He, She, Ze? : Being Gender Fluid

Girls wear pink, boys wear blue. Girls play with dolls, boys play with Hot Wheels. From birth we have the differences between boys and girls drilled into our heads over and over and made to believe that there is a defined line between man and woman, girl and boy, feminine and masculine. Generally people associate with one or the other without a moment of questioning anything else, whether or not the gender they identify is the same as the sex they were assigned at birth.
I am Gender fluid. This does not apply to me.

Unless one happens to be personally involved in the LGBT community, gender variance is not something most will ever learn about in a meaningful way. Breaking the binary of man and woman comes as a shock to the average person, and when someone I know encounters gender variance I always hear about it. The retelling of the story usually has a tone similar to as though the person encountered an individual with a tattoo on their forehead. Needless to say, not following the binary can be difficult for anyone to understand.

What is “gender fluid” anyway? Well, to know gender fluidity it helps to know similar terms to avoid confusion.
Gender fluid/Gender queer: when a person’s gender identity shifts and flows between man, woman, neither, both, or something in-between.
Androgynous: This is the “in-between” identity. Androgynous individuals generally identify as being neither man nor woman, but rather something in-between.
Bi-gendered: This is the “both” identity. These people feel as though their gender is not either, but rather a combination of both man and woman.

Long story short: my gender identity shifts and changes and I don’t always feel either man or woman. With a constant and rapid changing of such a vital aspect of my identity, my gender fluidity is a very large part of my life.
I am female assigned at birth and most often identify as androgynous or masculine, so to make sure I am never too far out of my comfort zone, I try to dress in a manner without obvious gender leanings. My hair is cut very short without being “butch”, but I always have my eyeliner handy to I can doll up at a moment’s notice. Thankfully, I was also blessed with a naturally androgynous appearance so should I decide to express myself as distinctly male or female, I can pull it off without too much difficulty.

My appearance is not the only thing that shifts along with my identity. My demeanor and attitude can also change drastically.
My Significant Other has a surprising ability to keep up with my shifting gender and has absolutely no difficulty adapting to my behaviour. He is straight, so when I have more masculine leanings we go what I refer to as “Bro Mode”. When in Bro Mode he treats me exactly like any of our other guy friends. We rough house, kick ass at video games, check out girls, typical guy stuff.
My significant other owns a Fiero, which is an American-made sports car made only for a few years in the mid-to-late ’80s. He needed to get a part for the car and I went with him on a road trip to a town about an hour away to get it. On the way we were blasting tunes from the radio and talking cars. I believe the discussion was regarding my liking for modern Dodge Chargers over Challengers, Mustangs, and Camaros because of the Charger’s ability to gracefully evolve to fit the times as oppose to the other cars which seemed to directly copy/paste their features after their older generations on to modern body types (but this is just my opinion). Suddenly a love song came on the radio. Immediately we were met with an awkward hush in the conversation. Just the two of us, two bros, sitting together and listening to a love song on the radio.
This is the same guy I cuddle with every night and the same guy I bake brownies for when he’s having a bad day.
There are days when I feel more feminine and I’ll break out my adorable red and black plaid skirt, listen to Nicki Minaj, and just get bored to death of pwning noobs at Halo or Call of Duty.

These shifts can be extremely rapid or be months apart, and generally I don’t even notice them myself until I am hit with an anxiety attack over my appearance. If I have been feeling masculine and suddenly shift to being feminine, I look at myself and become upset because I’m not pretty. The worse feelings come from being masculine when I’m stuck in a woman’s body. My breasts are like a huge neon sign screaming “GIRL” when I want to be read as Man. My body is not nearly as versatile as my identity and this fact causes quite a lot of personal strain. The constant shifting is confusing and has brought me a lot of doubts. For years I suspected I was transgendered because of how deeply the pain of being physically female caused me when I felt like a man on the inside. I realized that I was incorrect. A person realizes pain more so than when there isn’t pain to be felt. In the times I was identifying as female, I didn’t notice that my identity had merely shifted and not that “being a woman wasn’t so bad right now”. Being genderfluid can be agonizing and terrible thing.

But being gender fluid can also be a liberating, fun, and amazing thing. I get a personal thrill when I’m feeling like a feminine man, these are the times I get to become a full-time drag queen! You never feel quite as fabulous as when you get to be a drag queen. I may identify as male, but love my body and take full advantage of having it. To be a man successfully tricking others to believe you are a woman is to be a successful trickster and to feel positively naughty.
When in my more “in-between” times is when I get the most looks from strangers, which is a thrill of its own. I love breaking the norm, making people think and question everything they’ve ever learned about gender and what it means to be a man or a woman. I want people to wonder, “he or she?”
When in the Summer between Junior and Senior year of high school I attended a sort of theatre camp. While they we had classes and workshops to improve our acting abilities. There would be over a hundred other people there that I had never met, so I decided to test my ability to make people question my gender. I presented as Androgynous. I wore a small amount of eyeliner and no other makeup, I wore men’s shirts and women’s pants, and I bound my chest. I noticed immediately upon arrival that I was getting second glances from complete strangers that continued for the entire time I was at this Theatre camp. I later told one of the friends I made there about my little experiment and was informed that many of the people there did in fact question what I was. I was ecstatic.

I’ve been trying to avoid a pun, but I suppose I should just do the fluid thing and go with the flow.

Chelsea’s Grin: Lamentation of the Clinically Depressed

Tragedy is one the the oldest genres of literature, but is sadly not prevalent in modern times. Despite some of the world’s most popular works having been tragedies, they simply aren’t being written anymore. People don’t like writing something that is very sad. I have decided to adopt the genre myself and try my hand at writing a tragedy. This is not a happy story, there is not a happy ending. But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

While this story is not based off of true events, it is based on very true experiences.  The feelings (or lack thereof) are inspired by my own experience with Clinical Depression.

