Tag: identity

Stereotypes

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When it comes to gender, stereotypes are pretty much unavoidable. In a sense, all that gender consists of is a series of stereotypes that are made to seem real by being repeated time and time again; gender exists as an ideal based around stereotypes which has no exact replica in reality. That’s how I understand gender to operate, at any rate. So, while gender depends upon stereotypes, there’s a general understanding that stereotypes are a negative thing, and I agree with this. No one really wants to be a ‘stereotypical’ man or woman because that position can be stifling or contradictory. I’m quite interested in this idea of stereotypes as a necessary evil of gender theory.

One way that I often see gender stereotypes deployed is to discredit trans people. The argument goes that trans men and women, in transitioning towards an ‘ideal’ of gender by taking hormones and having surgeries, reinforce harmful gender stereotypes. This could to some extent be true. A trans woman having facial feminisation surgery understands that there is a beauty standard for women and in conforming to this reinforces the stereotype which can then be used to marginalise those who do not meet it. But I don’t think it’s fair to aim this attack directly at trans folks. Cis women who wear makeup and dresses are reinforcing the same stereotypes, and so this attack could be applied to anyone who meets any aspect of a gender stereotype. It doesn’t make sense to demonise one marginalised group for doing something and let the dominant group get off without rebuke; that sounds like transphobia, to me. I appreciate that it’s more extreme in the case of trans women, but not that much more. Loads of women get botox, fillers, implants, to get themselves closer to their ideal of feminine beauty. And although I use women in this example, men are not exempt; they go to the gym to appear more masculine, grow facial hair etc. The point is that I don’t think anyone should be punished for striving to meet stereotypes that are ingrained within the fabric of society. It’s how and why they are met which can be praised or criticised.

There’s nothing wrong with stereotypes, per se. It’s how they function that ought to be critiqued. If a stereotype is applied loosely, as more of a framework, then that’s fine in my opinion. But when they are rigid and exclusive they can be damaging. I am critical of gender in a lot of ways, but I still have an understanding of what ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ qualities are, even as I understand them to be imaginary terms. In my head I have a loose idea of what a man is. But because I identify predominantly as a man doesn’t mean I force myself into this framework. At one time I tried to do that, when I was younger and less sure of myself. But I quickly learned that it wasn’t for me. And so I take these qualities of masculinity and apply them to myself when they feel natural: I like having a beard, for example, and I like being independent, a quality most often associated with men (and I don’t mean to say that women don’t possess this quality because I know loads of women that do, but in a traditional, problematic understanding of gender (which might be the only one we universally have), independence tends to signify masculinity). I don’t like football and I’ve never been a stern or confrontational person, and so I let go of those qualities.

That’s why I’ve never understood why criticisms of non-binary gender identities claim that they seek to eradicate gender. I guess it depends on the type of NB identity being referred to. Agender folks might seek to eradicate gender as they don’t identify with it (although I don’t think it’s true that identifying in one way makes you want to eradicate any alternative. Identifying as a man doesn’t mean you want to eradicate women). But my gender identity is aligned more with gender fluidity; I feel gender strongly, from both masculine and feminine ends of the spectrum. If I identify variously with both masculinity and femininity, why would I want to get rid of gender? I can’t follow that reasoning. My mental well-being depends on the existence of extremes of gender. I need those stereotypes to understand myself.

I think what it comes down to is a misunderstanding. I would like to relax notions of gender in the future, but I don’t want to get rid of gender. I don’t want to stop males from being men; I want to allow males to choose not to be men, if they so choose. Nowhere does that involve preventing males from choosing to be men (I find that it tends to be men who most strongly fear that NB identities will threaten their own gender identity). I want everyone to find the gender identity that suits them best. But it seems that gender as we use it – with its dependence on strict stereotypes – is a failing system. Traditional heterosexual, cisgender stereotypes are harmful to many individuals, myself included. But seeing gender as constructed, as non-essential, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Lots of things are constructed, but it doesn’t mean they don’t have material reality. But what I think it does mean is that if gender is constructed and it isn’t fulfilling our needs as human beings – which I think it straightforwardly isn’t – we should be able to reconstruct it so that it functions better. I don’t think there’s anything particularly radical in wanting to change something that doesn’t functions as best as it could. Ideally gender would cease to exist, but I can’t see that happening, in my lifetime at least. But I think a movement towards relaxing gender stereotypes would be a step in the right direction, and I think it starts with allowing for the coexistence of binary and non-binary gender identities.

