This is my previous post on the subject, and this post will be slightly different but also similar.

I’m a gothic/gothabilly-looking bio-female genderqueer femme drag queen.

You may notice that I have added a couple new identity markers to my identity than my previous post about this, both bio-female and genderqueer. I may even add “high” to femme, but I’m still debating this.

I consider gothic/gothabilly-looking to be part of my gender identity because it effects how I express my genderqueer femme drag queen self. If I wore other types of clothing I would express my femmeness or my drag queenness or my genderqueerity in different ways, but as it is I express it through a gothic/gothabilly type of dress. I don’t really consider myself goth or gothic, and I don’t consider any labels to really define me perfectly (part of the reason why my gender identity is so long), but I do think that identities are useful as ways in which to express something about yourself to others, but know that I mean them as temporary describers to express my current relation with my gender identity (as in this case) or anything.

Bio-female is pretty self-explanatory, standing for “biologically female” and basically meaning that I was born with primary sex characteristics of a female and my body has developed secondary sex characteristics as well. My body has developed into a female on its own accord, and without any suppliments or help from outside sources. Although I don’t really “feel” female, but I think that is my not feeling like a conventional woman more than not feeling “female” because sex identity (male/female) and gender identity (man/woman) are so closely intwined and hard to seperate.

Genderqueer femme drag queen all goes together, but can be picked apart as well. Genderqueer is basically my way of saying that I don’t quite feel that I fit into the conventional ideas of man and woman as genders (as opposed to male and female as biological sex as described above), although I adopt other remarkably feminine identities in femme and drag queen they are not the same as a bio-female woman, in my opinion.

Femme is more of a visual identity for me, it is my distinction between femininity and femme-ininty, basically that femme is my conscious decision to wear makeup and skirts and to appear in a feminine manner. Drag queen is more of an internal identity. I feel more closely associated with a the feminintiy presented by drag queens than the femininity presented by contemporary ideas of woman, that is, camp femininity. My femininity is exaggerated and over the top and comes from a place of realized unnaturalness.

I embrace the idea that all gender is drag, that there is no “original” gender, there is nothing which is innate in us towards the things which make up a gender, that does not mean that we aren’t drawn to certain activities or other, but, take for example gendered things throughout the years and in different cultures. In some cultures, such as many Native American cultures, long hair is a symbol of strength and masculinity, in some, such as our current culture, it is considered feminine. Some cultures have men wearing skirts, such as in Scotland, in our culture that is considered feminine. Men used to wear what we would consider tights in high English society, or lace or velvet, and all three of those are considered connected with the feminine.

I don’t mean that we aren’t pulled to certain things or others, which I think we are, and there is a mixture of psychological and sociological factors that lead to things like gender, and so on. However, what we decide makes up “masculine” and “feminine” traits are not normative, they are not natural or innate nor is there only one way to do them. This can be shown, too, just in the last 50 or so years. In the 1950s it was scandalous for women to wear pants, it was considered butch and masculine, but now most women often wear pants more than they wear skirts.

So, “drag queen” in my identity is related to this notion of performativity, that gender is not natural and is performed, and it is also tied in with me embracing a femininity which is not associated with women, but associated with men. Males can express a very different type of femininity than females can, and I try to bridge that gap, although I don’t think it is often shown to others, that is why this is more of an internal identity, as mentioned before. I love campy femininity, that femininity which is over the top, and most often associated with gay males rather than females. It is that which exposes femininity as a pose, a performance, and that is what I embrace.

Hopefully that all makes sense. Feel free to ask questions, I won’t be offended.

The paper I wrote for my Gender and Sexual Orientation class. It is rather long and somewhat academic.

Simone de Beauvoir (1949) states in The Second Sex “one is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one.” Judith Butler (1990) asserts in her analysis of gender in Gender Trouble that woman is to copy as copy is to copy, therefore there is no original when speaking of traditional gender roles or gender in and of itself, it is all a reproduction of something else. If these two statements are taken to be true, than anyone could become a woman, a man, or any other gender role which they desire. If women are not born then no other gendered identity is born either. Is gender, then, whatever we make of it?

Traditionally in our society gender roles are supposed to follow the sex which the gendered body is representing. Male bodies grow up to be men/masculine and female bodies grow up to be women/feminine. This isn’t always the case. Transgendered people throw off these two neatly defined gender categories which are socialized into us from day one. While multiple definitions can be applied to the term ‘transgender,’ it is generally and broadly defined as any gender deviance from the (two) traditional socially accepted genders (OutProud, 2007).

The term femme can have multiple meanings and interpretations as well: “[m]any femmes are lesbians, but femmes are also drag queens, straight sex workers, nelly fags, all strong women and sassy men” (Camilleri & Rose, 2002). Some have gone so far as to say “[t]rying to define femme is like trying to capture the essence of mystery” (Drinkwater, 2006) because it is an extremely subjectively defined identity, as all identities are. Specifically in this paper, however, the use of the gender femme in relation to genetic females who identify as femme will be examined. (more…)

From my reading response for my Gender and Sexual Orientation class today. Losing Sue is about MtF transsexuals.

