The Return of the Failing Boy!

So, I started class at the community college for the second half of summer, and I started extra shifts at work. Combine this with shitty computer service, and Failing Boy fell to the wayside.

Fortunately, I'm getting better at this whole time management thing, so maybe I can actually post now and again. Plus, since I'm now a local college student, I have unlimited access to fast internet on campus, rather than relying on the *coughshamefulcough* dial up I have at home.

So, I decided to restart my posting by talking about a girl I know- personally and biblically.

See, you take one emotionally burned budding lesbian virgin, drive her an hour south to another college town, and introduce her to a grad student girl who thinks the budding virgin is an experienced old dyke. And cue sex.

And, because it's two women, cue emotional hang ups. See, recently deflowered dyke doesn't want committment, and graduating grad student does. And now friends, she has it.

With a wonderful guy named Michael. And the aforementioned deflowered (erm, me), doesn't know how to feel about it.

I mean, I'm elated that she's found someone who can be what she needs; I've spent way too long trying to hint around that I don't have a U-haul to bring into the mess.

But I can't decide if her settling down with a man is better or worse than if she had met Ms. Right.

Prior to my burgeoning whore phase, I was head over heels for a now-reformed-straight-girl. And she was (emotionally, at least) head over heels for me, in a way filled with teen angst and closet case freakouts. Once, while she was dating some scenester boy who pissed me off, she asked me never to date a girl; she couldn't handle seeing me with another woman, but a guy was okay. Well, unfortunately I don't like penises, but fortunately at the time I was the ultimate in awkward nerdy closet case, so I didn't really date at all. And I couldn't understand how seeing me with a woman was worse; the way I saw it, it hurt like hell either way.

And now, hearing my one night stand turned semi-relationship talk about this guy, I see her point- to a point. Yeah, if she was with another woman, I'd feel like it was my appearance or personality that wasn't good enough, not my parts.

But her being with a guy has it's own faults, because it makes me feel like I fall short biologically, even though logically I know it's because I run from commitment like I run towards an ice cream truck.

In our conversation, which was mostly friendly, she also idly suggested that I was player, which I'm okay with for now. I see her point, and I mostly feel bad that I wasn't more up front with her.

And I feel bad that, though I knew she was bi, I'm still acting a little betrayed. I tell everyone that I'm not attracted to women who are attracted to men, and yet I just keep sleeping with them. Conclusion:

I need to get out of Arkansas.

Profile: Athens Boys Choir

Reasons to love Athens Boys Choir:

1. He's a hot, out transguy
2. He doesn't take himself so seriously that he can't write songs such as "EZ Heeb."
3. He toured with Ani Difranco
   
4. He's a southern boy.

While visiting some friends a couple weeks ago, I got the chance to listen to some more songs by Athens Boys Choir than "Fagette," which I first heard earlier this spring.

God help me, the man makes me like rap.
I don't have a lot to say on this subject because, frankly, I'm still getting familiar with this artist. Six months from now, I may hate him.

But right now, I kinda love him. He's an awesome, notable transguy who talks about being trans in his music. And he's not half as depressing as Lucas Silveira can be in his lyrics at times.

I mean, just look:
I rest my case.

"I Never Met a Man"

"I never met a man I liked as much as my horse," the old cowgirl told my mom our first year at the rodeo. Years later, my mom is still convinced she's a lesbian, and in my mind I've rewritten her whole life into some kind of lesbo Brokeback Mountain.

The rodeo is an odd experience, filled with dirt, earthy smells, and acne and muscle-covered cowboys who wink at you or- literally, now- tip their hats to you.

It's a flustering, if entertaining experience. I'm not used to getting a lot of male attention these days, but then, I'm not used to dressing quite like this: long sleeve western shirts, push up bras, tight blue jeans and boots. Hair down and curly. No think glasses.

God help me, I looked like a girl. And I had a little fun getting the stares, not gonna lie. Not too mention the fact that, for all my ranting against animal cruelty, I still really love the rodeo. It's what I was supposed to grow up in.

I should've been a cowboy- or girl, rather. And that's the big problem with the rodeo for me. I talked earlier this week about being dropped into banjo-land and having to pass.

I just went to the equivalent of a banjo-land convention. Everyone is heteronormative, right wing (one more Obama joke...), and incapable of pronouncing the country's name any way but "Amurica." I fit in that night, and I admit that the rodeo gets me a little hot (and gets that damn Garth Brooks song stuck in my head), but I know better than to look too long at the pretty cowgirls.

Which brings me to the IGRA- the International Gay Rodeo Association. Apparently, gay rodeos have been around awhile, offering a place for the country queers like me, since the traditional country lifestyle isn't too accepting. I mean, look at the shit that Chely Wright went through.

Well, I missed most of the IGRA events around here, but it looks like there'll be a couple in Dallas and Kansas City in September. Here's to hoping that my college schedule doesn't interfere with my travel plans, because butch girls + rodeo = I may never come back to Arkansas.

It's just a reassuring feeling, knowing I can return to my redneck roots and still be who I am. Plus, I feel like, for other rural kids, a gay rodeo offers a chance to see gay rolemodels who belong to a world they can relate to.

In short, IGRA = awesome.

Profile: Tegan and Sara

So lately my blog has been devoid of pictures- as well as profiles, as I'm trying to keep up with everything after the tire accident of doom.

Plus, I was having trouble picking a group/person to profile this week. And then I stumbled across this picture:And I squealed like a fan girl. The thing I like about Tegan and Sara is that they are big- an internationally known band that gets their music on TV and in the movies. A band that has sold out shows.

And they don't have their asses hanging out of miniskirts to do it. In fact, most of the time, they look a bit like androgynous indie boys. Which, you know, is kinda my ideal image.Plus, they've never made any exceptions for themselves in their music and have been open about their sexualities. They're lesbians, and they admit it without guilt. They have cds that you can buy even in little podunk towns like mine, and open the case to find pictures of women who are not femmed-up, eroticized superstars. Hello, role models.

I had a couple songs off the "So Jealous" album, but it wasn't until I read Tegan's introduction in Kate Bornstein's Hello, Cruel World that I began to take an interest. She discussed growing up feeling different, being bullied, rising above it.There's a reason for all the hype around these ladies. And, if nothing else, if you can't handle the PC idea of them being *gag* role models, remember: pretty twin lesbians singing pretty awesome music. Enough said.

Role Models

So, like I said, the bff and I went to the Pride parade this weekend.

That is, the end of the parade, because everyone knows that twenty years can a. not go to bed before two on a Friday night and b. are damned if they'll wake up before nine.

The important thing is, we were at the rally afterward. In Arkansas heat. In June. On asphalt. We didn't stay the whole time, but we did see one girl pass out. Oh, South, we love you too.

It's always unsettling, not necessarily in a bad way, to go to Pride. I look around and wonder where all the pretty queers crawled out of the wood works, and I think I just need to get out more.

There were feminine girls, hot hot butch girls, a boy in a bikini, a former cheerleader from my high school holding hands with another girl, and then there was her.

