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on being comfortable and being true to myself
Yesterday I posted something under friendslock about gender presentation, public reaction and my stress about what to wear to the opera.
Lots of people, who are all awesome and well-meaning, reacted with "wear whatever makes you comfortable" or "be true to yourself!"
I wish, I really wish, it was that simple.
Being gender non-conforming means that comfort can be hard to define. Do I wear what expresses how I'm feeling on a given day best? Or what keeps me safest? Do I wear what's fanciest or what I'm sure won't make a work colleague think less of me? Do I wear something that might get me hassled using a public restroom (and, yes, this has happened) when I have a disease that sometimes makes me need one in a gendered space urgently?
Which question do I answer when I choose what to wear? And, as someone who isn't trans, who is therefore female bodied and some days can wear a dress happily and some days has to grit their teeth to get through it because they feel like a horrible drag cartoon, which self am I supposed to be true to? The one I feel like today that makes other people uncomfortable, or the one I felt like last week that gets rewards for showing leg and asking permission?
Right now, I am in a small town in a foreign country where I don't speak the language and where gender norms are both different and stricter than where I reside. My only associations here are work colleagues I am varying degrees of friendly with and none of whom come from my national or queer culture. I do not see these people often professionally, but they affect the work, opportunities and salary I am assigned. Every impression matters, and I am already so different and not like them: queer and not-Christian and American.
I live in a flat with little privacy with near strangers who I had to tell not to laugh about the transwoman next door. I have to take several trains, at night, through regions and places I recognize neither by sight nor name yet, to get to the opera. If I get lost, if I'm challenged for my gender presentation, if I need to interact with anyone in any way, I may not be able to. Not seeming pretty and non-threatening can make that harder in a culture that values homogenity and has active political campaigns in mainstream discourse decrying outsiders of all types, including foreigners (even ones as white as I) and Jews.
The opera, meanwhile, is a matter of symbolism for me, among other things. It is not just theater and story on the stage, but in my heart.
So yes, I know what I want to wear. And I know other people's opinions shouldn't matter. And I get the ideal of being comfortable and true to myself.
But it's not that simple. It's not a single-axis problem, but a multi-axis problem: of safety and comfort and beauty and ambition and communication and secrets.
I love your enthusiasm. And you're not "doing it wrong." And I love that you love my suits and my narrative and the wacky world I live in inside my head and whatever. And I also get that I may have been less than clear about the issues in my original post, and that's on me.
But this stuff is complicated, and the answers aren't easy: not for me, not for many queer people, not for most gender-noncoformming people, not for trans people, and I think you should know that.
Lots of people, who are all awesome and well-meaning, reacted with "wear whatever makes you comfortable" or "be true to yourself!"
I wish, I really wish, it was that simple.
Being gender non-conforming means that comfort can be hard to define. Do I wear what expresses how I'm feeling on a given day best? Or what keeps me safest? Do I wear what's fanciest or what I'm sure won't make a work colleague think less of me? Do I wear something that might get me hassled using a public restroom (and, yes, this has happened) when I have a disease that sometimes makes me need one in a gendered space urgently?
Which question do I answer when I choose what to wear? And, as someone who isn't trans, who is therefore female bodied and some days can wear a dress happily and some days has to grit their teeth to get through it because they feel like a horrible drag cartoon, which self am I supposed to be true to? The one I feel like today that makes other people uncomfortable, or the one I felt like last week that gets rewards for showing leg and asking permission?
Right now, I am in a small town in a foreign country where I don't speak the language and where gender norms are both different and stricter than where I reside. My only associations here are work colleagues I am varying degrees of friendly with and none of whom come from my national or queer culture. I do not see these people often professionally, but they affect the work, opportunities and salary I am assigned. Every impression matters, and I am already so different and not like them: queer and not-Christian and American.
I live in a flat with little privacy with near strangers who I had to tell not to laugh about the transwoman next door. I have to take several trains, at night, through regions and places I recognize neither by sight nor name yet, to get to the opera. If I get lost, if I'm challenged for my gender presentation, if I need to interact with anyone in any way, I may not be able to. Not seeming pretty and non-threatening can make that harder in a culture that values homogenity and has active political campaigns in mainstream discourse decrying outsiders of all types, including foreigners (even ones as white as I) and Jews.
The opera, meanwhile, is a matter of symbolism for me, among other things. It is not just theater and story on the stage, but in my heart.
So yes, I know what I want to wear. And I know other people's opinions shouldn't matter. And I get the ideal of being comfortable and true to myself.
But it's not that simple. It's not a single-axis problem, but a multi-axis problem: of safety and comfort and beauty and ambition and communication and secrets.
I love your enthusiasm. And you're not "doing it wrong." And I love that you love my suits and my narrative and the wacky world I live in inside my head and whatever. And I also get that I may have been less than clear about the issues in my original post, and that's on me.
But this stuff is complicated, and the answers aren't easy: not for me, not for many queer people, not for most gender-noncoformming people, not for trans people, and I think you should know that.
no subject
I'm genderqueer myself. I don't see much point to it, and yet I live in the world, so I have to get all "girled up", as it were, for interviews and weddings and the like, and it feels weird and awkward. Same as when I get "guyed up", &c, to go to work. I get whole times when I'd rather wear a suit than a dress, and yet I'm going to a wedding (or whatever), and I'd really rather not hear fifteen people say "It'd be so hot for you to wear a suit!", like I'm dressing up for hotness.
(Hello, personal crap.)
Mostly, I was just attempting to emphasise what others had phrased better -- that it is the opera and yay, and life is short and thus, and that weight should be thrown towards experiencing life versus conforming gender-wise, if your cost/benefit analysis susses it out thus.
[eta userpic, parenthetical.]
no subject
I also get the "It'd be hot" comments- on both sides of presentation. I try to smile, nod, whatever- but man, sometimes, I'd like to just scream, "My existence is not for your entertainment!"