ng_moonmoth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ng_moonmoth) wrote2020-12-15 09:44 pm
ng_moonmoth) wrote2020-12-15 09:44 pm
Entry tags:
Sticky Post: About Me
Hi there. "Moonmoth" will work right now for what to call me. It's not the name I'm walking around with right now. What it is, is the handle I use online when I don't have to interact with an entity that knows me by that name. It's not anything like that name, or any other name I answer to. And that's the point, because the person people know by that name, or call by those other names I answer to, isn't really me. It's just a facade I worked up to not have to deal with expectations that never really lined up with who I am. And I'm not interested in having that name associated with this handle.
So the handle is really a cover name. The name that goes with the handle on online accounts is another cover name from the same place. If you're curious, you can find out where I got them from, and why I picked them, in this comment.
I grew up in an environment where gender and sexuality were subject to intensive policing. In my case, not by such blatantly traumatic approaches such as physical violence or being threatened with being thrown out onto the streets for violating cultural norms, but still traumatically by indoctrination into being responsible for understanding those norms and, although not needing to conform to all of them, nevertheless generally not contravening any of them -- bolstered by unfavorable opinions of any who did so. This in the name of facilitating circulation and establishing relationships in the cultural environments favored by my parents and the prevailing culture. It wasn't bad advice for the time, for those environments, but it still didn't align at all well with my developing identity.
The message I was getting was that other people's impression of my identity was driven by my actions, particularly those actions I was observed in, rather than my identity. And that was something that my young self could work with. For cultural norms my behavior was at odds with, I could learn how not to show that problematic behavior, and replace that with the more acceptable not expressing the associated normative behavior. By aligning with enough norms for my presumed gender and sexuality, and suppressing rather than violating norms I had issues with, I was presumed to be normative in those dimensions despite much specific supporting evidence. And the result was close enough to a common stereotype for me to be readily so classified, and my remaining behavioral quirks interpreted in that framework.
That suited me well enough. But I figured out I wasn't a good enough actor to role-play someone I really wasn't without eventually getting caught thinking about it and destroying the role-play illusion, so I wound up burying the problematic behaviors deep behind automatic reactions I didn't have to think about -- and covering them over by incorporating the automatic reaction into my display identity: the facade I mentioned earlier.
My identity went with the behaviors and got buried as well. The cover identity was not so uncomfortable a fit that I couldn't stand it, and served its purpose well enough for a reasonably successful career and life path. But my identity, though buried, was something I understood must be retained, and, in suitable conditions of privacy, would emerge for a while before hiding again. It was like it was taking a look around to see whether conditions were suitable for its re-emergence, and seeing that they weren't.
This state of affairs broke down some years ago, when a career reversal and accompanying emotional effects triggered a period of introspection. Even though my cover identity had been aware of the words describing my identity, and positive examples of people showing those traits, those hadn't opened the way for my identity the way giving myself some time to think about it did. But my identity escaping from its confinement has led to my improving my understanding of who I am, and has set me on the way to showing that to everyone.
There are far too many definitions of terms regarding gender and sexuality out there for me to feel that I can just say that "my gender is x" and have it be interpreted how I intend it. How I use the phrase "gender identity" is as an intensely personal assertion: it denotes who someone believes they are, and how they interpret their behavior as supporting norms for their gender identity. I have regained the awareness that I have a nonbinary gender identity. Some of my behaviors align with norms that are considered culturally "masculine"; others align with norms that are considered culturally "feminine". I do not describe myself in terms of those norms or the gender identities they are culturally associated with, or say that I am whatever percentage "man" or "woman" based on how many of those norms my behavior aligns with. My gender is my own, and the only gender norm I recognize, and which all of my behaviors support, is the one labeled "mine".