I don't know this woman's name, and I never have. Let's just call her D, since she looks and acts like the forty year old Daria I aspire to be.

She works at a notorious used bookstore in the city near where I live, and she has since I was about fifteen. There's nothing about her that screams "Lesbian!" She's just a sarcastic, feminist bookstore employee who didn't bat an eye when I purchased books from the GLBT section, and actually recommended to me, after learning I was a musician, a songbook for Indigo Girls' "Nomads Indians Saints."

Still, in those five minutes I checked out at the bookstore, she would be my role model. Confident, swaggering through the bookstore, unafraid, grinning in her long shorts and wife beater without a bra.

Saturday we saw her at the rally, holding signs and holding hands with a pretty butch woman. I grabbed the bff's arm and pointed, saying "I knew it!" This woman, who I barely spoke to, was my role model that I only hoped was like me, when I only knew one girl like me (the one then standing next to me).

Later in the day it hit me. This woman has no idea what she meant to me; to her, I was probably another bratty hippie-looking kid coming into the bookstore to soak up the A/C and spend ten bucks.

And I wonder now if there are kids somewhere looking up to me. Makes me a little more nervous about my actions, to be honest, but also a little more determined. This woman was out there and confident and unafraid to offend because of who she was. So I should at least pay it forward to the teens now who look around, hoping to see someone else like them.

Passing: Banjo Edition

I started this week on an off note.

The weekend previous had been awesome, mostly because:

1. I hung out with my bff from high school and realized I was no longer in love/attracted to her at all (huge milestone)
2. I got to stare at pretty butch girls at the Pride parade (including a used bookstore employee that fueled a lot of my adolescent fantasies)
3. I went swimming in the rain with my best friends at school, one of whom is moving forever away this week.

And then I ripped up a tire driving home. I was barely out of town and scared shitless when it happened, though there are much more desolate, Deliverance-esque areas on my journey.

After I calmed down, I called my friends to come help me try to change my tire or at least follow me back to school, and then managed to park my car outside a little country store/gas station where I stayed.

Never have I been so glad to be wearing pink. This was the podunk that makes my podunk look like NYC, complete with a table of old men drinking coffee and gossiping.

The men were sweet, and used to work near my home town, so we talked for a good half hour. All the while, I was so happy that I wasn't trying to pass that day, that I was in pink tie dye with girly hair, jewelry, and women's jeans.

And I really felt ashamed afterward. I mean, to them I just looked like a little funky college student, but I amped up the Southern accent and talked at a higher pitch, trying to say "Look! Normal, heterosexual girl here! Sweet as sugar!"

I was stuck in a town with a population of like 400 with sketchy cell phone service and no one that I knew. And then I realized how important passing can become.

My bff transman came in to get me, and I'm pretty sure he just registered as "guy" to them, because, well, he passes pretty damn well. But, had I been dressed more masculinely, I think I'd come off more as just a dyke to them.

Dyke + small Southern town full of strangers = B horror movie or Dateline Hate Crime Tragedy

I shouldn't care what strangers think, and I should be able to defend myself if need be. But sometimes, I just want to be a sweet Southern girl who makes old men laugh, rather than stare.

I just don't know if that feels right or not.

Vestlove

I have a love affair with vests. Long vests, short vests, crochet vest, cargo vests that make me look like I should be hosting some wildlife/nature show.

I love them all, and I have for some time, despite the removal efforts of the unofficial queen of my college band. Apparently I looked frumpy in vests.

I like them because they're dressier, but still cooler than a blazer or something.

Anyways, I was reading some old stuff on the What is Gender? forums that I lurk around, and I found this conversation about using vests as binders. I'm excited, though none of mine are really appropriate.

One of the posters makes an excellent point about the nature of vests, a point best taken into account by those vest virgins.

Women's vests are cut for women, while men's are cut for men. I own a couple women's vests, and they are most definitely tailored, however subtly, to accentuate the curves.

Plus, they often come off looking horrendously ugly:
I'm a big fan of men's waistcoats though- the kind of thing worn under a suit. One of these over a band t-shirt with jeans is my favorite outfit right now. The only thing to remember with these is that they often have some sort of cinching mechanism in the back that conveniently hits where a female person's waist would be.
Resist the urge to cinch up your vest (I know, it's hard for me too). It'll only emphasize your natural curves.

I'd like to start a movement creating more unisex jersey vests, like the one seen on this woman:
Only, you know, not girly. I have one that I sewed from two t-shirts (Woo reversible!) and I think it "passes," depending on the right clothing that it's worn with.

Anyways, if all else fails, there's nothing sexier/trashier than a good ol' fashioned biker vest:I like to think fringe is coming back in style.

Dental what?

Okay, so I got the safe sex talk in school. Abstinence!condomsbirthcontroldiaphragmsblahAbstinence!

Anyone else get this kind of health class? Joy for Arkansas education. Because teens totally aren't having sex- that's why my high school had a daycare for all the teen mothers, not to mention two pages in the yearbook.

Fact is, they were. And all the little straight kids and gay boys got a healthy enough dosage of information about condoms, though it was usually suggested by teachers and whispered by peers.

What about all the lesbians in the class? Or straight guys, for that matter.

I've yet to meet a lesbian who practices safer sex, at least in terms of using a dental dam or some equivalent. I've had the most educated of lesbians tell me that it's okay, since women have such lower chances of "catching" anything.

Uh huh. Just like gay men didn't really need to worry about safer sex because, after all, they weren't risking getting anyone pregnant. Then *poof* AIDS.

I'm not saying that's how the AIDS epidemic went down. I'm just trying to make a point. AIDS showed up out of nowhere, devastating an entire generation of gay men.

Just because we don't have penises doesn't mean there isn't some new, life threatening disease waiting on the horizon to attack the cunning linguists of the world.

I know I'm paranoid, but really, anything's a possibility in terms of new diseases.

And for that matter, there are plenty of diseases to be caught now, just through oral sex, including herpes, syphilis, and hpv (not a disease, okay, but a virus that can cause cervical cancer. Ick.)

However, since we don't have to worry about getting knocked up, and since we're considered a "low risk group" for contracting HIV, we don't bother with safer sex. We don't talk about it; it's an uncomfortable subject.

For that matter, while I'm on the soap box, let's talk about gynecology visits. According to some websites, lesbians are less likely to seek regular gynecological treatments. After all, the main reason most women go is so they can acquire birth control, which isn't a problem so much.

Newsflash: a penis doesn't have to touch you for you to have gynecological problems. Tumors, cysts, endometriosis- these are all problems which can be left untreated if you don't go to a gynecologist or if you're open with him/her/other about your sexual history. If your doctor makes you uncomfortable, get a new one. If you worry he'll have problems with your sexuality, then 1. Who cares what he thinks? and 2. Get a new doctor.

So. Try at least to be aware of safer sex practices, and get your cunt checked out. The end.

On Community

This weekend, my bff from high school and I are going to the NWA Pride Parade. In August, I'm hanging out with some friends at Diversity Weekend in Eureka Springs.

Behold. My extent of"community" support.

