(no subject)
Oct. 18th, 2010 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lexTrying to stop procrastinating. You can see how well this is working for me. :\
Trying to gather the spoons to talk about gender identity or something idk. I realized that I chose the username Swordage what, ten years ago, because it was gender-neutral. It was my first exposure to the internet and I didn't even know it was possible to have a different gender than the one you were physically born in, nevermind a non-binary one, but I didn't want to be seen as a boy or a girl online. I went through a phase in middle school where I wanted to change my name to a gender-neutral one and, when possible, insisted on being addressed by such a name. I went by Aquafresh for a while because I was just that desperate. Even now my chosen nicknames are L and Lex, also gender-neutral. HEY SELF, MAYBE IT IS OKAY TO ADMIT THAT YOU IDENTIFY AS GENDER-NEUTRAL, EVEN IF YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH YOUR PHYSICAL BODY BEING A GIVEN SEX.
oh hey look at that I talked about gender identity by accident oops guess I'll just leave that there
so uh anyway. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker are power-squatting on my desk. Or maybe pelvic thrusting? I am not entirely clear on the specifics of this situation. And I have my laptop, lab notebook, and Nostalgia on my desk. Contrary to what you may expect, Nostalgia is not on either of the other two items. She is in fact finally using the fluffy bed I got her. She really likes where it is - she has the perfect view of the bird feeder, all she has to do is open her eyes, and I'm right next to her and pet her now and then. All is well on the home front.
...Except that I have two reports to write tonight. Sigh. Come on, self, you can do this... Skip the busywork of writing out the procedure for now, do the discussion/analysis while you're still awake. Then do the Ecology lab essay, and then come back and do the busywork in the Chem lab report. Okay. We can do this. Alright, Prowl, help me out here! I need some motivation, some assistance, some logical insight into -
Oh noooooooooooooo
Trying to gather the spoons to talk about gender identity or something idk. I realized that I chose the username Swordage what, ten years ago, because it was gender-neutral. It was my first exposure to the internet and I didn't even know it was possible to have a different gender than the one you were physically born in, nevermind a non-binary one, but I didn't want to be seen as a boy or a girl online. I went through a phase in middle school where I wanted to change my name to a gender-neutral one and, when possible, insisted on being addressed by such a name. I went by Aquafresh for a while because I was just that desperate. Even now my chosen nicknames are L and Lex, also gender-neutral. HEY SELF, MAYBE IT IS OKAY TO ADMIT THAT YOU IDENTIFY AS GENDER-NEUTRAL, EVEN IF YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH YOUR PHYSICAL BODY BEING A GIVEN SEX.
so uh anyway. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker are power-squatting on my desk. Or maybe pelvic thrusting? I am not entirely clear on the specifics of this situation. And I have my laptop, lab notebook, and Nostalgia on my desk. Contrary to what you may expect, Nostalgia is not on either of the other two items. She is in fact finally using the fluffy bed I got her. She really likes where it is - she has the perfect view of the bird feeder, all she has to do is open her eyes, and I'm right next to her and pet her now and then. All is well on the home front.
...Except that I have two reports to write tonight. Sigh. Come on, self, you can do this... Skip the busywork of writing out the procedure for now, do the discussion/analysis while you're still awake. Then do the Ecology lab essay, and then come back and do the busywork in the Chem lab report. Okay. We can do this. Alright, Prowl, help me out here! I need some motivation, some assistance, some logical insight into -
Oh noooooooooooooo
no subject
Date: 2010-10-18 11:24 pm (UTC)My own? Gender-fluid. I have debated and debated and debated... much as I can be male to the core at times, I have female days too. The body has less effect than the mind, given how often I am more masculine in thought and deed. (And granted, that's mostly by stereotype behavior...but under it all there is this sense of gender that is not fully behavior based.)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 01:30 am (UTC)I am learning new things! It totally makes sense that some folks would identify as both just as some folks identify as neither. I just hadn't considered that a possibility before. Cool! :D I am super excited for you, I hope that's okay. Just the fact that this is a possibility, that you know it is a potential state of being, is really awesome. I know a lot of my questioning of whether I am allowed to identify this way is due to not knowing the term gender-neutral until relatively recently and wondering if the chicken or the egg came first, you know, was I actually gender-neutral before I knew the term - so I am kind of unreasonably excited that gender-fluid is a term that exists. Acknowledgment of diversity! Yay!
I hope it is not presumptuous to ask - do you have a set of pronouns you prefer for yourself? (And seriously, ahaha, I am the last person who will demand a concrete, definitive answer on what your gender is. I am familiar with the endless internal debate.)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 01:45 am (UTC)As for pronouns, I'm old-school still and tend to fall on the masculine pronouns when in doubt, though White Wolf gaming did start chipping away at that with their casual mixing up of he and she. I haven't gotten the hang of the new pronouns sets that my younger housemates use so easily. (Old Filly feels her age sometimes)
When/if you choose a set, please let me know. I'll strive to use them. And I have decided gender is as individual a thing as religion and sexuality; what you say is what you are.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 02:30 am (UTC)I do have to concentrate to use se/hir, but I kinda have to concentrate to use any pronouns - I try to avoid using them if at all possible. And oh gosh ze/zir is such a new set to me that I keep forgetting it's a possibility. Though I did read a story (I think Borealis) in which Wheeljack went through about half a dozen genders, each with their own neat pronoun set... I can't pronounce any of the new pronouns though. My mouth gets all confused. I do like the ze/zir set though, because it's not a mashup of masculine/feminine and dude it has a Z! I love Zs. :3 I feel shallow saying that, for some reason, and then I get all scared and nervous and feel like an impostor and I have to change the subject before I start hyperventilating.
I absolutely agree that gender and sexuality and religion and a billion other things are individual choices/identifiers and they certainly don't have to be cast in stone. But for some reason applying that to myself, giving myself permission to be unsure, is very very difficult and scary. Tangentially - before I started talking about this stuff on the Internet, I thought I was the only one who still questioned everything about myself. Gosh was I glad to be proved wrong on that one. XD Turns out a lot of people are confused! That is very comforting to me.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 02:37 am (UTC)It's taken me a VERY long time to get to a point where I feel like this. For the longest time I always joked about "being the guy", just to cover up my masculine behaviors, but it never FIT, ya know?
But yeah, you are so not alone.
I've heard good things about "Borealis" and the use of genders and types.