Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: identity

Last post about labels; no, really, part five

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I have one last (ha) post about labels in me. The ha is beacuse I have way more than that in me, but that’s what I’m going to limit myself to fro now*. I’m so tired of talking about labels, but I feel I have to as long as they have such an outsized effect on on society and what happens to marginalized people.

Side note: I’m playing a demo, a walking sim/graphic novel/something along that line, and it asked me for my gender. I sighed in hopelessness because  I have never–wait, what? I can put in my own pronouns? And I can just put in my name (my character name–mulan rogue. I always use that name as my character name), mulan when need be? The only one that tripped me up was possessive because it’s not an easy one to get around. I mean possessive as in “Dana said the house was _____ (hers, yours, his, theirs). I just put a period. Or maybe I just put ‘mulan’ again. Plus Mx. for a honorific. I considered not putting any (which I assume you could also do), but I like Mx. as a honorific. I mean like as in I would actually choose it, and not reluctantly.

Of course, it’s not used very much and most people don’t seem to like it. Story of my life, really. Me choosing the thing that people don’t like. Or being a part of a group that is most overlooked. I wish I was doing it on purpsoe because then it wouldn’t frustrate me as much–or at all. Instead, I just sigh quietly to myself–or not so quietly because I live alone–and just go about my day.

I have tried all my life to find labels that I didn’t hate with all my heart. I mean, at first I wanted to find labels that actually described me, but I tamped down my expectations after struggling for so many years. I just gave up on even trying after a while. It was less frustration, that way, believe me. Except bisexual/bi. That one still annoys me enough that I revisit it now and again.

I keep thinking I can find a better term, but I can’t. I would love to just leave it at ‘queer’, but as I have said, that’s been taken to mean gay. Yes, I could explain every time I used it that I hdidn’t mean gay, but that’s not something I want to do. I really dislike pansexual (common) and omnisexual (not common). I can’t think of anything else, sadly, so I reluctantly keep bi. I use it to mean those like me and those not like me. I have said that I would just like to use ‘sexual’, but we all know that would not work out well. At all.


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Put a label on this, part three

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I’m down for one more post about labels and why, while I hate them, they are necessary. I guess. The “I guess” is for the last part, because I’m not sure they are necessary. Or rather, I know we have to have them in general, but do we need to use them to the extent we do? I’m honestly not  sure. That’s what I want to explore in this post. I’m frustrated with, well, everything right now. The state of the world is shitty. I mean, that’s a given at any time, really, but there are times that are worse than others. This is most definitely one of those times. Here is my post from yesterday in which I mostly talk about how I don’t fit in with society. How that’s related to labels you’ll just have to wait and see.

I check the news one or two times a day, and it’s always grim. At least in the States. Every bit of news is more depressing than the last, especially for certain demos to which I belong. It’s just bleak and bleaker with no hope of relief. Sure, there are brief rays of light like when Noem got canned, but the person who’s going to replace her isn’t any better. Maybe less of an an attention-seeker, but that’s not necessarily better.

It’s hard. I don’t necessarily want competent people in these positions because then they can do more damage, but the incompetent people do a ton of damage as well. I guess it’s just what kind of damage I want them to do (ideally, none, but that’s not going to happen).

It’s just really depressing that we have regressed so much in the last year. It’s only been a year and a bit! But even more depressing that more than half of the people who voted actually voted for this hellscape. they can tell themselves any lies they want, but they did this. No, I’m not accepting the bullshit we all caused this to happen. My brother tried to pull that on me. “This is what we voted for.” No. Hell to the fuck no. I did not vote for this. I have voted against this kind of thing ever since I could first vote. I have consistently voted agains this kind of thing. I don’t accept any responsibility, and it’s this kind of false equivalence that we need to stomp out.

Do Dems need to do better in recruiting for our side? Yes. Do we need to make our message fresh and relevant? Also yes. Do we need to crunch our message down into  easy to understand bite sizes? Very much yes. But what we do not need to do is accept blame for something that is not our fault. I did NOT get this guy elected. I reject that will my whole body, heart, and soul.


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Stick your labels where the sun don’t shine (part three)

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I’m back to talk more about labels. I know they’re needed and useful, but I would prefer to do away with them. Here is the post from yesterday in which I veered hard into talking about horror games for a bit. Why? Why not. Because it was spooky season, and while I enjoy it, I don’t get scared by most pop media.

