#our birth dads behaved so similarly with family and children

[butch4maryoliver]

save me mary oliver save me

[bigbooksandhottea-blog]

Story of my Life

               Let’s take it from the top. When I was born, several things happened in quick succession, I screamed, I peed all over my mother, and I was pronounced female. That moment would dictate how I lived the rest of my life, which is ironic since I haven’t done much screaming since (I daresay I’ve forgotten how to perform that particular vocal act), and I never wet the bed after I got out of diapers, you could say I’ve rebelled against my female designation as well, with more than my fair share of body dysphoria, but mainly I was just never sure of the purpose of the small F on my birth certificate and all the legal documents that followed.

               I seemed to be the only member of my family who felt this way. I was born into a very traditional Catholic household and learned these gender roles from a young age. At that time, my main model for femininity was my mother. I did not want to be like my mother. She was very servile to my dad and siblings while also being high strung and anxious. These two things were likely connected, and neither of them seemed appealing to me. I decided very early on that I did not want to be a mother, assuming that I would end up like my own mother, but even worse, that I would have a child who was similarly unappreciative.

               This was frowned upon in the Catholic church, where the prime directive for a woman was to have babies. In the bible, that was almost all they wanted, from Sarah to the two women defending their motherhood to King Solomon. Even my namesake, Rebekah, is most famous for her deception of her husband in favor of her favorite son. Indeed, it could be said that Catholics are so against abortion because the faith is so entwined in the idea of reproduction, that is how I got indoctrinated after all.

               Religion in general should not be discounted as one of the great shapers of our society. While Catholicism cannot necessarily be construed as a dominant religion, it is a branch (although it would be more historically accurate to say the trunk) of Christianity, which has dominated much of the Western world for centuries. This has not been without its consequences.

               I cannot speak for the rest of Christianity, but I know from years of experience that Catholicism is steeped in ritual and tradition. This has led to a cultural appreciation for these things, which isn’t always bad, but can be harmful in the case of gender roles. Having said that, my mother tried desperately to get away from the housewife mentality of her time, getting a degree as an electrical engineer and having my dad be the one to stay home with me when I was too young to go to school. I was impressed when I heard this story, until my mom told me that she had hated every minute of engineering school.

               This introduced me to the concept of feminism for the sake of feminism. A similar phenomenon is present in Boulder that I like to call progressivism for the sake of progressivism. Boulder prides itself so much on being a progressive town that it shows open hostility to those who are not “open-minded,” which has created something called the “Boulder bubble.” For those inside, it can feel like a utopia of free thinking, but for those outside, it feels like an exclusive club that only the fit, white elite are privy to. As part of progressivism, feminism is also included in this, particularly what Roxanne Gay describes as capital-F feminism.

               Capital-F feminism was extremely prevalent in the second wave feminism that my mom participated in. Although it did spurn her to getting a well-paying job and a comfortable life, she did not end up doing what she wanted until much later. Despite not wanting to be like my mother, I am still her daughter and I too briefly pursued an engineering degree. Unfortunately, I have very little motivation to do things I do not enjoy, so that pursuit ended in a spectacular crashing of my GPA. I will take the time to reiterate that this was due to my disinterestedness in the subject, not necessarily because it was “too hard for me” as my ex from the time would tell me.

               That ex, and indeed all my exes would teach me even more about a woman’s place in society. I’ve been lucky enough to have the experience of dating all kinds of people from both sides of the gender spectrum, as well as having time to be single. Some people will tell you that dating different genders is no different, I will not. Like most people who were assigned female at birth, I dated men (well really boys at the time) first. I got to see what it felt like to be taken care of.

               I’m not sure when I first realized that I was into girls too. I got to experience a more even level of give and take than with guys. Simply put, it was no longer obvious who would pay for dinner. Regardless of the model relationships I would have as a result, coming out was a pretty painful process, facilitated by the fact that I had no idea how to talk about how I was feeling. At the time, I was vaguely aware of the term “bisexual,” although it took many more years for me to realize the extent of my sexuality, mainly due to my lack of knowledge about the non-binary nature of gender. Here’s the quick and dirty of the sexuality you may not be aware of, courtesy of my really tiny handwriting:

(if you can’t read this, I apologize, you’re really missing out, but this is tumblr, if you ask it nicely, it will tell you all about pansexuality)

               This ignorance was mostly fostered by the fairly strict gender expression displayed to me at a school that considered a male-identified individual in a skirt and pigtails top-notch comedy (and also thought it was okay to have indigenous people portrayed as a mascot, but that’s a whole other can of worms). Despite my growing up in a fairly small, conservative town, it’s pretty typical for people everywhere to accept the gender they were assigned at birth.

