Response to GenderKid

I have been reading the blog Genderkid (http://genderkid.wordpress.com/) for a while now and occasionally we comment on each others blogs, looking at my blog earlier I found this comment and as I wrote my response I found myself wanting to post it in a way that people would be more likely to see it-

Comment on the last blog post (Memories, 8/5/09):

"I really liked this poem. I haven't been in any situations like that, but I'm also afraid that, when I'm perceived as male, people will see me as menacing. They probably won't --I'm small--, but I still do my best not to look intimidating when I see a woman walking alone at night. Even if I'm just as scared as she is."
Genderkid (http://genderkid.wordpress.com/)

Response:
"yea, I definitely try to be aware of how my perceived masculinity can effect women in ways that I may not even notice, because in many of the negative experiences I have had with men were not overt, but rather there are subtle ways that masculinity is enacted that establish men as dominant over women.

Also, I totally hear what your saying about being as scared as she is though, it is strange because the violence that is enacted on me is enacted and felt by me because of my female body, and yet I also participate in systems of masculinity that perpetuate violence.

I wonder is it possible to operate masculinity without playing into misogynist gender roles and privilege? "


The concept of transmasculine misogyny as well as the delicate relationship among transmasculine folks, masculinity, misogyny, and straight men is something I hope to continue to touch on with more posts, but I wanted to keep the discussion going.

-helyx

Dear Mother.

Dear Mother,
You ask me if it offends me to use the woman's restroom because that is the only way that you see your gender interacting with your life...
in short, yes. It does, I learned to pee fast because public bathrooms make me uncomfortable, you probably don't notice the anxiety in my eyes everytime I walk through the woman's bathroom with you, but it is there. And you probably don't notice the relief I feel when we walk into a place with a unisex bathroom. I often do not go into the bathroom even when I need to... In the same way that I do not speak at events because I am paralyzed by anxiety over what name to use and how that will effect me and those around me.
I am affected by my gender every time I see myself in the mirror, or in a reflection or a shadow and every time I touch my body I am reminded that it is not a reflection of who I am. And I have known since I was little that it never felt just right, this label of woman, this body of woman.
I think that it grows from your second wave feminism, this idea, that your gender has no impact on you, and I think that is good, I do not mean to diminish you, or your gender, or your ideologies. But they do not work for me. I do not belong at the Michigan Womyns Festival. Believe me I would like to go to Michigan, I've been intrigued since I found those pictures hidden away in a box of photos, or since my aunt told me of the time the two of you went together. But my vagina does not make me a woman, and I have been living this life knowing that I float somewhere in between not only the societal definitions of man and woman, but in the actual space between male and female.
I am not attempting to cop out, and hide, or thinking that it would simply be easier to become a man and assume that privilege. In fact, I feel that it would just as easily be a lie to call myself a man, I consider myself to be an effeminate boy, where I will go next I do not know. In fact, I know very little about where my life is headed, or what it or I will look like.
That is why I chose my new name, I am sure that you remember mother, how I never liked my female name, it was popular and feminine and I did not feel like a Hannah. I don't know if I feel like a Helyx, but what I do know about that name is that it rests in the middle, much like myself, it gives me a chance to define me for me, outside of labels of femininity and masculinity.
So, yes mother, it does offend me to use the woman's restroom, every time I enter that space I am scared, of what I am never sure, certainly of the fact that someone could call me out on my gender in a second, certainly of the strange looks I get from young children, the people who have to look twice at me and the old women who hold their purses closer...
I know that my gender does not soley rest on my outward presentation, but I attempt to create a presentation that reflects the way I feel inside... and this is what I get...
so mother, please try to understand, I am not trying to leave you, but this second wave feminism isn't working for me, because I am not a woman, I am not female, I am female and male and neither all at the same time, and I do not like the labels available... so I try to just live, without the need to identify in one word...

Names.

So I don't know when it started, but as far back as I can remember the name Hannah never seemed to fit me,
as far back as I can remember I recall my knee-jerk reaction whenever hearing my name,
as far back as I can remember I have always felt like other names fit me better,
I have sought refuge in nicknames, some of my relatives call me magz, derived from my middle name,
My most prominent name was Mouse, given to me by a school friend in the 6th grade, and then stuck at camp,
I remember wanting to change my name everytime I changed schools... but I never found the courage.

High School:
1st day of 9th grade, study hall period:
senior: Whats your name?
me: Hannah
senior: thats such a nice name
me: you can have it...

I think his name was Ricky, I like Ricky better...
Although this happened in 9th grade I can remember feeling like that was my auto response when people complimented my name...
no matter where I went I always heard how pretty my name was, and I always talked about how much I hated it...

When one of my current best friends came out as Bi just before 10th grade I remember hearing the word, and although I probably couldn't put together a definition of the word I immediately knew what it was, and knew that I was one. I had the same reaction when I first heard about genderqueer, it was about 11th grade, and I was watching coming out stories on Logo (the gay channel) and there was a young, female bodied GQ coming out to their mother, immediately I identified with that person, on the TV and that term.

I founded my schools GSA, although we wern't technically a GSA, we were a diversity club. My senior year we were having a discussion about trans issues and immediately the tone of the room switched, I remember my then girlfriend shouting passionately at the room that you could be as butch as you could be but you should never change your gender. She then asked if anybody disagreed with her and I raised my hand, but I was the only one... in an instant I felt very alone, and I stopped talking about my gender. But I never stopped thinking about it...