I have said this many times before, and I don’t quite no why. I want to emphasize that I don’t count jumpscares in that my body jerking involuntarily is not fear; it’s a startle response. Also, it’s the cheapest way to get a ‘scare’, and I don’t approve. Making my body jump is not the same as scaring me; I will die on that hill. I will also add that I don’t recoil; I don’t screech; and I don’t freak out in any way. In fact, sometimes, I don’t even externally jump.

It’s not a flex; I swear. I’m just born different. I always have had weird responses to things (again, probably a neurospicy thing) so I just don’t process things the same way other people do. I used to wonder why, and it wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I realized it was something with my brain. Not that it was broken, but maybe ADHD?

Side note: I’m glad we’re moving away from just citing the stereotypical symptoms that happen to white boys when talking about neurodiversity. I’m bitter that I might have clocked onto it sooner if I had known that the oft recited symptoms weren’t the only ones, by any mean.

I think that’s one of the reasons I’m chary about labels, too. They put you in a box, and they don’t allow for any wiggle room. It’s one of the reasons I want to opt out of all the usual labels. I’ve said this in terms of ‘woman’. It’s like wearing an ill-fitting raincoat when it’s pouring out. Sure, it’ll keep much of the water out, but I’m still going to get wet. And I’m not going to feel good about it, either. I can’t wait to get out of it and dry off.

In other word, it’ll do in a pinch, but I don’t love it.

That’s how I feel about most labels. They’yll do in a pinch, but I don’t love them. Even the ones I choose.

When I was in college, I loved having tests that had essay questions. I can bullshit my way out of anything because I am good with words. It’s a gift, and it’s something I’m grateful for. If it’s a multiple choice quiz, though, I do horribly. Why? Because I overthink it. I can see situations in which each of the answers would be correct. That’s because most multiple choice quizzes/tests are poorly written, but that’s neither here nor there.


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The core of my identity is “fuck it! That’s close enough”

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Let’s talk gender identity. This is something I’ve thought a lot about in the last five years or so. I’ve never felt a burning need to identify with ‘woman’; it was just the easiest way to define myself. It’s the gender/sex I was born into, and it was…fine. At least, if I did not look too closely at it. Once I gave it more than two minutes of thought, though, it all fell apart.

I’m going to be completely frank here. When I think of gender as it relates to myself, I come up empty. I have heard/read people who identify deeply with their gender and how important it is to them. I can accept that it’s a vital core of their identity; I just wish others could accept that about me as well. Meaning, my lack of attachment to my birth gender. And I wish that it weren’t so threatening.

But that’s me in general. I think a lot about many issues. I go deep, research, get obsess, and then I throw up my hands and go, “Fuck! That’s close enough, I guess” because nothing fits exactly.

Let me quickly run down the list.

1. Bisexual. I tried on pansexual and omnisexual (hey, this was thirty years ago), but I did not like either of those. Honestly, my favorite is queer, but people invariably think gay (both gays and straights) when they hear queer. Nowadays, I use bi out of habit, and I think of it is ‘people like me and people not like me’ when it comes to gender, but it’s very much an “eh, it’ll do” label rather than one I embrace or one that fits.

2. Areligious. I used agnostic for awhile. I never liked atheist because that’s way too arrogant and confident for me. I did feel like there is something out there, but my medical crisis showed me that ultimately, it doesn’t matter what it is. My mother and I used to argue about free will versus predeterminism all the time, and I could never wrap my brain around the concept that an all-knowing god allowed us free will. I mean, if He (in her religion, it’s a He) knows what I’m going to do before I do it, then it’s not free will, is it?

I had a friend who was Jewish. She wrote an article about how she believed god was all-loving, but not all-knowing. It was a fascinating article, and while I couldn’t quite accept that, either, it made much more sense than my mother’s version of god.

At some point, I realized that I was tired. And I just did not care if there was a god or not because that god had no affect on my life. If pressed, I would say that I believed there was something that was bigger than all of us, but it’s not something that directs the day-to-day goings on so I just let it be.

I used ‘apathetic’ for some time to describe my religious belief before stumbling on areligious. Once I read up on the latter, I knew that was for me. I just don’t care about religion (for me), and that’s that.


