#i find it incredibly funny how this does not match my last doodle post.

[cowardlybean]

there’s not enough mp100 horror art.,, i must change this *looks solemnly into the distance like batman*

[what-soul]

Gender

It occurred to me while I was exploring the nature of this sense of yearning for a sort of “coming of age” story that I haven’t written anything about my sense of gender on this blog, something which seems to always be bubbling in the background even when I’m unaware of it. The last time I made serious notes about gender was at Sierra Tucson and soon after moving to Crownview, and was likely postponed due to needing to adjust too quickly and return to old coping mechanisms. I have an excerpt here I’ll copy from Sierra Tucson:

I’ve been thinking about gender identity as it relates to physicality and societal expectations. If I am male, I feel like that identity shouldn’t come exclusively from biology, especially concerning outliers. Thus it seems that gender as we truly define it is something more abstract; belonging to a group. But then, how is such a group defined if not ad-hoc, biologically inspired judgement? Perhaps it’s more useful to recontextualize gender as the identification with certain values. We might imagine a distant future where biological gender has been genomically removed, but people still fall into gendered categories (even a literal “man” or “woman” card, like a club membership) by taking a personality and values assessment test. But then, what are these values? What follows is a first draft from perceived societal norms and expectations:

Male:

Strength

Stoicism

Self-sacrifice?

Self-sufficiency/solidarity

Engineer

Protection

Confrontation

Direct

Outward

Honor

Female:

Elegance

Compassion

 Flexibility

Cooperation

Designer

Growth/nurturing -> support

 Indirect

Inward

Fairness

Notice that none of these are diametrically opposed; one person could have all these qualities, although such a person would be just short of perfect. These represent the values of a gender identity as well as the attitude/mindset. They are designed to fit with antiquated gender norms and are all positive qualities meant to empower any who embody them. This is not prescriptive, but descriptive, and no effort is made to make an explicit tie to biological sex. Additionally, qualities are made to be abstract. Qualities like “physical” v “emotional” implicitly dehumanize and are too close to reality to be appropriate values.

After a page of doodling I came to these values:

Strength | Elegance

Stoicism | Compassion

Structure | Flexibility

Independence | Cooperation

Protection | Support

Honor | Equality

I’m sure if I rooted through Journal 0 I’d find notes expanding this model, but I’m lazy.

Now then, I suppose I should explore my relationship to gender here, something I’m finding particularly hard to keep a train of thought about.

I can’t say gender has always been a complicated subject for me. I don’t recall having any particular interaction with it as a kid up to... we’ll say middle school. I think it really only became complicated when my asexual fetish branched out into transgenderism and the homosexual side of my bisexuality came out. I would often imagine myself as female with a male in fantasies - this didn’t so much cause me to question my masculinity as wonder what “masculinity” and “femininity” really were. In my head, the difference seemed superficially anatomical, but I got a distinct feeling there was something deeper to it.

I also questioned my gender identity as far as being trans goes, but at the end came to conclude that, for one, anatomical gender was irrelevant other than how it affects the perceptions of others and post-op transsexuals were deluding themselves into thinking physicalizing a fundamentally abstract part of their personality would somehow lead them to self-actualization. On the other hand, an easy counter-point was putting myself in the shoes of a female social scenario and recognizing that any such exchange made me uncomfortable; I didn’t like being treated “like a girl”. But then, so too did male social scenarios.

I became more and more aware of a deep discomfort when stereotypes were applied to me, such as remarking that my eating habits are “because I’m a boy”, or that I’m acting “just like a boy”. It felt wrong, alienating, dehumanizing even, not because they were technically inaccurate, but rather because they robbed aspects of my personality and placed them in a categorical identity I had no control over. For a while I felt some sense of pride when I saw how unlike the stereotypes I was, caring nothing for “football” or “cars”, but such an attitude has likely led me to my current situation; a lack of socialization with “male culture” and thus a stunted ability to make friends.

If I might go off on a tangent for a bit, I have this particular image in my head. When I lived with a friend, there was a grey cat named Sophie there. She was very odd to deal with, because it almost seemed like she didn’t know how to act like a cat. She was stiff, easily spooked, would stare blankly at toys or playful advances from the other cat, and loved nothing more than to lie down on someone’s lap where she didn’t have to move around. I’ve been told she was removed from her litter too early; essentially, she never had the opportunity to learn how to be a cat, and what resulted was this uncomfortable mess. I am that cat, “catness” being “manhood”.

Speaking of, I do remember always being incredibly uncomfortable with the word “man”, less so with “boy”, and that still seems to apply. I cringe every time I remember that I’m supposed to be a “man”. Is it fear of the expectations therein? A residual reaction to the inherent dehumanization of labeling?

I don’t think all of this is solely related to gender though; I get similar (though less pronounced) feelings when people comment on my race being causal to my personality. There’s just something deeply unsettling about people having these easy visual markers to tear off large chunks of your humanity before you can even speak.

As for my perception of the stereotypes associated with men, I suppose I should list those:

Strong, aggressive, teasing borders bullying

Smart or stupid, serious or clowns, usually overconfident

Ravenous appetite, a proclivity toward activity

Sports, cars, sex, money, fame, success

Competition, independence, invulnerable

Expected to self-sacrifice (stoicism, women and children first)

Heavy lifters, pull the weight, breadwinner, work yourself to death

Soldier, worker, grunt, slabs of meat

Big and bulky, powerful, threatening, hairy, smelly

Unrespectful of politeness (body humor, farts, burps are “funny”)

Dirty slobs, pigs or bulls, wrecking everything they pass

There’s a few societal roles tangled up in there (child, adolescent, adult, family-man) but you can get the general picture. As I write these I interpret only negatives, but it occurs to me that there’s nothing inherently negative about any of them (with some exceptions). Someone matching these stereotypes would think them either natural or even virtuous.

Uh... Back to my original motivation, exploring this sense of... disconnection or lack of finality with my gender. This feeling I can’t quite place. One that’s most strongly responded to this image:

... and others like it...

From what I can tell, the two main commonalities are “serious face” and “contrast” (young and old). The second image especially fascinates me because I can see the adult’s eyes shining through his child body. Something about that, unattainable levels of wisdom well beyond their years... I’d compare it to nostalgia, or even a longing for something to be nostalgic about.

I want a coming of age story set in elementary school featuring a main character who’s older than they appear. Am I looking for a role model? A transitional period between being taken care of and taking care of others? I want to feel small for some reason. Do I want to be masculine in the strong protector sense? I lack it as-is. Many of the things Satoru does are unthinkable for me simply because of my personality, things I wouldn’t mind doing but can’t because that’s not the imaginary self I’m roleplaying... Personality? Something to tinge what to me is a dull grey mush of a personality? Or happiness, belonging, connection, friends.

And then in anime, when I see boys shirtless

It’s not jealousy, or lust. I wish for a toned physique, and enjoy looking at theirs. But at the same time, I feel a counter-feeling of shame from wanting anything “manly” like well-defined muscles. I don’t want to be a “man”, yet I find myself wishing for just that.

I just want to be “me” without that being labeled.. Just “human” suffices, I think. (though I’ve had issues with even that...)

I keep thinking about writing some kind of story in which a girl wakes up as a boy and has to deal with everything that comes with. She’d be a kind of self-insert for me, in that neither of us knows what being a boy is like.