Midwest GenderQueer

When I was a kid, I LOVED Toxie. A big bond between us was that he had a handkerchief and so did I -everyone always made fun of me for using one… they still do actually, but here was a superhero using one! He used his “hanky” whenever he cried, which was usually because he was emotionally moved. I loved that he was sensitive and how he loved his tutu, and that he was also very masculine. The show was only on a short while, but for a long time after I would play his character in games among Captain Planet and Xmen. My friends were grossed out by his ugliness and didn’t get why I would want to be him, but I thought he was handsome and amazing. I remember not being able to put my finger on exactly why I idolized him, but I knew it had something to do with the fact that he was a tough boy who also girly… and cared about the environment… and was an activist… and had a pretty girlfriend. Genderfucked memories. 

Photos from my genderfuck burlesque number, from The Black Mondays Holiday Show. Gotta love anything involving feathers and gold lame’. I actually really love how the costume came out - it was not what I originally planned, but it was super fun! I also did not originally plan to make it a burlesque number, and formally it was my first burlesque-style number. I’ve been wanting to do one for a while, guess this was the time for it!

[image: pink haired, androgynous performer, Midwest GenderQueer wearing a gold lame’ tube top showing his midriff, a while boa bustle and skirt with gold beaded fringe and bells, gold hot pants, and gold 6 inch peep-toe heels dancing on stage, waving a white long-feathered fan]

Anonymous asked: I recently met someone at my school's Gay/Straight Alliance. I identified as a straight female before we started flirting so I thought this person was a straight male. After a week I found out that this person identified as genderqueer and has female genitals. They understood why I no longer wanted to continue the relationship, but I feel like I strung them along. Is it my fault for not specifically asking them what they identify as? Is it ok to ask in these situations? Is it ever ok to ask?

This is such an important question! It sounds like you did all the right things when you found out this person wasn’t the right match for you. It’s not your fault that you didn’t ask; you’d never been in this situation before so you didn’t realize it was needed. We have been raised in a culture where we aren’t taught to recognize gender non-conformity and gender variance. You saw the person through the eyes of someone who wasn’t familiar with genderqueer, not on purpose, but because it was all you knew. What is important is that you are being honest, responsible, and trying to learn. That’s the key! And since the other person is ok with it, I encourage you to feel ok with it too.

There are a lot of reasons why someone may want to know someone else’s identity – the big two are looking for people like ourselves or because we may want to date them. If this is your situation, it is ok to want to know and there are ways to ask without seeming nosy or being rude. Some people don’t mind if you ask directly, but some people do – especially if the person is new to coming out. That is why I usually suggest that, rather than asking directly, waiting until the person decides to share their information with you. That said, there are ways to grease the wheels and open the conversation. This sounds like fishing, but you can be sure it is not as long as you keep the intention of getting to know the person, versus figuring out ‘what they are.’ When you get to know someone as a person, then the understanding and recognition of their identity will come too. Before asking sensitive questions, it is important to be in a space where it is safe to share, like the GSA or somewhere private. Then, a good place to start is asking for someone’s pronoun. This doesn’t have to be a big deal; you can do it when you first meet someone: “Hi, what’s your name? What pronoun do you prefer?” Or you can ask later: “I’m sorry; I never got to ask for your pronoun. Can you tell me?” The pronoun question isn’t necessarily going to tell you how someone identifies, but it is a good start to respecting their identity. Since we can never expect to learn everything about someone in the first couple conversations, you may not know how someone identifies for a little while. If this is someone who you may be interested in dating, you may want to know sooner than later. That’s totally understandable, and it may be best to ask directly. When doing this, you’ll want to avoid two things 1) making people feel outcast or othered (“What are you?”) and 2) making assumptions (“Are you INSERT INDETITY HERE?”). Instead, make it casual and supportive. Everyone has an identity, no biggie. You can ask “By the way, do you identify?” in a friendly way and then return the favor by saying “Ah, that’s cool, I identify as this….”

We are all constantly learning about each other and from each other. You sound like a sensitive and kind person, so I am sure that whatever situation you are in, you will do just fine. Don’t ever beat yourself up for not knowing something, instead, keep doing what you’re doing right now, reaching out for help so you can learn. That is awesome! Good luck!

Anonymous asked: I'm really sorry if this comes off the wrong way, but were you born male or female? I know that you advertise as genderqueer, but I just wanted to know.