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More about health and identity

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I am musing more about health, gender, and how I wish the world would be. Here is my post from yesterday in which I wrote about why I opted out of the ‘woman’ label–reluctantly and with some regret. As I said, in my previous post, I have no problems with the label itself or being called a woman in an ideal world.

Alas, we do not live in an ideal world, especially not now. And I am not a material girl living in a material world.

I want to be totally honest this post. I do not understand gender and why people are so wedded to it. This is not me saying I don’t believe that most people are very wedded to their gender–I know they are. I am just not one of those people. I wish we could just not talk about it, but I realize that this is not realistic.

In this society (and maybe others, but I cannot speak to that), we place so much emphasis on gender. It’s baked into so many things that even the mildest push back is considered radical, disruptive, and threatening.

Seriously. I cannot say how shocked I was at the pushback I’ve gotten from supposedly feminist women for…not wearing a bra. For quietly deciding not to have children. For stating the fact that calling someone by the wrong gendered ttitle is misgendering. For simply saying I’m agender. All of these in a very bland way because I know better than to be at all positive about it. Or for saying I don’t use pronouns.

I’m constantly reminded that me quietly living my life is a big shock to some people.

I mentioned this is an earlier post (I think), but I need to repeat it. Last year, I had to renew my license. When I went to the DMV to do so, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had nonbinary as a choice. They didn’t have it when I nenewed (online) four years prior (early pandemic), so I was not expecting it.

And  I didn’t choose it. Why? One, I don’t consider myself nonbinary. As I’ve said many times–if I was thirty years younger, that’s probably what I would call myself. Not because I vibe with it, but because it’s the least-worst of the options. Much like I chose bisexual, reluctantly, because there’s just no better label. Well, bi.

The biggest reason I did not choose nonbinary, though, was because I looked at the political climate around me. I knew the possibility of a repeat of the orange menace, and I knew that no matter what, the Republicans were going to make hate of queer/genderqueer people a major point of their platform. So, I swallowed hard and went back in the closet. I shut the door behind me, and sighed in sadness.


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Health in relation to identity

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Here’s the thing I learned from my debacle about not wanting/not having children. And this took me a decade into my thirties at least to fully suss out. I had no idea why women would be angry at me for not wanting children and being vocal about it. It’s beacuse they had bought into the societal message that they were supposed to have children and they could not tolerate anybody who indicated the lie in that statement. Because if they did,, then they would have to examine the choices they had made in their life. And they did not want to do that. Oh, they did not want to do that.

I must stress as I always do that I did not crow about it or say that anyone who wanted/had children were stupid/ignorant/out-of-pocket or anything like that. I never brought it up because I didn’t think about it except when people asked me about it. I used to explain it like this. I would never bring up not not having a dog because it was not a part of my life. Same with kids. I would never bring them up because I didn’t have them, didn’t want them, and did not have them as a part of my life.

Anyway. I was not ashamed of not having kids nor for not wanting them. I did not apologize or act as if it was a failing on my part. Because it wasn’t. That was my first step to distancing myself from being a woman, though I did not yet know it. If I was going to get so much shit from not doing my womanly duty (including from my mother, oh so much so), then I did not want to be a woman.

The bra thing is the same. Here’s my post from yesterday. Most women/AFAB people do not like wearing bras. Many wear them simply because they’re supposed to.. It’s a societal expectation, and when some people opt out, it triggers the crabs in a bucket mentality/martyr complex in others. “If I have to suffer, so do you!” It’s a terrible way to live life, but many people have that mentality.

So these oh-so-feminist and progressive women could not explain why they were so upset that some women and AFAB people did not want to wear bras. But even more so, they were upset that we weren’t apologetic about it. There were a half-dozen other women/AFAB people who unabashedly declared they would never wear a bra again without a hint of apologia in their statements.

And some women got so mad. SO MAD. Like, you would have thought we came and took their bras so they couldn’t wear them, mad. Just for saying we preferred not to wear bras or wouldn’t wear them.


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Martial arts are my life

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I have been studying Taiji for over fifteen years. Yesterday, I was writing about how I did some light sparring with my teacher in our last private lesson. And how much I loved it. I am still in the midst of realizing that I am not a newbie any longer nor someone who simply studies Taiji. In class today, everyone was on Zoom because it’s been snowing (yay! Three or so inches. It’s not much, but it’s sure pretty). The other three students who were in class are all newbies to novices. It’s interesting to see them for once because it reminds me of when I was a newbie.

