Alright, I’m turning 16 in a couple of weeks, and everyone is going on about driving and permit tests and shit. I have no interest in driving - I really, really don’t like cars, I won’t like paying for gas, I don’t think I’ll be good at it and I really have no where to go in my idiotic town. Should I just not get involved? Oh shit, my sixteen-year-old self found a time machine! But seriously: I am either the worst or most perfect person to ask about this, because I am 24 and have never had a driver's license. Not for lack of trying, originally--I failed the driving test three times. No joke! But I haven't really tried in the years since; I relied on friends in high school and MY WIFE as an adult to drive my ass around instead. Also, I made driving as unnecessary as possible by living in cities and walking and doing all that shit. But the fact of the matter is, as geopolitically troubling as it is or whatever, we are a driving-obsessed society. Most of our movies are about cars. To name two: Cars and Cars 2. See?
I'm probably going to have to get a driver's license soon (look out, pedestrians!) because even though I live in a walkable town I can only really walk to retail & restaurant jobs. And I don't want to do those kind of jobs forever. Do you?
What I'm getting at is that (unless you live in a major city) you are going to have to drive sooner or later to be a contributing member of society. So I think you should just go for it. The other thing is cars are great places to fuck. So keep that in mind.
As someone who is confused about their own sexual or gender identity, how do you suggest finding this out?
The sexual part is easy and fun: reach into the pants of a few other people and see what you like! Most of the gay people I know dated/fucked a member of the opposite sex at one time or another--it's okay if you make a mistake. From what I understand about the gay community, lacking that "gold star" certification will only bar you from attending a few choice parties.
OK, here's the part where I am going to get angry letters: If you aren't sure what your gender identity is, it's probably whatever your genitalia indicates. Crazy, right? I'm a strong and vocal supporter of gay rights, but I have a very realpolitik, unhip way of thinking about them. If homosexuality is genetic, and I believe it is, I'm not sure how we can properly defend the spectrum of genderqueer whateverness that is all the rage on Tumblr right now. I've been trying to think of a way, I promise! But I think the Trans community gets thrown under the bus by gay rights groups for a reason. They're a bargaining chip. And that sucks, but that's life in the NFL.
Also: (and this is distinct from people who are trans, now I turn to the more ambiguous genderqueers) the idea that gender is a cultural construct is crazy. I have a penis and other people have vaginas! It's hard to get around that fact. If you want to be "out" at work and not get hassled, I totally understand. If you believe you are a woman in a man's body, I mostly understand that too (though I think in some ways you are screwing gay people over). If you want to dress like a man but be referred to as she, well, I mean, why? I get (or, I think?) that we're making a political statement about gender constructs but generally speaking you have to make political statements on your own dime. And people look at you funny sometimes. Which comes with the territory! That's the point you're trying to make, right?
"Words, words, words!"-Hamlet, making a more coherent point about language/culture than the genderqueer movement
I guess I have already written at length about the incompatibility of our language system and the queer movement, but try as I might to come from a grammarian/realpolitik place and not a homophobe place I always get misinterpreted. So I will just say that if you have a penis you are probably a boy and I love everyone and everything and I will stop now.
I don't want to inadvertently denigrate the adults who have been conveying to you your teenage years should be the wild ones you look back on with fond shame or whatever, but adults who act like high school was the best time in their life are fucking assholes whose lives are (most likely) terrible now. I'm much happier and I have way more fun today than I did in high school, and I do my best to never look back.
That said, you should get out there a little bit. Just the tip, literally and figuratively. At 16 I'd never been drunk either, and I don't regret that at all. But I'd also been through a lifetime of dramatic, ridiculous relationships--I have the tortured poetry to prove it (though I've been meaning to throw those notebooks away)--and I don't regret those either.
You don't have to change anything. You can keep your head down for now and save all that sexual energy for college (you're going to have to cram your whole gay phase into sophomore year or take classes over the summer to catch up, but it can be done). Are teenage years important? No. They're mostly terrible, and it's mostly awesome when they're over.
Then again, here you are writing to me and expressing this fear of future regret. Which means someday YOU might regret the kind of thing I'm not considering. Bruce Springsteen made fun of people who obsess over high school in "Glory Days," but maybe he and I are just wired differently than others. Did I just write this whole paragraph to compare myself to Springsteen? Sort of.
I'm in love with a musician. On the plus side, she responds to my email and is grateful for the gifts I sent her. On the minus side, she lives far away in another country and she is a lesbian. I'm a guy. How can I get over her?
Well, first of all, I'm a huge fan of your film Mallrats, Mr. Smith. But seriously: what? How do you get over her? You were never really UNDER her, my friend. Online relationships with people can be tricky things, and they can serve a purpose or whatever (though I'm not really sure what purpose) but the most important thing to remember is that they're not real, really.
My advice is to have sex with someone who lives near you and who likes having sex with men. That should work.
Got a problem? Get at me here. Make use of those FB/Twitter share buttons, and feel free to offer your own advice in the comments. Previously: "It kind of sounds like God is giving you lemons and you're just stubbornly refusing to set up a threesome at your lemonade stand."