In this space of (internet) learning, I’m not offended by your question so don’t worry about it coming off wrong. Actually, I’m asked this frequently, and I like to answer it with another question: What drives us to want to know? Sometimes we ask because we want to find people who are similar to ourselves, but most of the time we ask out of curiosity or confusion. I understand both the confusion and the curiosity; I’m not immune to feeling it either. When I do feel it, I remind myself that my desire to know (outside seeking to connect with other trans* people) is not just a harmless curiosity, but a learned practice of oppression. I don’t shame myself for wondering; humans feel the need to label things because it helps us learn about the world, but our methods of identification/labeling system were designed to ignore difference. We are all taught to categorize people as something society recognizes, and when we run into someone who doesn’t fit, we may feel puzzled, frustrated, or uncomfortable. To alleviate this, we try to squeeze that person into whatever normalized label is closest – that is when this (unintentional) oppression takes place. I think that instead of forcing the world into old ideas, we need to force new ideas into the world. We must pry open our brains to create a new understanding of humanity and learn to be ok with not knowing exactly what someone was, is, or might become.

That was my long answer, but to re-cap in short: Sometimes I think I can do more to promote an understanding about gender variance by not answering questions about my own. This way, instead of explaining me within the boundaries of old ideas, it makes people create a way to explain me with new ones. :) 

“When I came out, I didn’t know anyone gay, queer, or trans* and my only feasible connection to people like me was my campus’ Women’s Studies department…”

This blog is in reference to this Tumblr question.

transtheorist asked: What do you think about "gender as performance"? I find it really questionable. Performance implies an audience which yes there is one but there are many aspects of my gender that are just for me. And how do you perform man or woman, this theory seems to imply there is one, or one main way to perform these genders recognizably. And what if you're a butch woman or a femme boy for instance, how do you perform that and still be recognizes as a man or woman. How does one perform as non-binary?

This is an awesome question, so awesome that I turned it into a blog! 

My short answer (that is just for you!): Before saying anything, I want to put it out there that I have some strong feelings about this topic. To be nice, I feel that gender performance theories are outdated and over-simplified. To be honest, I call bullshit. As a gender variant person, I have never been able to get over my aggression towards gender performance theory. According to its ideas, gender is chosen - meaning I chose to be trans, I chose to be femme, I chose to be genderqueer, and I also can choose to not be these things. I don’t see how any gender variant person can not be insulted by that. I’ll own it: I have baggage. When I was coming out, the closest thing I had to a queer resource was the Women’s Studies department. When I got there, faculty, students, books, films, you name it, they all repeatedly told me that I was just performing, and if I wanted to, I could do it differently. To someone who (up until that point) had no exposure to queer or trans stuff and was feeling confused, isolated, and angry… it was excruciating. I was looking for community support, and all I got was an isolating fight. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of love for Women’s Studies (or whatever the depts. are called now days), but part of me will never forgive “Women’s Studies” or gender theory for putting me through that.

“Gender as performance” was one of the women’s empowerment movement’s moves to legitimize gender difference and subversiveness, primarily referencing expression but at the time, gender expression and gender identity were thought to be the same thing, There is no ‘just for me’ part and that is the main problem with the theory. There is no identity element, just a choice of masculine or fememine never even considering the possibility of non-binary. But off paper, how do we choose what traits we want? We figure out what feels right based on our identity and work from that. If our decisions about presentation (or “performance”) are based out of some internal drive to express ourselves, is it really a choice? And if we put on clothes that are not expressive of what we feel we are, does that change who we are? If someone is non-binary and puts on a dress – is that person not expressing their gender identity because their identity is non-binary but a dress is gendered? That dress becomes what the person wearing it wants it to be. It’s all about how we conceptualize it – and that requires a smashing of cultural assignments. In the workshop you were in last month, I went on and on about how gender is the key to societal recognition. If you are a femme boy or butch woman, you can not be recognized by society as anything but “other” without challenging gendered society itself. That, I think, was part of the original argument of gender perfomancists – they didn’t want to be defined by presentation and wanted to challenge gendered society. The problem is that people took it too far, enabling it to delegitimize every form of gender expression and identity. A perfect example of this is found in the Femme community. Femme-phobia comes from gender performance theory; If you are choosing to be feminine (in theory terms, perform femininity) then you are supporting the patriarchy that sexualizes women as beauty objects and selling out. There is no option for someone to like being feminine for the sake of enjoying femininity. This would lead one to believe that femininity is bad and that a woman can not be feminine for her own pleasure. Also, gender performance theories are at the root of second wave feminism’s rampant transphobia – we are imposters because we decided to be trans out of weakness, perversion, or cause we’re just plain evil, cause that’s what a theory for equality should do. It is arguments like these that lead me to believe gender performance theorists were delusional.

How does someone “perform” non-binary? I think a person has to be on a stage to do perform it. You may think of some expressive traits more deliberately than others, but all are defined by a personal element that disallows it to be a performance in how gender performance theory intended. Non-binary in real life is, like any other gender expression that is based on an identity; there is no one way, and no wrong way, to do it.

