Lack of understanding of genderqueer

[imperfect_cupcake]

Hey all.
I decided to take a stroll round the net and just what is out there in terms of dyke message boards. A lot of them do include trans* so that was encouraging. But what shocked me was that there seemed to be a female or male understanding of "gender" (which is *sex*, not gender) and so there were many who were posting that they were thinking of transitioning to make because they don't feel "like a girl" (gender) and didn't want girl-girl (again, gender) relationships but they were having difficulty seeing themselves as completely male (sex, not gender).

Well, fuck me, of course not. There are oodles of genders out there and being
Genderqueer, butch, a boy minded a-gender or a transmasculine genders(rather than man or male)... I was deeply shocked that so many people think the only option is girl/woman or man. That's it. And if not one, then you are the other.

I was pleased to see just how welcome trans* were and people talking about trans* but the entire middle ground was missing. It seems like people in the dyke world don't know there is an option. Which deeply shocks me. I am so used to seeing people grasping the concept in the communities I'm in that I am actually disturbed and distressed people sincerely don't know a) the difference between gender and sex - although I see happen even on this board and b) aren't aware there are more than two choices.

Though having said that, a large proportion of my partners have been "tomboy lesbians" who just didn't understand that there was a place of acceptance of their internal sense of self until they met me. Most of my partners did not ID as butch or understand the concept of genderqueer (where your gender is not a societal expectation of your sex, being female bodied) until I hung out with them, talked, had sex with them etc. When they finally fully connected with the words and ability to connect with it and not stuff it. Where they could figure out just where they were - I got asked a lot what gender I thought they might be. I shrug and say "Jacki gender." Or whatever their name is.

I show them different comics written by genderqueer types and blogs etc. For them to read if they connect with it or not, usually they do.

And those folks have all been 35 years old and older.

But the ones on the boards were very much younger. It shocked me. The youth where I have lived, in the various cities, have all been ahead of the older crowd in accepting gender fluidity, genderqueer and transgender/transmasculine. It has made me wish, at times, I was 10 years younger so dating would be soooooo much easier.

But I was shocked when I read these various boards.

I'm guessing there are a lot of places in the states where the binary is still the only thing understood in the dyke communities? And no one even knows there is actually another way to see ones self? Is this true? I have only lived in Seattle and New York and there was oodles of understanding even 15 years ago in those two cities.at least in the communities I knew.

But is this the case where you live? Lack of understanding of genderqueers or gender fluid? Of boy minded a-gender or transmasculine genders? Not just woman or man?

[Femmadian]

Okay, I'll bite.

The area where I live is a fairly blue-collar region (historically and currently) and so I think that has a big effect on the community here. Here genderqueer seems a term almost exclusively reserved for the young 20-somethings who are either university-educated or heavily involved in queer activism. Andro or "I don't need a label - I'm just me" seem to be the two most common descriptors by people you might otherwise pick out of a lineup as being "butch" (or genderqueer, whichever).

I went to a wedding this summer for a couple who for all intents and purposes would fit in quite well on the Planet but for whatever reason, react like you just hit on their grandma or something when you even mention the B word or the F word around them. However, looking around at the other guests in attendance that day, the whole place was like:

Lots of butchy/gq energy bouncing around in that place, but to the best of my knowledge, not one of them ID'd that way.

When I lived in rural New England, butch was fairly widely understood and adopted as a term of somewhat self-deprecating endearment, kind of like dyke is for some (ie - "My name's Molly and I'm your friendly neighbourhood butch dyke" said with a smirk and a twinkle). I don't think I'd ever heard any of my friends from that region mention the term genderqueer until the last year or so. Friends who still live there have mentioned that they've noticed that quite a few of the younger queers coming up through the community are starting to transition really young (like 18, 19) but this is all anecdotal second hand information. If that's an option that's now open to them because of greater awareness and acceptance, then great. I just wonder if in that particular community it seems to have taken the place of butch or genderqueer as an option instead.

Like you, it drives me batty when people conflate gender with sex but I can understand why that happens. So much of the language and public awareness is so new and always evolving so it can be hard for the average person to keep up unless their lives are completely enmeshed within the queer community (and even then, there are still slip ups).

Interestingly, my experience with people jumping to the conclusion that a gender non-conforming person must be trans has been by and large with straight people! I can't count how many straight people and straight family members have pointed out a particularly butchy/genderqueer/masculine-presenting woman (or a femme-y/genderqueer/feminine-acting man) and either somewhat covertly asked me (usually in a weirdly hushed whisper, like it's a big secret) if they were "really just born in the wrong body" or, if I know them, if/when they're going to come out, transition, and "just be themselves" (as though they're not and transition is an inevitability). I know they mean well, but damn.

I have a friend who told me once that she thought her teenage son might be trans. She was very supportive of the idea and seemed more interested in resources she could go to for more info, so I dutifully introduced her to our local PFLAG chapter and got her in touch with a few prominent individuals within our local community. When I had asked her why she thought he might be trans, though, she said that "he had always been a very nurturing child," that he was "even a better cook than his ol' mum," and that he was the resident hair stylist for his four sisters. She added in an anecdote about how he loved dressing up along with his sisters in her clothes when they were kids and said, wide-eyed, "I mean, that's what the trans kids do, right?" What a pickle... So while I greatly admired her efforts at acceptance of her son and she was trying really, really hard to be a good mum and a good ally to him, whichever ID he may end up choosing (if he chooses at all), I couldn't help but feel a little concerned for him that he might feel pressured into identifying as something he might not be or forced to choose one of two boxes. It's just one example but I feel like especially in the last ten years or so, the boundaries of what's acceptable for either sex are more policed and rigid than they were just not too long ago. I wish there was more room for him, both within the community and in the straight world at large, to be something other than a traditional example of the sex he was born as without being shuffled into the other corner.