I guess I've never been much of a joiner, but I do try to get more involved in the tiny gay community in Arkansas. I'm a member of the GLBTQA organization on campus- that conveniently only meets when I'm in class/fraternity meetings. I wrote Lambda 10 about my fraternity having a non-discrimination clause that includes sexual orientation. I even tried volunteering for the NWA Center for Equality, but I chickened out/panicked and never showed up at the offices.

My heart's in the right place. I want to help promote tolerance and understanding an all things PC. But maybe I just haven't felt the brunt of that discrimination yet. I mean, I've only had two bad coming out experiences- my mother, who's still a little freaked by the prospect that I like vaginas, and a girl I was planning on rooming with who completely lost it. Oh well.

Maybe it's that I've never really felt like "a lesbian." I've never actually come out as a lesbian to anyone. I usually just say that I'm gay, or, better yet, that I'm attracted to girls. Honestly, most of the time I don't get along with girls, so I worry that trying to be friends with lesbians will only end in a train wreck.

Furthermore, the "community" in NWA is centered around Fayetteville, and I'm most definitely not. It seems like I'm trying to join a club where everybody knows everyone, and I'm the little kid on the outside.

Yes, little kid, because I don't see a lot of people my age working with the NWACfE, or working the Pride parade. And I wonder if this is an Arkansas trend, or a national one.

I mean, I know a lot of gay/bi students at my college. But few of them actually belong to our GLBTQA group, even though they're out. Maybe, since we've all grown up in a more tolerant generation, the need to fight for rights doesn't seem as pressing.

Besides, we're young right now- too young to be worrying about marriage or adoption rights, or dying and leaving a partner of twenty years out on the streets due to a malicious family. All we worry about right now is meeting that person.

Or, meeting a lot of persons for a lot of short term fun until the gray hairs start showing.

I think larger, metropolitan areas have a stronger political community composed of people in their twenties. I'd love to see this happen in Arkansas, but I don't think it will until we stop chasing tail and start settling down and worrying about the rights we lack. And I know I'm not ready.

But I also remember the first Diversity Weekend I attended. With my parents. On accident. At seventeen, with my two best friends who were also in the closet. I remember losing my parents at some point, and getting crammed in for a photo at the park, surrounded by happy, gay adults. It made a difference to us then, and I'd like to think that the community now makes a difference to teens. I'm just not sure how.

And the Wind is Always Shifting

"Straight Edge" by Minor Threat

But I've got better things to do,
Than sit around and fuck my head,
Hang out with the living dead.
Snort white shit up my nose,
Pass out at the shows.
I don't even think about speed,
That's something I just don't need

I've got the straight edge

I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and smoke dope
'Cause I know I can cope
Laugh at the thought of eating ludes
Laugh at the thought of sniffing glue
Always gonna keep in touch
Never want to use a crutch

I've got the straight edge."

I've said before that I was once one of those annoying "AFI is God!" kind of fan girls. (In my defense, they were tied with Ani Difranco).

However, I was also a Straight Edge kid then, and took it all very seriously. Just as I was destined to always wear only black, I was also destined never to drink, smoke/use drugs, or engage in casual sex.

Oops.

I tumbled off that pillar of morality slowly- then very, very fast. And I woke up about a week ago to realize how far I've gone.

Well, the good news is that I haven't smoked in about nine months, haven't drank in three, have never done drugs, and usually have no trouble avoiding the casual sex part.

For a split second, I considered "reclaiming" edge. Aaand then I read this post, and remembered why I was uneasy with being edge in the first place. Aside from the general bitchiness, it made me realize that I just don't belong in this scene anymore. Like when my best friend from high school and I decided to go to Warped Tour this summer. We checked the band list and realized we didn't know half the bands performing. We've been out of the loop.

We outgrew punk. Hell, I outgrew being a crazy little hippie. So I look at my opinions on gender and breaking down the gender dichotomy, and I wonder: Will I lose this belief too? Is this just another phase/scene?

I like to think it's not, because I've never felt more comfortable in my skin- though, after feeling so masculine for so long, I was freaked out when I woke up one day feeling girly. Part of me worried that, if I gave in to that effeminate longing for the day, I'd be breaking some promise to myself.

Well, fuck that. That's the old punk vs. poser mentality I adhered to in high school. How I feel that day is how I feel, and I don't care what other people think.

I should live my life less by trying to adhere to the same appearances and tastes all my life, and instead expect people to view me more like Ani Difranco in "The Million You Never Made:

"I am warning you I am weightless,
and the wind is always shifting,
so don't hang anything on me
if you ever want to see it again.
I am telling you I'm different than you
think I am."

When Tomboys Grow Up

(Inspired by being stuck at home all summer and this book.)
I didn't stand a chance really.

I grew up on a small farm in Podunk, Arkansas as the only child of an only child. Until I was ten, the only other child on my road was the boy next door. We were born a month apart.

So, naturally, we played what boys played. I still had Barbies. I played with them by myself, concocting long, drawn out tales about parole officers and running from the law.

I know, I was strange. But my parents encouraged my imagination, and after a few botched attempts at all-girl playdates, let me hang out with the neighbor boy- and all my elementary school guy friends.

Fast forward to high school, where I'm a tuba player- yet again one of the guys in a group of friends. As in, one of the guys had a "no girls allowed" birthday party- except, of course, for me.

I like to think subconsciously that my parents knew about me. I mean, running out at three in the morning to drive around town in a car full of boys? Fine. Spending the night at my one female friend's house watching movies? They threw a fit- which is understandable to them in retrospect, since I spent most of high school following her like a lovesick puppy.

The problem is, I'm not a ten year old brat trading Pokemon cards or fighting with stick swords. And I'm not a teenager staying up late to steal traffic cones or talk about starting a band.

I'm twenty, and I'm having a bit of a crisis. Exactly what do tomboys grow up to be? How do we stay happy and keep those around us happy? Is it even possible?

I don't want to give in and learn how to become a pretty, proper woman. Besides the fact that I hate the idea of buying into gender roles like that, I also have a twenty year learning curve to face.

Plus, I've realized that coming out to my mother was probably one of the worst mistakes of my life. She's always accepted my tomboy nature because, being honest, she's a bit of a tomboy herself. I think she feels that, because I like women, I'm threatening her sexuality or something. As if I'm made in her image.

I get straight A's while doing two majors with course overload every semester. I have three jobs- one during the school year, two in the summer. I'm an officer in a very busy music fraternity. I mow my grandma's lawn, and I buy all my vegetarian food (anything not packaged or meat). I depend on my parents for nothing. No tuition, no allowance, no trips to visit me at school.

I just depend on their approval- specifically, my mother's. And after coming out to her, I feel like nothing I do is good enough. I'm working my ass off to go to a good grad school, and she's just upset that I'm moving even farther away. She complains incessantly about me going to school two hours away, but is encouraging her best friend to send her daughter to school nine hours away- at a school where, unlike me, the daughter is not being paid to attend.

