Is anybody besides me getting tired of all the misogyny, gender stereotyping, [lack of]representation, privilege and picking and choosing who deserves equality and who doesn’t qualify as “normal” enough to fight for? All these arguments that seem to be stuck in a very loud infinite loop?
It can’t be just me that sits back and watches in stupefied, and slightly worn out, horror as yet another bout of insanity explodes across the internet. Right?
I’ve caused myself no end of trouble recently by refusing to sit down and shut up about things, and I thought, why not go one step further? So here we are: welcome to the perspective of a trans* person – a non-binary gendered queer, if you will.
Gender Neutral Bots?
I read with interest the news that a female Transformer was to be created. Basically, the general public were asked to vote for a new bot, and the general public chose Windblade, a female. I then read with interest all the – mostly male – fans who took issue with this female Transformer because the bots are technically supposed to be ungendered!
It’s an argument that works in theory, so why, then, did the general public decide that they wanted to see Windblade enter the canon?
In answer I invite you to take a look at the Transformers. Voice, speech, build, etc – they may not be specifically male, but they are masculine.
In this we see my point. If it’s not specifically identified as female/feminine, then it is assumed male/masculine.
Androgynous = male. Even if female.
There’s an episode of the show Bones in Season 4 called “The Girl in the Mask”. One character in this episode is Japanese doctor Haru Tanaka, who is wonderfully androgynous. Of course, large chunks of the episode are then dedicated to the squints trying to decide whether Tanaka is male or female – completely missing the entire point of them choosing to be androgynous.
In the end it turns out Tanaka is male – because “It” moved when the pretty lady hugged them. What’s interesting from my point of view is that this androgynous character who was revealed to be male was, in fact, played by a female – Ally Maki.
Let’s be clear on this – a female actor’s gender was removed, and that made her male.
Forgive me for labouring the point a little, but – really? The weird, inappropriate and insulting obsession with finding out the character’s gender aside, I wonder how easily, on mainstream tv, a male actor would have been stripped of his gender and made female. Anyone? No?
Any time somebody tries to tell you that women are equal and queer people are accepted – they’re wrong. The “assumed norm” remains the white, male, cisgendered, heterosexual. Every so often somebody starts to shout about how this norm is being drowned out, removed, ignored. They’re not: they remain the ones with the power and the privilege. What’s happening is that the “assumed norm” is experiencing other types of characters being created, noticed, appealed to, and it causes a panic which comes from the centuries of power and privilege they’ve experienced. It’s hard to let go of your power when you’ve always had it, especially if maybe don’t even realize you use it.
Being of non-binary gender gives me an interesting perspective. Sometimes I’m a woman, sometimes I’m a man, sometimes (most often) I’m androgynous. When I’m dressed as anything but specifically feminine, it’s generally assumed that I’m male.
I’ve always been comfy in my androgynous style of dress, but before I accepted my non-binary gender, being someone who is attracted to women, I was often mistakenly labelled “butch”, no matter how emphatically I refused the label. Not that butch is bad, just that I never was, and I knew it. But that darn androgynous dress sense made people assume that’s who I was.
Why? I think it’s because our culture always assumes male, unless given something specific to tell them otherwise.
To the people that can’t figure out if I’m male or female, the reaction is generally to try and find out. Why? In my experience, this is because it’s important to them to know how to treat me. There is a difference in how I’m treated, by people who perceive me as female/male/androgynous – and this applies to everything from respect to insults.
Being a freak is ok
What can I say? I’m a freak. A freak is someone that doesn’t fit within prescribed societal norms. It’s an apt description, and usually makes me grin when someone tries it on as an insult. It’s generally other people that aren’t ok with my refusal to pretend to fit in. It shows them something they can’t stuff into the simple boxes that they’re told everyone should choose to put themselves into, and that confuses people. Confused people often lash out and hate rather than try to learn and understand.
We are taught – not always overtly – that male is one thing, female is another. We are taught that there is nothing inbetween, very little common ground, and that anything not appearing to be one or the other is a freak which must be found out and abhorred. Nobody is born with these definitions in mind – they come from our culture, and in our culture we have great difficulty in entertaining anything other than a binary view.
A challenge issued – again
I’ve talked before about LGBTQ representation in media, and about privilege. I’ve encouraged people whenever the opportunity has arisen to change something in what they create to include something that challenges the assumed norm and the binary view which is the status quo. I issue the challenge again.
In this world there are countless variations on everything. People are no different. There is black and there is white, but there is also every other colour on the spectrum – and it’s not just that it’s exclusionary and to ignore all of those colours, it’s that by doing so you miss the opportunity to expand and grow everything that you do, to reach new heights (and depths) by exploring something different and learning something new.
Black and white, and even the odd shade of grey, gets boring when it’s all you see. If you were to add the odd splash of colour into what you do, I think you’d be amazed at the possibilities that open up.
The mainstream is too afraid to do this. The indie community shouldn’t be. And as always, who better to take up the challenge of pushing some boundaries than the women that push them every single day?