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The gender dysphoria I have felt all my life reached a ridiculous peak yesterday. I mean, it’s not that I don’t agree with standing for all the things I am being asked to stand for on International Women’s Day in my own space. Fair wages, less violence, less Trump. Yes. All the things.
I just literally couldn’t identify with being asked to stand in the “brain-space” shoes of “Woman,” for the first time in a long time. Not since puberty has my gender dysphoria felt this strong — even when I was ducking into the “Men’s ” single-occupant bathroom to relieve myself at the Unitarian Universalist church I attended when the “Family” one was occupied.
But you know, I was a child who asked her grandmother at age 5 why I couldn’t grow up to be a boy, and was very disappointed to learn why despite having been educated about sex and all its function at age 3 via elaborate picture books printed in the 70’s at the height of people practicing free-love in a world without cognizance of HIV.
Sometimes when women feel empowered as a collective, I can feel a bit more marginalized, if there are excessive or essentialist prescriptions on the construct of “woman.” I am usually okay with the label as a catch all category of people who choose to identify. I’ve been running into a lot of people on Twitter lately who see it differently, demanding that I be afraid of genitals I can’t see in bathrooms. I find it absurd.
But that doesn’t mean women shouldn’t be empowered by any stretch of the imagination, even if there are essentialists in the ranks. I’m glad people who strongly identify as women felt it in the air yesterday.
The motive of this blog, and my focus is changing, however, until my gender flows in whatever direction it means to take. Right now, instead of “feminism” we are working on “psychological androgyny.”
It’s about the space we feel most comfortable in. I’m still very much a feminist.
Human Decency is Key 