Don't call me lady (pt.2)

I REALLY want this shirt. (despite it's problematic use of "crazy")

Last year right around this time I wrote about my relationship with the word "lady". Since then more of that relationship has unfolded. Consider this a part two of that post.

In that post I cite the confining femininity and class status of the term as my reasons for no longer using it. There's more to that story now but first I have to disclose & summarize:

I don't think it is always a classist term, nor do I think ladylike femininity is a bad thing in and of itself. But much of the the ladylike femininity I've often experienced or witnessed is a femininity the I have little preference to be involved in. I recognize that there can be power in claiming the term lady. But that power is not for me.

Writing about this is scarier and closer to my identity than writing my post about "lady" last year. It's harder because I have personal stake, because it's not just my politics. It's because of my gender(s).

I am genderfuild. My gender is both an adventure and an open ended question. I rarely know what gender(s) I will be when I wake up in the morning. Some days I don't even figure it out what I am. But I am lucky in that there are a few things I am certain I am not.

One of the things I am NOT is a lady. When I am feeling like a woman or a girl, I am always a weird one. (If weird where a gender I might claim it). I'm closer to a a crone or maybe, tomboy, or something that has no name yet. I'm always too messy for lady, too frank to be demure, and the way I flirt (no matter what gender) often resembles that of a 15 year old boy.

I have never really identified with the term lady (even when identifying exclusively as a woman). As a teenager I would often make the self deprecating joke of "really I just don't DO dainty". This phrase popped up after I'd spilled 3/4 of my oreo milkshake onto my winter formal gown. I said it first shamefully and as an excuse to my date after apologizing profusely (he had to drive me home for a change).

I used to pine after the idea that I might be a lady someday. If I tried hard enough, if I behaved well enough, if I descended a grand staircase elegantly enough, if I held my body in just the right way, I could be a lady too. I even looked up and mimed charm and etiquette tips. Acting them out felt excruciatingly clumsy and forced.

I wanted to be a lady because I knew that's what I was supposed to be. I knew that was what I must aspire to be. I noticed the people in my life, but specifically the men I dated back then, holding deep admiration for the women we'd identify are "real ladies". And I wanted that admiration an the respect that came along with it.

In the last few years I've been so lucky to find a loving partner and community who support my exploration of my own weird gender. It's taken me a while. But with support, I've figured out (or maybe unlearned) a thing or two.

The respect I garner has very little to do with how I do my woman hood or how well I perform as a lady. I realized, even before I came out as genderqueer, that people  were already seeing the way that I did my gender and respecting me for it. I did not have to subscribe to traditional gender roles to gain the admiration and respect. Some people still admire traditional gender rolls, but I am more interested in people who admire others for being themselves (in this case respect me for being myself). Those who don't respect and admire the way I do my gender are not the people who I'm going to choose to be my long term partners or friends/family.

I want people to respect my weirdness and a lady is very rarely allowed to be weird. There needs to be room in whatever label I choose for me to be the very very strange creature I am. And the constraints of lady, while sometimes fun to visit are never a place I want to put down roots. I respect the choices of others to claim this term and even understand why it might be comfortable to people who're more intrinsically orderly and demure (or really just different!) than I am. But it's not for me anymore. And actually, it never was.

Titles I prefer (most of the time):
dude
buddy
friend
warrior
writer
poet
girl
boi
badass

For more details on my genderfluidity you can buy my chapbook!

In defense of Questioning: it's the journey that matters

This post was partly inspired by this piece and a very brave (possibly questioning) daughter.

I know, I know, you, dear reader might be thinking something like “Didn't people stop using that term 1998?”, “Isn't 'questioning' for teenagers?” or “Don't we use 'queer' now?”

Well for starters I'll let you know right off the bat I do identify as queer. But I also identify as questioning. We'll have to go back a few years to show how I got to this identity. So here we go.

I've always had an urge to seek out and admit that which I do not know. I registered for advanced classes high school without taking pre-reqs. I didn't mind being confused or getting a lower grade. I was gaining exposure, asking questions that excited me. In college, while studying education I articulated a long standing thought I'd had about schools. I realized they were training students to fear failure and unknowing. Taking risks, and admitting gaps in knowledge are usually punished and rarely rewarded in traditional American education. This punishment/reward system around certainty/uncertainty has been something I've consistently resisted in my life, in and out of schools; in and out of the bedroom. Sure it's more efficient to know for certain, but I'm not always looking for efficiency.

Recently I've come to the conclusion that I'm actually uncomfortable with certainty. I avoid it. Certainty, as counterintuitive as this sounds, makes me nervous. I find unknowing, confusion, and the ritual of questioning incredibly comforting. My intuition tells me it's okay to be confused.

I often talk about being a “late bloomer” sexually. Lately I've been feeling critical of this language, not because I think it is particularly inaccurate, only that it is incomplete. As a bookish teen, I grew up in a loving, crowded family where my only real privacy was inside my skull or between pages. I remember staying up til 2 am just staring at the ceiling, reading, thinking, and imagining. I thought about things a lot, got in good cahoots with my brain. Less so with my body, I was nervously curious, but I had no space or privacy to explore this budding curiosity. There were always footsteps upstairs and you heard every movement though the thin wall between my brother's and my basement “rooms”. In the world of my family there was no such thing as a knock on the door. But more than my nervousness and lack of privacy, I, as a female teenager was taught that my sexuality was only allowed to exist in relation to men. I didn't even know women could masturbate until I was 17. What went through my head during my sparse teenage sexual experiences was something along the lines of “I guess I'll try that.”“Is this what I want?” I knew I wanted sensations but I had no idea what exactly. I was inarticulately curious.

These days things are a bit less murky. I have learned that being explicit matters not just when I share my sexuality with others but that I can have a sexuality independent of a partner and even without having a physical actualization. While things are less murky, there is so much I still don't know. In a lot of ways I am still in a place of questioning an interrogating my sexuality. And honestly, I hope to never stop that ritual of questioning.

One thing I AM beginning to feel certain about is owning my uncertainty. Regardless of the consequences. I AM still questioning. And I really mean this in the good old fashioned teenage questioning. I'd be willing to bet more people than just me identify at least their adolescent sexuality as including more questioning than they felt allowed to say at the time. But questioning is not recognized as a valid sexual state to be in. It's looked at as being inbetween, less than.

The idea of being “sexually confused” holds such a strongly negative connotation in our culture that it's often used to invalidate the actual certainty of folks expressing not-straight attractions. I find this disgusting on two levels. First of course that it seeks to define and disparage another person's experience, but secondly that “sexual confusion” is seen as a temporary or transitional state. My sexuality confuses me all the fucking time and I welcome it. I don't want that to stop. Opening to it's uncertainty is what feels natural to me.

Now, just because I am happily confused, doesn't mean I don't believe other people are exactly what they say they are. I do. I deeply respect the expressed sexual certainty of others. Hell I occasionally envy it. It takes time and energy to figure myself out all the freaking time, but it works for me. I often end up feeling like I'm behind that I have to catch up with folks more certain than myself. It's not easy to know when to chase after certainty, but like any protagonist knows, it's not the destination (certainty) that really matters, it's the journey. My journeys into that which I do not know (sexually or otherwise) make me feel like me. I am questioning.