Gender’s got nothing on me.

Alt text at bottom of page.

In high school, I heard the rumors. I knew that I was not the epitome of femininity. It was not the first time I had to evaluate what being a woman meant to me.

It started in 3rd grade, with the best friend of my best friend, who asked why I had a mustache. I didn’t think I had one, but suddenly it was all I could see. Only boys had mustaches—but I was a girl. When I went home, I begged my mom for help. We spread pink Nair on my face and I locked myself in the bathroom where no one could see me washing away my insecurity.

But that wasn’t enough (spoiler: it never is), so in 4th grade, my crush told me my new haircut made me look like a boy—but I was a girl. The “teasing” didn’t stop until my hair had grown past my chin again. I still flinch when I pull my hair too far back and see the more masculine features of my face.

In high school, I’d had enough of hiding behind long hair and getting chemical burns underneath my nose. I decided I would try to stop caring—or at least appear to stop caring. I shrugged off the barbed comments about my face from classmates, refusing to give a reaction, even if it made me think no one could ever love a face like mine. Even if it shook my femininity to the core, even if I began to think my own face was ugly, I refused to cave.

In college, I tried to leave it all behind me; I was grown now. I could shake it. But some people never grow up, and they would match with me on dating apps just to ask me if I knew I had a mustache. An ex of mine told me I should shave my eyebrows and my lip (I should have left him right then).

Then the pandemic hit, and I had more time on my hands than before. I had a coworker who identified as nonbinary, and I started to wonder what that would mean. I shrugged off “woman,” which had caused me problems for so long, and I tried on something different.

But gender is weird. I found myself somewhere in between the two, sometimes feeling like nothing but a person inhabiting a body, and at other times like I was more of a woman than I’d ever been (occasionally, I even reveled in my masculinity). But the more scrutiny I put my identity under, the more it seemed to move. Like my gender, my identity is fluid.
When I shook off the weight of performing femininity, my biggest insecurity became nearly null. If I don’t have to identify as a woman, then it’s not an insult for someone to point out the ways in which I don’t perform as a woman. Rather, it can signal to others that my identity is not what they assume it to be. Most importantly, it is a (much needed) reminder to myself that I decide what I want my body to look like—not others.

♥ ♥ ♥

ALT TEXT: An image excerpt from “Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation” page 177. In background: Grayed out images representing an insecure internal monologue. They are saying: “Have I always been this way? Which way? Have I always had a sense that I am neither man nor woman… well… no. I was quite certain that I was a girl, even as a teenager. Have I always straddled the line between masculinity and femininity in my presentation, likes, dislikes, mannerisms, activities? …I suppose so. Have I always…”

The internal monologue is cut off by the person in the forefront, saying, “Fuck this ALWAYS nonsense! How could I always be anything? I’ve been constantly changing and growing and adapting since I was born! Isn’t that what humans are meant to do? Every piece of information, every experience, has served to mold me into who I am at this moment just as what I am undergoing in this moment is shaping who I will be tomorrow. The only thing I have always been doing is growing. Who cares whether we have always been this way? Let us instead say: I have always been becoming what I am right now.”

“You’re Really Good At Taking Everyone’s Sh!t”

Whose Fault Is It?

