welcome to downtown coolsville

To the world at large:

No, I do not want to be "one of the girls."

I don't want to be "one of the boys," either.

I want to be "one of the skippy twee blue-haired pansy-ass genderqueer kids named Gerald," because that's what I am. I'm not a girl.* I'm not a boy.** I'm me.***

So stop trying to friggin' gender me already.****

With all due respect,
a skippy twee blue-haired pansy-ass genderqueer kid named Gerald


* Except when I am.

** Except when I am.

*** Except when I'm not.

**** Honestly, I could easily extend this to "stop trying to friggin' gender EVERYBODY already," because I have been reading queer theory lately and it makes me even madder about the gender binary than ever. And, um, I'm usually pretty pissed about it! AS YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED. Seriously, guys, can we just all chill out and be cool and do what we want to do without checking our Handy-Dandy Gender Guides to make sure it's okay first?

20 Websites From Before The Internet Was Invented. #9 is my favourite. Oh, Oliver Cromwell, you were such a dick.

Lyn-Z and that nerd she married. ♥

(Also, Ellen DeGeneres and that nerd she married. ♥♥♥♥♥)

Man Called Zombie While Ordering Food, Punched Twice. There will never be a greater headline than that. Ever. Read it over a few times and savour its AWESOME.

'Skirt boys' make waves in wild world of Tokyo street fashion. I was going to make an anime joke here but then I decided it'd be a little too obvious.

The Kindest Cut: In Colorado, a surgeon helps restore feeling—and so much more—to victims of female genital mutilation. This whole article made me tear up a little. Especially this bit:

A California nurse, Ngozi, who was circumcised as a newborn in Nigeria and also had her labia entirely cut away, came to Bowers in August. She is already feeling results, she tells NEWSWEEK. "Before, I would look at my textbook and look at myself and they were two different things. I wasn't even human." Bowers performed not only the clitoral operation but also plastic surgery to create labia for Ngozi, 34. "Now when I look at myself I feel like a woman," says Ngozi, who says she has even experienced orgasms for the first time in her life. "It's beautiful, I just love it, it feels like you're melting. Before it irritated me when my husband tried to touch me, now I reach out to him."

♥______________; GUYSSSSSSSSSS

( Going to school in boymode. )

This video about how science is magic.

The world is just awesome. <3

In unrelated news, since it seems I will be in university for a good long while yet (this is because I transferred and dropped a class and also God hates me), I am considering getting a certificate in Library Science as well as a diploma in Creative Writing. That way I will nourish both my lifelong dream of being a ~writer and my need to eventually support myself and any cats I may choose to adopt. Good idea, y/n/you're going to be in school until you die, aren't you?

The fun thing about being genderqueer is that you just can't win for losing sometimes.

Lately I've been trying out a different aesthetic. Girl-cut shirts, eyeliner, skinny jeans, femmey stuff like that. And while I like it, and while I think it looks fucking nifty, I don't like the baggage that goes along with it.

Part of the reason why I've always gone for baggier clothes is because it hides my shape. I'm a pretty curvy person and a lot of times that bothers me- it's harder to pass when you've got child-bearing hips, and even though a lot of the time I don't pass anyway it's still nice to have that extra bit of security. For the past few years I've mostly bought things a couple of sizes too big for me because of that. Now that I'm getting into more form-fitting stuff that's not really an option. People can tell what my assigned sex is, and they treat me differently because of it.

It's the little things you notice. When you pass for a guy- or even just for a very butch girl- people do not maintain eye contact as long. They do not hold doors open or try to strike up conversations on the bus as often. They don't call you by pet names, and they don't ask if you need to be walked to your car. Masculinity gives you a kind of impenetrability, and I mean that in as many senses of the word as you like. Masculinity means that people assume you can take care of yourself, that no one will fuck (with) you. It means that you can move freely and that people won't ask as many questions. This, I suppose, is part of what they call male privilege.

The first time I noticed a difference was in the summer. I'd been playing around with eye makeup that morning and was wearing a pink shirt, and I went downtown for some reason or other. After an hour or two I went into a pizza place to get some lunch, and the guy at the counter smiled at me and called me "sweetie."

I'd been going to that pizza place for about four years, and that guy had been working there the whole time. He'd never "sweetie'd" me before. Never smiled. It was weird.

It's the little things you notice. People rushing to hold a door for you. A casual "honey" from someone who's known you five minutes. Profs passing you over in class. Questions about boys- which ones are cute, which ones are nice, which ones you're dating (and if not, why not?). People telling you that you "look nice"- not because you actually do, but because you look more like what they think you should look like. People assuming that you want to talk to them, or sit with them, or fuck them, because it's not like you're doing anything better with your time, right? People explaining things to you. Femininity opens you up in that way- or, rather, it lets people assume that you are opened up. Emotionally, physically, sexually, whatever, you're available and convenient and you'd damn well better be grateful, too.

It's all because of a few pieces of clothing and a stick of fucking kohl, and it pisses me off.

My biology is incidental to my personhood. I'm not a different person because I've got two X chromosomes instead of a Y; wearing eyeliner and skinny jeans doesn't make me a girl, any more than it makes fucking Pete Wentz a girl. It shouldn't carry so many gendered connotations. There's nothing female about makeup (the Celts agree) or tight pants (hey there, Shakespeare) or the colour pink (the "proper" colour for boy's clothing until very recently). There's nothing male about them, either. They're just things. That's all.

But people pounce on them and make judgments and decide based on their own preconceptions and insecurities whether you're a boy or a girl (and God help you if they can't decide). And THEN they decide how they should react to you, not in spite of gender but because of it. It's stupid, and it's fucked up, and I don't like it.

My identity's complicated. I'm not a boy (except for when I am), I'm not a girl (except for when I am), I'm not really both or a mixture or something in between (except for when I am). I'm Gerald.

I wish there was some way I could get that across without having to conform to a fucking dress code.