I’ve been correcting my perceptions of gender so much lately. I’m shocked at how much my idea of “THIS IS WHAT MASCULINITY LOOKS LIKE; FOLLOW IT TO THE T OR EVERYONE WILL THINK YOU’RE FEMININE” has prevented my from expressing myself. I keep forgetting that so much of the masculine/feminine dichotomy is wrapped up in hetero-cis-patriarchal ideals of gender.
Like, I love colorful clothes and cool patterns. But I always thought that color = feminine. Which is absolute bullshit. I can wear any color, no matter how vibrant, and have my identity in tact. Saying “you’re butch/masculine/a man/a dyke/a trans*man, so you need to wear THIS color/pattern/article of clothing” is the same thing as saying “you’re femme/feminine/a woman/a trans* woman, so you need to wear THIS color/pattern/article of clothing” And by having this misconception of masculinity in my head, I am attempting to convince myself I don’t like something I actually enjoy.
Earlier today I was like, “Hm, I should paint my nails!” And I didn’t. Because I thought, “CARLIN, NAIL PAINTING IS FOR GIRLS!”
And then I mentally slapped myself in the face for that cissexist, misogynistic BS.
This year, I’m gonna wear my colored shirts, paint my nails, crop my hair, wear loafers, and don my ties, and do what I want. I’m done letting my misconceptions of clothing and color and gender limit my expression. I’m embracing MY identity. Not what I think it should be, or what others tell me it should be.
hey like or reblog this if you would actually be really opposed to Tahno cutting his hair as any kind of positive character development, as in, to show he’s grown or is a better person or to make him more acceptable.
Because a boy cutting his hair does not carry the same history as a girl doing it, because there are already rigid gender stereotypes saying men cannot be pretty and cannot have any kind of length to their hair (and his isn’t even that long!) and that femme expression on a man constitutes a character flaw.
Because to have him cut his hair in such a way would imply that his earlier femme expression is “just a phase” that he needed to “outgrow.” It’s different when real people get haircuts, but a fictional character’s haircut is a conscious authorial choice, it’s symbolism, it sends a message. It says that Tahno could not be a good guy or redeemed or even a romantic option for Korra while still remaining gender non-conforming even in such a small way, that his gender expression needed to be “fixed,” that there is something fucking wrong with his hair as it is now or it symbolizes something bad.
Because in animation hairstyle is a big part of making characters distinctive, and lopping off his distinctive do would make him less eye-catching and make him look kind of boring.
Because everyone can tell it would be offensive to say Asami should stop wearing makeup and skirts and cut her hair as character development, because Asami knows who she is and expresses herself femininely because she enjoys it and it would be misogynistic to treat this as something in need of repair, but femininity on a boy is something we still think it’s okay to erase and beat out of him with trauma and call it character development.
(note: I have had him cut his hair once in fic, and consider it another time. In both cases it didn’t mean anything good. The time he cut it it symbolized self-destructivenesss and a sort of nihilistic surrender of identity, he was an absolute trainwreck in that fic and was not headed in the direction of positive growth; the time he thought about it it symbolized low self-esteem and a willingness to conform because maintaining his self-expression in the face of family criticism was just another battle he wasn’t sure he had it in him to fight at the time. I have never once written him getting a haircut to show improvement or redemption, and never will.)
Trans* 101
binarysubverter.wordpress.comSOURCE: Binary Subverter
- You are a person. You are worthy of respect. You deserve to be treated with the same dignity as anyone else. There is nothing inherently wrong with your gender. You are not broken, you are not disgusting, you do not deserve to be hurt.
- You’ve been brought up and live in a world that’s designed to erase and demonize your existence, you’ve probably internalized a lot of that- and that’s not your fault. But it can be hard to deal with. But you aren’t alone in dealing with it. And sometimes you have to buy into it to be able to handle it(trigger warning: transphobic violence). And that’s okay.
- Your gender is no more or less than anyone else’s. Your history doesn’t make you “not really” or “less” your gender than someone with a cis history, it just makes you a person of your gender with a different history.
- You do not deserve to be held to higher standards than cis people. You do not have to “prove” your gender by forcing yourself into societal roles that may not fit. You are not “failing” anyone by fitting into societal roles that are comfortable. It is not your job to break down the binary/patriarchy/or anything else. If you want to, go for it, but you have no obligation to do anything for cis people just because you are trans.