I have always been a very sad person but have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to gauge the level of pain one feels compared to others. For example, I fell into a group of individuals who felt a consistent need to prove to each other how strong they are for overcoming the adversities in their lives.

“All the shit I’ve been through? It’s a miracle I haven’t already blown my fucking brains out.“

At sleepovers and around the lunch table they almost proudly display their self-inflicted scars. Some look like purple, ropy earthworms; others looked like nothing more than a faded white wrinkle. With sadness being a pain that you can’t see, these scars perform the function of creating a way to allow others to see the level of sadness they feel. The deeper the cuts, the deeper the sadness.

“This one? My mom hit me when she found out I snuck a guy over. Stupid cunt. I busted out the light bulb in my room and destroyed my arm. She went fucking ballistic!“

One friend of mine had a dad who drank too much. She has been late to school almost every day because her because he was too busy nursing a hangover to take her to school. Another friend was raped by her cousin and he is getting out of prison in a few months. Everyone has their sob stories and they all claim the pain they feel is entirely unique and entirely terrible, more so than anyone else can understand. I’ve told them before that I feel sad sometimes. This is an understatement as when I’m not feeling anything at all, all I can feel is sadness.

“Seriously? What do you have to be sad about? Your mom doesn’t hit you.”
“You’ve never been raped.”
“Your parents are together.”
“You’re gorgeous! You should smile more often!”

I confided to them in private and the reactions are always the same. If nothing is wrong then there is no reason to feel sad, you don’t deserve to talk about pain. When they don’t react with anger they react as though I were joking, pulling up at the sides of their lips to form a clownish imitation of a smile. My confession becomes a joke. Needless to say, I don’t confide in them anymore.

“Smile!”

Though what they say is true. My family lives a comfortable life, maybe even better than most. My parents are still married after 23 years and the only thing strange to happen is when my mom cries. She locks the door to her bedroom and turns off the lights. When my dad asks her what was wrong, she dismisses the event and claims to have had a headache. Her swollen eyes and mascara streaked face betray her lie.

“Don’t worry about me, it’s nothing.“

One thing my friends hang above my head, the one thing they believe they have better than me, is their relationships. They gush endlessly about the looks of their most recent flings and boy toys. They talk about these guys in a manner suggesting some great future with their new sweethearts. Without fail, the relationships they held so much stock in will crash and burn. They spend weeks crying and seeking comfort, then showing off a collection of puckered scabs so we all know how much they are hurting on the inside.

“I can’t believe he said he loved me!“

This is not to say I haven’t had boys interested in me. On the contrary, I am often the object of affection for horny teenage boys. Any time I am convinced to attend any outing or party boys flock to compete for my attention. They offer me anything they can to try and loosen me up. Alcohol just makes my stomach hurt and pot does nothing more than make my chest feel heavy and my brain feel like it’s spinning. I regard their attempts with apathy and eventually came to discover that I have no desire for relationships. Not that I avoid connecting with people, I just don’t care.

“A pretty girl like you should be happy!“

I never needed to put much effort in my appearance. I don’t get hungry so staying thin was not difficult. My mother was also blessed with good looks and she passed them down to me. My face is pale and entirely without blemishes, not even a crease on my brow like many develop through the stresses of high school.

“Smile!“

I told my mother that I feel sad sometimes. She took me to the doctor and I had to fill out a Depression check list. Each item on the list was phrased in the first person with a scale from “Never” to “All the time”.
- I have lost interest in things I use to enjoy
Never had much interest in anything.
- I have lost my appetite or over eat
Never had much of an appetite.h-I have thoughts of suicide or that life is not worth living Now that you mention it…

My mom cried when she heard the results.

“You have Clinical Depression. You will be taking this medicine. Call me in one month and keep me up-to-date on your progress, okay?“

When I began taking the medicine I was under the impression that the pills would make me able to be happy. Before being medicated I felt something like a shallow impression of real emotion and tried to express myself accordingly. Someone tells a joke, I awkwardly bark out a fake laugh. Someone else cries over the loss of a loved one, I force myself to cry with them as they break down. After becoming medicated any feelings and emotions I had were chemically clouded. I felt nothing before and now I fell even less. The only sensation I have is exhaustion. I’m tired and cold and I just want to feel.

“Smile!“
-they say and pull up at the side of their lips in a clownish imitation of a smile, mocking my inability to feel what comes to them as easily as it is for them to fall in love with a childish pursuance of romance and as easily as bringing something sharp to the soft skin on their forearm.

“Stupid cunt. She went fucking ballistic!“

Even I once thought about making myself bleed out, just to see if I can feel the cut. Just to see if I’m alive enough to bleed at all. Maybe if I created a few scars myself the people that always told me-
“What do you have to be sad about?“
-maybe they would see that I’m not okay. But then that sense of guilt overcomes me and I remember-
“Stupid cunt. What do you have to be sad about? Smile!“

I’m tired of not feeling. I’m tired of my lamentations being disregarded when I just want someone to understand. I’m tired of being told to smile. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired.

“Smile!“

I made the ultimate decision to make people see and understand how much I’m suffering and not let them use my external beauty be an excuse for them to tell me I don’t have the right to feel sad. I broke a mirror and took a shard in my hand. The glass made a sound not unlike tearing a wet cloth and despite the coldness of the glass, the agonizing pain in my face was like white heat. My mouth filled with hot, viscous blood and poured down my chest. The shard ripped through the immaculate flesh of my cheek, a jagged and bloody grin scrawled through my face. I want people to see how much I hurt. I want to show them the depth of pain a person can feel. I don’t want to ever be told to smile.