I see my future, what makes me happy, and I'm beginning to realize that, for all their insistence that whatever makes me happy makes them happy, I'm never going to be perfect for them. So now I've come to a crossroads. It's tempting to drop it all, marry some nice boy, take the online graduate program and work at the local library that I've been volunteering/working at for ten years already.

I know this is the life they want for me. I also know I'd probably shoot myself in the head five years down the road. So, I'm considering, after I graduate college (if I last), completely cutting off contact with Arkansas. I know that being at school and away from home has already made me feel much better about myself, and allowed me to explore becoming an adult independent of my parents' beliefs and criticisms.

But walking out on them means walking out on that rare stamp of approval from another human being. Walking out means learning to trust my judgment alone and not caring if I screw up. Walking out means learning to not give a fuck.

And maybe that's what happens when tomboys grow up.

Profile: Lucas Silveira of The Cliks

Lucas Silveira is probably the most well known FTM transgendered musician in rock music today.

Never heard of him? Exactly.He's not particularly well known in the music scene at large, and it sometimes feels like the media is using his transgender identity as a focal point rather than his music.

You know, kinda like I am. And I will get to the music. But first, I have to point out how open he is about being transgendered. In the about.com interview listed below, he says that he welcomes questions about his gender, but can only speak for himself. Very PC.

Plus he talks about his choice to not take testosterone. I have a friend who considers this a cop-out, but I disagree. I see it as being similar, on another level, to my longtime desire for a lip piercing. Yes, I want my lip pierced. But I'm also a music major who plays tuba, and I know that a lip piercing will seriously set back my playing to a point that I may not recover.
Of course, taking testosterone is more than something cosmetic like a piercing, but I still see his view. He loves music and is willing to deal without testosterone rather than risk that which he loves. Kinda romantic, actually.

His music? Not so much. Granted, I've only listened to Snakehouse in full, but I've heard a couple songs off Dirty King. Aside from the sweet acoustic track, "If Not for You" and the loyalty promised in "Whenever," most of Silveira's songs are darker and a little on the disillusioned side when it comes to love.

Which means he's now my idol. His voice does sound a little awkward at times, but I like the sound of it overall. And he wins points for comfortably singing higher than I can.

One thing that concerns me is that he runs through band lineups so quickly- I mean, every album has had a different backing band. He's admitted that he's a perfectionist, which I get, but I can't help but worry that, with a little fame, he could become a diva.

But then, maybe he just doesn't play well with others- I know how that goes.

Overall, I recommend his music for good pissy rock-out-in-your-bedroom-with-an-air-guitar evenings, and I recommend the man himself as a rolemodel for trans rock musicians.
About.com Interview
Another blog's interview
Spinner Interview
Dirty King Music Video

To Queens

I love gay men. I've noticed that, before college, most of my non-straight friends were gay men, and that I only associated with lesbians when I was interested in them. In college, the token Queen of the marching band took me under his wing, partially because I was horribly awkward and in the closet, and partially because he had the hots for one of my friends.

Of course, I've always been one of the boys. It's just nice having boys who are often a little more in touch with their feminine sides, if for no other reason than that I feel less silly when I'm in touch with mine.

The past few days, I've been surprisingly effeminate- I say this in honor of my roommate, who once told me I was often "effeminate" but never really "feminine." My hips swish, and God help me, I actually like my long hair that I'm usually debating cutting off.

This is always a disturbing feeling, like the first time I got tipsy around boys and started paying entirely too much attention to member of the men's music fraternity. The next day, I freaked out. I thought he was hot. What did that mean for my sexuality?

Then I decided it really didn't matter. Desire, actions, and identity are three separate categories and, while related, don't always have to fall perfectly into place. I know straight girls who kiss girls, straight boys who kiss boys, and gay girls who sit in the laps of boys with questionable sexuality to tell them how pretty they are (guess which one I am!).

I just wish I could have this same attitude towards gender. Sexuality is one thing; with the growing media attention on sexuality, accepting sexualities outside of the Beaver Cleaver norm is becoming easier. But gender is firmly ingrained in our culture, and it's hard to escape.

Still, it shouldn't matter. Some days I feel like a tomboy. Some days I feel like a boy boy. Some days I feel like the world's most effeminate queen. Roll with it.

I think that, at the end of the day, I'd rather come off as effeminate/androgynous than butch. Queens have more fun. Just look at Emmett from QAF:

My Vagina and Me

"I want to have a penis," my best friend recently told me.

"I want to have a strap-on," I replied, since I've spent the past several days obsessively researching the different types, all to no avail. Having used one before, I found the idea of one extremely erotic.

But a real penis? Not so much. No offense to those who own them, but I find them kind of... well, icky. Vaginas are beautiful, and penises are just there.

But that's just me. And that's partly why I think he's trans whereas I'm not.

I've never really had a problem with gender dysphoria, or at least I don't now. I mean, I was miserable throughout puberty, what with the boobs and the strange body hair and the monthly expulsions. But I handle it all pretty well now, I like to think.

And I like my vagina. It looks good, and more, importantly, it feels good. Kate Bornstein commented in Gender Outlaw that hir penis was not a problem per se except for the fact that society told hir to lose it if zhe wanted to become a "real woman." Now, of course, zhe realizes that what's between hir legs is not indicative of gender at all.

I've come a long ways in terms of accepting the girly bits, though discovering sex certainly accelerated the process. The point I've reached that I'm stumbling over now though? It's the cup. *cue dun-dun-dun music*That is, the menstrual cup. I recently purchased one off Ebay, and I'm trying to work up the nerve to try it out. I only tried tampons about six months ago, and while I loved escaping the grossness of pads, tampons tend to wreak dried out havoc on my body.

So, going with the instructions (Size small is for women under twenty five who have not had children), I bought a size small cup. Only now I'm reading from some women that they prefer the large cup due to heavy periods or the fact that they are sexually active.

Now, I understand that my period is fairly light, but I also understand that I'm pretty sexually active, and that my vagina is one flexible area. So I'm torn on whether to go ahead and send it back, or try it out and hope for the best.

Being perfectly honest, it's not a matter of being comfortable so much as a matter of my being a cheap skate. But then, I'm a poor judge of my own vagina. Does my cervix set low? And am I sexually active enough to warrant a large cup? Where's the line there?

My transman friend is suitably freaked out by the prospect of this cup and the idea of wearing it. I understand that. It requires you to be intimate with your body during a really shitty time of the month.

But I also understand that I'm absolutely terrified of TSS and find tampons to be expensive/gross. The fact that I hurt when I try to insert a large tampon makes me think I should go ahead with the small model.

Plus, I wear boxers typically (comfy, modest, and the silk feels very nice), and boxers are not made for pads. So, usually my period (already a sucky painful time filled with strange emotions and an inability to consume dairy) is also marked by the itchy marks left by wearing girly underwear to accomodate the pad.

In a couple weeks when my happy happy time rolls around, I'll be sure to try my cup out, and report on how it goes, and if I can be that up close and personal with my ladybits.

