obligatory National Coming Out Day post

[rm]

The problem, of course, is always with the adjectives and labels, but that's a lovely luxury that I've not honestly had in every facet of my life until the last year or two.

I use queer, gay, lesbian and bisexual for myself pretty interchangeably, although "big ol' lesbian" has been hilariously popular in conversation lately.

I also identify as genderqueer, which is an essay and a half, but in short, my living life as a boy here (*touches sternum*) doesn't make me less of a woman, anymore than my having a cunt makes me less of a man. Use any pronouns you want for me, as long as you don't use them derisively, but I do really loathe that "hir" stuff because I'm uptight about English.

And I can't be out without being out about just how bloody fictional my life is.

I'm my own creature, my own species. It makes sense to me, with any luck, one day it'll make sense to other people too.

That's it. Not news.

Comments

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

This is unrelated, but I've seen something funny with respect to neutral pronouns that I've always wanted to share. You know how it usually comes across as trying too hard when people use "hir" to basically protest the use of gendered pronouns? Part of it seems to be because of the artificiality of its use. But I have actually seen it arise organically, for a totally different reason than dissent.

In these lawyer bulletin boards I sometimes read, I've seen people use "em" as a neutral pronoun quite prevalently. But there the purpose is not to be gender-neutral, but to specifically mask the identity of the poster, because people are often posting about law firm gossip and thus don't want their identities revealed even slightly. It makes me amused each time I see it, because here's this thing that people have wanted for years, and it gets used in this one segment of society for totally different reasons!