Island in a Confusing Stream (Part One)

It's funny how people will tell you "nothing is in black & white" or "cut and dry doesn't exist" or whatever. Take a prism and a beam of sunlight, you'll see an explosion of all the visible colors exploding forth from what looks like a single intense beam of the purest white light. A princess bride, walking down her aisle, her hair, makeup and dress so perfect, so right, so, well, perfect. And then the prism shifts our perspective and in a flash that exterior perfection is made up of so many other details glossed over by the prettiness of her appearance is augmented, shifted, subtly changed by the facts of her background, her life and her spirit. Makeup, a pretty dress and hair done to perfection can cloud our eyes to the inner realms of what the lady is like outside of such formal attire and circumstances.

In many cultures, people are obsessed with beauty. A man needs to be handsome and debonair, ripped abs and oiled, tanned skin, preferably in a skimpy bathing suit. A woman needs to have unblemished skin, long flowing hair and a thin, curvy body that seems to crave the beach and overwhelms nearby butterflies and small children.

I've said it before, I don't believe any of us ever fit into that category of beauty. We can't have others see us through a set of rose-colored Photoshop glasses in real life. We don't fit into one position or the other. Some people have a terrific outgoing personality and are very loving and sensual, but they have an issue with their weight. Others have an "eleven on a ten scale" body, a vision of loveliness but their personality is acrid, scathing, rude and even bigoted. There are so many shades of human character and personality.

I'm not dwelling on the physical beauty and personality traits of human culture, but I wanted to draw your attention to it because I personally believe gender is the same way. We are put into a box because we "have a Y chromosome" or we have genitals that are defined as 'male' or 'female'. Our gender identity is based on a physical manifestation of something only the person inside can actually feel.

For example:

Most people will look at the photo and try to guess 'are these people male or are they female". Admit it, you found yourself thinking that. You found yourself thinking that way as well... it's human nature to classify and want to organize your thoughts to fit a certain specific set of equations that you may or may not actually believe you have the answers to. You become uncertain, rather as Darwin did when voyaging on the Beagle. Did this creatures come about by chance or were there larger forces at work to sculpt them into the shapes and forms and features that his direct scientific observation found by looking at what he saw with his own eyes. Admit it, you don't know what you are seeing, totally, as fitting into a gender-conforming idyll. You may or may not want to but you do. You classify the people in the picture as "Gee, I think that's..." or "I'm almost positive that...", etc.

I don't conform either. I admit that. I look at the photos and I see a human being, who perhaps being a lot like me, perhaps doesn't feel they fit into that mold. I have a friend who is growing their hair out and long (and it is beautiful hair as well) and they get met with ignorant phrases like "dudette". I can't express how terrible this is that a person can treat another this way. I tend to rather think if they were built like Lou Ferrigno in the days of 'The Incredible Hulk' or they were, perhaps carrying a machete or a machine gun, the reaction would be subdued and respectful. Because you can taunt someone else you feel empowered, but the truth is the taunters feel cheap and hollow inside, so they try to drive up the ante of popularity by laughing at someone else. The others in a group often feel just as uneasy and they laugh nervously at the presupposed 'witticism'.

I find myself a blend, a mixture of feelings. Although I always felt myself as being internally geared to be female, I am also geared in a male way as well. I have feelings that blur and reshape the gender boundaries. My gender expression is leaning more and more to the androgynous, I want to wear what I am comfortable in. I am lucky that I got to know a person who is very similar in how they feel and it got me thinking. Later I expressed a whole whale of different feelings and questions to another friend. They expressed, not that this should be a shocker, that they "didn't understand how I could move back and forth" and yet they still supported me and tried to equate their feelings with how I felt. I don't feel black and white, cut and dry. Unless you have been there or are going through this, you don't get it. "Oh, but you MUST be one or the other, darling," is a typical exclamation. You can't be expected to play for both teams, you must choose. "Du mußt Amboß oder Hammer sein." You cannot be both! That is strictly forbidden.

Yet somehow I sense in myself that I ebb and flow, a stream of consciousness that is not binary. The weather rarely is, why should I be? Because I have that inner feminine creature, a beauty to be sure, I can't have that exterior creature as well. Someone said it's because of the "male privilege" but I don't think it's that. It's more complex than that.- I know some of the factors in that as-yet-unsolved equation. I don't have all the answers, probably I never will.

But for someone who is always being told or thought of as one or the other, I am neither. I am lucky that most of the aspects of maleness passed me by, I believe that my inner self spared me the ravages of being "macho" and "rough and tough" and instead washed me in sensitivity and caring, nurturing my way through life instead of driving a steamroller over it. Androgynous people have always been a, and I apologize if this is "TMI", a big turn-on for me.

This person again makes you question, makes you wonder, even though you are once again classifying this person asking which gender this person is. Instead of looking at who this person is. I see a person who can blend both genders into one. I find people like this deeply attractive, not for the basic surface things like hair, makeup, clothes, etc. but that the person is perhaps feeling a little like both are an expression of their true selves. They are not "in a box". They have been described as having the best of both worlds and it is true.

We are so used to the classification systems that we grew up learning. I hear this time and again "girls play with dolls, boys play with trucks." I was often the "mother" character growing up. I was comfortable liking that role and being in that persona. I was not vilifying my supposed gender by pretending to be something I am not. I am probably more 'genderqueer' in reality that I supposed. As I aged, I was informed that this was not how things were. Boys didn't want to dress up as women for Halloween. Feeling comfortable in silky lingerie was taboo. People laughed at you because you were different. You were taunted, bullied, harassed and pushed around. Sounds like any other non-"normal" black and white group. If you weren't heterosexual you were outcast. If you were a girl who wore all black, Doc Martin's and jeans all the time, you were an outcast. If you were supposed to be "a man" and you like wearing girl's clothes, you were an outcast. I am surprised more weren't in the outcast group since it seemed like anything you did that was slightly different would be all over the place in next to no time at all.

I thought and feel so many different feelings, it is hard to keep it all in one blog... this one I need to continue. In the meantime feel free to rethink those gender "norms" and don't be afraid to love the person you are, even if you don't fit in entirely with what people would have you be.

(TO BE CONTINUED...........)