As far as I can tell from my current perspective, I have always been nonbinary. When I was young, I learned that there were things labeled "boy things" and "girl things", but it was never clear to me where those categories came from or how it was decided what they contained, let alone why they seemed so important. Even though I buried my identity for a long time, I knew it was still an important part of me that it was important for me to hang on to. And now I am working on returning it to the visibility I would rather it had had all along.
I do not "identify" as nonbinary. People may identify me as nonbinary; some do. Others misidentify me as one of the binary genders. None of that affects my gender identity. Neither does what I am wearing, or doing, or saying. I am still nonbinary.
The only time I have "come out" is to myself, when my identity reasserted itself after many years in seclusion. Rather, when I make a conscious effort to leave my crumbling gender facade at home and be visible in my true identity, I "go out" as myself -- and because I am nonbinary, I go out as nonbinary. Whether people can see it or not.
My pronouns are "xe/xyr/xyrs/xyrself" in those rare occasions when gender matters, and "they/them/theirs/themself" when it is not germane to the situation. Example: "Moonmoth said they were going to dinner with their spouse and a couple of friends" vs. "Moonmoth is uncomfortable enough that there aren't any gender-inclusive restrooms in the function space that xe winds up going back to xyr room every time xe needs to use the toilet."
I do not have "preferred" pronouns. I just have pronouns, and they are mine whether you use them or not. I view pronoun sets as a form of nickname: a short word that is supposed to describe and identify someone in a given context. I cannot control which pronoun set you use to identify me in your conversations, but using "he" or "she" feels to me like using a misdescribing and insulting nickname. Doing so doesn't say anything about me, but it does say something about the person using that pronoun set -- and continuing to use inaccurate pronoun sets after someone has been told to stop doing that gives me a quite unfavorable impression about their willingness to interact with me as myself. If you accidentally use a different neopronoun set for me, I'll probably be OK with that. As for myself, I diligently respect others' pronouns, and for other folks who are comfortable with multiple pronoun sets, default to the one they like best.
This is the space where I go out as nonbinary online. It was created to be such a space. I am trying, to whatever extent I can, to have interactions uncolored by what gender people believe I might once have thought I was, or think I still am because of any aspect of my appearance or behavior. I am doing my best to not let things that are commonly used to infer someone's gender identity or sexuality out of my postings and comments, such as my wallet name, various physical attributes, or any description of my spouse beyond that I have one. Some stuff may leak, regardless; it's amazing how many things influence people's impression of others' gender. Should you spot something like that, please do me the favor of keeping that inference to yourself -- although if you wanted to PM me and mention it, I'd thank you for that.
I have, in the past few years, shared with some people I have met face-to-face that this is my online nonbinary space. If you believe you recognize me from my activity, and wish to confirm this, please do so privately. If you know the email address that goes with my wallet name, you can ask me there. I probably won't mind if you PM me here and ask.
So the handle is really a cover name. The name that goes with the handle on online accounts is another cover name from the same place. If you're curious, you can find out where I got them from, and why I picked them, in this comment.
I grew up in an environment where gender and sexuality were subject to intensive policing. In my case, not by such blatantly traumatic approaches such as physical violence or being threatened with being thrown out onto the streets for violating cultural norms, but still traumatically by indoctrination into being responsible for understanding those norms and, although not needing to conform to all of them, nevertheless generally not contravening any of them -- bolstered by unfavorable opinions of any who did so. This in the name of facilitating circulation and establishing relationships in the cultural environments favored by my parents and the prevailing culture. It wasn't bad advice for the time, for those environments, but it still didn't align at all well with my developing identity.
The message I was getting was that other people's impression of my identity was driven by my actions, particularly those actions I was observed in, rather than my identity. And that was something that my young self could work with. For cultural norms my behavior was at odds with, I could learn how not to show that problematic behavior, and replace that with the more acceptable not expressing the associated normative behavior. By aligning with enough norms for my presumed gender and sexuality, and suppressing rather than violating norms I had issues with, I was presumed to be normative in those dimensions despite much specific supporting evidence. And the result was close enough to a common stereotype for me to be readily so classified, and my remaining behavioral quirks interpreted in that framework.