11 comments:
Gender, biological sex, and sexual orientation aren't the same thing. Biological sex is what you physically are, gender is both how you feel and how you relate to the "norm," sexual orientation is who you are attracted to. So, yeah, gender is partly a social construct. We tell people that girls like/feel/act one way and boys another, with very little reason. And no, being trans isn't insulting to the gay community, because how you feel about what you are and who you want to do aren't the same. It can get really complicated, which is why I imagine there is so much misunderstanding and judgment (well that and some people are just fundamentalist dicks), but it's still kind of shitty to think that people who are trans and struggling with their identity like that are just making shit up or trying to make some kind of statement for attention.
The issue with the gender thing is how far one is willing to go from the basic question of "what does it mean to 'be a man/woman.'" The part that becomes the social construct is where we're expected to behave one way or the other based on what's between our legs. It's stupid and it always has been stupid. But does it extend so far as to advocating for sex changes? Well... the thing is, while nothing from language to genes seems to support the whole trans/genderqueer movement, identity is so much more complicated than "you're a boy" or "you're a girl." I don't consider myself genderqueer; although I consider myself a girl, I dress like a boy, wear my hair like a boy, and do often wish there were things more masculine about me. And that's okay. Other people want to take that further, which is okay too. I know you're not saying it's not okay to get a sex change or whatever, just that you don't get it, exactly. I think that's what you're saying. My feelings are just that people need to do what they need to do. And people need to be allowed to do what they need to do. That goes for who they fuck or love and who they are, and who they think they are. Obviously I'm not advocating total anarchy and like, throwing all moral sex & gender rules out the window, but the amount of interest society as a whole takes in everyone's personal goddamn business is pretty ridiculous, as I think you would agree. People need to be able to feel comfortable in their bodies, and for some, that is a really tall order. It's not just like, a woman trapped in a man's body should just be a gay man. A whole very intrinsic part of it is the deep desire/need to be seen as a woman in that relationship with men.
Talking again from personal experience, I'm in a happy relationship with a girl (who, by the way, I met online and dated online for three years before we finally got together in real life), but I know to a near certainty that if I were a man, I would absolutely be a gay one, and sometimes I do find myself wishing that were the case. It's complicated. For me, and I think for a lot of people, sexuality, and finding other people attractive, is tied to how they see me. I don't know if I would want to be in a relationship with a man as a girl. But I do find men attractive. I don't know how to explain that with genetics or language, just that it's what's what. So that's what I have to say about that.
Kim-- I wasn't saying being Trans is insulting to the gay community. I'm saying I remember for years trying to convince people that homosexuality was genetic, not a choice, and it seems like in recent years we have had to politically abandon that line of reasoning. Which opens up all kinds of troubling accusations, ie "you're gay because your dad was mean to you." And fuck that noise!
I'm thinking part of the reason people never understand what I am trying to say is that I am speaking politically. On what kind of issues can we convince people to see it our way, and how?
And I definitely don't mean a statement "for attention" either, Kim. I think making a statement about gendered culture is a point worth making. But people who do it and then get angry that the culture pushes back confuse me. What did you think was going to happen?
I had trouble posting my comment here (my theory is that I used the word "penis" too much, so I wrote it over here, if that's okay: http://standardreview.tumblr.com/post/9716214937/a-response-to-a-blog-post
For the sake of not linking everyone everywhere, I have read your response, Muffin, and responded in kind! It's on Tumblr but here it is also:
"You have given me a lot to chew on, which is what she said (she’s into some weird stuff). I still fail to see how the battle over LANGUAGE really helps the battle over RIGHTS. You know how people get annoyed when you correct their grammar? I’m not saying you personally, you probably don’t, but some people do, right? When Queer People correct us Cisgendered folks on that stuff, it feels like how my neighbor Althea used to make me feel when I’d say “Tad and I” instead of “Tad and me.” SO WHAT? It’s just a little word with 2 or 3 letters! I see these civil rights issues before us as HUGE and INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT, and when people get up in my face over pronoun usage, I feel like they are wasting both MY TIME and their ENERGY, which could be used for so much more.
Your post is full of lots of maybes and sort ofs and other rhetorical maneuvers, which is the same way I write, the reason being that neither of us are particularly strident about our views. The reason FOR THAT is we are always willing to hear other people out. I learned more from your post (and I don’t think you used “penis” too many times, you probably set blogger off with that part where you said “nice post I like FREE VIAGRA” in Russian. That was a weird choice, but I like it!) than I have from MANY instances of Gender Queer people freaking out at me. And the reason for that I think in part lies in the lack of a strident tone. I don’t feel like Althea is yelling at me, I feel like a friend is pointing something out I haven’t seen before.
More broadly, I feel like the gay rights fight is a river and we’re on a boat and we almost made it across. And then everybody started shouting “Oh hey, we left some stuff on the shore back there, let’s turn around!” And I’m thinking about the fact that A. we’re almost to the other side, and B. we’re carrying a lot of cargo on this boat already! So I start saying “let’s get this boat to the other side first, and then we’ll go back. Strategically, that’s the best way to go, even if it’s not fair.” You know? Was my boat metaphor fun? In it, I was wearing a cool hat."
