This is the third post on gender rigidity that I’m writing in a row. It’s on my mind now because well, the state of the world is on fire, so why the hell not? In the United States, we have the “religious”* right going on a crusade against trans people because, uh, bathrooms? It’s telling, by the way, that the transphobes harp so much and constantly on “bUt WhaT aBouT ThE BatHRooMS?” and claim that it’s for the sake of those poor fragile women in the bathroom who might be subjected to–you know what? No. I’m not going to write it, even in jest because it’s foul.
And, funnily enough, the same assholes who bleat about this stay mum about actual sexual harrassment issues or, say, the Jeffrey Epstein files. I mean, one of them actually said that sixteen was practically an adult so who cares? I’m paraphrasing, but it was very similar to this. So. Just to make sure I get it right. Trans women are a threat to women in bathrooms because ooga booga, but actual sexual predators and rapists of teen girls are, what. Fine? Excusable? Victims of the female hussies?
It would be ridiculous if it weren’t so grotesque and so harmful–to all women, I mean. And so fucking transparent. And transphobic.
Honestly, if it weren’t for the damage they are doing with their rhetoric, I would simply laugh in their faces. And wonder who raised them. And why they were so insecure in their own gender that they had to lash out at people who weren’t like them. This is what gets me, by the way. All this hatred for people who are just living their best lives.
I mean, really. Think about it. Somenoe being gay/bi/trans/nonbinary/agender has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. Me being bi and agender affects absolutely nobody. Ok, sure, maybe someone I’m dating–you know what? Not even then unless I decide to reveal it myself. Seriously. If someone is attracted to me, does it matter what my label is? Since I do everyone, ahem, any gender (or none at all), that is not limiting to me.
Side note: I remember when I first realized I was bisexual, there was an emphasis on how bisexuals were NOT sluts. I get that bis wanted to counter the beilef that we would go for any and everyone, but what if, and hear me out, it was actually true? I found that many bis liked to joke that they were sluts, and I’m one of them. See, I don’t buy the moral framing of having a lot of sex with different people as being bad. Or wrong. Or immoral. I just don’t.
Sex is a pleasurable activity in and of itself. And it doesn’t have to be connected to love–at least not for me. A friend of mine gave the analogy of playing a board game. Sure, it’s more intimate when done with a partner, but it’s still fun to do with friends, strangers, or a mixture of both. I’ve always been better at sex than at romance. It’s more comfortable for me, probably because I don’t have to deal with messy emotions. Also, I’m a really good lover. Not to toot my own horn–just spitting out facts.
Let’s talk about masculinity for a minute. I don’t talk about it much because, well, it’s depressing. Gotta throw the word ‘toxic’ in front of it so often. I want to mention it because I’ve been obessed with the music from Kpop Demon Hunters, but…Well, how do I put this? I did not vibe with the boy band songs at first. I have included the Soda Pop video above. It has grown on me, but I will admit I dismissed it as pure fluff the first time I heard it.
You know what? Never mind. I was going to write a whole dissertation on Western men versus Asian men, but I don’t have it in me. Let’s just say that there’s a vast difference between what is considered masculine between the two, and it befuddles some Western men when Western (read, white) women are attracted to Asian men. See, Kpop boy bands. Then again, those same Western men are probably dismissive of Western boy bands, too.
Huh. I’m watching a reaction to the live version of Golden by the Huntrix (EJAE, Rei Ami, and Audrey Nuna), and the commenter mentioned that the low note EJAE hits is a D3. He mentioned that it was unusual fro a woman to be able to hit that note, let along sing it well. That’s well within my range. I just spent ten minutes fiddling around on my (old) piano, and my range is A2 to A4. Basically, I’m a baritone (a contralto for a female (ughhhh) voice). That makes sense. I get called ‘sir’ on the phone all the time. It doesn’t bother me because it’s from people I am calling for customer service. It’s just amusing to me.
I do wonder if my voice is one reason that I find gender so odd. When I was a young teenager, my father once said to me, “Do you know how you get a boyfriend?” This was before I had any boys looking at me at all, and I did not want to hear anything from my father on the subject. I knew it was going to be incredibly sexist, so I tried to avoid letting him speak. It’s tricky, though, because if I pushed back too hard, he would get upset and shout at me.
Regardless, he ignored my attempts to change the subject because he just had to impact his wisdom upon me. Whether I wanted to hear it (I did not) or not (I most emphatically did not), he was determined to tell me. Here is his recipe for getting a boyfriend: Let the boy beat me in some game; let the boy instruct me in something; and most importantly, raise my voice a couple octaves.
I am still proud of myself that I looked at him and said, “If that’s what it takes to get a boyfriend, then I’d rather stay single.” Forty years later, I still believe that. I didn’t know anything about feminism back then, but now I can confidently say that if someone doesn’t want to be with me as I am, then byeeeeeeee.
I’m not talking about the compromises we all have to make in relationships because we are compassionate people. I’m talking about the bits and pieces that make up who you are. For example. I love musicals to an unreasonable degree. And because I have OCD traits, that means I will listen to one soundtrack over and over and over again every day in the exact same order. that can be up to twenty times a day. And I cannot skip a song.
That’s jsut a mild example. The others are far worse. We all have our issues beacuse we’re humans. And–oh wait. This is not a post on relationships. Back to the voice thing. Even as a teenager, I knew it was ridiculous. I mean, I could have changed my voice to make it higher, but why would I want to put all that effort into something that was, to me, so trivial? More to the point, I like my voice. It’s warm, husky, and as they say in the musical world, dark. Since I prefer dark to light, anyway, so be it.
By the way, EJAE from the Kpop Demon Hunters was a Korean Kpop trainee, and one reason she kept getting rejected was because they deemed her voice too dark and not feminine enough. She’s gotten the last laugh on them now, but still. That had to be really hard to go through just because she didn’t fit an extremely narrow definition ogf feminine.
Ahem.
I’ll be back tomorrow for one more post.
*I put religious in quotes because it’s not about religion. That’s a whole nother post, though.