Emotional labor is the act of “regulating or managing emotional expressions with others as part of one’s professional work role”. For the context of this blog post, I will also be referencing emotional work as well, which is the role people use in any social context.
RANT: Every post, YouTube video, and link that I looked at typically focused on the emphasis of how women have been the brute focus of emotional work and often, labor. WHAT ABOUT THE MEN?!
BLOG: Ideally, men have been the focus, but in our current generation, I am starting to wonder if men are becoming the scapegoat for blame. There are good and bad things to this, but I can only share my experiences. From growing up in a household as an adopted child to working in hospitality at some of the best hotels in the Houston area, to coming home and being expected to “clean up everyone else’s shit” (one of my ex’s fathers literally told me this and suggested I work for some type of plumbing company) to experiencing my own version of emotional labor is…exhausting. As a recommendation, if you’re dealing with being the emotional laborer of your family or workplace, I suggest counseling, good friends, hobbies, and money.
Now that I have your attention, the emphasis on emotional labor during this period of the class was for women. Honestly, I love that. Often, the strongest women in my life have carried the emotional labor of EVERYONE in the family. My Grandmother (capital G, because she truly is a G), and my Aunt (who raised me, God bless her soul) have not only raised multiple members of the family but have guided others and influenced people for generations to come. I can endlessly explain what they have done for everyone, including my impaired brother (this falls into the disability category of the past few weeks, but I decided to not go in-depth with these issues and instead focus on emotional labor…anyway) My Grandmother has done amazing things as a widowed woman, and when my grandfather was alive, what I recall of him, he was a remarkable man, veteran, and overall generally good person. In order for him to be that he needed to have an even stronger woman there to not only support him, but to motivate and guide him. We so often focus on a certain gender, but I think its vital to focus and include everyone because we cannot physically do it all on our own – even if social media suggests that we do.
When it comes to emotional labor for myself, as an older male, I grew up with the family vibe of “you want it? Do it yourself” This mindset has its own version of toxic masculinity and it worked for a time, but as I have grown older and started practicing gratitude, meditation, and fitness, I have learned that kindness is the key to growing. However, that is also the curse of being easily manipulated and being the scapegoat out of a lack of emotion – if you allow yourself to be. When working as a hotel supervisor, I found myself taking on the emotional verbal abuse of people that travelled so far and attempted to check in, but one minor inconvenience (Well…one time there was a major inconvenience, we sold out and by the time they got there…the people didn’t have a room… and they were diamond members which is equivalent to being a traveling version of Karen) set them over the top, and I had to apologize profusely, make up for their issues by giving them a free nights stay at another hotel, etc… all while keeping a smile on my face. So dumb, but it was vital in learning how to maneuver around people when they are angry and teaching myself how to stay calm in the face of disappointment. That’s an invaluable trait and lessons/memories that I am grateful for.
I don’t know, I am a believer in the idea that everything happens for a reason. Maybe I should allow myself to be the gatekeeper of my own “shit”, to be more selfish and selfless at the same time, and to lack the attempt to understand everything and everyone around me but I cant do that shrug. In essence, I think all of us must have some type of role in emotional labor, but please, don’t forget to take care of your mental, physical, and financial well-being. Your family, friends, and pets will thank you for it. (I will always choose to be kind and thank you to all of the people in my life, wouldn’t be me without YOU).

Queer Brokenness: Intersection with Mental Illness

Image Source: http://trauma.blog.yorku.ca/2015/12/south-asian-queer-community-lacks-visibility/  (Artist – Jinesh Patel)

(Content and Trigger Warning: Self Harm, Suicide, Substance Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Intimate Partner Violence, Bullying)

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I often find that mental illness and queerness aren’t addressed properly or constructively when talked about together. So often the public at large would have us believe that queerness is a result of mental illness or that mental illness is the result of queerness exclusively. With this in mind, the queer community will often push back on society’s behavior by talking about the two exclusively from each other, frequently ignoring all the ways mental illness intersect. That’s does not go to say that queerness is the result of mental illness or vice versa at all, but rather it shouldn’t be ignored that many people in the queer community go through both because of the way society has constructed and reacted towards queerness. For example, queerness has often been perceived as a deviant thing, it has historically been punished and worked against in a variety of ways.

Queer Identity Discovery: The Domino Effect and Queer Time

Image Source: http://www.avclub.com/article/theres-mash-rainbow-road-themes-all-8-mario-karts-206528

I’ll focus on my own experience here but I know there are going to be things about my experience that many other queer people can relate to in this regard.

My experience with queerness has never been linear, it has indeed been very queered. It has consistently involved not knowing about a way of being queer and then being introduced to the concept, a moment of reflection and then realizing “oh shit that’s me.” But I’ve also consistently struggled with coming to terms with these new labels and seeing how they fit me.

