I’m back for one last post about gender identity and labels.
Ha! We all know that’s not true. It may be the last one for now as I put in the title, but it’s certainly not going to be the last time I talk about gender, as much as I would like it to be. Yes, I could try never to think of it again, but that’s nearly impossible in this world.
Oh, here’s the post from yesterday. We’ll see if I actually write about what I intend to write about.
When I was talking to K about gender identity, I said that it’s easy for me to accept gender changes in people because gender didn’t mean anything to me. If you remove the socio-political meaning from gender (which, I know, is impossible to do), then in really has no meaning in and of itself.
I mean, that’s pretty simplistic because you could say that about any word, really. A term has a basic meaning, and then it has the meaning that a society infuses it with. But in this case, I really am lost at sea with the word.
Side note: It’s interesting. I do not have the same struggle with other labels I use. I mean, I don’t like bisexual as a term, but it does at least come close to describing what I consider myself. I and many other bis think of it as people like me and people not like me (the bi part) rather than two genders. Of course, there are other people who use pansexual or omnisexual, but as I have said before, I don’t like either of those.
Damn. I Googled, and there are some really bad terms like ambisexual, switch-hitter (uggggggh), hermaphrodite?!? and androgynous. I like the last word, but it’s not a synonym for bisexual. Someone was complaining about there not being another word so you have to say ‘sexual’ in the label. Uh, no. I call myself bi. Many bis I know do it as well. Bis looks weird to me, but bi is fine.
I’ve made my peace with bi. It’s fine, though I would prefer just to say sexual. But, again, it sends the wrong message. Sigh. It is what it is, and it’s fine.
Taiwanese American? Also fine. I am American with Taiwanese heritage. That’s pretty straightforward, and it doesn’t really need much explanation. It’s also the one I think the least about now. It gave me a lot of drama/trauma when I was younger, but I’m mor e than fine with it now.
Areligious? Yeah, I fully embrace that one. I do not know if there is a god, multiple gods, or no gods, and I don’t care. That’s why I choose areligious rather than atheistic. God can do what god is or isn’t going to do if there is a god or isn’t. It doesn’t really affect my life…yeah, I’m not going to get into that because it’s not the point of this post.
I’ve embraced fat, too. It flusters people when I say cheerfully that I’m fat. I know it’s because it’s considered a horrible negative in this society, but it’s another thing that makes me snicker. There’s something truly magical in not giving a shit. I highly suggest it to everyone.
It’s the best when it comes to pop culture. So many people have very rigid idea of what is good (what they like) and what is bad (what they don’t like). I used to watch a content creator who said with his whole mouth that of course if he didn’t like something, it was bad. Because otherwise he would like it. His tone was very much, “Duh!” He could not move past that, no matter how much his co-creators argued with him.
I have run into this mentality so often, I’ve accepted that it’s a neurotypical way of thinking (especially for certain people). I don’t understand why it’s so hard to grasp the idea that you can like something that is low-brow/’bad’ or not like something that is considered good.
Hell, I am the monarch of the latter, and I make no apologies for it. I know now that it’s a part of my neurodivergent brain that I see things in a different way. I want to emphasize once again that it’s not me being purposely contrarian–it’s just that I don’t look at things the way other people do. It’s why I don’t like so many popular things. I can’t tell you how many times I go into something popular really wanting to like it, only to be gravely disappointed.
A short list: (movies) Amelie, Taxi Driver, Casablanca, Se7en, Pulp Fiction, The Big Lebowski. (TV shows) The Sopranos, Seinfeld, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and West Wing. (Video games) Nioh, Lies of P, the one Zelda game I tried (I think it was A Link Between Worlds), and Red Dead 2. (Music groups) The Beatles–I can stop right there, actually. That one is enough to really rile people up. I’ll add Led Zeplin, The Who, and Bob Dylan.Should we do books? Why the hell nott? A Portrait of a Young Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce), The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen), Lord of the Flies (William Golding), and The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne). To be fair to the last book, I read it when I was ten or eleven, so I might have missed something. I hated the book, though, and I know the rampant sexism is part of the point, but ugh.
Here’s the thing about my tastes. They’re all over the place, and I have no idea what I will and what I won’t like ahead of time. I mean, there are threads, yes, but there is no sure shot. Like, musically, I’ll love a good ballad all day long. One that will make me unabashedly sob. I will admit I like a ‘bad’ ending better than a ‘good’ one, which fits within the genre. I’ve recently gotten into Stray Kids, and one thing I really like is that they experiment all the time with their sound.
I have included above the first song I heard by them, and I loved it from the start. The Latin beat, the laid-back groove, the chill rap and warm vocals. Plus, the visuals (of the video and the members). It wasn’t until I started listening to their other music that I realized this was a big departure for them in terms of style, genre, and intensity.
The second song I heard/watched the video of was the song that gained them international fame–God’s Menu. They really exploded with that song, and they soared from that point onward. I’ve listened to almost all of their discography by now (at least their group songs. They’ve all done solos), and while there is a distinctive Stray Kids style (you can tell it’s their song when you hear it), they are happy to play around in many different genres.
I liken them to FromSoft, my favorite video game developer. FromSoft has a distinctive style, too, and you’ll know a game is theirs from the moment you see the opening of a trailer. Or the game itself. And yet, Miyazaki has no qualms about throwing a curve ball into the mix.
More on that later.