I ramble much more thoroughly on this here on my blog. But don’t let those theories get you down! Life is much more complicated than any book or paper can ever capsulate. You can do right by your own life by living it for the sake of learning who you are, not who other people think you should be.

Originally posted on Putting the END in GENDER.

via genderfork:

[image: male/masculine presenting person with sunglasses and short shaggy hair standing in green grass near a street with cars. They are dressed in a black business suit, white shirt, and dark tie. The pants are rolled up to their knees and they are wearing black high heel shoes. They are holding a sign that reads “End Gender Violence”]

Anonymous asked: I'm genderqueer (of the non-binary gender identity sort) and I live in Ohio. I seriously feel like I have no trans* community here and it's becoming really depressing. Idk, I guess I'm just wondering what do I do? What places are there to go? What can i do? I'm feeling a little trapped here.

I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been feeling like you don’t have community - I can relate to that struggle for sure, it is rough out here! There are not really any specific GQ spaces in Ohio I can refer you to - my org MTQWI has a significant GQ community in it in addition to a spectrum of trans* folks, and there are spectrums in other Ohio based groups like TransOhio and TransCleveland. I’ll admit it isn’t the most regular thing, but numbers of different folks are going up. When I struggle to find community, my attitude is ‘if you build it, they will come’ - start a discussion group, a website, an event, etc to promote visibility and your people will come to you. Sometimes it takes a minute, but they will! Since that isn’t always feasible, you can ask at local groups and even if they don’t have any gq members you can ask them if they find someone to steer them your way. When all else fails, use the magic internet (like you are right now! yay!)- go to fb pages and blogs that have relevant topics to you and see if you can find folks who may be similar to you to chat with. Unfortunately, something I’ve come to adjust to is that I usually have to travel to access my communities because there still is none where I live, despite my trying.  It isn’t ideal, but it is better than having no community at all. It still gives me things I would get from a community: I have people I can reach out to and plan little escapes for a battery recharge. And since there really is no replacing having immediate community, if you want to let me know whereabouts in Ohio you are, I can hopefully connect you with some people near you. Or if you’d like to try to do a local group I would be more than happy to help in whatever way I can. I hope I can help you not feel trapped, I know how awful that feels because I feel it a lot myself. If anything, we can be ‘trapped’ together and together we can find a way out.

hugs!

JAC

I can’t really express my level of excitement about this book The Lives of Transgender People. I first met Sue Rankin years ago in Detroit and was blown away by her humanity and warmth. In a way, my interactions with her changed a lot of my ideas about what academia is currently capable of in helping trans* communities. Her co-author Genny Beemyn’s early work (focused on college campuses and trans* issues) is  what I based a lot of my early organizing work on when I was shaking things up in undergrad. So yeah, this book is coming out. You should read it.

(Source: tqnation)

I complain about why stores dont make cute clothes in my size, then I realize I’m in the toddler section.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have high standards. If I’m going to spend time, energy, and money on something, it better be worth it. Same goes with life, if someone is going to try to give something to me, I’ll only take it if it is worth taking; if I’m going to live my life, I’m going to make it worth living.

amazing shots of silver screen actresses genderbending.

[image: series of photos of silver screen actresses of the 20s, 30s, and 40s dressed in masculine, male, or men’s clothing]

omgthatdress:

Who says drag is just for boys?

I love this every time I see it.

via genderfork: Originally posted at me in the wild.

[image: possibly male assigned at birth person shirtless wearing a teal and black and white poka dot tutu and dirty white converse sneakers standing on pointed toes like a ballerina with head down covering head and face with arms.]

I’m having a jam-packed two-day visit to Ohio University, if you’re near by, come check it out! 

And here is a fancy newspaper article.

Come out tomorrow for the 1st Cincinnati Trans* Community Group Picnic!! 

The Cincinnati Trans* Community Group (CTCG) in partnership with TransOhio is hosting a community picnic full of food and fun! Dress up or dress down in your favorite picnicking outfits and bring your family, friends, partners, and pets to chow down, play games, and enjoy the season! TransOhio will be providing hot dogs and veggie dogs and we invite everyone to bring their favorite picnic dish!

Location, Accessibility, and Transportation:
The picnic will be held in the upper part of Burnet Woods Park, in the upper playground near the gazebo. The picnic area is on grass but has accessible parking and a paved path almost directly up to it. Accessible bathrooms are safely located very near the picnic area as well. Parking is available and Burnet Woods is directly on the bus line.

For more information or specific concerns, please contact info(at)transqueerwellness.org