               This tendency traces back to society’s views of the sexes and how they should behave, resulting in the training of gender into children. Judith Butler explores this subject in greater detail in her book Gender Trouble, a main takeaway of which is that gender should be viewed entirely as a social construct. However, this construct has absorbed many other aspects of our culture, down to colors and other inanimate objects. While working in the paint department I’ve repeatedly heard fathers tell their sons they could not paint their rooms purple or pink, but at the same time, I’ve never heard anyone tell their daughter they could not paint their room blue.

                 Telling boys they can’t do things because it’s a “girl thing” or something that “boys don’t do” is alarmingly common in our society. The same thing is hardly ever said to girls attempting traditionally masculine activities. In recent years especially, there has been significantly more effort invested in encouraging young women to pursue whatever strikes their fancy. This has resulted in an attitude that women can have masculine pursuits, but men cannot have feminine pursuits without incurring deep shame. While the distinction between masculine and feminine is as arbitrary a distinction as that between male and female, this tendency is still telling of the inevitable hierarchy that arises between distinct things.

               I have been extremely privileged in that I am fairly masculine. While biology and inconsistency have made it impossible for me to actually pass as male, I have been able to engage in any activity I choose, from basketball to dance. I know I would’ve had more advantages had I been assigned male at birth, but at the same time, I would be unable to pursue dance or dye my hair, especially to the extent I would’ve wanted in the home I grew up in. This general attitude shows that society has accepted masculinity (or things associated with men) even when women do it, and find femininity merely excusable in women and downright unacceptable in men.

               It is for this reason that lesbians are sexualized and gay men are stigmatized. I can speak from personal experience that straight men were a lot more comfortable with me when they thought I was a lesbian (without bothering to ask if I was, naturally), than when they found out my sexuality extended to their gender. I think part of this disarmament was due to my fairly masculine appearance. When I was a kid I was often called a tomboy, and although I still wore dresses and lots of floral, I also rocked baggy jeans and flannel, which earned me the title of “butch” when I came out. While more attention was paid to the masculine clothes I wore, wearing more traditionally feminine clothes was still an option.

               This realization hit me hardest when I meant to go to Denver Pride this last summer. I ended up not going, mostly because I had just gotten off a long flight, but also because I wanted to go dressed in full drag and hadn’t realized how unassuming (and hot) it would be until I actually started looking for things to wear. Not only did I usually wear clothing that could be considered masculine, but I realize seeing someone who presents as feminine dress as male isn’t really scandalous and didn’t feel (at least to me) worthy of Pride. On the other hand, a person who presents as masculine dressed as female gets all kinds of reactions, mostly negative outside of Pride, and is considered abnormal.

               To me, this means that it is okay to want to be a man (hell, Freud did a whole bit on it), but not okay to want to be a woman. By spurning things typically associated with women, society is still spurning women. I’ve focused mostly on appearance, since gender presentation has been a large part of my experience, but this issue goes beyond fashion or color or physical characteristics. Since our culture has gendered personality traits, things like aggression, confidence, repression of emotions, authoritativeness, and opinionated views are all considered positive. I have known plenty of women who are capable of any (or all) of these, and often with an intensity to rival their male counterparts. These women have been rewarded accordingly, but people who possess traits that were unfortunate enough not to be designated as masculine are considered “weak.”

               These weak, feminine traits include passivity, caution, emotionality, obedience, and indecisiveness, none of which have any significant disadvantages in moderation, much like the masculine-identified traits, but they are considered lesser by our society. In fact, the way we react with others is judged so closely and affects so much that I used to think the world was make for extroverts and me and my fellow introverts would have to become writers or dancers or other professions that don’t involve talking. But it has become increasingly clear to me that it is not merely an outgoing or friendly personality that is valued, it is the perceived strength of these masculine traits over the feminine that still holds more value in our society.

               At the same time, I do not think that things traditionally labeled feminine should be held above the traditionally masculine. As with all things, I think balance and equality is key, but true equality cannot be obtained until we liberate things associated with women, not just women themselves. Ideally this would occur through a release of the concept of the gender binary, as the need to label the world often leads to hierarchies that hurt everybody.