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judecorpNote: I started to write this on Monday evening, and never got to finishing. There are other things I want to write about, so I'll probably end up posting this truncated version to get to new stuff. But anyway, I thought about these things throughout the weekend and on the drive home, and they're worth text time.
1. I am not meant for casinos.
This shouldn't be a surprise. Besides the fact that I'mcheap anti-capitalist, I just don't get it. I mean, I don't know what I was expecting, except maybe something out of that movie Rain Man. ("You're very sparkly, Iris. Like a holiday.") When I saw an enormous room just full of row after row after row of slot machines... well, hell, it was like Chuck E. Cheese for grownups - on crack. All of those people just crammed into that room, chain-smoking cigarettes and pounding on the buttons without even really looking at what happened. I was stunned. You could lose $20 in a minute. I guess maybe I don't have the right genes for that place or something. I spent $40 there, mostly giving it to Jennifer, and in some sort of likely bad casino etiquette, I left the main room and sat on the floor of the lobby with a book. (Memoirs of a Geisha by Golden. I've had it for a long time, it's about time I read it.)
2. This is the first time I'll be moving with/for a S.O. without trying to "fix" something.
I realized this on the drive back yesterday. It was so monumentous that I actually said it out loud. In 1997 I moved to Boston to be closer to the SO, because I thought the enormous distance was ruining our relationship and that something more manageable (4 hours instead of 9) would help. In 1998, I moved up to Maine to be with the SO because I figured that it was distance, any distance, that was killing us with strain. In 2000, the SO and I moved to Ohio. I thought that a move to a place we'd never been would bring us closer together, that living in a place where we were only known as a couple would solidify us. Oops.
I realized in the car that I could live another year with Jennifer the way we're living now - in separate houses a block away. We don't need to move and we don't need to fix anything. Everything is going swimmingly, and we're moving because we want to intensify our relationship and increase the level of commitment. What a nice change.
3. If society allowed children to be/wear/do what they wanted to, gender-wise, would there be less transpeople?
I thought about this, oddly enough, on Monday morning when I was folding laundry. Folding my laundry and Jennifer's laundry means that there is very little "women's" clothing in the mix. (We wear underwear, after all, and I think I have a couple girly shirts.) I don't consider myself a transman, nor do I want to be a man. Then again, I don't consider myself a woman, and I certainly don't want to be a lady. But I got to thinking about my trans- brothers and sisters, and how perhaps they would be more comfortable in their own skin if they'd been allowed to express themselves any way they wanted as children. I know this simplifies things and cuts to the core of the fact that a significant part of gender comes from society (and that's not changing any time soon!), but if as a child I had been encouraged to wear what I felt comfortable in, and do what I was good at, rather than being told that I had to look/act a certain way and have certain goals - if I'd had that, would I even care about gender queerness and other things? Would I have to? There wouldn't be that sense of "You don't fit in anywhere" or "I don't know what I am."
For instance, for Carina's wedding, I wore a pair of neat linen pants and a shirt that I guess could be considered a blouse, but was almost a throwback to the daishikis or perhaps Indian clothing. I think I looked pretty nice (and I'll probably wear this to my reunion), and was comfortable. I wasn't wearing a skirt or pantyhose or high-heeled shoes, so I was in my comfort zone. At the same time, I didn't really get the "dirty stare." I think fluidity of gender has aided me in being more accepted in society - being able to bounce back and forth has given me the title of "tomboy" rather than something more derogatory. Of course, I could be talking out my butt - I'd have to talk to more transpeople.
4. I think I'm becoming part of the family.
At the very least, Jennifer's family has the knowledge that I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. They have the benefit of having more experience with their daughter bringing girlfriends home than I do, so I think they see the relationship as more serious (more on our level) than my parents do. I'm starting to get hugs and kisses when I walk through the door, and that's nice, because they're nice people. For so long when I was with A. I had the dreadful knowledge that the "in-laws" didn't like me or want to get to know me, and it's a relief to not feel that way. (Heck, A's mom didn't speak to me until we got engaged, and even then, very little until we got married. That was over three years, people! Sheesh!)
I think it's funny because her mother doesn't accept me in the same way that she doesn't accept her. I'm probably the girlfriend brought home that is most like Jen, in terms of clothing and mannerisms. In some ways, I think that makes it difficult for them (TWO people to get stared at! Mom's worst nightmare!) But in other ways, I'm hoping that it alleviates some of the stresses that Jen's mom puts on her. And it was damned funny to know that we both winced in the same way when she suggested Jen wear lipstick. She took to calling us the Bobbsey Twins.
5. I like car trips with my Jennifer.
We've done a couple of them now, and they all hold that enchantment of close time spent in close corners, and the joy of arrival. What's even more special is that they all remind me of each other, so even in this whirlwind trip to New Jersey I had the benefit of remembrances of Rehoboth Beach and Provincetown. Yay.
1. I am not meant for casinos.
This shouldn't be a surprise. Besides the fact that I'm
2. This is the first time I'll be moving with/for a S.O. without trying to "fix" something.
I realized this on the drive back yesterday. It was so monumentous that I actually said it out loud. In 1997 I moved to Boston to be closer to the SO, because I thought the enormous distance was ruining our relationship and that something more manageable (4 hours instead of 9) would help. In 1998, I moved up to Maine to be with the SO because I figured that it was distance, any distance, that was killing us with strain. In 2000, the SO and I moved to Ohio. I thought that a move to a place we'd never been would bring us closer together, that living in a place where we were only known as a couple would solidify us. Oops.
