I was reading my stories (advice columns) and one question came up about going to a Finnish spa (in Finland) with your coworkers (if you’re American). One thing that struck me was that it was divided by gender. We can see the problems with that, yes? Especially now that we are more aware of the genders other than strict cismasc and cisfem. There were other issues with the whole sauna with your coworkers thing (including, for me, my hatred of anything over 80 degrees and the fact that there is often alcohol involved), but the gender issue is what stuck with me.
It’s been a rollercoaster when it comes to gender. I’ve never felt female all my life ,but it’s never been because of me. What I mean is that so many people have questioned my femininity since I was a small child, I rejected womanhood until–but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
It started when I was six or seven. I was what was called a tomboy back then and scolded for not sitting quietly and demurely, with my ankles neatly crossed. I liked to climb trees and run around, but that was quickly (metaphorically) beaten out of me. My family belonged to a fundie Taiwanese church that had very strict gender expectations and girls were not to run and laugh and shout.
My mom embodied these stereotypes in many ways. She worked because she had to, but she claimed that being a mother was the most important thing in her life–it was all she ever wanted to be. In addition to working, she also did all the housework and the cooking. And the caring of the children (my brother and me) as it were. My father didn’t do any of that for many reasons, none of them good, which meant my mother was essentially a single mother.
Here’s the thing, though. For as much as she says that being a mother (and grandmother) is the most important thing in her life, that’s not what her actions show. But it’s so firmly embedded in her brain that a woman’s worth is based on motherhood, she spent 15 years of my life trying to get me pregnant. I once said I didn’t want to have kids and she said that it didn’t matter if I wanted it or not–it was my duty. She also cried to my brother (within earshot of me, deliberately, I’m pretty sure) about the special bond between mother and daughter when the daughter is pregnant. How she would know that, I have no idea as my grandmother was in Taiwan when my brother and I were born and never bothered to visit until we were much older. She never showed any interest in my brother or me and when my brother got married, she wished him many boy children. So, yeah, I don’t have any fond memories of my grandmother. Oh and she lectured for half an hour on the lineage of her husband’s family at every big family occasion. I did not like her, quite frankly, and my mom’s remark that my grandmother would love to be a great-grandmother before dying (as one reason I should have a kid) had no positive impact on me. I asked if she would want that to come at the expense of me being married (that side of the family are devout Christians) and my mom said in all seriousness that my grandmother would probably make that trade-off. Which gobsmacked me.
I had the revelation in my early twenties that I did not want children (and what joy when I realized I didn’t have to have them) and I never wavered from that. I didn’t think it was a big deal when I made that decision, but every woman to whom I told it (only when asked and yes, it was always women) reacted negatively. The reactions ranged from incredulity to condensation to anger. This happened throughout my twenties, which was another reason I started feeling detached from my assigned gender.
My whole life, I’ve been told how I’m not a woman in big and little ways. I used to pray to a god I didn’t believe in (when I was a child) to turn me into a boy. Not because I felt like one, but because I hated being a girl. I found it so restrictive, but, again, it wasn’t because I didn’t like being a woman, but because everyone kept telling me I wasn’t one.
Then the medical trauma happened. While I was in the hospital, I had nurses attending to my every need, including wiping my ass after I took a shit. All the inhibitions I had about my body before I went into the hospital instantly disappeared. I know this sounds glib, but it’s true. All my insecurities about my body went away because it had been sturdy enough to get me through hell with almost nary a scratch. And, as I’ve said a few times, I’m cute as fuck!
Before I ended up in the hospital, I was leaning towards, “I don’t like she/her pronouns, but I’m not they/them, either. I just prefer no pronouns.” I thought a lot about it before my medical trauma and that was my uneasy conclusion. I wasn’t satisfied with it, but it was as good as it was going to get. Like me calling myself bisexual. Don’t love it, but it’s the best of not great options.
After getting out of the hospital, I…simply didn’t care. I’m gender apathetic as long as you don’t call me ‘he/him’. Want to call me she/her? Fine. They/them? Eh, not for me, but not objectionable, either. I still would prefer to not use any pronouns at all, but ‘she/her’ don’t throw me into a tizzy, either. I’m gender apathetic, much as I am apathetic about many aspects of my life in which I’m supposed to be one thing or the other. A believer or atheist? Neither. I’m apathetic. And when I say apathetic, I mean more that it doesn’t matter more than I don’t care. It’s a subtle distinction, but it’s there.
When it comes to gender, I’m of two minds. One is to continue with my ‘eh, whatever’ mindset. The other is to embrace the label of ‘woman’ and say LOOK THE FUCK AT ME! THIS IS WHAT A WOMAN LOOKS LIKE. One anecdote I’ve told before is a discussion I had with a bi woman. I revealed that I liked to look at comely people on the street and imagined them in bed. She looked at me, horrified, and said that women didn’t do that. She had talked about it with her group of friends (roughly ten women) and none of them did it. I looked at her in confusion because I, an actual woman, was telling her that I did it. But it was too dissonant in her brain, so she refused to accept it. That’s happened to me throughout my life and it’s the main reason I have gender dysphoria. If other people didn’t keep questioning my femininity, I wouldn’t, either. I identify more with women and shared experiences, but I just can’t align my experiences in this female-presenting body with what other people think I should be.
This is who I am. After my medical trauma, I didn’t care so much about my gender. Or rather, what other people perceived as my gender. I’m a woman, more or less. I still prefer no pronouns, but I don’t wince at being called she/her. I relate to women/nonbinary people much more than I do men. So I would say that I’m gender…agnostic. That’s the best I can do for now.