Category: Gender Galaxy

Hermaphroditic Drag Queen?

On October 24, 2007

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.

My Gender Identity

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On October 4, 2007

In Gender Galaxy

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.

ButchFemme by Team Gina

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On October 3, 2007

In Gender Galaxy

I found this through my sister a while ago, and I just love it so much. We’re reading about butch/femme this week in Gender & Sexual Orientation, which made me want to post this for everyone, ’cause everyone needs to see it.

It’s simply called ButchFemme and by a pair in Seattle with wonderful lines like:
“you don’t see as many of them anymore, not like back in the day, you know, when they had to wear three pieces of women’s clothing not to be arrested…”
“I like butch girls and I cannot lie. You other femmes can’t deny, when a butch walks in all the femmes wanna fuss ‘cause there’s one of them and thirty of us”
“sometimes I miss the butch/femme dynamic”
“I like a girl whose pants hang off her ass. I like a girl with a little bit of body mass. I like a girl who knows she makes me gawk at her star tattoos, sun glasses, and mohawk.”
“Write me letters, bring me flowers, screw me all night for hours and hours.”
A cute little flag to the hanky code (“Hey butch girl i’m kind of having a problem, I see from your hanky that you’re flagging a bottom. It’s not that I want to be a sterotype, a passive femme girl, receptive, polite. But come on, is your bark worse than your bite? are you really gonna make me Top you tonight? i’m not trying to be predictable, but you’re going to have to pin me against this wall.” “Oh, is that what that bandana meant? Oh, no, I must have had that in the wrong pocket or something. No… no, no… I’m a Top, I swear!”)
and so many more.

Team Gina’s myspace page