#every time someone reminds me that Twitter girlies think she’s not just a lesbian but a BUTCH lesbian. I have to scream out the pain

[casualfruit]

As a Taylor Swift expert, Gaylor hater, and recovering 1989er, you probably don't want to know that apparently in the notes of the re-recording Taylor Swift talks about how she wasn't dating any of her female friends, and the Gaylors are having meltdowns on twitter. Words like "gaslit" and "queerbaiting" are being used.

of COURSE I want to know about that, I need to go log back into my twitter account RIGHT NOW

also goddddd as a certified 1989 enjoyer I'm gonna have to listen to Taylor's Version :/

[insanityinherited]

Ladies’ Travelling Necessities

Disclaimer: This is not going to be a neat, 100% PC post. When we talk about gender and gender roles, even in subverting or destroying them, we engage with them and society’s expectations of them. I mean no offence, I am simply trying to articulate how I feel and fit in this world.

It starts with a twinge and a trickle. It progresses to several internal organs ripping themselves apart and great globs of slimy stuff uncomfortably sliding away. You know how some people feel really gross about the word ‘moist’? Or get squeamish when they hear about broken bones and evicerated intestines? That’s how I feel about my period. Actually, that’s how I feel about my physical womanhood in general. Twenty-one days a month I can ignore it, for the most part, because my brain is far too good at compartmentalising. The other nine days a month though? When Aunt Flo comes to visit, when my unwanted subscription to Satan’s waterfall arrives, when it’s Shark Week, when I need to wear ‘ladies’ travelling necessities’? It’s really hard to ignore the fact that I’m a female when every weird little sensory inconsistency reminds me of my vagina.

It has taken me a lot of shifting and fumbling through my thoughts to get here. Clinically, I have no problem separating gender, biology and identity. Personally though? Ooh boy. My head gets in a jumble and things I thought I’d sorted out get juggled and re-thought and shuffled around the giant, old school filing system of my brain. See, mentally, most of the time, I’m pretty much a girl. I think. Physically, I want to be a Ken doll. Or a flat-chested Barbie. Currently, to categorise myself I have cannibalised together a bunch of labels. I’ve sort of ended up with “Sapioromantic Asexual-Lesbian DemiGirl”. Which is sort of complicated, considering most of the world assumes I’m a Homoromantic Lesbian Cis-Woman. I’ve been questioning a lot. How can I be ace and gay? How can I be sapioromantic but only attracted to smart women? Am I demi girl? Or agender? Or non binary? Or fluid? Or... sometimes I find the choices overwhelming. I welcome the opportunity for language and choice for those who need it, but when my brain tries to label me it gets a bit dizzy. So let’s try and break it down, a la the genderbread person. (If you haven’t met the genderbread person, it would be a good time to go google it. It’s awesome).

Let’s start with the easy one: attraction! Physically, I don’t experience a lot of sexual attraction, if at all, and I don’t like to act on it really ever. Making out is okay, I guess. That makes me grAysexual. When I do want to act on sexual attraction, or I’m sorting myself out, I think about or seek out women in a physical sense. Grey-ace Lesbian? It seems a bit much. Mentally, smart women make me say woah. I can’t be any kind of attracted or interested if my brain isn’t switched on and a bit challenged. Sapioromantic definitely fits me. My idea of a good date night is a public lecture on astrophysics. I’m sorry.

The next easiest part of the genderbread person for me is biological sex. Given that it’s been the same down there for twenty-seven years, you’d think it would be the easiest, right? Except that conscious thought about it makes me feel icky. But, I have a fully functioning set of traditionally female parts, so we can go with female and leave it there. Next please!

Hahahahahahahahahaha now we’re up to identity! This took me a really long (although comparatively short) time to figure out. I am not a man. This much I am certain of. In my brain I am definitely, absolutely, never even considered it, completely not male. But I’m also not a woman. This took me a while to accept and understand, because so many aspects of my brain I had been conditioned to understand were tied to my gender- my morals, my ethics, my preferences, my feminism, Hell, even my intelligence, it was all tied to my female-ness. Taking ownership of those things and taking them away from the label “girly” has helped enormously. I’m not 100% a woman. But it’s also made it a little harder- I’m not a girl, I’m not a boy, but I’m also not agender. WTF? After much wandering around the internet, I found the term ‘DemiGirl’. The place I found it is since been cleared from my history, but essentially it laid it out like a pie chart, where one’s femaleness took up a large chunk of the pie but that the other part of the pie was filled with something ‘else’. I’m not sure what the ‘else’ would be for me, but I suspect it’s agender or nonbinary. Anyway, most of the time I feel a bit female but not really female, so DemiGirl seems to be the best label I have found so far.

Expression: ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm... I’m not really sure how I come across. Recently my best-gal told me she wasn’t really sure what pronouns to use for me. Mostly she just avoids using them around me which is fine. “Oi you” works well. But it occurred to me that if someone clever and wonderful like her was struggling to assume my pronouns based on my gender expression, that possibly other people might be confused too. I’ve been thinking about this quite consciously lately, and it’s helped me to make a few mental notes. I don’t wear skirts. I own a few, from a previous life, but in winter I wear jeans and in summer I wear shorts. My hair is almost always contained in a bun or braid. I sit in the most unfeminine ways. I can’t do the princess style sitting with my ankles crossed and my hands in my lap. I wear make up, but not obviously- just to cover up the blotchy skin, really. My voice is a neutral alto, although I have a pretty good range. My hobbies are also pretty neutral- I hike and read and write. I’m not dainty or graceful or any of the things that I think people automatically attribute to a perosn’s apparent femininity. I suppose, if I had to take a guess, I’d say that I present pretty agender/nonbinary, if you ignore the boobs. I’m curious to hear what people think. My bio here and over on twitter asks for ‘she/they’ pronouns, so I guess that’s something?

However, as I lie here on the floor next to the open door, desperately wishing this heat wave had waited until *after* Shark Week, when my body temp would be two degrees lower and my patience would be a lot longer, I am conflicted and confused. The more I accept my feminist rantings, unfortunately-socialist leanings and crone-like appearance, the more comfortable I am in my mental womanhood. Physically though? Rarely-used vagina for sale. Only one owner, comes with endometriosis, free or best offer.

Bx