Same Old Cliche

"Most times you can't hear 'em talk,
Other times you can
All the same old cliches,
"Is that a woman or a man?"
And you always seem outnumbered,
You don't dare make a stand"

-"Turn the Page" by Bob Seger

So, when I'm not reading the books I told myself to read first, I've been perusing Nobody Passes edited by Mattilda aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore. It was here that I found an essay called "The Death of 'Genderqueer.'" Needless to say, I was worried. Here comes another Ariel Levy, I thought.

Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. The author of this essay only wants rid of the word Genderqueer because it no longer encompasses what it originally did, being an umbrella term for everyone who plays with gender or doesn't always fit the gender expectations of society.

And I can understand this. However, I can't quite come up for a term to replace it either. For that matter, the author lived in an urban area with a genderqueer community.

I live in podunk. Defying gender norms is a huge deal, particularly at my college. Butch women and effeminate men stick out like sore thumbs. Plus, I only know two "out" transgender individuals, a MTF transsexual and my bff transman. So really, whereas "The Death of 'Genderqueer'" treats the term as a cliche that has been used to death, most people in my school, even those who are LGBT, have probably never heard it.

So for me and my community, genderqueer is still a fairly new term. But this is Arkansas, and things take awhile to catch on around here.

And it may not catch on at all. As much as I love my home state, it's still a strenuous environment in which to be gay, and the key marker of a gay identity is an "unusual" gender affectation or appearance.

It makes me think back to my first semester in college, where I met my Auntie Mame of gay men, Josh. Josh is the queen among queens, in his midriff shirt and booty shorts (to show off his tramp stamp) at marching band practice. We hung out, and I remember being mortified by his huge high heels collection, as well as his drag Halloween costumes. It wasn't something I had encountered before college outside of watching Rocky Horror Picture Show. Of course, a by the end of that year I'm learning to use Ace bandage to bind down my breasts.

So maybe genderqueer needs to be retired, at least in larger communities. The problem is, how do I find a term for people like me? For female bodied people like me especially. Maybe it's a matter of grass being greener on the other side, but a lot of nonstraight women I know are feminine. Finding the more masculine and androgynous women takes some searching, and finding ones who aren't stuck up or hung up on on gender roles is even harder.

Maybe genderqueer isn't yet dead in Arkansas because it hasn't been properly born yet. Well, I'm waiting.

Tick Tick Bio Clock

One of my friends has recently gotten into the "I want a baby plzkthx" habit at twenty two.

Having a baby at twenty two would absolutely terrify me. It's a combination of the fact that my parents were almost thirty before they had me, and the fact that most women on my father's side of the family have 2-3 kids by the time they're twenty two, and I'm always about bucking the norms of my family.

Plus, I have trouble reconciling raising a baby with having a highly successful career. I was spoiled as an only child raised by a stay-at-home mom, but I also turned out a relatively good kid with straight A's as a result. And don't forget the usually strong relationship with my mother.

Part of me is afraid that, if I work and raise a child, my child won't have the proper attention, or at least the attention I did.

Another part of me is afraid I'll off myself if I spend all day with a little tike and make no academic/career advances. And I could someday have a partner who would stay at home to raise our child, but at the same time, I want someone who will keep up with me in all aspects of life.

Anyone who kept up with me careerwise wouldn't want to raise a child for a living.

Plus, for me raising a child also entails finding a permanent life partner. After a few pathetic years of mooning over the same girl, I have realized we are the female versions of Michael and Brian from Queer as Folk and am learning to give up my previous hopes and dreams involving her.

Besides, she detested children anyways.

Because everyone in my father's family harps on how long he waited, I worry about waiting to have a child in my thirties. Even my grandmother worries. When I told her about my plans for grad school, she was disappointed, hoping instead that I would be preparing to start a family after college.

Is it so bad to not want a baby right now? Or a partner, for that matter. I'm a selfish only child at heart, and I'm just now grasping the concept of giving up my individuality and a huge part of my life to raise a pretty baby into an odd adult with whom I'll probably lose contact anyway.

And, for that matter, what the hell would a child call me? And how would I raise a child when I myself screw with gender? Raise the child with gender norms so that he/she/it will fit in with peers, or raise the child to be whoever he/she/it wants to be.

So, while I struggle with the decision to have children/a committed relationship or not, I swear I feel my uterus ticking happily away like a hand grenade.

Joy.

Profile: Davey Havok of AFI

I'd like to begin this with a warning. Remember around 2004? The hordes of girls obsessed with the band AFI, particularly their lead singer?

I, uh, I was in that horde. Still in that horde, actually. I even have the t-shirt for it. So bear with me. I'm talking about an idol here.

Davey Havok has been slowly cutting his hair shorter since 2003, which makes me terribly sad since, when I first fell in love, he looked more like this:The lead singer here was an idol for me in terms of playing with gender. Sure, lots of guys in the rock scene wore eyeliner, but few did it with the elegance and, well, feminine style that Davey Havok did.Not to mention the fact that the man used to walk around Warped Tour with a parasol, or that his hair, when it was long, looked utterly gorgeous.

But lately, Davey Havok has seemed to become more masculine, cutting his hair shorter, letting his eyebrows grow out- cutting down on the fabulous glittery eye shadow:And the masculinity doesn't end there. I purchased AFI's latest album ( Crash Love from September 2009) and, while I loved the music instrumentally and was pleased to hear Havok's voice improving a little since his surgery to remove vocal cord nodules in 2004, I was also disappointed in the lyrics.

Davey Havok has a reputation for writing vague lyrics rich with imagery. And Crash Love doesn't stack up to his previous works in terms of lyrics. His lyrics are more blunt and obvious, less interpretive and, well, pretty.

The little hipster kid inside me wants to say that Havok is trying to assimilate into mainstream culture and is dropping is genderqueer ways to gain popularity. But really, he reached the height of popularity when he was covered in glitter with waist length hair, so I think his change in fashion is just a progression of his own tastes. Besides, if you look at photos of Davey Havok going back, you realize he's the Madonna of his scene, reinventing his look every few years. I mean, the photos I used here are from the past six years alone, and AFI has been together off and on since about 1993. Who knows, maybe five or six years from now Davey Havok will return to his pretty boy ways.

Until then, I have to stay a faithful fan, particularly when he says things like

Q: Actually, a lot of your fans don't know what to make of your sexuality.

A: It is a huge topic. I've found that at times that question and the dubiousness that I seem to exude has given people something -- not simply gossip or whether God is going to smite them for liking our band, but actually they've found strength and become more comfortable with who they are as a person. It's pansexual, that sort of reach. It's a wonderful side effect of what we're doing, to give someone the strength to come out of the closet to their family, or simply present themselves aesthetically in a way they feel happy with, whether or not their friends are going to be allowed to like them anymore. So it's actually a really cool side effect to all the rumors.
-From an interview originally posted on Buzznet

Hooray for T-shirts!

A lot of advice columns aimed at female-bodied people trying to present themselves in a more masculine/androgynous manners discourage t-shirts, considering that they are "unisex."

