Thursday, November 21, 2013
Gender Therapy: Day 029 Dicks and Haircuts
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Sunday, November 17, 2013
Exploring Barriers to Women in STEM
Gender Therapy Day: 025
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
This has been a busy semester for me or else I would have written a whole lot more. This is one of the things that contributes to my busy-ness; I have been working on a senior thesis for the past year. It is an attempt at communications research, prying open women in STEM to ask about their personal reasons for choosing their career. The patterns I found involved their liking problem solving and math and/or science, in addition to being encouraged to pursue what they like, from peers, family, professors, and colleagues.
I attempted to take an unbiased approach, as much as I could, about the fact that the ratio of men to women in STEM fields is 3:1 in most cases. It was a challenge to talk about gender without triggering defense mechanisms however.
Take a look! Chatham University Tutorial
~~~
On an anatomical note, it has been a whole month and I have started menstruating. For the first time since I've hit puberty I have not had cramps! Woohoo!
I have also not had a whole lot of emotional turmoil such as PMS (premenstrual syndrome) nor have I been overly horny or anything of that sort. However, since Wednesday, when I started to take the placebos (or rather, have not taken them because they do nothing anyway) my emotions have come back to their more fluid state of being one emotion in the morning and something different in the night, sometimes more than two different general moods throughout the day. Just as I got used to being stable. Oh well, I will start up again this coming Wednesday with the active pills.
It's interesting to have your body do things that are different than what you can predict. Interesting also how when you get used to predicting it being one way, it is able to change without notice.
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
This has been a busy semester for me or else I would have written a whole lot more. This is one of the things that contributes to my busy-ness; I have been working on a senior thesis for the past year. It is an attempt at communications research, prying open women in STEM to ask about their personal reasons for choosing their career. The patterns I found involved their liking problem solving and math and/or science, in addition to being encouraged to pursue what they like, from peers, family, professors, and colleagues.
I attempted to take an unbiased approach, as much as I could, about the fact that the ratio of men to women in STEM fields is 3:1 in most cases. It was a challenge to talk about gender without triggering defense mechanisms however.
Take a look! Chatham University Tutorial
~~~
On an anatomical note, it has been a whole month and I have started menstruating. For the first time since I've hit puberty I have not had cramps! Woohoo!
I have also not had a whole lot of emotional turmoil such as PMS (premenstrual syndrome) nor have I been overly horny or anything of that sort. However, since Wednesday, when I started to take the placebos (or rather, have not taken them because they do nothing anyway) my emotions have come back to their more fluid state of being one emotion in the morning and something different in the night, sometimes more than two different general moods throughout the day. Just as I got used to being stable. Oh well, I will start up again this coming Wednesday with the active pills.
It's interesting to have your body do things that are different than what you can predict. Interesting also how when you get used to predicting it being one way, it is able to change without notice.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Unwritten Rules of Gender Part 1: Identity
Gender Therapy Day: 016
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
Unwritten Rules of Gender Part 1: Identity
See Unwritten Rules of Gender Part 2 to hear about Communication.
I have denied femininity in myself for a long time now. I have done so because it feels wrong to be feminine. Wrong as in, not right. Similar to how a highly conservative religious individual might feel it wrong to masturbate, or commit infidelity, or even premarital sex (depending on the culture), to me it feels wrong to dress and act feminine. Are these religious folk wrong to think this way? Certainly not. If they so feel inclined to follow such intrapersonal rules as to regulate their lives around their viewpoints, they should have the freedom to do so, so long as it does not hurt other people.
Religion is a world view, and in this example, so is agender thought, or gender variation, or gender fluidity, genderqueer, queer, trans*, non-heteronormativity, whatever words you want to use to describe queer theory perspectives.
Over time I have recognized that there is an unwritten set of rules called social norms. These rules are specific to certain subcultures but are also prevalent on a wider scale, such as an entire country or language. It is very difficult to abide by the rules in this unwritten doctrine, but it is very much a real thing and you will recognize when you have broken a rule by being dismissed, disrespected, ignored, confronted, or any number of other shunning techniques. I have run into this frequently when people ask me, 'are you a boy or a girl?', or 'why don't you shave your legs?', or 'grow out your hair!', or 'if you wear makeup/women's suits you will be taken more seriously', or 'close your legs', or 'act more professional', or 'stop that'.