WRB

On Labels

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I’ve noticed a whole lot of discourse lately about the labels we use to describe, especially ones in terms of sexuality. A lot of people who don’t really understand how labels work use language such as, ‘that makes me gay,’ or whatever, and I think language like this fundamentally misunderstands how these labels work.

Why do we use labels? Well, I think there are two main reasons for this. We pick a label so that we can more easily understands ourselves, and so that others can more easily understand us. So, I label myself as ‘gay man’ because when I was coming to understand my sexuality there was a pre-existing category of ‘gay man’ that I could identify with, and when I was confused it gave me a tangible community with which I could find solidarity. It still serves that function, and it is comforting to find yourself among a community who use the same label as you. Similarly, coming out as a gay man helped other people understand me better. It is deemed on some level vital to have other people understand you; were I not labelled as I am then there would be something inauthentic about how I live in the world because everyone would assume that I were something that I’m not. It’s kinda problematic that we need labels to demarcate ourselves, but I would rather use a label so as to differentiate myself that have everyone include me in a group which I don’t belong with.

I could go on talking forever about how unnecessary these labels are. To state that there is a community of gay men is to suggest that there is a coherent group of people who all exist in the same way, which doesn’t really seem to be how the world works. Labels can only ever be reductive; the label creates the group it describes, rather than describing a group which exists without the label. But the fact is that labels are one of the primary ways that we as an LGBT+ community understand ourselves and understand one another. And so I think to that end we would be unable to live without labels. It’s just necessary to acknowledge that they are not totalising, they allow for heterogeneity and we should appreciate them as fluid and flexible.

Now, the main issue I have is how people interpret these labels. So, when a gay man says, ‘if I find a girl attractive, does that mean I’m not gay anymore?’, I find it an oversimplification of how labels work. This suggests that there is somewhere a set of rules that determines whether we fit a certain label or not, and so when deciding whether a particular label is accurate we can defer to some pre-existing rules for an answer to that question. It posits an essential category of ‘gay’ that can be understood better if we keep looking hard enough. I don’t agree with that understanding of labels. Labels exist and signify as and when we use them, and to meet the ends that we desire. So, no, I don’t think fancying a girl means that you’re not gay in any inherent sense. Because being gay is something that the individual gets to decide on; there is no objective criteria to go by.

So, when re-negotiating labels as we understand our bodies and desires better I think that we only really need to consider our own needs. So: if choosing a different label instead of ‘gay’ would allow you to better understand yourself then it might mean that you are not ‘gay’ any more. But the label of ‘gay’ can be compatible with feminine romantic/sexual attraction if the person in question finds that label the most useful. If you are actively seeking a relationship with a woman then the label ‘gay’ probably won’t suit your needs and so another one might be necessary. Otherwise ‘gay’ probably works just fine.

The point is: labels are there so that we understand ourselves and so that we can manipulate how we are perceived in the world. They are inherently flawed, because the language that we have does not accurately describe things so complex as sexual attraction, gender identity, and so on. But probably the only way we have of properly understanding ourselves and others is through the medium of language, and so we have to learn to navigate these labels effectively. But it’s always down to the individual. When wondering whether a label is right, ask yourself this: does this label do what I want it to do? That’s all I think we can go off of, really.

WRB

On gender identity

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I have a weird relationship with gender identity.