I also pointedly avoided sending his mum to any online resources because so much of what I've seen online has been fairly similar to the board you mentioned and I didn't want to lead her (or him) in either direction. A lot of what I've seen online in other spaces feels like an echo chamber (Tumblr sometimes makes me want to poke my eyes out). It can be hard to hear the nuance and the richness of these topics in that kind of environment. Especially on forums, you have what feels like so many young, scared teenagers and uni students trying desperately to figure out where they fit in and asking "am I normal? Am I okay?" over and over again until someone gently (or not-so-gently) points them in any particular direction. I think it's only natural to grab onto what for many must feel like a life-preserver and hold onto it for dear life, but it doesn't leave much room for other people in the process. I really wish there was a greater diversity of voices for young people on this topic, both online and in the uni activist circles I've seen.

I also recognize that that's a bit of an emotional land mine of a topic and very delicate to address! Hopefully others will chime in with their experiences too! Great topic!

[imperfect_cupcake]

I guess that's why I was wondering... I don't live in rural places. But in large, or mega huge urban centres, and the communities are very mixed working class, middle class, trades, uni etc. I am unable to function in rural or small town areas so I have no idea what goes on in them and was wondering if perhaps this might be who is sending out distress signals on the boards I visited.

[imperfect_cupcake]

As for gender and sex being confused I blame forms for that partially. They *used* to say "sex" male or female. But I'm guessing some prude thought the term sex was offensive instead of accurate and over about a decade I started seeing "gender" male or female (wrong!!! And very, very irritating, especially in a doctors office, who should know better).

We were taught in *high school* (at least in vancouver) the difference between gender and sex, so it's not new. It's been confused through - but I do know that when I went back to school to anthropology class and that was one of the first classes, everyone already knew the difference. And last year when I started massage school, that was one of the first classes in teaching anatomy - terms. And gender vs sex was one of the things to know. Nobody in my class had been to Uni save me, and aside from one 18 year old, they all knew the difference before anything was said... I think it's part of basic year 11 biology class to talk about the difference between sex and gender.

So I'm wondering how it gets confused so badly? Is it media?

[imperfect_cupcake]

Though, I have to say, in massage school, when we started using communication text books, they came from the states, and quite shockingly *everything* in them was gendered. In really offensive ways. The class was in an uproar about it and quite pissed off. None of us wanted to use the text books because it did things like call some cultures "feminine" and some cultures "masculine" based on cultural traits. The more socialist countries were "feminine" and the more "independant" cultures were "masculine"

That was done with pretty much everything in the text books for that class. The teacher apologised profusely and said he would not use them if they weren't on the list by the board. He suggested we write. So we did as a class.

But if that's any indication of how things are being taught these days in the states? Sheesh. No wonder.

[Nadeest]

In the Houston trans community, as far as I saw, there was widespread acceptance of genderqueer folk.

[Esme nha Maire]

Originally Posted by imperfect_cupcake

.... But is this the case where you live? Lack of understanding of genderqueers or gender fluid? Of boy minded a-gender or transmasculine genders? Not just woman or man?

I've just read imperfect cupcakes' original post, curious to see what this thread started from. I've lived the bulk of my life quite naieve socially. To say that 2017, when I started exploring the LGBT scene and stuff on YouTube, and came across BFP, has broadened my horizons is a bit like saying a H-bomb makes a rather large bang.

I approve. The world of people is way more varied and interesting than I had ever imagined. Unlike the younger me, I'm no longer hung up on a view of labels as being imperfect boxes that don't quite contain me properly (instead I regard them as partial descriptors of who I am), and I am interested in labels only insofar as they help me understand myself and others. I am finding that as with the world of science, it seems that the more I learn the more I become aware of how much else there is to learn. And it's all helping me understand myself better, which is making me happier.

So, Your Grace (or may I call you cupcake?) I would be delighted if you would care to either educate me on the subject of non-binary genders, or point me at material thereon, as aside from being aware that there exist in the world folk who do not identify as male or female, as well as asexuals, I am pretty durned ignorant on the subject!

[AmazonDC]

Originally Posted by Esme nha Maire

I've just read imperfect cupcakes' original post, curious to see what this thread started from. I've lived the bulk of my life quite naieve socially. To say that 2017, when I started exploring the LGBT scene and stuff on YouTube, and came across BFP, has broadened my horizons is a bit like saying a H-bomb makes a rather large bang.

I approve. The world of people is way more varied and interesting than I had ever imagined. Unlike the younger me, I'm no longer hung up on a view of labels as being imperfect boxes that don't quite contain me properly (instead I regard them as partial descriptors of who I am), and I am interested in labels only insofar as they help me understand myself and others. I am finding that as with the world of science, it seems that the more I learn the more I become aware of how much else there is to learn. And it's all helping me understand myself better, which is making me happier.

So, Your Grace (or may I call you cupcake?) I would be delighted if you would care to either educate me on the subject of non-binary genders, or point me at material thereon, as aside from being aware that there exist in the world folk who do not identify as male or female, as well as asexuals, I am pretty durned ignorant on the subject!

Look up the term Middle sexed.. and the condition called CAH.. I am a Gender Queer Male identified Middle sexed Person. I biologically have no sex. I am both male and female genetically. I am by far not an expert on Gender Queer just is My story My experience