My most prolific understandings have come from the several times I have spoken 'out of turn'. Very often I have voiced my opinion in a group setting with a confident and calm manner only to be told to shut up and not voice my opinion, or more specifically in such a way. Other times I have been in women's only groups where the women started their sentences with 'I think...', 'I'm not certain but...', 'I feel...', 'I could be wrong but...', and when I did not do the same it was later revealed to me that I came off as tactless and aggressive. Only when I have run into this in a mixed gendered setting, and the guy next to me committing the same act was never shunned, did it become obvious to me that the contents of this unwritten document are also relevant to gender.
These social norms include a long list of behaviors and speech patterns, in addition to verbal and non-verbal communication, that consistently changes over time and place and people, including within one's own life. Being an active advocate of being yourself, I have chosen to play with many of these unwritten rules to feel for the acceptable boundaries about gender around new people. It is most fun around strangers, and increasingly more difficult about people who have known you for much longer. This is where I am at now in my life, forcing myself to be a little more of one gender (and sexuality) or another, through clothes, behaviors, speech, and even hormones, to see how accepting a person or group of people can be of me.
And now a chart about gender and sex!
Let me tell you of some of the results of my past experiments with identity.
There was a time in my life when I identified as a heterosexual, feminine girl. I had long hair and I wore makeup. I shaved my legs and wore tight clothing. I wore stockings and dresses and skirts as the occasion suggested, and I received the affection of friends and suitors alike. I did chose to dress dark, if not gothic, which placed a distance between myself and a good majority of people. However the individuals who still associated with me treated me in specific was. The women in my life were openly competitive when there were men around. The men were affectionate and tried to be as physically close as they could. I received a lot of sexual attention from both genders but I discouraged women as often as I could, as I found this new and unusual. I encouraged men as it was expected of me. However people treated me as a promiscuous and naive girl, as although I was confident and sexually active, I received more attention from men and women than people wanted me too. These messages I received from friends, family, and school authority alike.
Shortly after that stage I identified as a bisexual and androgynous female. The affection from both men and women discontinued as I stopped associating with the same people and instead kept to myself through several years. I wore oversized shirts and pants, changed my hairstyle frequently, and refused to wear makeup and be 'ladylike'. The men in my life and the men I dated were very upset about my lack of femininity. They thought I was trying to be something I was not, and insisted I wear more makeup and dresses, and shave. They also felt threatened by my bisexual identity. My partners were certain I would one day leave them for a woman and were weary of any female friends I had. My male friends tried their best to have sex with me before I 'became a lesbian'. Meanwhile the women in my life found me to no longer be a threat around other men and instead treated me as 'the ugly friend'. The only downfall was that those same women did not take my affection towards them in a serious manner, even though they themselves identified as gay or bisexual.
Later in my life I identified as a feminine bisexual. I won the hearts of many folks in college and through extracurricular events. I met gay folks, bisexuals, lesbians, trans* people of all kinds, queer folks, heterosexual folks. I met poor people, rich people, young people, middle class people, middle aged people, nerdy people, liberal arts students, artists and programmers, musicians and writers, and they all accompanied me in my life in various ways. They were attracted to my passionate, powerful feminine identity. I had short hair and short shorts and rode my bike. I wore tight shirts and tank tops and ripped jeans. I was in control of my life and ready for the world. The only downfalls were when I revealed my bisexuality to a few straight men who probably felt I had flirted with them. When I revealed I was not interested they withdrew their attention and affection, and unfriended me in social media and social circles. Ironically I received the same treatment from the few straight and bisexual women I tried to pursue. I wasn't sure if it was them or me, but it hit my confidence pretty hard.
Recently in my life I worked in consumer tech and claimed the identity of a masculine lesbian. I passed within this environment. I had a handful of co-workers I interacted with regularly and they accepted my lesbianism as a permanent sexual boundary. I identified myself quickly because they would challenge my sexuality often, just to make sure. However this identity gave me the power to speak about some deep topics about masculine-feminine relationships that I may not have in any other context, with several heterosexual men, without making anyone feel uncomfortable. I was treated as 'one of the guys' and often lesbian jokes were made in good humor. Even clients played along with my identity and teased me about how unfortunate they were to not have the correct genitalia. They respected me. I was presumed to be a dominating lesbian, someone who was capable and knowledgeable about many things.
