gender stuff

[groundisnotmine.livejournal.com]

Hey all! First of all: awesome community! I love learning new things about my body.

I don't know that I have a specific question to ask. Lemme introduce myself: I'm an 18 year old lesbian; I've been in a long term, healthy relationship, in which silly labels like "butch" and "femme" never came up. I think this is because we were each other's first girlfriends. This was definitely a good experience for shaping my future views on relationships. Now that I am dating around again, I've come into heavy contact with the typical lesbian labels and weird gender roles. Sometimes I like them, sometimes they are completely ridiculous. For instance, I don't like filling a fully "femme" role, mainly because that's not who I am and I am a feminist who doesn't agree with traditional gender roles.

I've also met many people that are situated all over the transgender continuum, which is starting to make me question the concept and place less emphasis on "gender." This has led me to want to experiment with my own gender. I'm completely happy as I am, I love every part of being a girl, I've just started thinking about messing around with image short-term-wise.

So here's the point: Have any of you crossdressed or maybe just changed small parts of your appearance to assume a different (and/or new) gender? Any and all information and experiences would be helpful.

Comments

[paperstar19.livejournal.com]

I don't know a lot about the lesbian community, but you seem like you would benefit greatly from picking up something by Kate Bornstein (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679757015/qid=1144003023/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-3348860-5409522?s=books&v=glance&n=283155), either this or "My Gender Workbook." She explores all sorts of weird gender and sexuality things, and I know at least in "Gender Outlaw" about the whole Butch/Femme concept, why it came about, and how she thinks it's kind of outdated.

This is the second time recently I've recommended these books in this community, but they are so amazingly eye-opening, and even as a straight white girl I think they really helped me understand myself.

[groundisnotmine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[theway-youshine.livejournal.com]

I love your icon, I dressed up as Columbia for movie day at my school a couple days ago=)


to the OP: A lesbian friend of mine has been experimenting with cross dressing, and ever since she took on the appearance of a guy she's muuuuch happier. She doesn't feel as pressured to look a certain way, and she's much more content. Just wanted to give you that side of the story to maybe help you make your decision. Whatever you decide to do, good luck with it!

[classical-wolf.livejournal.com]

I love wearing guys boxers and jeans, but that's the farthest I've gone.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I shave my head, I wear men's tank tops and boxers, sometimes pants.
But I don't really assume a gender different than the one I was born with, I just like wearing that style of clothing.
You should dress and present yourself in a way that is most comfortable for you. Perios.
The rest is just details.

[ravrhi.livejournal.com]

A quick search found three comms that may be of interest to you:

transgender
_crossgender

and perhaps the most appropriate for your specific needs:

crossdressing

[groundisnotmine.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I wasn't sure where to start. :)

[ravrhi.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, have fun!

[aechei.livejournal.com]

yup. i wear mens pants and jackets at least once a week, sometimes daily (but im wearing a skirt right now). a few times a month i get an urge to dress really butchy, and will dress in all mens stuff. a few times a year i will get an urge to really BE a man for a night, and will go all out--bind the breasts, all mens clothes down to the shoes, assume male persona (his name is Sean) and go out to a party with friends in full out drag. where i live, its pretty normal. (Smith college, northampton, MA)

try it, its fun.

for the record--i id as female but reject traditional gender roles. I am queer-to-lesbian, plus a love of trannny bois. currently in LTR with a man and casual relationship with a woman. and that is the short version.

[groundisnotmine.livejournal.com]

I will definitely try, I'm very intrigued. Also, I go to UMass Amherst. :)

[aechei.livejournal.com]

i have a transboi friend there. and a cousin of the standard male persuasion. nice to meet you.

[groundisnotmine.livejournal.com]

Nice to meet you as well, though I've certianly heard horror stories about Smith haha.

[aechei.livejournal.com]

we aren't all like that, i promise. and you should hear what they say about umass!

[groundisnotmine.livejournal.com]

Hahaha and we aren't all like that. ;)

[twohourdrives.livejournal.com]

i'm pansexual, meaning that gender plays little role in my relationships. i've happily dated girls, boys, and everyone in between. i've shaved my head, and my boyfriend right now gets mistaken for a girl. we play with gender roles a lot, and they aren't fixed in our relationship, sometimes i'm the outside spooner and sometimes he is. i sort of consider myself gender-neutral. i've got girl parts and so on, but it's not a huge part of my life and incindentally, all my friends are boys. sometimes i think of myself as a gay boy. i don't really understand how anyone could be totally straight or totally gay, seeing as gender can be so ambiguous.

sorry this was so rambly, i'm just sort of presenting my ideas on the issue. basically in my life, personality counts for so much more than gender or sex, and i've stopped trying to classify it.

[groundisnotmine.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the descriptive comment! I've never encountered someone who so disregards gender.

[nancy-boy-666.livejournal.com]

:| i'm just looking through ell jay randomly obviously... but omg. i'm a lesbian but often feel more like a gay male. i've never voiced it before because i've never heard anyone else say it. thankyou so much!!!!!! i'm not alone wooooooo!

[quixotic.livejournal.com]

even more communities that might be helpful:

birls
genderqueer
genderoutlaws
_hmm

-a

[groundisnotmine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_epiphany_girl_/]

Just my two cents about femme, as a femme feminist:

My experience of femme is that I just am who I am, first of all. I've always been girly and probably always will be. Personally, I'm glad there's a place for me in the queer community. But I also think femme is very transgressive. If one assumes that the typical reason for dressing femininely is for the male gaze, then it's totally transgressive to take that expression and direct it expressively toward other women. I personally find it empowering.

I know that's not what you were asking, and I'm not trying to change your mind. Like you said, you aren't femme, not because of any intellectual reasons but because it's just not who you are. Likewise, for a lot of us feminist femmes, we're femme because it is who we are.

I've also dressed somewhat butch in the past, as a part of finding myself as a lesbian and a woman. It didn't really work for me... I always felt invisible.... but I'm glad I tried it. Heck, I don't think I could have figured out who I really was if I hadn't put on different identities early on. (And heck, my identity could change in the future...)

[groundisnotmine.livejournal.com]

I totally appreciate this response! Thank you for your side of the story!

[queensugar.livejournal.com]

My city has a fairly active drag king community and has hosted international drag king conferences. Unfortunately, I've never gone kinging myself, but I've done some articles on it... it's a very interesting, and much overlooked subculture.

A good person to talk to if you're interested is Carlos Las Vegas, who is a local drag king and one of North America's leading kings. Carlos was born Clarissa, is now Reece (he is a transman). I think his perspective would be fascinating, given that he started kinging as a female and continues to be a king, even though he now identifies as a transman... there's lots of interesting concepts there about "male impersonating" when one actually identifies as male, etcetera.

He has some links and info on his page:

http://www.geocities.com/carlos_lasvegas/

There's also some kings who are biologically male, and still king... the act of hyperdramatizing male gender roles, etcetera.

[rockstarbob.livejournal.com]

I kinged it once. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. I got a lot of looks on the bus, even in my liberal town, that I would not necessarily classify as friendly.

I also learned that most of my friends think I make a terrible drag king, although perhaps it just takes practice?