“One thing in Losing Sue that was interesting to me was the introduction of Della/Del, and him saying “I prefer being called “he,” but I don’t really identify as a man. I identify more as a hermaphrodyke.” Why does being something in between man and woman end up looking masculine? Is it because masculine is the powered gender and therefore feminine is the queer gender, and to be something in between you have to be less feminine? Does that even make sense? It makes me think of Wilchins in Queer Theory, Gender Theory who talks about, well, a lot of things, but when she talks about her own sexual reassignment and how it’s valid to say “I feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body” but it’s not valid to say “I feel like a herm trapped in a man’s body.”

I know there is a debate regarding the gender binary perpetuation of transsexuals, and I think it comes out, partially, of what I’m talking about above. Regardless of what we try to accomplish, also, society ends up putting everyone in one of two categories: man and woman. If you don’t fit, we try to find out the “real” gender of the person, what they “really” must be, because people don’t get the facsimile of all gender, like we were talking about two class periods ago. I often feel like any gender outside the two binaries is a waste of time, and my gender specifically is because what am I challenging? Anything? I’m not sure if I could say that I feel “female” but, really, I don’t know what that means. I feel trans because even though I am genetically female I don’t think there is much that goes along with that, aside from my physical self, but that only goes so far. However, because I’m female and enjoy femininity it’s seen as more normal than most other things. Could I identify as a hermaphroditic drag queen? Sure. Would it do much to change the way society perceives me? Very little, unless I wore a button/shirt saying “I’m a hermaphroditic drag queen, ask me how!” But most likely people would just get confused.”

More about this later, perhaps.

I’m a gothic/gothabilly-looking femme drag queen.

Let me explain.

I add gothic/gothabilly-looking into my gender identity, because it dictates how my gender is expressed. If I was punk or lolita or more mainstream my gender would be expressed in a much different way. As it is, I’m beginning to adopt some things which are a little unusual for the gothic/gothabilly image, but I’m not a stickler to it either, and I’m not a stickler to my gender either.

I believe my gender is fluid. When I put a label on it, “femme drag queen,” I use that as at once slightly ambiguous as well as solid. I don’t believe it is really either. I can also identify as “trans” or “queer” as my gender, although I prefer “femme drag queen.”

It has taken me a long time to get to this identity. I was kind of oblivious for a long time, just kind of doing whatever, and rather feminine, but also not, and for many years I would only mostly play male characters in plays. I felt masculine, part of me feels more male than female, though I know and love the fact that I have a cunt, and this is partially where the drag queen identity comes in, though not only. I was rather femmish butch in high school, but mostly butch. I shaved my head, I was rather punkish, I felt rather masculine, though I also wore skirts. I had a friend’s father think I was a boy in a dress instead of a woman with a shaved head at one point, and I think it’s almost more accurate. I was kind of affronted at the time, but now I look back and I smile.

I recognize the fact that all gender is drag. “Woman is to copy as copy is to copy.” There is no “natural” or “innate” or “perfect” gender. All gender is a performance of gender, all gender expression is unnatural, all gender expression is fake, is a copy, is drag. And I love it. This is also partially where my gender identification of “drag queen” comes in.

Femininity as experienced by lesbians vs. bi/pan/omni-sexual females or males vs. straight females or males vs. gay males vs. any other sex (biological bodies) and sexual (who you sleep with) identities is extremely different for each group. The femininity which I can attain as an omnisexual female is not the same as the femninity which an omnisexual male or a gay male could attain. However, the femininity I identify with is that of omnisexual or gay males. The femininity I identify with is that of drag queens, both in subdued and extreme forms. The femininity I feel like I desire is a trans or queer femininity.

I am constantly performing my gender, and I love my gender, but it’s not something easily identified by those outside of myself. This isn’t a bad thing, I think, as on one hand it allows me to get closer to those who view me as typically feminine, and it allows me to shake up the ideas of it, though I don’t do that as often as I’d like, but I also do.

I’ve been told that I had a huge influence in my high school. My radical behavior influenced others to go do what they wanted and look the way they wanted and claim queer identities if they wanted. I’ve been told I’ve had a huge influence on my friends, one of which told me that she started wearing different clothing, clothing that she has always wanted to but never had the guts to, once we became friends and she watched me. She noticed me wearing whatever I wanted, wearing anything that I wanted, not caring about what others thought, and because of that she began to wear the clothing that she had previously been to self-conscious to wear. I know I have influence on people, and that simply by being me I can influence others (and I’m not meaning to sound pompous or pretentious or something, this is seriously what I’ve been told). It took me aback when I was told these things, but I’m glad I was told.

Not many people really get my gender at first mention of it, and a lot of people think that it’s something which is not challenging behaviors or thoughts, but the thing is it doesn’t matter as much to me what I’m challenging in others, though it does matter to an extent, but mostly I just want to be me.