That suited me well enough. But I figured out I wasn't a good enough actor to role-play someone I really wasn't without eventually getting caught thinking about it and destroying the role-play illusion, so I wound up burying the problematic behaviors deep behind automatic reactions I didn't have to think about -- and covering them over by incorporating the automatic reaction into my display identity: the facade I mentioned earlier.
My identity went with the behaviors and got buried as well. The cover identity was not so uncomfortable a fit that I couldn't stand it, and served its purpose well enough for a reasonably successful career and life path. But my identity, though buried, was something I understood must be retained, and, in suitable conditions of privacy, would emerge for a while before hiding again. It was like it was taking a look around to see whether conditions were suitable for its re-emergence, and seeing that they weren't.
This state of affairs broke down some years ago, when a career reversal and accompanying emotional effects triggered a period of introspection. Even though my cover identity had been aware of the words describing my identity, and positive examples of people showing those traits, those hadn't opened the way for my identity the way giving myself some time to think about it did. But my identity escaping from its confinement has led to my improving my understanding of who I am, and has set me on the way to showing that to everyone.
There are far too many definitions of terms regarding gender and sexuality out there for me to feel that I can just say that "my gender is x" and have it be interpreted how I intend it. How I use the phrase "gender identity" is as an intensely personal assertion: it denotes who someone believes they are, and how they interpret their behavior as supporting norms for their gender identity. I have regained the awareness that I have a nonbinary gender identity. Some of my behaviors align with norms that are considered culturally "masculine"; others align with norms that are considered culturally "feminine". I do not describe myself in terms of those norms or the gender identities they are culturally associated with, or say that I am whatever percentage "man" or "woman" based on how many of those norms my behavior aligns with. My gender is my own, and the only gender norm I recognize, and which all of my behaviors support, is the one labeled "mine".
As far as I can tell from my current perspective, I have always been nonbinary. When I was young, I learned that there were things labeled "boy things" and "girl things", but it was never clear to me where those categories came from or how it was decided what they contained, let alone why they seemed so important. Even though I buried my identity for a long time, I knew it was still an important part of me that it was important for me to hang on to. And now I am working on returning it to the visibility I would rather it had had all along.
I do not "identify" as nonbinary. People may identify me as nonbinary; some do. Others misidentify me as one of the binary genders. None of that affects my gender identity. Neither does what I am wearing, or doing, or saying. I am still nonbinary.
The only time I have "come out" is to myself, when my identity reasserted itself after many years in seclusion. Rather, when I make a conscious effort to leave my crumbling gender facade at home and be visible in my true identity, I "go out" as myself -- and because I am nonbinary, I go out as nonbinary. Whether people can see it or not.
My pronouns are "xe/xyr/xyrs/xyrself" in those rare occasions when gender matters, and "they/them/theirs/themself" when it is not germane to the situation. Example: "Moonmoth said they were going to dinner with their spouse and a couple of friends" vs. "Moonmoth is uncomfortable enough that there aren't any gender-inclusive restrooms in the function space that xe winds up going back to xyr room every time xe needs to use the toilet."
I do not have "preferred" pronouns. I just have pronouns, and they are mine whether you use them or not. I view pronoun sets as a form of nickname: a short word that is supposed to describe and identify someone in a given context. I cannot control which pronoun set you use to identify me in your conversations, but using "he" or "she" feels to me like using a misdescribing and insulting nickname. Doing so doesn't say anything about me, but it does say something about the person using that pronoun set -- and continuing to use inaccurate pronoun sets after someone has been told to stop doing that gives me a quite unfavorable impression about their willingness to interact with me as myself. If you accidentally use a different neopronoun set for me, I'll probably be OK with that. As for myself, I diligently respect others' pronouns, and for other folks who are comfortable with multiple pronoun sets, default to the one they like best.