Ugh, had to delete my previous comment because I hit submit before I meant to. Anyway...
Ok, well I will admit to misunderstanding what you were saying then. I take back the shitty comment and blame it on my tendency to read quickly and sneakily at work.
I get what you're saying now that you clarified more. I can see why the idea of being trans could muddle the "gay is genetic" thing, but that's only if people confuse gender and biological sex with sexual orientation. Which, of course, many people do. And I definitely agree that it's ridiculous to expect acceptance of everything outside of the norm immediately. We're not there and probably never will be, as much as people might want that. I don't think it's unreasonable to not want judgment, but it's not realistic to expect acceptance from everyone.
I'm still not totally sure I agree with you stance on the whole language issue, though. It might seem like something minor, but I get why people are upset about it. When, say, a trans person identifies as "he," refusing to call him "he" is basically disregarding his person/lifestyle/whatever. It seems like a little thing, but it's actually a very big one. Language is important, whether we want it to be or not. Yeah, there are bigger battles out there (like how trans people are often victims of physical and sexual abuse because of who they are), but the small ones are important too. The lack of respect shown by refusing to use the right language is just indicative of the larger problem as a whole. I think there have to be people focusing on all parts in the battle for rights and acceptance. Someone needs to stand up for legal rights and safety, but people also need to stand up for basic respect, including that concerning language.
That said, that only applies to refusing to use it. Not being aware of it is different. Someone shouldn't jump all over a person who unknowingly uses the wrong term if they make an effort to understand why it was wrong.
Kim, don't worry, I didn't think your first comment was shitty. And I do worse than READ at work, I WRITE at work!
But yeah, refusing to call someone a pronoun they want to be called is one thing, and NOT KNOWING and still getting shit is another. I used to work with a genderqueer dude who just wore a headband and otherwise dressed like me but was to be referred to as a she. I kind of just felt like she was being a lazy transvestite! Commit, girl!
But seriously, the other thing is these sorts of people routinely freak out about idiomatic expressions like "hey guys" because they are gendered, and it's like, no they're not! I say "hey guys" in a totally unthinking way. And so maybe I shouldn't speak in a totally unthinking way, but whatever. Yes, the world is heteronormative and misogynist like crazy, but "hey guys" is the very very very least of our problems. Prioritize, people!
Yeah, that I will agree with. I say guys and dude all that time, even when I'm with a group of girls. It's silly to get upset about that.
I just want to mention something on the sexuality front: it's okay to not be into guys or girls or anyone at all. It's okay to not experience sexual attraction. Asexuality is a legitimate identity, and the AVEN website is a great place to learn more about it (asexuality.org). It's also totally fine to identify as something and then later for that identity to no longer fit. It happens, people change. Don't stress too much about it.
Ok, so I just found this post and I know it's old but READ MY THOUGHTS ANYWAY.
I pretty much identify as genderqueer, to be honest. I mean, I don't get offended if other people 'gender' me one way or the other, like if a waitress calls me sir or madam, I don't really mind [though I totally get a kick when I pass for a genuine dude, that shit kind of is the business].
Mostly, I dress in androgynous clothes [read- I look like a fucking hipster], and some days I bind and pack, but other days I don't. It totally depends on what I am doing and how I feel that day. Like, if I have a job interview, I am probably not gonna arrive with tube socks down my pants, is what I'm saying. I would save that for casual Fridays.
The queerness of my gender isn't so much that I like to pass for both, I think it's totally in the fact that for me, it's optional. And I don't think my personal, optional gender really needs to hop in the same boat as the whole LGBT movement. It's totally my own thing I can carry myself. If people call me a lesbian, I'm like 'Yeah, that is my sexuality', but that has nothing to do with my personal gender. I mean trans issues are real and genuine and oh my god SO important, and trans people get treated like shit and need to be included for definite and reals, but my weird ass in between gender is really nobody elses problem but mine, and I think it should stay that way. I mean, if I have the option, Imma tick the 'other' box when I'm asked about what gender I am, but if that box isn't an option, there are bigger fights out there for me, is what I'm saying.
But again, I am NOT trans. The main difference between trans people and genderqueers is really a simple one- it's life or death for those guys, it isn't for us. I don't feel trapped in my body, I mean I'd probably have top surgery if I could afford it, but the fact that I can't is not a big deal. It's more on the level of getting a nose job for me, it wouldn't be like removing a couple tumors, which is how a trans person would see it. It's not fair to tar us both with the same brush. As far as I'm concerned, there is no genderqueer movement, there's no need for one, just like there is no 'center- center' political party. There's just some dudes and girls and whatevers who have tumblrs and feelings and somehow managed to mix the two together while browsing underworks. I wouldn't ask anyone to accept my lack of a gender, but I'd expect them to not laugh at me if I show up to their house all bound down and with a moustache, I think a lot of this shit isn't so much political as just not being a dickhead.
Anyway, I'm rambling now, but those are most of my thoughts about this.
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