I realized in the car that I could live another year with Jennifer the way we're living now - in separate houses a block away. We don't need to move and we don't need to fix anything. Everything is going swimmingly, and we're moving because we want to intensify our relationship and increase the level of commitment. What a nice change.
3. If society allowed children to be/wear/do what they wanted to, gender-wise, would there be less transpeople?
I thought about this, oddly enough, on Monday morning when I was folding laundry. Folding my laundry and Jennifer's laundry means that there is very little "women's" clothing in the mix. (We wear underwear, after all, and I think I have a couple girly shirts.) I don't consider myself a transman, nor do I want to be a man. Then again, I don't consider myself a woman, and I certainly don't want to be a lady. But I got to thinking about my trans- brothers and sisters, and how perhaps they would be more comfortable in their own skin if they'd been allowed to express themselves any way they wanted as children. I know this simplifies things and cuts to the core of the fact that a significant part of gender comes from society (and that's not changing any time soon!), but if as a child I had been encouraged to wear what I felt comfortable in, and do what I was good at, rather than being told that I had to look/act a certain way and have certain goals - if I'd had that, would I even care about gender queerness and other things? Would I have to? There wouldn't be that sense of "You don't fit in anywhere" or "I don't know what I am."
For instance, for Carina's wedding, I wore a pair of neat linen pants and a shirt that I guess could be considered a blouse, but was almost a throwback to the daishikis or perhaps Indian clothing. I think I looked pretty nice (and I'll probably wear this to my reunion), and was comfortable. I wasn't wearing a skirt or pantyhose or high-heeled shoes, so I was in my comfort zone. At the same time, I didn't really get the "dirty stare." I think fluidity of gender has aided me in being more accepted in society - being able to bounce back and forth has given me the title of "tomboy" rather than something more derogatory. Of course, I could be talking out my butt - I'd have to talk to more transpeople.
4. I think I'm becoming part of the family.
At the very least, Jennifer's family has the knowledge that I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. They have the benefit of having more experience with their daughter bringing girlfriends home than I do, so I think they see the relationship as more serious (more on our level) than my parents do. I'm starting to get hugs and kisses when I walk through the door, and that's nice, because they're nice people. For so long when I was with A. I had the dreadful knowledge that the "in-laws" didn't like me or want to get to know me, and it's a relief to not feel that way. (Heck, A's mom didn't speak to me until we got engaged, and even then, very little until we got married. That was over three years, people! Sheesh!)
I think it's funny because her mother doesn't accept me in the same way that she doesn't accept her. I'm probably the girlfriend brought home that is most like Jen, in terms of clothing and mannerisms. In some ways, I think that makes it difficult for them (TWO people to get stared at! Mom's worst nightmare!) But in other ways, I'm hoping that it alleviates some of the stresses that Jen's mom puts on her. And it was damned funny to know that we both winced in the same way when she suggested Jen wear lipstick. She took to calling us the Bobbsey Twins.
5. I like car trips with my Jennifer.
We've done a couple of them now, and they all hold that enchantment of close time spent in close corners, and the joy of arrival. What's even more special is that they all remind me of each other, so even in this whirlwind trip to New Jersey I had the benefit of remembrances of Rehoboth Beach and Provincetown. Yay.
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No, you'd not have been accepted anyway
Date: 2003-05-28 03:03 pm (UTC)I was allowed to wear pretty much whatever I wanted (save for church but church was somehow like theater and I felt like it was a costume, not a badge of appearance). I was active in sports and geekery until my knees gave out (around 12) and then went straight geekery. Debate club was pretty straightly divided male/female but we were all geeks. Ditto computer club, academic team, all that other stuff.
I still felt outcast and didn't feel I fit in until I went head over heels into counter culture. And I was a serape-wearing local HS president of Amnesty International birkenstock loving peacenik with a war on. I marched in protests and my dad marched in the army. (He sent me a peace sign necklace for Valentine's day 1991 while he was still on duty dealing with the first gulf war -- if THAT isn't a sign of parental toleration I don't know what is.)
So I was pretty accepted by my family but society was still against me. I never considered myself as having gender issues, just that I was comfortable in a variety of skins.
Anyway the point is that you rub society the wrong way in far too many ways -- even with gender issues out of the picture you still would have been an outcast from "the normals" if you had been free to express (and even to know) your true self. Activists have never been paragons of confirmity.
Society is just fucked up. It's not worth much effort to try to pick apart and label all of the MILLIONS of ways it tries to force people into things that are not for them.
Re: No, you'd not have been accepted anyway
Date: 2003-05-28 05:20 pm (UTC)I wonder especially about those who do not have interest in gender reassignment surgery, but instead live to "pass" as the other gender in order to be more comfortable. I was thinking that if one wanted to "pass" as male while keeping one's female genitalia, perhaps it wouldn't be an issue if "male" and "female" were less rigid.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-29 03:49 am (UTC):)
I do know that feeling. Only for me its not moving to do so but accually the relationship itself.
Its really nice to have stepped outside that.
no subject
Re:
Date: 2003-05-29 06:17 am (UTC):)