Word Salad

WILLOW: I-I don't know, I was trying to program in some new puns and I kinda ended up with word salad.

I recently watched a prominent member of LGBTQ literary circles struggle with the preferred pronouns of an author while presenting hir at a reading. (That's not a typo word processing program, it's a pronoun.) The author in question is non-binary identified and prefers the pronouns ze and hir. It was embarrassing to witness.

I was embarrassed for the author being mis-pronouned and therefore dismissed as a person with a right to hir own identity. And I was embarrassed for the presenter who ended up looking clueless and out of touch with modern queer culture. Side note: I hate watching people be embarrassed. I have been known to leave the room during scenes of embarrassment in movies rather then deal with the anxiety they cause me.

Fault here lays solely on the presenter. They had clear instructions and still botched it. Even more fascinating, how had this person who has presumingly been involved in LGBTQ communities, and in specific LGBTQ writers and artists, for years never run into anyone else who was genderqueer? The mind boggles.

And yet, before I climb on to that tall equine and risk plummeting to the ground I have to confess that I've screwed it up too. Not in a situation like that mind you, but in regular conversation.

Mis-pronouning is all too easy and insidious. From the time we are little and learning to speak we are given gendered words and gendered pronouns. Alternatives are not taught when our brains are in that perfect time to learn such things. It's like secondary languages, the later you try to learn one the harder it often is. I wonder if folks who did get foreign language training as children are better able to deal with unfamiliar pronouns than others. This may be different if your first language isn't English but if it is, it's a problem.

Sometimes it's easier. Persons A and B go from one gender to another. Simple. A was he and is now she. B was she and is now he. We know he and she so the change is not so difficult. Not really any different than remembering a new job title or last name. There are often name and appearance changes that go along with it that help to reinforce the switch. Sometimes you meet a person who has already transitioned and never knew them as anything else. Then it should be even easier.

And yet people can still screw it up. I'm most fascinated and appalled when it's someone who didn't know the transperson pre-tranistion, as though just the knowledge of what they were assigned at birth colours how the person deals with them more than how they dress or how hormones or surgery or what have you has shaped them. It's almost surreal in its dismissiveness.

The more complicated and therefore more land mine ridden issue are those people who, including myself, don't fit neatly into male or female, she or he. All the intersex, genderqueer, non-binary, bigender, intergender, androgyns, third gender and ad infinitum folks out there. A great deal of these people have chosen to use gender-neutral pronouns to represent their existence outside the binary. Good for them.

Gender-neutral pronouns are a big source of debate for a lot of people. Part of the problem is that there isn't a single set of agreed upon g-n pronouns out there. Googleing the topic brings up lots of different theories and permutations. In the end, all you can really do is ask a person. Hard to do in some contexts, stupidly easy in others. Meanwhile, I'm training myself to use the singular they with everyone until otherwise informed.

And it is a matter of training. If I screw up a pronoun, it's cause my brain was programmed binary and breaking programing takes time. What's sad is I'm not binary myself and still have trouble remembering all this. Worse still the forensics and physically anthropology training I had mean I automatically note those physical traits used to identify the 'sex' of human remains. I often wonder how much the bodies of trans and intersex people screw with those measurements. But anthropology also taught me about cultures where third, fourth and more genders beyond male and female exists.

So what about me? What pronouns do I prefer? Even with the wife I don't tend to push the identity thing but I probably should. Part of it's that I hate to inconvenience people but more it's a low self esteem thing. I'm not sure I deserve to be identified properly. And what would proper identification be any way? Since I'm not really bothered by he or she and both are equally right and wrong, I don't think about it much. Maybe I should.

I'm leaning toward the singular they personally. It's simple. They is already a word folks know. The Spivak system has some merit in my opinion; e or ey, em and eir but I've also seen it said that since em is already used as a colloquial shortening of them that somehow creates confusion. Not sure how but whatever.

So for now, with me that is, go with the singular they. I'll tell you'll if that changes.

the weight and shape of gender identity

One of the reason I haven't been writing in this is that I'm too much of a perfectionist. My anxiety induced writer's block stems from the need to met a likely unreachable standard that I have set for myself. What I need to realize is this is a blog not an academic journal. It's where I air my thoughts not propose game changing theories in gender studies. If I manage to do that then cool but setting out to do it dooms me to not finish anything I start.

Case in point, I started a piece on body image and gender identity, the crossover place where the obsession with weight and size smashes into peoples ideas of male and female. It was wordy and full of literary references and likely unfinishable. But you know what? I lost it. Somewhere in my paper eating mess of a desk/messenger bag/black hole it sits but I don't know where. So screw it. I'm just gonna talk about the idea and see where it gets me.

Google "transmen eating disorders" and you get a lot of hits. From online support groups and discussion boards to Wikipedia articles about transmen activists who lecture on eating disorders and body image. And yet, this is a correlation that tends to illicit a 'huh, that's weird' response when you mention it to folks. Maybe this is in part because eating disorders are so coupled with femaleness in our psyches. It's hard enough to get people to acknowledge that cisgender men can develop such disorders. Sorry folks, those high school wrestlers wearing sauna suits and starving themselves to make weight? That sounds like symptoms to me. I remember seeing guys in my high school in shiny, silver outfits not having lunch or only having a Slimfast or other liquids looking like they about to pass the fuck out.

The motivation for transmen is similar, they are trying to "make weight". Look at any picture of an anorexic woman in advanced stages and you'll note that her breasts and hips have shrunk. So starvation becomes a form of body modification to mold themselves into a more masculine appearance. This is likely compounded by starting on testosterone which can cause weight gain.

I get it. I see skinny little genderqueer bois and envy them their androgynous appearance. It's a lot harder to pass or be acknowledged as male/masculine-identified when you have breasts larger then an A-cup and wide hips. There are outfits and looks I'll likely never be able to pull off because of how my body is shaped. And yet I am not compelled to stop eating or start barfing or compulsively exercise to deal with it.

Truth be told I should exercise more. I know I'm overweight and it takes a toll on both my bad back and the arthritis that has recently been diagnosed in my knees. But even once I do start getting more active I can't see myself exercising to dangerous levels. Part of that is sheer laziness.

As for the others, I love food and I really hate barfing. Barfing intentionality, unless I've been poisoned, just sounds stupid. I've been known to forget to eat when left to my own devises but again, laziness is the culprit not a desire for starvation. And even at my lowest adult weight, I still had wide hips and big ass. They ain't going anywhere.

This overlap of gender variance and body image isn't solely a FTM thing. I have at least one MTF friend for whom losing weight is part of her desire for femininity and a more female appearance but since her starting point is an overweight 'male' body, a smaller waistline is an understandable goal. I do think that some of her methods are iffy, meal replacement shakes should ideally only replace one meal a day if they are going to be used at all. There are fewer hits on a Google search for "transwomen eating disorders" but there are still a bunch.

Even for cisgender folks there seems to be a connection here. I heard a friend in a book discussion group actually say that she would dress more femmy if she could lose weight. I had to ask what that had to do with anything and cited my wife who is both zaftig and femme. A granola femme who lifted weights and played hockey when she was younger but still femme.

So what's the deal here? What does your weight/shape have to do with your gender identity and/or presentation? Discuss!