Category: gender outlawery

A month or so back, I received a strange package in the mail from an old friend I’d lost touch with; it was Norah Vincent’s “SELF-MADE MAN: One Woman’s Journey Into Manhood And Back Again” and it was a fascinating and infuriating read.  What was fascinating to me was not so much the topic of the book, but the neuroses and narcissism of the author, a self-proclaimed butch lesbian who seemed incredibly ill-suited to this particular experiment. What was infuriating to me was that nearly all her conclusions were painfully obvious – either reinforcements of cultural stereotypes or “insights” about the problems men face (which should be obvious to all those with a relatively open mind who have long-term interactions “as” men; i.e., anyone [male or female] who has been perceived as a man for years).

The topic of the book is Norah’s year-long drag-act as “Ned,” a bookish, slight man with perpetual 5-o’clock shadow (courtesy of some drag lessons by a friend).  I use the word “drag” very intentionally here because Norah clearly has no aspirations to become a man permanently (she’s not at all trans and, oddly, never even touches on the subject of trans-men in the entire book); for her, it really is an “act,” albeit one that goes further than she had perhaps intended. She puts herself in typical or extreme masculine environments such as joining a bowling league, frequenting strip clubs, “Red Bull” sales jobs, a men’s support group and even tries “heterosexual” dating as a man.

I have to commend the author on the bravery of going through with this experiment despite the risks and her not insignificant misgivings. All in all, she did it mostly full-time (at least in public) for a year and a half.  However, I do not understand the rationale of most of her decisions. Continue reading “Self-Made Bed: One lesbian’s journey into the obvious”

1 in 1000. That’s how many babies are born in an intersex condition. That’s people who are not clearly male or female. Sometimes it is a chromosomal aberration (XXY); other times, it is a hormonal aberration; in all cases, the human could end up with “mixed” sexual characteristics (ambiguous genitalia or secondary sex characteristics that don’t seem to match the genitalia that we expect).

1 in 1000 people are neither male or female. Physically. Biologically. Born that way. And yet, we only acknowledge the existence of two sexes. The medical establishment has been aware of this for ages (although they often hide the fact by “fixing” the intersex children); the Olympics have been aware of intersex people for decades (note, however, that the article’s definition of intersex is incomplete as it is not only chromosomal & the Olympics still insists on the male/female categorization since it is more convenient).

How could a minority of people numbering approximately 300,000 people (in this country alone) be so completely invisible? Unacknowledged. And this is not even getting into the subject of people who may appear to be one sex, but identify otherwise. 3 genders, 13 months (moon-cycles) per year. The natural truths that we choose to define out of existence.

I’ve always felt a bit… transparent. Ever since I was a kid. Never quite one thing or the other, I slid between the lines. People often told me I was one thing or another (white, child, boy), but it never quite felt like me.

People don’t call me a child anymore, but they’re still always throwing labels on me. It’s hardest and most interesting these days with children – they often wonder, “is that a boy or a girl?” I want to stop and tell them “neither,” but that’s too much explaining. Much as children live their imagination, they also live in a world of rigid boundaries – they don’t [generally] understand the grey areas.

A few years back, a little girl of about 3 (my cousin) got extremely offended and started hitting and yelling at me after I “tricked” her by not talking for our first hour of knowing each other. I tried to be tolerant, but it’s not fun to have someone screaming in your face. But at least she wasn’t hiding anything (sometimes it feels like adults are silently screaming in my face, when they’re not pretending I don’t exist). Some children playing on the street the other week demanded to know if I was a boy or a girl. I just smiled and didn’t answer that question, slightly delighted as I walked away that they were still wondering aloud. Continue reading “lost in the border”