Thinking about gender again. I’ve heard from many people that gender is important to them. That they feel their gender in their bones. I know many trans people who have felt misaligned with their bodies, and I find all this fascinating.
I don’t feel gender. Like, I know I’m not a dude. In fact, I internally recoil at the thought of it. Other than that, though, I don’t feel like I am any particular gender.
First of all, I love my body. I used to hate it, but not because it felt like the wrong body. I hated it because of fatphobia and my mother incessantly telling me how gross my body was because it wsa fat. Oh, she never said it in so many words, but that’s what she meant. Believe me. I heard it loud nad clear.
Through it all, though, I did not hate the fact that my body is female-shaped. I always loved my hair and was very defiant about my big boobs. I got a tattoo on my left boob in rebellion of all the staring. “If you’re going to stare at my tits, then I might as well give you something to stare at!”
Even when I hated my body, though, it wasn’t because it was woman-shaped; it was because of how deeply fatphobic our society is, especially for women. I did not hate that I had a female-shaped body, but taht it was FAT.
After I died (twice) and came back, I did a 180 on my body. It had carried me through death (twice) without a word of complaint and nary a hitch. Yes, I was in a coma for nearly a week and awake but groggy for a week agter, but then, it was right as rain. Three months after the night of the medical crisis, my parents went back to Taiwan. By that point, I was nearly 100%. Or rather, as close to being back to normal as I could get.
At that point, I was positively intoxicated with my body. About a month after I got out of the hospital, I took a series of selfies (and I’m someone who NEVER takes selfies!) with my hair in all kinds of cute hairstyles. Chun-Li buns, two ponies that were then braided, one pony that was then braided, etc. Even with the Chun-Li buns, they were braided. I have hair down to my mid-thighs, so just ponies means the hair is still hanging down. It’s summer. It’s hot. I hate the heat. I need to have my hair up. That’s true now, but at the time when I did the selfies, it was autumn. So my excuse for my hair then is that I hate anything touching me–even my hair. I don’t hate my hair, but I hate it on my neck. I’m really glad I have very fine hair because it would be such a pain if it were thick and full at this length.
I was so into myself at that time. It might have been the drugs because I was still high as a kite. But it was also the nurses in the hospital being so kind and respectful to me in what was a deeply vulnerable state. They literally wiped my ass for me after I took a shit. It doesn’t get more intimate than that–and they were all so kind. I was not just a piece of meat to them. I felt loved and treasured, and even if it was just the drugs, it radically changed how I viewed my body.
When I was home, I was literally feeling my ass and thinking it was amazing. I have to mentioned that being Asian, I did not have an ass for much of my life. Then, after several years of Taiji practice, I realized that I actually had an ass. It wasn’t a huge or a juicy one, but it was an actual ass that protruded from me. i felt it several times as I was stoned out of my mind because it just felt that good. I was and still am super-stoked to have an ass, and in those first few months following my release from the hospital, you could not tell me shit about my body.
I loved it with all my heart. I was so into my body, I could not stop gushing about it. It got me through death, twice, and you could not tell me shit about it. It was in that moment that I realized my body was fucking amazing! All that bullshit about being too fat? How I should hate it and try to whittle it away to nothing? BULLFUCKINGSHIT. My body was why I survived. I mean, I already knew that intellectually that having padding was better when you were ill (it was better to be overweight that underweight), and I had more cushion for the pushing.
I love my curves now. I love my strong thighs and calves, both of which can crush walnuts between them, and I love my broad shoulders. I still think my tits are great, and I absolutely adore my biceps. I have always tended towards muscle, and Taiji has only firmed them up.
So, yeah. It’s not that I think I’m in the wrong body. I am very much in the right body. It’s more that I don’t know what it means to feel like a woman (or any other gender). When people talk about how their gender is right for them or they FEEL like a ______ (gender).
I honestly don’t know what that means. When I think about what it means to be a woman, I am confused. I’m not saying that in a snarky manner, by the way. I just meant that the whole idea of gender confuses the fuck out of me. On the one hand, people say that gender is whatever you make it out to be. So, if you are a woman (for example), then you can act however you want and still be a woman because that’s what you say you are. This is how my Taiji teacher feels about her gender. She’s been told she’s not a woman all her life because she grew up in rural South Dakota and idd not fit the stereotype of what a woman should be. We’ve talked about this and we have a very similar upbringing. Deeply religious and sexist, trying to pigeonhole us desperately. Her response was to thumb her nose and say, “Fuck you! I’m a woman. You can’t take that from me.”
My response, on the other hand, was to to say, “You don’t think I’m a woman? Fine. I don’t want to be one, then.” I had no need to convince anyone of my gender, and I never felt strongly about it, anyway. There wasn’t anything I was going to do with my so-called lady bits other than enjoy the hell out of sex. My pussy wasn’t going to be doing much of anything else in my life, really. It should not dictate how I am treated by others, anyway. In addition, it isn’t even a gender-specific piece of genitalia. Men and nonbinary people can have pussies, too. So, what makes the gender?
I don’t know. I don’t feel a pull towards any one gender. I feel more of a kinship with women, but that doesn’t mean I am one. for now, I am good with agender. That may change in the future, but it’s good enough for now.