On the one hand, I’m very sure of my gender identity. For a long time I was confused, as I think a lot of feminine gay men are; something didn’t feel right, the label ‘man’ felt stifling but the label ‘woman’ was a daunting one, something I didn’t really understand but that always seemed within a haunting proximity. But I managed to work my way through that period of confusion. I educated myself about trans identities and realised that I do not identify completely with that narrative, and I also learnt that ‘man’ need not be as stifling as I had previously thought, it can accommodate me if I choose to accommodate it. I’ve come to accept that these labels are not absolute and can be used as and when I like; ‘man’ might be a word I’ve always grappled with, but in social contexts it tends to serve me well and I am comfortable when that label is ascribed to me. It’s less of a fact of who I am than an opinion, and I don’t experience unease when it’s placed on me. This is all a long-winded way of saying: I identify, in some loose sense of the word, as a man, and I am comfortable with that.

On the other hand, I feel like I know very little about my gender identity. I use ‘man’ because man loosely fits and it’s there, already fully-formed. It’s something of a lazy option: I wear the garment that I found in the cupboard rather than stitching my own. But when I think about myself, I rarely think of myself as a man. I don’t know what I think of myself as, but the cognitive model that ‘man’ triggers does not correspond to how I perceive myself. In other words: I’m still figuring shit out. It’s like I occupy these two ideological planes: I exist in a binary world, and I have found a secure footing there, but I also exist in a world in which gender is more elusive, and it’s in this space that I experience confusion. Ideologically I’ve deconstructed ‘man’ and ‘woman’, but in this new frontier I find myself disoriented without stable points of reference.

This reads as a contradiction – how can I be a man and not a man? But I don’t think that question is quite as counterintuitive as it seems, when I set it out as I do. Because I’m referring to two different arenas, the social and the personal. Socially I’m a man, but personally I’m not. This might seem to some an arbitrary distinction to make; perhaps I make myself vulnerable to ‘snowflake’ attacks. But all I ‘m doing is describing gender as I understand it, and as I think it is most coherently understood. Decades of gender theory has deconstructed the binary model of gender to such an extent that it’s hard to get any stable footing in this realm, and so contradictions are bound to happen for those who are exploring this new terrain. A lot of people (although perhaps not quite as many as it might seem) don’t need to distinguish between the social and the personal because the two neatly map onto each other; or, their personal gender identity is widely accepted socially. Mine isn’t. And so I’ve got a bit more work to do when it comes to understanding my gender.

For a while I’ve toyed with the labels that come with this territory: non-binary, genderqueer, gender fluid. None of those seem to fit. But I can’t work out if it’s because I don’t identify with them, or because such identities have such a stigma attached to them (in much the same way that I was scared to identify as ‘gay’ because that was the worst thing a man could be, I thought). If the terms were neutral, how would I approach them? I guess that’s inconsequential, because words (especially words related to the LGBT+ community) are not neutral. Part of adopting a label means adopting, or at least coming to terms with, its connotations. I’m not yet confident enough in my gender identity to do so. The word ‘queer’ fits, but it feels a bit like a cop-out; it doesn’t really affirm anything. It’s a useful word to free one of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, but it doesn’t really help in identifying as anything else – at least not for me, anyway. Perhaps it merely signals non-identification, and I should just accept that as where I’ll always be.

How do I proceed? I don’t know. All I can really do is experiment. I think I’ve reached this place where I’m happy to do whatever feels right. I’ve started messing about with drag and makeup and it feels good, so I’m trying not to overthink what it all means, where it situates me re: gender identity. It’s just a thing I like doing; I’ll work out the significance later on, if that’s what I choose to do. I’m not a teenager anymore, I don’t feel a pressure to be anything and I don’t have any of that adolescent self-consciousness – at least not to the same extent. I might not proclaim myself as a feminine man vocally, but I think my actions speak louder than words in this regard. I’m stitching my own garment now, and perhaps I’ll reach a day when I can take off ‘man’ and replace it with something else. Maybe I won’t; maybe it will stay in the closet. But there’ll be piece of mind when I get there. And even if I can’t pull it all together into a single garment, that’s fine. The process of trying to work out gender is perhaps the only place where gender exists.