It’s hard to know what you don’t know, of course. And I still have major issues with my form such as having my hands too high andnot bending my knees. I’ve had my teacher give me refinements because it’s hard for me to see what I’m doing wrong, obviously. I’m not looking at myself as I practice and even if I were, I wouldn’t necessarily see what was wrong. When you do the same thing over and over and over and over again, you don’t necessarily notice the flaws.

It’s similar to how when you’re editing your own writing, you may not see your mistakes. That’s why it’s always better to have someone else editing your work for you.

I don’t know why it is that me re-learning the Fan Form is what has made me realize that I was not a dilettante any longer. I think because I was no longer just floating from form to form, dreaming about what I would do next. Instead, I made a concerted effort to clean up the forms  I knew. For whatever reason, that took it from me practicing Taiji to me being serious about Taiji.

Yes, it took me sixteen or so years to get there. What can I say? I’m a slow learner. Actually, the issue is the opposite of that–I’m too quick a learner, so I take it for granted that I can learn things easily. When  I can’t, my mind rebels.

It doesn’t help that my upbringing is within the Taiwanese culture, which is very strict on good and bad (what is which and what the standard should be for good). It’s either an A+ or an F. There is no in between. I have tried to move beyond that, but it’s hard. I still feel like I’m failing at life for many reasons, and it’s something that I don’t know if I will ever escape completely.

My mother sometimes laments the fact that I don’t tell her anything. Well, that’s when she’s not dumping her problems on me–which, admittedly she’s doing every time she calls. About two decades ago, she blamed my therapst for putting a wedge between her (my mother) and me. she’s not wrong that my therapst helped me individuate, but she’s wrong in blaming my therapist or thinking it was a bad thing*.


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More about labels because I can, part two

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I’m still on the label trip because that’s the way my hyperfocus works, and by the way, can I say that for all the bashing hyperfocus gets, it can be really useful, too. I have over 10,000 words on my NaNoWriMo project, and we’re barely into day four. I give all credit to hyperfocus. When I first started learning Taiji weapons, I fell in love with the sword. Once my Taiji teacher placed it in my hand, I knew it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I pushed her to teach me the Sword Form as quickly as possible as I was obsessed with it. Once again, hyperfocus did me a solid.

What? I’m not supposed to be appreciative of hyperfocus? I’m supposed to say it’s bad and makes me lose time when I should be doing something else? That’s not wrong, of course. There are times when I’ve put hours into something I shouldn’t have. Such as FromSoft games. I have made a rule that I can’t start playing one after midnight because there is no way in hell that I will only play for an hour.

On the other hand, it’s a good thing when I use the pressure of something exterior to me to get shit done, such as NaNoWriMo. I have not been able to write (except here) for several months. Many months. So many months. NaNoWriMo was coming up, and a few weeks ago, I thought, “What if I use it to jumpstart my flagging writing?” I decided that was a good thing and started planning what I wanted to do in NaNoWriMo. In the past several years, I had been doing NaNoRebel because that was more my style and I was bored with NaNoWriMo.

Interjection: In yesterday’s post, I wrote about why I don’t date and what labels I could affix to that. It made sense when I wrote it. That’s all I can say in my defense. Back to my musings.

This year, I decided to go back to my roots precisely because I had not written in months. As the old saying goes, writing at all is better than not writing. It was time to go for the basic ‘write 50,000 words in a month’ and call it a day. I had all these ideas of what I wanted to write about with my NaNoWriMo project, but I wasn’t sure how to do it gracefully.

I had planned on doing two simultaneous projects, but now I’ve smashed it into one. A quick description of it would be mystical/surreal, murder mystery, autofiction (memoir because I like alliteration). To put it in friendly vernacular, I threw everything including the kitchen sink. Why? Because I wanted to. Also because I can. Also because why not? Wthi a healthy dose of ‘you can’t tell me what not to do’.


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Let’s talk about labels, shall we?

