Tag: queer

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

Sam Smith & Being Non-binary

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In a recent interview with Jameela Jamil as part of her Instagram ‘I Weigh’ series, Sam Smith spoke about how he struggled with his gender identity from a young age and has increasingly identified with the labels genderqueer and non-binary, the latter being the term he explicitly used to define himself. A few other celebrities – namely Miley Cyrus and Ezra Miller – have come out as genderqueer and non-binary recently, and such stories always stimulate discussions about gender, often banal but still necessary to have. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts about this topic.

To begin with, I felt incredibly liberated by the interview. I identified with a lot of what Sam was saying: feeling somehow ‘behind’ and isolated within the gay community, of feeling confused from a young age for not fitting in with ‘the boys’ but never being one of ‘the girls’. I was shocked but impressed upon hearing that prior to becoming famous he for a period of time stopped wearing men’s clothing, and his discussions of the intersections between gender identity and fame were insightful. It’s also just great to see someone within the public eye admitting to being confused about body image and gender identity. As someone who has been very confused about gender it’s validating to see these discussions being had in a respectful space.

Now, a few issues I had with what Sam had to say. I thought some of his language was… problematic. He states that he has previously considered having a ‘sex change’, and I find this language a bit outdated, implying that transitioning is the result of having one operation rather than being a process that involves so much more than merely surgery (not to suggest that Sam means this with what he says, but I think that such terminology connotes this old-fashioned approach to the transgender experience). I think he could benefit from saying something like, ‘I debated whether I might want to transition…’ as this is, I think, a better way to discuss gender identity.

Similarly, he also claims that he at times ‘thinks like a woman’, which begs the question: what exactly does it mean to think like a woman? It seems to confirm the binary that he later goes on to deconstruct through coming out as non-binary, seems to presuppose the pseudoscientific notion that men and women think in fundamentally different ways which I am reluctant to accept. Again, I think this is a linguistic nuance and does not necessarily mean that Sam believes in what his language implies. It also probably comes from the fact that he came out in an interview rather than in a thought-out statement, and sometimes language can be awkward when spoken compared to when planned and written. I would like to quiz Sam on what he means by ‘thinking like a woman’, and hopefully dispel the gender essentialism such a claim suggests. But I also think this is a result of his confusion, his lack of exposure to the trans community. It can take a bit of adjustment to become accustomed to how gender ought to be spoken about because much of the language used in mainstream society to describe gender comes from a time before it was understood as it is now. I don’t think Sam should be punished for not being an expert on gender; I think it’s incredibly brave for someone subject to so much scrutiny to speak up on an issue which is so contentious. It’s perhaps enough to say, ‘x is a bit problematic for this reason, so maybe use y instead’. Anything more overtly critical might discourage conversation, which I don’t think benefits anyone. No one should be afraid to speak, but at the same time no one should be unwilling to learn when they misspeak.

Now, onto some of the criticisms that Sam has faced following his coming out. I’ve seen claims that coming out as non-binary enforces the gender binary it seeks to transcend; since gender is so fluid nowadays, to place a third category between binary oppositions makes the oppositions more legitimate, seems to confirm that they are essential categories (as is non-binary) rather than social constructions.

I think this criticism has some credibility. Rather than deconstructing the binary, creating a non-binary identity could arguably introduce a third term, and so does not move beyond it but merely reconfigures it to a system of 3 rather than 2. As such it doesn’t really signify much of a movement beyond traditional notions of gender; sexism could still exist, and it still posits a stable gender marker and so is subject to the same scrutiny as ‘man’ and ‘woman’. In an ideological framework, I think this is true. There is no such thing as gender, I believe, beyond things which signify it. In an ideal world there would be no gender, it would be recognised as an ideological fallacy and so coming out as non-binary seems counterintuitive under such a model of gender. Under this view, though, coming out as anything should be criticised; being trans confirms the gender binary, being gay supposes that there are such things as genders to which one may be attracted. I think to only direct this criticism towards those who come out as non-binary would not really be fair.

Furthermore, while it is generally accepted that gender is a social construct, that does not mean it is insignificant. Ideologically, yes, gender has no inherent meaning, but in the world as we understand and live in it there are coherent understandings of gender, there are such things as men and women and such categories have material consequences. Under this criticism, anyone who identifies as a man or as a woman should be criticised, which would be the majority of the population. To claim that non-binary identities enforce a binary which does not exist overlooks the fact that in society the binary does exist, and however problematic this might be we cannot overlook the conditions of the societies we live in. To claim a non-binary identity is to say that in society there are such things as men and women, and living in that society I do not identify with either of those labels. To deny non-binary as a legitimate identity would leave only two options, man and woman; once more we return to the binary. And coming out is a powerful thing; the identity is created in the act of coming out. If no one came out as non-binary, even if such identities existed, then there would only be the identities of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ visible and accessible. I find it incredibly powerful to come out as non-binary, because it is always done in the context of a society in which the gender binary is oppressively in operation. I think it deserves applause, not immediate criticism.

Another criticism I heard was that Sam was coming out as a publicity stunt. This is viable; gender is a hot topic at the minute, and is bound to catch a few headlines. I don’t think there’s much to say about this, other than that I don’t personally believe Sam has much to gain in coming out as non-binary. He is pretty much at the top of his game. I know this is not the best way to judge, but I thought he came across as incredibly real and honest in his interview, and so I would like to think that he’s not taking the piss. To say that he is appropriating an identity for the sake of publicity excludes him from the community, forces him into an identity he claims not to identify with, which seems anathema to what the queer community is all about. I think all we can really do is accept people’s proclamations about their own identity, and hope that no one would take advantage of this for personal gain. Maybe this is naive, but otherwise we end up policing identities and who has the right to be in the community, which is a worse evil, in my opinion.

I think there are more things to be discussed, but I’m starting to ramble now, I sense, so I’m going to leave it there.

WRB