So. I have written many times about my confusion over my gender identity. It’s never been that I feel like a man, though I have wished to be male many times in my childhood. It wasn’t because I felt like a boy, but because I hated being a girl so much. It was so limiting and frustrating. I had to wear dresses. I couldn’t run, scream, or climb trees. I had to sit with my legs crossed and giggle demurely rather than throw my head back and guffaw boisterously. I mean, I did all those things, anyway, but I got so much shit for it from the aunties in the Taiwanese church.
I felt there was something wrong with me, for so many reasons, but not fitting my gender was a big one. When I was in college (so in my early twenties), I realized that I didn’t want kids. I don’t remember exactly how, but it just came to me while I was talking to my then-boyfriend. More to the point, I realized I didn’t have to have them. That sounds silly, but it as so ingrained in me from two societies (American and Taiwanese) that I HAD to have them, that I was merely a breeding cow (how I honestly felt) with no ability to make my own decision. It was the main purpose of my life, I was told by my mother, both overtly and covertly. So the realization that a) I didn’t want them and b) I didn’t have to have them blew my mind. The second I realized the latter, a feeling of intense relief washed over me. I can’t tell you how elated I feel. It was as if a weight was lifted from me and I could fly.
I have never felt that at peace about a decision in my life and it’s still the smartest realization I’ve had about myself up until this point. It’s funny because I’ve had people tell me that I would have been a good mother or hurry to tell me I’m wrong when I said I would have been a terrible mother. Whether I was right or wrong (I was right, by the way) isn’t really the point. The point is that I felt that way, so why try to push me to do something I thought I would be shit at and that I clearly did not want to do? But, no. People couldn’t accept that or the fact that I didn’t want to be a mother–and that it was not a judgment on their choices. Let me be painfully clear–it was women. Men didn’t ask or care, but women were all up in my repo business.
I was so fucking naive at the time. I thought I could make this decision and not have it be a big deal. After all, who did it affect except me? Wrong. I cannot tell you how much shit I got for that decision. I promise you I was not running around saying, “Thank god I’ll never whelp me any brats!” I never brought it up unless someone asked me when I was having children (not if, mind you. When). I’d just say I wasn’t having them and assume that was that.
That was most definitely not that. No woman ever accepted it and said, “Oh, ok. How’s the clam linguini?” or something like that. No. They had to push back in a variety of ways. First it was, “Why not?” Which, fine. I’d answer, “I don’t want them.” That’s the biggest reason, though I had a hundred other reasons. I thought that was pretty open and shut. I mean, why have kids if you don’t want them? But then I’d get the condescending, “You’ll change your mind” or “It’s your duty” or something along that line. To the former, I’d like to point out that it’s nearly thirty years later and I still don’t have children (nor will ever have them).
I remember once I was out with two friends and one of them kept insisting that I would have a kid first of the three of us. I have no idea why she was fixated on that, but she wouldn’t let it go. I finally had to flat-out tell her to drop it because I was getting pissed. Spoiler, both those friends have a kid now–I do not.
Also, even if I had changed my mind, why say that at the moment? It’s so fucking condescending and gross to assume you know more about someone than they know about themselves. Even if I had changed my mind (which, as I hasten to point out again, I hadn’t), it was what I firmly believed at the time. Why argue with that?
That’s rhetorical, really. I know why. It was (and is, sadly) such the norm to assume a woman is going to have kids, the contrary is unfathomable. That never occurred to e until much later and I just spent a lot of time being frustrated and bewildered that people cared so much about me reproducing.
I figured it out after thinking about it for a long time. It has to do with the status quo. Having children is the status quo–especially for women. It hasn’t changed much, sadly, which is annoying as fuck. I had been puzzled at how angry some women got when I simply said I wasn’t having children because I didn’t want them. They accused me of judging them for having children or wanting them, when, honestly, I didn’t give a fuck about their child status. But what I figured out was that if you’re someone who follows the status quo unthinkingly, it can be threatening when someone else doesn’t.
Side note: Because I wasn’t fully aware of the status quo, I simply ignored it. I had no qualms about making this decision, which is very unlike me. Normally, I agonize over every decision I have to make, no matter how small. Something this big should have sent me int o a tizzy, but it didn’t. Once I realized I didn’t have to have kids, I just felt so good. It was like a fog had dissipated and the sun was shining brightly in the sky. I have not ever regretted that decision, which is so unlike me. Anyway, it makes people who follow the rules, but didn’t want to angry because I’m “breaking the rules” by not having kids. They feel cheated, but they have to externalize that into believing that I’m judging them for following the status quo. I really wasn’t at the time. I just didn’t want kids.
It’s funny to me that such a simple decision to me made so many women upset. They imputed it with all sorts of meaning that I hadn’t intended and refused to accept that I simply didn’t want children.
That really scarred me and underlined my issues with gender determinism. And showed me how women can be the worst perpetrators of misogyny sometimes. I can’t remember a guy pushing me about kids, but plenty of women did. And said that it was my duty. Or somehow implied that I would be nothing if I didn’t have them. Or that I was judging them.
My mother was the worst as she pushed me to have kids for fifteen years. She even once said it didn’t matter if I wanted them or not–that it was my duty as a woman. You can see why I rejected the label ‘woman’ after being made to feel like I was a failure at it for so long and for many reasons, but especially the not having kids bit.
So, should I reclaim ‘woman’ or just call myself genderqueer and be done with it? I’m not sure. It’s something I’m still pondering; I don’t need to figure it out any time soon.