During the same time I identified as a lesbian androgynous female to most of my small university, which offered a variety of communication challenges between the several different kinds of women I encountered. I wore nondescript clothing, caps, colorful socks and muted shirts. During professional events and at dances I wore suits, and I relented to wear dresses when my dormmates had makeover parties. The undergrad population is all female but the graduate programs have males. There is exactly one student transman that I know personally and a handful of queer lesbians, masculine and feminine lesbians, feminine bisexuals and pansexuals. The majority of the population is straight however.
In class I was known for my obnoxious but insightful commentary. I was usually one of very few who speak up and while my professors love my intellectual banter in private, they insist I stay quiet in class. They also didn't take my school assignments seriously and often made appointments to discuss alternative grading criteria. I was not treated as a professional academic but a playful manchild through most of my relationships with other women. In general students dismissed my commentary but in intellectual debate I came off as a pervert. The few women I dated thought me passionate yet flippant and confused, which I find ironic. I haven't really felt like I got the opportunity to express how I truly felt during this time period to the people who mattered, and many of them also found me introverted and inconsistent, which I also find ironic.
Before I started hormones I had seriously considered beginning trans* therapy which may conclude with the beginning of my transition using testosterone. I can develop the identity of a heterosexual transman without doing such, but it is an incredibly difficult task for trans* folk to 'pass' without the boost of hormones. A transgender person would ideally wish to 'pass' as a woman or a man, and not as someone who is 'trying to pass' as a man or women. A man with breasts who squeaks is not a man but a transman. A woman who can't tuck her testes and laughs too deeply is not a woman but a transwomen.
With my recent estrogen hormone treatment I have been playing with the idea of trying out the identity as a feminine lesbian, and have thought about the potential to attract the eyes of lesbian women, should they correctly identify me. The lesbian world is a tricky one as many feminine bisexuals and lesbians are assumed to be straight while many masculine bisexuals are assumed to be lesbian. Gender variant women have it hard too as many masculine lesbians are assumed to be trans*, or who would want to transition, and many lesbian transmen are given a hard time for 'leaving their fellow women'. Lastly trans* folk are offensively misgendered; many bisexual and heterosexual transmen are labeled as genderqueer (or teenage boys), and many transwomen are considered prostitutes.
Similarly, dressing feminine I will receive the eyes of heterosexual men who will challenge my ability to assertively yet respectfully decline. I would have to sharpen my social skills. I need to really learn tact anyway. I have to work on my wardrobe and reassess my personal boundaries with men and women. It would be a challenge too to overcome my overwhelming guilt about femininity, and it would require that I stick to it long enough to master femininity again. Also I have to talk to girls. That's hard!
It is a also a very confusing world for me when it comes to loving women. Their language is unique, for every individual, and their nonverbal cues are subtle but expected to be heard loudly. I still don't understand how straight men and women make it work. Heterosexual transmen seem to fare the best since they are privileged by society for their identity while secretly harboring the benefit of a lifetime's worth of knowledge and experience about being treated as women. This is my opinion, not a fact.
In order to pass I would have to master gendered behavior and pitch, be very careful with vocabulary and posture, and choose a haircut that doesn't look too queer. This is where I must study further the unwritten rules of social norms, the communication styles and behaviors for men and women, and fine tune myself in front of the whole world. Just today I wore nondescript clothing with a cap that hid my face and coat that successfully hides my chest, and only after I spoke was my true sex revealed. The man I made eye contact with apologized with a giggle, giving hint at his misgendering. I should have dropped an octave to see that he would have assigned me a male role. Or maybe I shouldn't have worn the coat and have had an actual conversation with the guy. I think I should try harder next time.
See Gender Therapy: Day 000 to learn more about my hormone-induced journey of self discovery.
Unwritten Rules of Gender Part 1: Identity
See Unwritten Rules of Gender Part 2 to hear about Communication.
I have denied femininity in myself for a long time now. I have done so because it feels wrong to be feminine. Wrong as in, not right. Similar to how a highly conservative religious individual might feel it wrong to masturbate, or commit infidelity, or even premarital sex (depending on the culture), to me it feels wrong to dress and act feminine. Are these religious folk wrong to think this way? Certainly not. If they so feel inclined to follow such intrapersonal rules as to regulate their lives around their viewpoints, they should have the freedom to do so, so long as it does not hurt other people.
