Who am I? Why am I here? (continued)

[ng_moonmoth]

If you are interested, please see my previous post for the definition I am using for "gender".

The things I wish to do, and the ways I wish to interact with others, are very poorly aligned with my culture's gender assumptions. Nevertheless, I recognize that I share many of these traits with people who identify with a specific gender, and if those people choose to recognize me as of their gender, I will acknowledge this. One common umbrella term covering this identification is “genderqueer”, and I have found that this term fits me well. “Polygender” and “pangender” are terms that are often used to describe my attitude toward gender-identified people; I prefer the former, because I would not feel comfortable identifying with a gender where those who identify with that gender would not recognize me as “one of them”.

Up until now, I have chosen to maintain enough conformity with the gender assumptions under which I was raised to be granted membership in a cultural role with sufficient influence and agency to acquire and maintain economic self-sufficiency.

I am ready to move beyond that conformity now. I am deliberately allowing my lack of gender alignment, which I have until now kept out of sight, to start leaking out around the edges of the facade I have built. As I have done so, I find myself feeling better about myself, and have gotten positive reactions to the non-normative aspects of my presentation.

Now that I am here, I am interested in connecting with friends and allies. If you feel like either of these categories describe you, please feel free to friend me and expect to be friended back.

Comments

[ng_moonmoth]

>> There is very little written about nonbinary genders or how to make them work. It's very frustrating. <<

Amen. Although I have found some places on the Web for genderqueer and nonbinary people to post, nobody seems to be saying very much other than "this is what I wear." And very few sites have much activity of any sort. Some, such as the genderqueer LJ community, appear dormant or dead.

So far, I've thought of two reasons why this may be the case. A large-scale factor is that marginalization and erasure of nonbinary gender identities is nearly ubiquitous. Even in cultures that include nonbinary identities, those who assert them are often relegated to specific roles. These roles are very seldom in the cultural mainstream, may well be unsuited to the individual (not everyone's capable of, or interested in, assuming the obligations of a shaman), and often demeaning in everyday life. Many people may choose to yield under this pressure and decide to limit or end the expression of their nonbinary identity.

On the other end of the scale, one thing that has come through is that nonbinary identity is necessarily personal. It could be that those who can successfully resist the cultural pressure and assert a nonbinary gender are not those who could take the broader view necessary to develop a theory of nonbinary gender expression. I'm hoping this is something that develops over time.

>> Another is to combine them, and that's something that a lot of gender-variant folks do. One example is to take a masculine item but put it in a feminine color or pattern, such as a pink business suit. Other times people will shift the style toward the middle of the range, as with lesbians who dress in a mannish way but with the garments subtly altered in feminine ways to suit the female body, so they look like masculine women rather than like men. Conversely there are men's clothes that are downright effeminate, such as a poet's shirt. <<

I've been eagerly snapping up examples of such things when I find them, and they frequently become some of my most-worn items. Something that continues to bother me, though, is that there is a prominent gender asymmetry present. There is a reasonable selection of clothes cut for a female body that use menswear (that is, clothing worn by people asserting the "man" gender-normative identity) fabrics, and those clothes are suitable in contexts where suitable menswear is constructed from those fabrics. Very little of the converse -- clothes cut for a male body that use womenswear fabrics -- is available at all, let alone suitable in contexts where suitable womenswear is constructed from those fabrics. It all seems to be designed for "casual" and "fun" settings (beach/party/lounge/club), and not anything that would fit into an everyday or more formal context.

The asymmetry gets even worse when looking for womenswear cut for male bodies. It basically doesn't exist -- primarily, I expect, because the normative "man" gender seems to include only unfavorable or hostile responses to male-bodied individuals asserting a gender identity other than "man" -- even for a mainstream identity such as "woman". Evidence suggests that treatment of people asserting non-mainstream identities in the genderqueer/nonbinary space are even worse.

>> Mixing and matching is a good technique too, taking some things from men's wear and some from women's. <<

Yep. I already do that on days where I'm uncomfortable with my presumed gender identity.

>> Many gender-variant people like unisex garments. Those are often hard to find but can be very versatile in terms of expression and going with other things in your wardrobe. <<

It sounds like you mean this to denote a separate category of garment from ones which can be gender-neutral, such as jeans/t-shirts/sweats/fleece/sneakers (even though gendered versions of all of these are common). I gather the intent is to conceal the implicit gender markers from one's body and provide a neutral foundation upon which one could place explicit gender markers.

Doing that with clothing that looks good seems challenging. Do you know of any sources where I could see what's offered?

This has gotten quite long, and has taken a good deal of time. More later...