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I was reading an advice column for queer people, and I have to admit, I rolled my eyes a bit at all the labels the person applied to themself. Yes, I know we need heuristics in order to talk with each other (and, yes, heuristics is the word for the week. I’m seeing how many times I can cram it into my posts this week. Deal), but at least for me, there’s a limit as to how useful they are. Also, the more granular we get, the less useful the labels/groupings become.

What do I mean by that? I’ll use myself as an example as related to sexual identity. Let’s say that I identify as queer. That’s pretty broad and, sadly, has come to mean gay. I’ve fought against it for twenty years, but now, I’ve just accepted it. I don’t make the rules, but I have to follow them, begrudgingly, to a certain extent. I still call myself queer, but I have to clarify that I don’t mean gay.

Thirty years ago, I discovered that I was attracted to men and women. Yes, those two categories was what we talked about back in the day. I went through all the different available labels of the day (bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual) and decided with great reluctance that bisexual would do. I wasn’t happy about it, mind, but it was the best of the worst. Which is pretty much how I feel about most labels. The least worst rather than the best.

Then, we have to talk about sex v. love. I can sex with just about anyone I’m attracted to (or not, as it turns out. I would not suggest it, but it is possible). Sex is easy. I’m really good at that. When it comes to sex, I would say that I’m aro in that I can easily hook up without romantic feelings. In fact, I prefer that because sex is much less messy than romance. And because I have enough mental health issues that I don’t want to have a romantic relationship. Romance brings out the worst in me, and I don’t want it enough to fight that particular battle.

I explained it to my friends is this fashion. I love being alone. It’s my preferred state of being. Well, I wish Shadow was still with me, but beyond that, I don’t want a human being in my space 24/7. I have my issues; don’t we all? But I’m happy with myself overall. I like what I like, and I don’t like what I don’t like. I wear what I wear, and I eat what I eat. I mention that because there was a thread an Ask A Manager about clothing. A teacher wrote in and said that after she got home from work, she liked to change into her pajamas. Her husband, a CEO-type, came home later and while he would change into comfier clothes, he did not like that she wore her pajamas.


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More about gender just because I can

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I want to muse more about gender because I can. In the last post, I was all over the place as usual, but I mostly talked about how I view gender and how others view me (and my gender).

The reason I started questioning my gender was not because of all the ‘you’re not a real woman’ comments I got. I didn’t love those, of course, but I pretty much just shrugged them off. It’s because when nonbinary became more into the collective consciousness, I started thinking seriously about my gender. Before, I was default woman and, as I’ve said several times before, it’s like an ill-fitting raincoat. Yes, it keeps the rain out, more or less, but not completely. And it’s uncomfortable. I can’t wait to get home and take it off.

Just before my medical crisis, I decided that agender was the best term for me. Why? There are several reasons. One, I was reading several posts from women who were deep in their feels about being women. How important it was to them as people and a major part of their identities.Then, there were other AFAB people who said it wasn’t important to them at all. Of course, there were people everywhere in between as well.

Agender is hard to explain in part because it’s not any one meaning. It’s similar to nonbinary in that way. I think that’s another reason cis binary people are so threatened by it–it’s amorphous in a way that is disconcerting and perhaps even threatening.

Anything that fucks with the status quo is going to get pushback. I’ve known this since I was young and a weirdo in almost every way. I’ve learned to keep my opinions to myself for the most part because I…am just tired. And I’ve leaned to mask so well. That’s why when I inadvertently trip the ‘wtf’ wires, it’s doubly hard on me.

You see, I’m going into every interaction with my guard up. I know about a hundred things to keep to myself and how to do small talk. I’m so good at masking, I didn’t even know I was doing it until I was well into my forties. I just thought I was a weirdo and had to hide it.

Anyway, these women were talking about how core to their identities being a woman was. I reached deep down inside myself to visualize how I felt about being a woman and came up with–nothing. I felt nothing about being a woman.

I have feelings about my experience whilst being viewed as a woman, yes. I feel solidarity with women for the shared experiences. But, I also feel impatience and frustration at cis het white women who think their experiences as women are the official definition of womanhood. And for standing by their cis white het male counterparts with all their fucking white supremacy bullshit.

You know what? I’m going to immediately add something to this. I have already decided that I’m not going to date cis het white men when I start dating again, and I think I might add cis white women to that. I’m tired, y’all. The fact that this election is as close as it is has led me to a very dark place about my fellow Americans.


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