- Being yourself does not hurt trans rights (so long as you aren’t trying to do so while stopping others from being who they are) and is not a reason why people don’t have to treat you with respect. There is nothing wrong with being a feminine man or masculine woman, or being a person who’s comfortable in their body, or being a person who doesn’t transition all the way, or being out about having a non-binary or genderqueer gender. You have not “failed” anyone by doing this, you are not “less” of your gender than someone else. Being who you are is not a valid argument for why people can’t treat you as who you truly are.
- No one else has the right to say your body needs to be changed. It only does if you need to change it. Or if you want to change it, that’s valid, too. Your body does not make you “less” your gender. It doesn’t make you “not really” your gender. It doesn’t mean you’re trapped in someone else’s body. You do not have to fix your body to “become” your gender- you already are your gender. All you need to do is what you need to do to be comfortable in your body. And if that includes reclaiming your right to label your own body, you are allowed to do that.
- You have just as much of a right to privacy as anyone else. You do not need to tell anyone about your body, your medical history, or anything else. Whether or not your body needs to be changed for you to be comfortable, you do not have to change it to deserve to be treated as who you are. You do not owe anyone intimate details about your personal life before you can be treated as who you are.
- You have no obligation to educate anyone. This includes trans people, but is most important with cis people. You are not a walking encyclopedia of transgender and/or transsexual information, you are a person. You do not have to answer every question any cis person comes up with, you do not have to represent trans people as a whole, (see 7) you do not have to bare the most personal and vulnerable parts of your soul to other people on demand.
- Not educating people does not “hurt” trans rights. NEVER let anyone try to guilt you into educating people or doing something you don’t want to do by insisting that doing otherwise will “destroy trans rights/acceptance/whatever”. Trying to force trans people to become walking information desks or to put themselves in dangerous situations regardless of whether or not you’re even up for dealing with this destroys trans rights and shows a great deal of intolerance. Asserting that you don’t have to tell anyone anything you don’t want to? That really doesn’t.
- If you do want to educate people, you are allowed to set limits and boundaries. You are allowed to say that you won’t talk about certain issues, or that you will only talk about them on your terms. You are allowed to decide which people you will talk to about which issues. You are allowed to change these boundaries if you become uncomfortable educating people you were previously willing to educate. You are not obligated to educate anyone just because you educated someone else.
- You deserve to take care of yourself- whatever that means. You deserve to be comfortable and safe. You deserve not to be in dangerous situations. If you can’t handle something alone, you deserve to ask for- and get- help or, if you can, take a break from it until you can handle it. Or just stop doing it all together, that’s okay. Taking care of yourself does not make you weak, it does not make you an attention-grabber or overdramatic, it does not make you “less” your gender, it does not mean you betray other trans people by not being a full-time (or even part-time) activist. You’re human, you have limits, and that’s okay.
- You deserve to have your boundaries respected. Any boundaries- how and where people can touch you, what information you give to who and when, what places you feel comfortable going or who you feel comfortable going with, what people can tell others about you.
- You deserve to have the words you are and aren’t comfortable being referred to as respected. You deserve to have the proper pronouns used (and, if there are times when it’s unsafe for that to happen, you deserve to have your safety maintained by those around you), you deserve to be called the proper name, you deserve to have the words you want used to describe your body used, you deserve not to be called by any label, pronoun, word, or name that you don’t want to be called.
- If you’re asking for something that you need to feel respected, comfortable, and safe- you are not asking for too much. Your identity is not “too complicated”. Your needs are not less important than anyone elses’.
- You are a person. You are worthy of respect. You deserve to be treated with the same dignity as anyone else. There is nothing inherently wrong with your gender. You are not broken, you are not disgusting, you do not deserve to be hurt.
I’m Neither Butch Nor A Top
autostraddle.com“Part of the frustration for me is that I feel as though I’m constantly being read as a masculine of center woman when I’m actually just genderqueer. I’m genderqueer of center. Trying to interpret me in any other way leads to confusion — such as some friends not understanding why I can’t wait for my chest to be flatter and more androgynous so I can wear dresses again. The few times I have worn dresses out and gone en femme, I got hit on by masculine-presenting women whose interest in me only lasted as long as the high heels and red lipstick was on. Any time I saw them when I was dressed in my ‘regular’ clothes, I got the friendly head nod or no recognition at all. Talk about the buddy zone.”