By the time I entered hampshire I knew that my gender was not clear cut, for the most part I think about it as fluid, or non-identified... at this point I am using FTQ to express my gender, female to queer/questioning... im not FTM, im not female... FTQ

and so we are back to the name... I am using the name Helyx, it fits better, it makes more sense internally, and it doesnt have the same knee-jerk reaction, and so I think its worth a try...


-Helyx

Jealousy

for the 13 year old boy:

I am so jealous of you
you turned 13 and all of the sudden you were taller than me
your muscles grew, nice and toned and big
your voice dropped.

I am so jealous of you,
because I will never be tall like you
and I have to work a million times harder to make my muscles grow like that
and my voice may never stop sounding like this...

you live to easily in your world
and I wonder if it is something I want to pass into
but at the same time, I am still jealous
........

I Never Thought I Would Grow up to be a Woman

I grew up with the privilege of parents who didn’t care. Not didn’t care as in neglect, but didn’t care as in they never told me how to be, or how to dress or how to think about myself. At age 4 I wanted to be the Beast for Halloween, and so my mom made me the costume, and sewed up a beauty costume for my doll and I marched in my preschools Halloween parade as the beast with beauty on my arm. And in the subsequent years I refused to wear dresses, flowers, the color pink, and my mom never cared, we avoided sections of the store, she removed the flowers from hand-me down t-shirts and sewed jumpers and outfits for me to wear to family events so that I did no have to wear a dress. And when I came home crying one day because someone asked me if I was a boy or a girl she simply said boys don’t wear flowers, and she bought me a pair of flowery pants, and I tried it, but then I gave up, or I didn’t care, I forget which.
In the search for an education my parents moved me out of 3rd grade at public school and into 4th grade at a Jewish day school. At first I loved it, but as I grew I could see the atmosphere smothering the independence that had been fostered in me as a child. I wanted to fit in, and so I started wearing dresses, and skirts and I even stole make-up from the local drug store. And I tried, but the skills and desires that are inherent in other girls to put effort in, to be comfortable in a skirt and to want to look pretty never formed in my brain, and so I was awkward, and clumsy and messed up a lot and still I never fit in. And I remember the first time they told me that I was supposed to be a woman, I think that’s when everything changed, in 5th grade when gender mattered and boys and girls started dating, and the girls asked me to be on their basketball team because I was the best girl at basketball.
Every year in elementary school each grade did something appropriate within the scheme of Jewish Education and every year they would have a ceremony to show off a new skill or ability and then each member of the grade received a book. In the younger grades they were significant Jewish texts: prayer books, the 5 books of Moses, etc. But in 5th grade we received, “Women of Valor”, I still have that book, its nametag written out in Hebrew, with pictures of the other books I had received and would receive. It was then that it hit me, I don’t know if it was just 5th grade, or if it was my best friend who started hanging out more and more with the cool girls and less and less with me, or if it was the couples in our class, constantly rotating but never including me, but it was then that I realized that I was supposed to be a woman. I guess it changed my mindset in a way because I started to try; I pored over fashion magazines, bought books on makeup and beauty and how to be perfect. And I tried, I tried SO hard, I would stay up late at night trying to make my hair perfect and practice the art of being a woman. But it never worked.
As I grew I started to acknowledge to myself that I did not fit in as a woman and I chalked it up to immaturity and inability to accept responsibility. But then I continued to grow and I started out high school on a new foot, I would be a woman! I bought the skirts and had the hair and the makeup and I tried to make the friends. And I tried and I tried and the more I tried the more it built up until I bought my first pair of man pants. They are ripped now to the point where I cannot wear them, but I remember them. They were 10$ on sale at Kohl’s, they were dark denim with a hint of green, and I wore them with my men’s “Kiss Me I’m Irish” (I’m not really Irish) sweatshirt and something clicked. It would be a while until most of my wardrobe transformed, in fact it would be until I got out of high school that I would stop feeling the need to wear skirts or dresses when I needed to dress up. It would be until midway through my first year of college that I became comfortable enough to put my breasts away, to stop using them to get the attention that I always craved and until I was comfortable enough to try to shape them around who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to be seen.
Now I don’t bind that often, but I cannot remember the last time I did not wear a sports bra. Women complain that sports bras flatten their chest, and eliminate their cleavage. Now I don’t know what their talking about because even in a sports bra they do not disappear, and if I dare to wear a tank top you’ll see just how much cleavage I still have. But when I’m in a sports bra I can feel my self start to be in that in-between place I want to be. I never thought I would grow up to be a woman, the thought didn’t even cross my mind until 5th grade. But I also never thought I would grow up to be a man. I think of myself now as a 14-year-old boy, because 14-year-old boys are so often caught in that place between adulthood and childhood. And I haven’t met a 14-year-old boy yet who didn’t have some complex built around masculinity. I never deny growing up as a girl, a confused girl but a girl nonetheless. The question is where am I now, who am I now. I know that I am growing up, but I don’t know where it will take me. I know however, where it will not take me, I am not growing up to be a woman, and I am not growing up to be a man. Perhaps I will never know where I am going or when I get there, but hopefully I will be able to find some footing in the in between space that has evaded me so long.