Religion is a world view, and in this example, so is agender thought, or gender variation, or gender fluidity, genderqueer, queer, trans*, non-heteronormativity, whatever words you want to use to describe queer theory perspectives.
Over time I have recognized that there is an unwritten set of rules called social norms. These rules are specific to certain subcultures but are also prevalent on a wider scale, such as an entire country or language. It is very difficult to abide by the rules in this unwritten doctrine, but it is very much a real thing and you will recognize when you have broken a rule by being dismissed, disrespected, ignored, confronted, or any number of other shunning techniques. I have run into this frequently when people ask me, 'are you a boy or a girl?', or 'why don't you shave your legs?', or 'grow out your hair!', or 'if you wear makeup/women's suits you will be taken more seriously', or 'close your legs', or 'act more professional', or 'stop that'.
My most prolific understandings have come from the several times I have spoken 'out of turn'. Very often I have voiced my opinion in a group setting with a confident and calm manner only to be told to shut up and not voice my opinion, or more specifically in such a way. Other times I have been in women's only groups where the women started their sentences with 'I think...', 'I'm not certain but...', 'I feel...', 'I could be wrong but...', and when I did not do the same it was later revealed to me that I came off as tactless and aggressive. Only when I have run into this in a mixed gendered setting, and the guy next to me committing the same act was never shunned, did it become obvious to me that the contents of this unwritten document are also relevant to gender.
These social norms include a long list of behaviors and speech patterns, in addition to verbal and non-verbal communication, that consistently changes over time and place and people, including within one's own life. Being an active advocate of being yourself, I have chosen to play with many of these unwritten rules to feel for the acceptable boundaries about gender around new people. It is most fun around strangers, and increasingly more difficult about people who have known you for much longer. This is where I am at now in my life, forcing myself to be a little more of one gender (and sexuality) or another, through clothes, behaviors, speech, and even hormones, to see how accepting a person or group of people can be of me.
And now a chart about gender and sex!
Let me tell you of some of the results of my past experiments with identity.
There was a time in my life when I identified as a heterosexual, feminine girl. I had long hair and I wore makeup. I shaved my legs and wore tight clothing. I wore stockings and dresses and skirts as the occasion suggested, and I received the affection of friends and suitors alike. I did chose to dress dark, if not gothic, which placed a distance between myself and a good majority of people. However the individuals who still associated with me treated me in specific was. The women in my life were openly competitive when there were men around. The men were affectionate and tried to be as physically close as they could. I received a lot of sexual attention from both genders but I discouraged women as often as I could, as I found this new and unusual. I encouraged men as it was expected of me. However people treated me as a promiscuous and naive girl, as although I was confident and sexually active, I received more attention from men and women than people wanted me too. These messages I received from friends, family, and school authority alike.
Shortly after that stage I identified as a bisexual and androgynous female. The affection from both men and women discontinued as I stopped associating with the same people and instead kept to myself through several years. I wore oversized shirts and pants, changed my hairstyle frequently, and refused to wear makeup and be 'ladylike'. The men in my life and the men I dated were very upset about my lack of femininity. They thought I was trying to be something I was not, and insisted I wear more makeup and dresses, and shave. They also felt threatened by my bisexual identity. My partners were certain I would one day leave them for a woman and were weary of any female friends I had. My male friends tried their best to have sex with me before I 'became a lesbian'. Meanwhile the women in my life found me to no longer be a threat around other men and instead treated me as 'the ugly friend'. The only downfall was that those same women did not take my affection towards them in a serious manner, even though they themselves identified as gay or bisexual.
Later in my life I identified as a feminine bisexual. I won the hearts of many folks in college and through extracurricular events. I met gay folks, bisexuals, lesbians, trans* people of all kinds, queer folks, heterosexual folks. I met poor people, rich people, young people, middle class people, middle aged people, nerdy people, liberal arts students, artists and programmers, musicians and writers, and they all accompanied me in my life in various ways. They were attracted to my passionate, powerful feminine identity. I had short hair and short shorts and rode my bike. I wore tight shirts and tank tops and ripped jeans. I was in control of my life and ready for the world. The only downfalls were when I revealed my bisexuality to a few straight men who probably felt I had flirted with them. When I revealed I was not interested they withdrew their attention and affection, and unfriended me in social media and social circles. Ironically I received the same treatment from the few straight and bisexual women I tried to pursue. I wasn't sure if it was them or me, but it hit my confidence pretty hard.
