Let’s talk more about gender. I want to lay it all on the table so we can finally figure it out together. By the time I’m done, I will have figured out, definitively, what gender is. Once and for all! Obviously, that is said very tongue-in-cheek. If I did not have to think about gender ever again (and people would be chill about it), that wouldbe my happy place. Here is my post from yesterday that about the difference between Asian sexism and Western sexism.
Alas, that is not to be. I still can’t get over the fact that one of the things the people on the right were obsessed with as a reason to hate Bad Bunny was the fact that he liked to wear dresses and skirts. I didn’t even realize it until it was pointed out. Then, I went back and looked at several pictures, and, yes, he does enjoy him a nice dress and/or skirt.
Better him than me! I don’t like dresses. Some skirts are fine (flowy, very loose, and thin), but in general, I am a pants kind of person. Or rather, I am a naked kind of person, but you have to wear clothing in public if you don’t want to get arrested.
In general, I don’t like tight clothing. It’s a sensory thing (another trait of autistic people I have found. Having sensory issues, I mean). I can’t stand anything touching my skin, really, so the less the better. That’s why I don’t wear underwear or a bra, either. I stopped wearing both completely during the pandemic. I was wearing them rarely before that–only when I went out–and then I went feral during the pandemic. And realized that I really preferred going free.
Oh, and I also talked about having anorexia and bulimia while I was in my twenties. That was also as a result of very harmful sexism, both Western and Eastern. Both demanded that girls/women be practically nonexistent, but for different reasons.
Side note: With my recent Kpop Demon Hunters obsession, I’m starting to notice how that sexism plays out. One big way is how painfully thin the female characters are in the movie. Hell, most of the guys are as well. But the women more so. Yesterday, I included the video clip from their song Golden. Today, I have included a video of them singing it live below. You w ill note that EJAE (Rumi) and Rei Ami (Zoey) are both really skinny whereas Audrey Nuna (Mira) is heavier. She’s not heavy by any stretch of the imagination, but she’s not painfully thin, either.
Side note to the side note: Mira is my favorite character in the movie from the clips I’ve seen. She’s sarcastic, moody, an oddball, and defiant. Audrey Nuna is wise-cracking in a deadpan kind of way and calls herself emotionally constipated. And I love her striking hairstyles. Very non-traditional.
Why couldn’t Mira be heavier in the movie? Again. I’m not asking the impossible. I’m not asking that she be *gasp* plump. Just that she didn’t look like she could be blown over by a sharp wind. The funny thing is that the three women are constantly eating ridiculous amounts of food. It’s true that many Asian women are tiny and can eat a great deal, but still. Let one of them be more than a shadow.
See, that’s the Asian sexism standing out there. The version I’nve included here, by the way, is the newest one. At first, I wasn’t sure how i felt about it, but then I fell in love with it. I am a huge strings fan (I played the cello for ten years); you can really hear the harmonies in this version.
I do wonder if Rei Ami and Audrey Nuna ever feel a pang of jealousy that EJAE gets most of the attention. Yes, she’s the lead singer on this song, but some of the others are more equal. It’s strange that there’s a lead singer because as far as I know (which, again, isn’t much), there really isn’t a lead singer in a Kpop band. They tend to spread it around.
Anyway!
Dying twice made me realize that I just can’t perform feminine any longer–not that I ever really could. It’s just not in my genes (jeans). I don’t have it in me to do it, and more to the point, I just don’t fucking care.
I am so angry at my country right now. Incandescent. So much bullshit over something that should not matter. Who cares if Bad Bunny wants to wear a dress? Who cares if Elliott Page is Elliott Page? He’s still a great actor as he’s always been.
Look. I’m old. I’ve been suffering fools for over fifty years. I’ve seen things get better inch by inch, and then, I watched in dismay and outrage aas my country completely fell apart. As the hate won and the walls collapsed, I was numb. But underneath the numbness was the bubbling anger and rage that sustained me.
I’m still angry. Doubly so given that ICE is still tearing through my state. I’m not here to talk about that at this moment, though. I want to focus on gender. I can tell you when I realized how dire the situation was. It was April of 2024, and I had to renew my license. I went to my local DMV. To my surrpise, they had nonbinary as a choice for gender. I should not have been surprised, though, because Minnesota is a very progressive state*.
The pleasure turned to dread, though. Why? Because at that time, I realized there was a very big chance that Trump would be president again, and if that were to happen, well, all hell would break loose. By the way, all my friends and I have talked about how we knew things would go to hell. We just didn’t think it would be that fast and that fucking thorough. Also, personally, I didn’t expect him to target Minnesota–though I should have given how fucking petty he is. Of course he would go after the VP candidate’s state.
I have been saying, “I did not come back from the dead for this!” for quite some time now. It started with Roe v. Wade, and it just keeps getting worse.
While I was in that DMV, I had to make a decision that I so did not want to make. If we were back in Obama years, I would have reluctantly chosen nonbinary. Reluctantly because it’s not my chosen label, but it’s the closest. If agender had been on the list, I would have chosen it without even thinking twice about it.
In 2024, though? Seven months before the election that was probably not going to go the way I wanted it to go? That was a much harder row to hoe. Road to hoe? Road to walk.
*Broadly speaking. I don’t want to get down to the nitty-gritty right now, so I’ll leave it at that.