This is the space where I go out as nonbinary online. It was created to be such a space. I am trying, to whatever extent I can, to have interactions uncolored by what gender people believe I might once have thought I was, or think I still am because of any aspect of my appearance or behavior. I am doing my best to not let things that are commonly used to infer someone's gender identity or sexuality out of my postings and comments, such as my wallet name, various physical attributes, or any description of my spouse beyond that I have one. Some stuff may leak, regardless; it's amazing how many things influence people's impression of others' gender. Should you spot something like that, please do me the favor of keeping that inference to yourself -- although if you wanted to PM me and mention it, I'd thank you for that.
I have, in the past few years, shared with some people I have met face-to-face that this is my online nonbinary space. If you believe you recognize me from my activity, and wish to confirm this, please do so privately. If you know the email address that goes with my wallet name, you can ask me there. I probably won't mind if you PM me here and ask.
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As human beings we are all unique and everyone should be allowed to be whoever they feel comfortable being, I find it sad that there are people who, not only don't agree, but who actively go out of their way to make people feel they are not accepted. We should all be allowed to decide our identity, we are us, we are not what someone else wants us to be.
Enjoy Snowflake, everyone is welcome here :)
You're welcome!
I hope that, over time, more people will come to understand and appreciate people for who they are, not what someone else thinks they are or should be. My being more assertive about who I am is something I can contribute to that.
I appreciate your explicit statement of welcome to the Snowflake community. Thank you.
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ETA: just took a look at your blog, and decided to add you. If you decide you want in to the Out in Public filter where I'm putting my Snowflake Challenge posts, you would be welcome.
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Now also feeling I have more company in being. Thank you.
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(*both of which happened about 20 years ago before I first became aware of gender identity being more than just a binary thing)
So hearing about the experience/views from others and why they have importance to people is quite eye opening! Thank you for that.
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Consensus opinion if you do is to apologize, don't make a big thing about it, get it right the next time, and move on.
>> Especially about pronouns because I have such a hard time figuring out how to use them from a grammatical point of view (aka which one belongs to the he/she/they side and which one to the his/her/them or the him/her/them side of things)
Possibly your English teacher didn't do a good job of explaining that -- or perhaps didn't realize that a nerdy answer would be good for some people. By now, you may have worked out that those "sides" you are talking about are simply nominative, genitive, and accusative declensions of the various pronouns. (English does dative with short words categorized as prepositions.) The genitive declension of "they" is actually "their".
I had five years of German in high school and college, so if you get stuck in English and feel like you'd do better with German, I can probably work it out. But I'm quite rusty, and it may well show.
>> and plenty of mislabelled letters using "Mrs" in front of my father's full name and "Mr" with my mother's from companies they ordered clothes and other stuff from (which was always put down to simple computer errors). <<
Is that more of a thing (presumably "Herr"/"Frau") with German companies? I haven't seen anything like that from US companies in ages, even though it was a thing once upon a time here that one addressed a letter to a married woman as "Mrs. <husband's first name> <last name>". Those days are long gone. Also, unless one specifies a title, US companies will just leave it blank.
>> (*both of which happened about 20 years ago before I first became aware of gender identity being more than just a binary thing) <<
That was about the time when gender identity being more than just a binary thing started seeping into the culture at large. A big part of the reason it took me quite a while to understand that I had an actual gender identity I could claim. There weren't any words to talk about it, and my feelings didn't match up with anything I encountered about people who weren't content with their presumed gender.
>> So hearing about the experience/views from others and why they have importance to people is quite eye opening! Thank you for that. <<
You're welcome. What gender stuff shows up in my public posts is usually shallow because I want readers to not be biased by presumptions about my gender identity and sexuality, and am consciously editing out things by which people might guess that. I'm doing a deeper dive into gender behind an "Out in Public" access filter, which you can read about and request to be included in once I have given you access to my very few private posts. Which I will do shortly. Welcome!