Recently in my life I worked in consumer tech and claimed the identity of a masculine lesbian. I passed within this environment. I had a handful of co-workers I interacted with regularly and they accepted my lesbianism as a permanent sexual boundary. I identified myself quickly because they would challenge my sexuality often, just to make sure. However this identity gave me the power to speak about some deep topics about masculine-feminine relationships that I may not have in any other context, with several heterosexual men, without making anyone feel uncomfortable. I was treated as 'one of the guys' and often lesbian jokes were made in good humor. Even clients played along with my identity and teased me about how unfortunate they were to not have the correct genitalia. They respected me. I was presumed to be a dominating lesbian, someone who was capable and knowledgeable about many things.
During the same time I identified as a lesbian androgynous female to most of my small university, which offered a variety of communication challenges between the several different kinds of women I encountered. I wore nondescript clothing, caps, colorful socks and muted shirts. During professional events and at dances I wore suits, and I relented to wear dresses when my dormmates had makeover parties. The undergrad population is all female but the graduate programs have males. There is exactly one student transman that I know personally and a handful of queer lesbians, masculine and feminine lesbians, feminine bisexuals and pansexuals. The majority of the population is straight however.
In class I was known for my obnoxious but insightful commentary. I was usually one of very few who speak up and while my professors love my intellectual banter in private, they insist I stay quiet in class. They also didn't take my school assignments seriously and often made appointments to discuss alternative grading criteria. I was not treated as a professional academic but a playful manchild through most of my relationships with other women. In general students dismissed my commentary but in intellectual debate I came off as a pervert. The few women I dated thought me passionate yet flippant and confused, which I find ironic. I haven't really felt like I got the opportunity to express how I truly felt during this time period to the people who mattered, and many of them also found me introverted and inconsistent, which I also find ironic.
Before I started hormones I had seriously considered beginning trans* therapy which may conclude with the beginning of my transition using testosterone. I can develop the identity of a heterosexual transman without doing such, but it is an incredibly difficult task for trans* folk to 'pass' without the boost of hormones. A transgender person would ideally wish to 'pass' as a woman or a man, and not as someone who is 'trying to pass' as a man or women. A man with breasts who squeaks is not a man but a transman. A woman who can't tuck her testes and laughs too deeply is not a woman but a transwomen.
With my recent estrogen hormone treatment I have been playing with the idea of trying out the identity as a feminine lesbian, and have thought about the potential to attract the eyes of lesbian women, should they correctly identify me. The lesbian world is a tricky one as many feminine bisexuals and lesbians are assumed to be straight while many masculine bisexuals are assumed to be lesbian. Gender variant women have it hard too as many masculine lesbians are assumed to be trans*, or who would want to transition, and many lesbian transmen are given a hard time for 'leaving their fellow women'. Lastly trans* folk are offensively misgendered; many bisexual and heterosexual transmen are labeled as genderqueer (or teenage boys), and many transwomen are considered prostitutes.
Similarly, dressing feminine I will receive the eyes of heterosexual men who will challenge my ability to assertively yet respectfully decline. I would have to sharpen my social skills. I need to really learn tact anyway. I have to work on my wardrobe and reassess my personal boundaries with men and women. It would be a challenge too to overcome my overwhelming guilt about femininity, and it would require that I stick to it long enough to master femininity again. Also I have to talk to girls. That's hard!
It is a also a very confusing world for me when it comes to loving women. Their language is unique, for every individual, and their nonverbal cues are subtle but expected to be heard loudly. I still don't understand how straight men and women make it work. Heterosexual transmen seem to fare the best since they are privileged by society for their identity while secretly harboring the benefit of a lifetime's worth of knowledge and experience about being treated as women. This is my opinion, not a fact.
In order to pass I would have to master gendered behavior and pitch, be very careful with vocabulary and posture, and choose a haircut that doesn't look too queer. This is where I must study further the unwritten rules of social norms, the communication styles and behaviors for men and women, and fine tune myself in front of the whole world. Just today I wore nondescript clothing with a cap that hid my face and coat that successfully hides my chest, and only after I spoke was my true sex revealed. The man I made eye contact with apologized with a giggle, giving hint at his misgendering. I should have dropped an octave to see that he would have assigned me a male role. Or maybe I shouldn't have worn the coat and have had an actual conversation with the guy. I think I should try harder next time.
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