But t-shirts are like jeans. Everyone wears them, but men and women often wear different styles of shirt. To pick a more masculine t-shirt, focus on these ideas:

• Shape: Boxy, unisex/men's t-shirts are the best, particularly if they're a little loose. Also, v-necks, while hot on biological men, can also be feminizing depending on the cut.
• Logos: A big logo encompassing the entire front of the shirt can draw attention away from your breasts, where a shirt with a logo directly across the chest can draw attention straight to the ladies.
• Color: Like it or not, some colors in our culture are considered more feminine than others. Black, brown, and other dull shades are masculine, where as pink, purple, and various other pastels are considered feminine. However, brightly colored t-shirts can still be seen as masculine depending on:
• What Else You're Wearing: Short shorts, strappy sandles, and a bangle will feminize even the boxiest black t-shirt. I admit, I don't always dress like a hardcore man's man- more like an effeminate gay guy, at times. But a brightly colored t-shirt can still work if it's under an open button up or over a white undershirt, with loose jeans and tennis shoes. Also, wearing nothing with your t-shirt gives it away too, unless your t-shirt is really long.
  

The best way to judge what is more masculine/androgynous is to simply study the opposite sex. Find celebrities whose style you like and try to put your own twist on them. For instance, lately I've become a bit enamoured of Christofer Drew of NeverShoutNever!:

And above all else, dress comfortably! And hope to God that Stacey and Clinton of What Not to Wear don't find you.

Bad Bois

Behold! Gloria Steinem has had a love child- with whoever will have a love child with her. And this lovechild is named Ariel Levy.

I first heard about Levy's book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, in a review in a Bitch magazine from 2004. I remember the review being positive, so I was excited to receive a copy for this past Christmas.

And then I read it. Cue angriness.

I don't have a problem with Levy's main premise. I'm fine with that. Her idea is that women are buying into the “let's objectify women!” raunch culture so long adopted by some men. If you can't beat them, join them.

And while her studies of Girls Gone Wild positively reek of Steinem's “I Was a
Playboy Bunny” article, she makes some excellent points regarding the line between women reclaiming sexual power and women feeling like they're reclaiming sexual power, only to find that they are instead encouraging one another to be objectified. She feels like she veers into the overly conservative, easily angered side of her one sided arguments, but I can forgive her that.

It's her chapter “From Womyn to Bois” that I can't forgive. Okay, in this chapter Levy focuses on the raunch surrounding lesbians who identify as being boi. Of course, most of her examples are of rude, underachieving, immature people who treat feminine women like “hos” and act like all the worst aspects of dumbass teen boys.

I'll credit her that, even, because these folks are definitely out there. Her problem here- like her problem throughout the book- is that she never presents an alternate side, which dramatically weakens her argument.

Plus, she generally treats the concept of a “genderqueer movement” as if it is silly, trying to punch holes in the concept. She explains the genderqueer movement she sees, and then tries to back it up by describing an FTM transsexual and asking why someone would bother with surgery and testosterone if they were trying to destroy the gender binary.

I feel like Levy threw in the word “genderqueer” without any real research or consideration, and I'm pissed. Furthermore, she's taking case by case examples of people's lives and holding them up to represent an entire demographic of people. Did I mention that the transman she used as an example never once identified as genderqueer? Weak.

This chapter was enough to ruin her book for me, I'm afraid. Hell, a paragraph in this chapter was enough. Ariel Levy makes so many excellent points in her book, but completely alienates me and everyone like me, people who otherwise might have supported her.

It's 2010, Ariel. The hardcore 2nd wave feminists are thinning out, and my generation is a hell of a lot more fluid than you're expecting. I'm in line with Kate Bornstein's view on this, really. As long as there are two and only two commonly accepted genders, one will always usurp the power and oppress the other. I'm not looking for Sultana's Dream- I'm looking for a world with one last tag to be held against me.

Who Wants to Be the Lizard King?

My heroes have always been rock stars.

First I wanted to be Billy Ray Cyrus (hush). Not a rock star, per se, but still. Music star. Then I wanted to be a Hanson brother- then a Madden brother as part of Good Charlotte. I wanted to be like Davey Havok of AFI, then Robert Smith of The Cure, then Conor Oberst Bright Eyes.

Never really wanted to be Avril Lavigne- though, looking back, I had a huge crush on her. See, female rock musicians are always heavily sexualized in a way I don't like- God help me, but that quote from Elly Jackson posted yesterday holds a grain of truth, about women's sexuality being used to attract men/fans.

And then there's Patti Smith- probably one of the first women I wanted to emulate. But apparently that's understandable. In Simon Reynolds' book Sex revolts : Gender, Rebellion, and Rock'n'roll, he explains that musicians like Patti Smith actually emulated men, becoming the rock stars in the Mick Jagger sort of tradition.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Aside from occasional whimsies, I'm not a big fan of “women's music.” I don't want to dress like a female musician, and I don't want to be treated like one, because at the end of the day, I'm not entirely sure that I'm a woman.

I'm something completely different. For that matter, I have a low singing voice, so a lot of times I can't keep up with the notes sung by female musicians.

Tegan and Sara, I love you dearly, but those are vocals I can't always handle.

Besides, being a rock star is sort of the ultimate Peter Pan complex. Rock stars aren't men. They're boys. They're living out the “dream,” however dangerous and unsuccessful it may be. They're not having to grow up.

And growing up is really the root of the problem. I look at the options I have to become: Woman or Man. Neither is particularly appealing, and I'd like to draw a nice label outside of the two for me to belong in. Because both of them carry their own expectations and rules that prevent me from being experimental, from being free, and from being myself.

Plus, so often, female-bodied musicians out there claim that they dress in an androgynous way so that their fans focus on their music rather than their appearance. I don't mind the focus on appearance at all. I just want a few more people out in the world to admit that they find androgynous people sexy as hell.

Because we all know they are.

Profile: Elly Jackson of La Roux

I have mixed opinions about Elly Jackson. On the one hand, I like her group's music. I spent all day Sunday with “Bulletproof” stuck in my head. And she wins points for being cute.

Aaaand the positive stops right about there. Bless her heart, but Elly Jackson has a way of sticking her foot in her mouth in interviews. I don't hold it against her too much. I mean, we're around the same age, and God help me if half the things I've said were in print, without my chance to say “Oh shit! Don't say I said that!”

For the most part, it's her attacks on other musicians that irk me. She picks on members of Erasure for their taste in music and calls them, supposedly, “mutton dressed as lamb.” Of course, the singer, to whom this quote was attributed, brushes off the comment saying “it's probably the sort of thing I would have said when I was her age.”

Yes, that's all fine and good, but there comes a point when you can' t keep hiding behind your age as a defense for stupidity and rudeness. Maybe it's my Southern showing, but part of any business is maintaining connections with other popular people in your field, and Jackson keeps taking a machete to these connections. She may think she's being “honest” and establishing herself as not another blonde girly-girl who's all sugar and spice, but really she's coming off as a rude brat.