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Possibly your English teacher didn't do a good job of explaining that
Not sure if I can just blame my teacher. I've always had trouble with grammar (including German grammar) and it's been nearly 20 years since I graduated school and last had to know. And when I say trouble, I mean that I work out the how and why and forget all the rest involved.
Is that more of a thing (presumably "Herr"/"Frau") with German companies?
I'm not sure how common it is, but checking the three letters currently on my desk (bank, health insurance and my employer) than two out of three have the prefix. Most online forms offer the chosen form of address, but I think most have it either optional or it's possible to leave blank by now. I'm not sure if it's combined or separate from the title section (because some people insist on the "Dr." in front of their name). It's been a while though since I last had to fill one in. And yes, it's "Herr" and "Frau" although to be fair, "Frau" tends to be used independent of if someone is being married or not and I don't think I have ever seen a German equivalent to "Mrs.
<i>Possibly your English teacher didn't do a good job of explaining that</i>
Not sure if I can just blame my teacher. I've always had trouble with grammar (including German grammar) and it's been nearly 20 years since I graduated school and last had to know. And when I say trouble, I mean that I work out the how and why and forget all the rest involved.
<i>Is that more of a thing (presumably "Herr"/"Frau") with German companies?</i>
I'm not sure how common it is, but checking the three letters currently on my desk (bank, health insurance and my employer) than two out of three have the prefix. Most online forms offer the chosen form of address, but I think most have it either optional or it's possible to leave blank by now. I'm not sure if it's combined or separate from the title section (because some people insist on the "Dr." in front of their name). It's been a while though since I last had to fill one in. And yes, it's "Herr" and "Frau" although to be fair, "Frau" tends to be used independent of if someone is being married or not and I don't think I have ever seen a German equivalent to "Mrs. <husband's first name> <last name>" unless it was both names (and even then I'm not sure if I encountered it). The equivalent to "Ms" would be "Fräulein", but that fell out of use a long time ago and I only remember one person (an old librarian that I found rather scary as a kid) who insisted on it being used.
And maybe it's just down to things moving slowly on a consent on how to handle it in an official capacity. I still remember public talk when job offers started including "diverse" as a third gender as well it being an option in the birth register.
<i>That was about the time when gender identity being more than just a binary thing started seeping into the culture at large. A big part of the reason it took me quite a while to understand that I had an actual gender identity I could claim. There weren't any words to talk about it, and my feelings didn't match up with anything I encountered about people who weren't content with their presumed gender.</i>
I think it's a good thing that awareness is rising because it does give people the information and more importantly the vocabulary to figure things out. Because it's one thing to "know" which box you're in and that you don't exactly fit and another thing to realise that there's an entirely different box that's a far better fit. Even if that other box doesn't entirely fit either, just knowing that there are more boxes than one thought can be helpful, because it can help people to create their own boxes.
<i>Which I will do shortly. Welcome!</i>
Thanks, I'm looking forward to learning more. I also returned the favour :)
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OK, language teachers didn't do the job they didn't realize you needed. Doesn't mean they weren't doing a good job, just means what they did didn't work for you.
Thanks for filling me in on German custom regarding titles. Seems like they're a bit more hidebound than the US is. And I get why nobody's using "Fräulein" much any more. It's sort of like using "girl": in formal English usage, it designates a prepubescent female, even though women feel relatively free to use it with another woman they are fairly close to.
>> I think it's a good thing that awareness is rising because it does give people the information and more importantly the vocabulary to figure things out. Because it's one thing to "know" which box you're in and that you don't exactly fit and another thing to realise that there's an entirely different box that's a far better fit. Even if that other box doesn't entirely fit either, just knowing that there are more boxes than one thought can be helpful, because it can help people to create their own boxes. <<
Very much so. Getting people from those other boxes into the places that decide what the boxes are will likely eventually happen, and that will make the difference.