Identity is a fucking minefield. Every day there seems to be newspaper stories about identities that seek to move beyond cisgender binarism, and I think they seriously misunderstand how identity functions. Gender can’t be fitted into a headline, into a short phrase. And if that’s how gender operates for some people, good for them. But failing to meet that standard isn’t failing. I see things like ‘my gender changes on a daily basis’; and this is true, I feel it, but when it’s condensed into a six-word phrase some of its essence is lost, and it’s easy to ridicule. And that’s why it’s so hard to push non-binary identities into the social realm. They are so personal, I think, and I’d be hard-pressed trying to convert that into something that anyone else might understand. I appreciate the efforts of those who try and do this, but until I am more sure of myself I’m not sure I can partake in it.

But I think what I can do is open up this space of confusion. Because that’s what I think gender is: it doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to. I’ve kind of been forced to probe my gender identity because something’s not quite right, but I imagine that if a lot of people similarly probed their gender identity it would not hold up as stable. Those who push at the boundaries of gender, I think, are those who come closer to understanding it. Not to make myself superior to anyone else; all I’m saying is that these kinds of monolithic concepts need to be interrogated. The act of interrogation is, I think, where gender is its most potent. I feel gender most when I push it. When I wear heels I don’t really feel like a woman, but I feel gender to a greater intensity than at other times. And sometimes I don’t; sometimes I put on the heels and it doesn’t connect, I don’t feel much at all. I think it’s perhaps more useful, for me at least, to note when I feel gender the strongest, rather than trying to calibrate these feelings on a scale from ‘man’ to ‘woman’. All of this is a bit vague, and maybe I’ll take it all back later, but for now it makes a bit of sense. Perhaps I’ll leave it at that.

Also: it’s refreshing to write about gender identity in this way. I’ve not told many people that I like wearing heels and makeup.

WRB

On Pseudonyms

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I don’t know if this matters much, but I write this blog under a pseudonym. I do this for a number of reasons. On more of a practical level it affords a certain amount of privacy, it makes me as an individual less vulnerable to criticism; WRB is something of a shield I can hide behind. It’s not that I’m writing as anyone other than myself, but I want to distinguish myself as a person from myself as a writer – I can’t necessarily take responses to WRB IRL because the domains of a blog on the internet and conversation between two individuals are completely different, and I can’t have the same kinds of discussions across them, I don’t think. It’s a way of containing discourse, and it means that what I write doesn’t taint who I am and who I am doesn’t taint what I write. For me it’s the best way of maintaining a secure sense of who I am. I always found it difficult setting up online profiles, responding to emails etc. because it felt like I was projecting a self somewhere it didn’t belong, and I was always worried that the self I projected to one domain wouldn’t match up with the self of another domain. Using a pseudonym allows me to avoid this difficulty because I am not claiming any kind of continuity between me and WRB (I do, as a matter of fact, think there are many continuities, but I’m not claiming them as given, meaning I don’t have to account for any differences). It might be an arbitrary distinction to make, but its one that I stand firmly behind.

I’ve always been intrigued, perhaps tormented, by the idea of a ‘self’. I’ve never been particularly sure of what kind of self I am. When I was younger and started creating profiles on Facebook, Twitter, etc. I initially found it liberating, because I could create whoever I wanted and that was me and it was great, I was free where I’d always felt oppressed as a living person. But then I’d get carried away, and the person I’d project into these internet spaces would run away with itself and I’d find this massive distance between me and them. And then curious things would start to happen; people IRL would talk about things internet-me had done, and I’d find myself unable to respond because of this gap that had formed between them. I was always flabbergasted that people could be the same person online and IRL! That was something I never mastered, even to this day.

I think social media is great, but personally I was always troubled by the idea of having an online profile. I think there is an assumed identical correspondence between IRL self and profile self, but I was always confused because to me the differences between them were glaringly obvious. And I think mysterious things happen with the creation of an online self. It seems obvious that there is an original ‘me’ who exists in the world and the online self is a simulacrum / representation of that, but I found that increasingly the online self was starting to constitute the ‘original’ self; it seems the ontology had got mixed up somehow.