And all of this culiminates in her June 2009 interview with The Quietus, in which she says:

"[Using a sexuality designed to just appeal to men is] really patronising to women. I know that there's far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt and a tank top. If you're a real woman you can turn someone on in a plastic bag just by looking at them. That's what a real woman is, when you've got the sex eyes. I think you attract a certain kind of man by dressing like that. Women wonder why they get beaten up, or having relationships with arsehole men. Because you attracted one, you twat. It's a funny culture, it's definitely a funny culture. Those women are just insecure, but they'll turn round to me and say 'you're just jealous 'cos you want a tan and you want big boobs, stupid boy-looking girl'. You can't win, they wouldn't believe me for a second."

She makes some lovely points in regards to how women can be sexy without being Eva Longoria. And then she makes that comment about attracting certain men by dressing a certain way. I'll admit, the clothes can send a signal, but women (or just people, for that matter) are never responsible for being beaten up because they are “dressing like that.” Fail, Elly Jackson, fail.

Having said that, I will admit that she wins back a few points with her statement in Starpulse:

"I don't have a sexuality. I don't feel like I'm female or male. I don't belong to the gay or straight society, if there is such a thing. I feel like I'm capable of falling in love with other people. I'm not saying I'm bisexual, I'm just sexual!”

Amen! It's very pomosexual of her, and while the whole “I'm not gay, not straight” thing is being picked up by various female singers these days, her statement that she feels in between genders makes me feel a little better. Now, if she can just keep her foot out of her mouth more often, I'd consider her to be an excellent rolemodel, in addition to an interesting musician.

Bulletproof Music Video

Sources:

The Erasure Jibe

The Quietus

Starpulse

Passing Gay

Dwight of The Office with his official Gaydar machine.

Yesterday, my two best friends came to visit and spend the day bumming around Fayetteville, spending money on more books and candy than we probably needed.
While in Romancing the Stone, one of my friends nudged me and pointed out two (hot) guys who were semi-obviously a couple. We proceeded to see them throughout the day at the mall, the encounters culminating into a point where we passed each other, and I turned around to watch them leave, and one of them turned around to look at us in much the same way. We grinned a little, and his boyfriend nudged him back into walking forward, and then they were gone. My friend pointed out that he probably thought we were a couple.

How did I know these guys were gay? Granted, they walked together everywhere, but so did a lot of guys. Other than that, there was nothing- except maybe the way they dressed (very neatly), or the way one of them, the more obvious of the pair, walked (with his hips) and talked (with his hands).

However, I wouldn't consider these sexuality cues so much as gender cues. This man was not presenting himself as being particularly masculine the way so many men in the South do. Of course, my friend's proposed assumption, that the guy thought we were together, followed much the same guidelines of gender cues. Wilting Southern belles we are not.

The thing is, so much of what I read about gender identity makes a huge deal about taking gender identity and sexuality and putting a vast canyon between them. I can understand the point, to differentiate between who you are and who you are attracted to, but you can't deny that in the queer community, gender identity and sexuality blur together a bit.

I think that, as members of the GLBT community make more strides towards legal equality, they also assimilate into straight, vanilla culture, as if to say “Look, we're here, we're queer, and we're just like you!”
There's a quote, I'm having trouble finding it, that says something along the lines that “Gays want you to think that we're just like you, only the sex is different. Actually, we are nothing like you; only the sex is the same.” And I can see this. Few things considered to be gay/lesbian sex are exclusively practiced by gay people.

I know lesbians who like straight girls, who love finding the most feminine, most straight laced coughs girls and “converting” them. They've given me shit for the girls that I like, and God help me if they found me looking at the boys I, on occasion, like. But I'm not queer because I like straight, normal girls. I'm queer because I like other people who are queer, and I wish people would stop drawing their black and white lines in my happy gray area.

Also, reading this book, which will hopefully help me deal with my issues of assimilation and such.

The Problem with College Fashion: Or why skinny jeans can go to hell.

In high school, I spent most of my time in office appropriate clothing, since I went to work at the public library immediately after school every day. College was a huge shock, and I went a little overboard in rebelling against the button up/dress pants/sensible shoes wardrobe I had to wear so much of high school.

Hello, t-shirts. Hello, jeans. Hello, Converses (because flip flops are a fail moment for any member of a marching band).

Of course, the freshman fifteen didn't help my fashion- neither did the other fifteen on top of that. I mainly stuck to t-shirts, baggy jeans, and bandanas my freshman year.

And then I bought the skinny jeans.

Skinny jeans are one of those tiny failures in fashion, for me at least. When I saw skinny jeans, I wanted to look like a skinny little emo boy:



Instead, I look like J. Lo's ass and thighs came to inhabit a grungy college boy's body. I don't know where this ass came from; no one else in my family is so gifted. The thighs?A result of stress-related eating binges.

So no skinny jeans for me. It's something I don't think about, a lot of the time when it comes to passing. Breasts and hair are always my main concern with dressing as a guy- flattening the breasts, hiding the hair. Fortunately, I spend most of the school year in baggy jeans and jackets which help conceal the whole hourglass effect.

In summer, my hips have nowhere to hide. And that's the problem with unisex fashions such as skinny jeans. I would like to look androgynous, but to do that I feel as if I have to dress extra-masculine to cover up obvious female characteristics. I wear sweater vests, loose shirts, and I can pull off looking dressed up and male- but t-shirts and jeans, which are my most comfortable choice, just make me look like a lazy college student.

It's a matter of body dysphoria, I guess, because in my mind I feel like I should still be skinny as I was for that brief, unhealthy time. I see men in AP and Rolling Stone and I want to be thin. To be the waifish-looking musician in an oversized flannel shirt. I admit, normal women have a lot to live up to when compared to their size 0 fashion counterparts. But don't men as well?

Maybe, maybe you could argue that men don't care as much about their appearance, don't study it and how it compares with the media around them (though I doubt it). I guarantee transmen do though, because they're learning through comparison, what parts of their bodies and poses are passable, and what parts- like breasts, like hips, like babyfaces- are not. Passing as a man becomes a test, a study, and we don't have the proper shape/parts to begin with.

So now, the skinny jeans rest in the back of my closet, eagerly awaiting the day that I lose enough weight to have legs that aren't the fine curved gams I've got now.

Transkids

So, this article was posted at the What is Gender forums regarding kids who are transgendered. Long story short, one of the doctor believes in teaching kids to accept their biological gender, the other encourages parents to let their children dress according to how they feel.

And I have no idea how I feel about it all. My main concern is that the kids would be bullied for dressing opposite of their biological sex. These children were mtf, and God knows how quickly little kids like to pick on “boys” who fall short of any masculinity. But then, I've also heard that, because girls are allowed to be more masculine then boys, ftm transkids have it easier.

Bull Shit.

I've spent the past six-ish years in tuba sections composed almost entirely of guys. And I'm accepted- now, because I keep up with any drinking, cursing, or sleeping around that comes up. But band was shit when I first switched, because the guys in my high school tuba section absolutely did not want a girl on their turf. I went through some lovely hazing and hardening before I was accepted, because I was crossing a gender line. At least I wasn't a “boy” showing up to school in a dress.

