
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I've been reading a lot, obviously in bookstores, but also trolling around online, and oogling books on amazon.



T-Vox (wiki-style resource)
XXboys (ftm centric blog/photo-blog)
Make Me A Boy (audio biographies of transmen, project in progress)
Photos of Successful Transmen (resource-ish thing, interesting, old-school coding)
FTM Resource Guide (resources)
Stealth Binders (resource)
Big Brother Used Binders Program (resource)

The Male Privilege Checklist (based on McCintosh's "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack")
On Karl Rove's Father's Dick (really funny, though not even slightly trans related)
Rebecca Auge's blog (tends to focus on trans issues and news)
Gender Queer Revolution (haven't really read through it yet, but looks interesting on the topic of queering gender)
When She Graduates as He (boston globe article on transmen attending all girls' schools, specifically the Seven Sisters, which I can't seem to decide my views on)