From the age of 12 to about a month away from turning 21 I had been on a journey of denial, internalization, grief over myself changing and growing, complete secrecy, exploration, etc. etc. about me being bi. I had come out after years of being afraid of myself, but in that time I also developed a yearning for community. When I came back to UMBC after two years of community college I knew that I’d want to seek out my community. Since then my reality as a queer person has shifted so greatly. I feel so liberated. Yet I grieve. I grieve for the ways I have been, not knowing if they are different than who I am now. My sense of self has been questioned. I don’t know if my new state of existing is just blurrier, or if things have just been just out of my sight this entire time and it constantly feels like both. I don’t know how consistent this person who is me is.

Bodies in Motion

This is my last semester of college and I am now going to transition from being a body in academia to a body in the workforce. This is a terrifying new concept because I honestly never became comfortable in academia and now I get to go be uncomfortable in a whole new arena. 

FYI: My uterus does not determine my strength.

I’m carrying a relatively heavy box, but its weight is nothing I can’t handle. However, perhaps I showed some sign of strain that would cause this man to come over to me and take the box.

But I like this show mom!

As a 90’s baby I look back at the old cartoons and listen to old hits, reminiscing the good ole days. I joke around with the children at my job, telling them how the best shows were on cartoon network . I expressed that my favorite shows were the Power Puff Girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Dexter laboratory , and other hit TV series.

As I continued to share my stories, one kid goes “I like Loud House”. Of course I did not know what he was talking about , but another child replies ” It’s that Gay show! My father said I cannot watch it”. Then it clicked. I remember this being a controversial topic on Facebook before the shows premier. The show contains a married, biracial , Gay, male couple that has a child.

In this blog I will explain what makes this show inappropriate .

Point #1  It goes against the social norm : How dare you show a child who is the product of the american dream two men together! That’s absurd ! How dare we show children that there is more to life than just mommy and daddy. Boys cannot be feminine ! They must be rough. If my child see’s this he will not be the man I want him to be! (sarcasm)

Point #2 STICK WITH YOUR OWN RACE! :  How dare we promote outside our race ! ( Sarcasm)

Point #3 THIS GOES AGAINST OUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ! :  who cares.

Point #4  How can you reproduce if your gay : Well if there’s a will there’s a way……. who cares

At the end of the day no one said you had to be gay, but just respect them as humans. The world must embrace change!  Whose to say your way of living is right!? If anything I see it as this, we are letting people finally be themselves. Many people have been killed, have been shunned, have killed themselves,or have had something tragic done to them because they were considered ” not normal” ( Much like blacks were considered way back when but I shall not go there 😀  ). Now we have same sex marriages, Tv shows, Gay parenting, etc! All of these things that were considered abnormal are now part of our norm and should be! At the end of the day we are people. Accept it!

 

 

 

 

 

Gender Policing of Halloween Bodies

For Halloween this year my girlfriend and I decided to go as Shaggy and Velma. While looking for clothes in a thrift store, my girlfriend started playing with the idea of going as a sexy Velma. Going along with it I suggested I go as a sexy Shaggy as well. 

Split Second

Change happens very slowly. You can feel it weighing down on you overtime.

It squeezes you until you can’t take deep breaths anymore. It’s a white entity that gets heavier and heavier until you feel suffocated and start seeing flashing lights. It’s a gloomy creature that rests on your neck and crushes your vocal chords, until your voice crackles and then disappears.

When you least expect it, your eyes lose their shimmer and are replaced by glass with no reflection.

Change happens slowly. But I saw someone change before me in a matter of seconds.

Everyone Else Wants a Dick in My Mouth (In which society takes one glance at my body and assume they know my whole life)

A few months ago when eating lunch with friends, one of my friends offhandedly commented that ‘men must love [me]’. I realized that she was referring to my ability to fit a large amount of food in my mouth, and assuming that I would use this ability to give great blowjobs (something I have no interest in doing). This got me thinking.