So, I think parents have to weigh the social safety of their children vs. them being happy in public all the time. Around home is different. It's hard to say that's my opinion, since I have plenty of personal conflicts, especially when I remember that I'm still bitter about my mother's refusal to buy me boys' underwear in the third grade. Of course, now that she buys me boxers, I feel a small victory, but I still can't decide if my mother made the right choice or not. Gender presentation makes you more comfortable in your own skin, but can also label you as an easy target.

Hormone blockers are an entirely different matter. I absolutely hated puberty and fought the special changes every step of the way in the worst ways I could have. For instance, drastically losing weight by not eating/exercising constantly not only gives you a little muscle (at first, before everything melts away), it also cuts back on the boob growth and causes amenorrhea! Eventually, I turned myself around enough to become a good little girl again- though I think that switching from clarinet to tuba immediately afterwards helped make up for the surprise boob growth spurt and reemergence of the period. Had I been self-aware enough to consciously realize why I was doing this, and then brave enough to admit it to my parents, I think I would have taken hormone blockers until I was sure. Maybe. And then, I don't know what I'd do.

Because to be honest, some days I like having boobs. They get me out of tickets. They balance out my belly. They feel good. And I've never really had a problem with the downstairs, just the monthly expulsion.

If I could go back, I might like to try hormone blockers and testosterone, just to see how I'd turn out. But I'm too in the middle right now to be sure. Plus, just as there are some people who are totally sure “My gender is this but my body is that,” there are others (like me) who are in the middle or, more often than not. Maybe my friends are right. Maybe I'm just getting ready to come out to myself. But in a way, I worry that all of this- the medicalization of being transgender, the hormones, all of it- is all tied to the emphasis placed on “passing” as the opposite sex, because if you don't pass, if you fall short of one gender or the other, you're something new. You're threatening the rules of
Manichean genders, and thus, you simply must be threatening everyone that follows those rules. Right?

Passing for the Generations

As I said in my first post, I rarely pass as male. Besides the way my voice climbs in pitch when I get emotional (on a level on par with Elliott from Scrubs), I also have long hair which, no matter how much I tie it back, is still obviously long hair. However, I had a “passing incident” recently with the secretary of our music department.
Ms. A is not known for her intelligence, though she can be a remarkably sweet lady. Well, sometimes. On occasion. But it's disconcerting to see her happy at work. Regardless, she was actually conversational when I went to the music office to permanently borrow duct tape. The duct tape was for a ghetto tuba pad, and the only color of tape my roommate and I own is hot pink. When I explained to Ms. A that I didn't think hot pink duct tape would look professional on my tuba, she agreed, though pink duct tape would look “cute on a girl's tuba.”

I laughed it off, “It sure would,” and promptly went to laugh about it to my tuba professor. He and Ms. A have a love/hate/please-make-the-copier-work relationship, and he thought it was hilarious that she thought I was a guy.

In fact, most people who have passed me off as male have been older, whereas younger people just assume I'm a lesbian, a tomboy, or one of those strange girls from the gamer floor of our dorm (my straight, soon-to-be-married RA is so much more masculine than I am). Is this because our generation has a broader view of gender representation? I don't have the quote, but I believe in Sarah Waters' Tipping Velvet, one of the characters remarks that a woman can easily pass for a man if she wears pants, because only men wear pants of course. That doesn't hold water today, but there are still certain clothing items that are considered appropriate for one gender- such as a tie. I feel like middle aged people still associate the tie as a purely male clothing accessory. However, I grew up in the shudders Avril Lavigne generation, where women can wear ties all the time.

I think that, as each generation has a wider range of gender-appropriate clothing, the ability to “pass” for transgendered people becomes harder. So, after awhile, is passing even worth it? Because the acceptance of nontraditional clothing in terms of gender should also represent a broader scope of gender in the minds of younger generations anyways. This is a generation of straight girls that can identify as straight but still really, really like to kiss/make out with other girls. Hell, thanks to Katy Perry, they have their anthem. Is this going to be a generation where it's okay for me to not completely pass one way or the other?

Boys Will Be Girls, Girls Will Be Cloud Strife

I lucked out when my roommate decided that we should move to an all-female dorm on campus. I mean, my first thoughts were "Great, here comes even more estrogen and rhinestones and jewelry sales pitches as dorm programs."

Fortunately, my roommate ended up choosing the Gamer Girl floor at our school. You know, the one the RA decorates like a Super Mario world, where no one talks face to face and everyone has an anime wall scroll in their room. No time for painting each others' nails- the new Final Fantasy game just came out!

Not just that, but many of the girls on my floor roleplay as well- whether in the classic desktop games such as Dungeons and Dragons, or online via IM or a game such as Gaia. The thing is, they all roleplay as male characters- often in romantic relationships with female characters who are also played by women.

Cloud from Final Fantasy is one of the favorite characters roleplayed by the girls.

This threw me for a loop. I mean, the girls I'm talking about are exclusively heterosexual. If they were roleplaying male characters in M/M relationships, I could understand it a bit better, since they're all also slash and yaoi fans.

However, these girls are playing male characters with female characters, so I'm not entirely sure what to think of it. The only explanation I can find is the same one often used to justify slash. The female characters are often not as developed and thus not as interesting as the male characters in a franchise, particularly in video games, so maybe it's just because the guys are more interesting? Or maybe, because women spend so much of their lives being passive, especially in romantic relationships, that they use video game and anime roleplaying as an outlet to be active romantically. In that case, it's not that the gender that matters so much, I think, as who is playing a more active role.

Whatever the reason, I thought it was still a great example: even people you would never label as being queer (in a sexual sense, anyways) are playing with gender to suit themselves.

"I know I'm not a man. . ."

“I know I'm not a man. . .And I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not a woman, either.”-Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw*

I don't pass. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been mistaken for a guy, (my favorite being the token flamboyant art professor who called me a “perfect Southern gentleman” after I held the door open for him).

And I always made a point not to think about my gender. I knew what I liked to wear (long shorts and muscle shirts and bandanas), I knew what I liked to do (play tuba in marching band), and, after a couple bad attempts, I knew who I was attracted to (girls, for the most part, particularly those who don't seem to fit prescribed gender categories).

And then one of my friends came out to me as a trans man. While learning from him about his journey s in gender, I started to think about mine. After a few months of reading, thinking, crying, and arguing with myself, I realized I had to agree with Kate Bornstein.

I don't think I'm either really, though I'm much more comfortable being masculine than begin feminine. However, I'm nowhere near established in a fully comfortable identity. I'm still trying to figure this all out, and I thought maybe talking through this in a public forum would not only help me but help others who are also struggling to find their place in the gender spectrum (or seeking to abolish it completely).

For the most part, I'll try to focus my posts on gender, but I can make no promises. As anyone who knows me in person can tell you, I tend to jump subjects quickly. Consequently, I'll probably be reviewing books and music as well, since I can't help myself sometimes.

Like I said, I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I am, and I'm always hoping to discussing this with others and seeing their views, so comments are more than welcome!

Bornstein, Kate. Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Print.