I feel like that was full of postmodern jargon, so I’ll use an example to let me fully understand what I’m trying to say. When I was about 13 I started using the internet heavily, excessively I think, and I started to find myself there. I identified myself as gay, found this new world I could relate to, and I became a fucking massive Lady Gaga fan. I created this online self who had at least a hazy understanding of who he was. But IRL I was a nothing; I’d spend hours and hours reading about Lady Gaga online, but if someone talked to me IRL about her I’d have nothing to say, there would just be a blank and the conversation would move on. I was curating an online persona at the expense of an IRL persona. For a long time it felt like the only self I had was the online one, which was distressing because to get by in the world I needed a firm sense of self and I didn’t have one. I still struggle with this to this day I think, but I’m definitely getting better. I decided that I needed to hone who I was as a living self because I couldn’t keep up with the online self I’d created. Herein lies, I think, one of the inherent dangers of the internet; it encourages the creation of a particular kind of self that leaves the one IRL sadly lacking.

This is not to say I think that the IRL self is better or more primary than the online self; I think they are expressions of identity in two different metaphysical spaces, and neither takes precedence. I do, however, think that a balance needs to be struck between these two things. Selves are utilities in that they allow us to do things in the world, but if one of those selves is not doing its job then there’s a problem. For me, having a solid sense of self online is pointless if there is no equal counterpart IRL. Maybe I’m being old-fashioned; perhaps the world is heading towards a place where the internet is a more primary space than IRL, and so it’s a waste of time to try and hone a self IRL. But the point, if I can try and remember how I got to talking about this, is that to call two things the same name when they are so vastly different is inherently confusing, and for me it created many difficulties both psychological and material. For me, the movement beyond this started by deleting my Twitter account and creating an anonymous Instagram profile (I like Instagram, and wanted to partake in it without facing the turmoil of online self-curation). I keep Facebook posts to a minimum, and am wary of when the self I am creating differs too much from me.

Back to pseudonyms. I’ve always been obsessed with pseudonyms. Some of my favourite people use pseudonyms: writers, musicians, drag queens, porn stars. I’m interested in pseudonyms because of what exactly it is that they create. Some drag queens report a complete character change when in drag, others an enhancement of character, some no difference at all. I know that it’s more than just a name which creates this difference, but I think to name a thing that one does with one’s body differently to the normal use of the body constitutes a splitting of the self and so increases this sense of a personality split. I’m drawn to pseudonyms because I think the self is inherently fragmented, we becomes new selves as we do different things with our bodies, and so there’s perhaps something more honest in using a different name. Why not? There’s the Jekyll-and-Hyde appeal as well: I can don the mask of WRB, commit whatever debaucheries I would like on this blog, and then take off the mask and no one can pin it to me, the person who sits and types and goes about the world. I’m being emphatic here; I think I’m being honest in what I write; these are thoughts I’ve had in my head throughout the day. But I think it generates interesting questions. What, exactly, is WRB? Even as I tell you that WRB is not a person in the sense that you might envision it, I think it’s incredibly difficult to not think that there is a person named WRB who sits down and writes. The use of the different name makes it impossible not to consider the relationship between writer qua writer and writer qua person. The equivalency we are compelled to make might not be all that simple.

I’ve also noticed some things about the use of the pseudonym. It’s easier to make claims about myself. All of those things I wrote about myself on my introductory post are true facts about me, but it was easier to state them when they were not being attached to me. Maybe this reveals something about my own lack of confidence, but I think it’s interesting nonetheless. Maybe if I can successfully create this online persona then I will have more confidence to be that person IRL; not in the way I did when I was a teenager, but in a genuinely worthwhile and useful way. I can strengthen WRB‘s voice, and since that voice is not all that different from my own I can appropriate it to embolden my own voice. I don’t know if that will happen. We’ll see. I would like to have a professional writing career and this is the name I would write under, so at some point I am expecting to have to unite WRB with myself. That will be an interesting moment. I think this self-awareness of what I am doing will afford me prudence which will mean I won’t get carried away and face the crisis of self I’ve encountered so many times before. Fingers crossed. Who fucking knows what might become of WRB.

WRB