Male Privilege, Male Security

Up until this year, male privilege was a vague concept to me, loosely connected to economics and political power. How did it actually affect the average guy? Aside from women falling over each other to leech off his elevated status (clearly, also a class privilege), I didn't know.

And then I started hanging around men much more. Mostly masculine, straight men. A series of minute details occurred:
- they don't tend to check whether their doors are locked multiple times. And if the doors have multiple locks, not all of them are locked all the time.
- they don't look over their shoulders while walking around at night
- they usually don't check in with loved ones when they're traveling
- they don't have multiple routes home planned out

After accumulating this evidence, it became clear to me that there is a general absence of fear. What man has been taught that he has something precious and fragile that everyone wants and will take by force? (I'm sure many men fantasize about this concept...or now they will.)

In addition to gender differences, granted, most of these guys are much bigger than most women. I'd love to offer my defensive arm to a damsel/twink in distress, but who would take it? Fortunately, all the men with whom I hang out now happily offer their physical intimidation for my use against creeps. Again, absence of fear - or not functioning on fear.

Most crimes are perpetrated by men toward other men...so why are they not functioning on fear?!?

Opposites Attract?

How cliché, "opposites attract." What do they do after they've attracted each other?


All the time at work, at O'HARE AIRPORT (so I have a pretty good sampling), miserable couples meander by. The women who just walked out of Better Homes knowingly empty their minds over celeb rags, the burly macho men soak up business books...and then pay for their wives' magazines. Sometimes, men will enjoy conversations with me about westerns, history and/or sci-fi - masculine genres. Their wives/girlfriends envy me for not only getting along with their men, but also for having the knowledge they don't*.


Aside from their decisions to fit traditional roles, these men and these women are utter opposites. They aren't genuinely attracted to each other because they actively hide who they are!! And they don't get along precisely because they're opposites, they don't relate to each other. The same fights over and over again: "don't go back to the bathroom, you'll spend another 20 minutes on your hair;" "you never hear anything I say, you're only interested in your fantasy football." Opposite interests, repulsion rather than attraction. These couples rarely share similar projects...they're each other's projects!!

Speaking for myself, I'm generally attracted to people to whom I can relate. I'm androgynous/masculine, and I'm attracted to people who have similar qualities (high femmes can have very big balls/ovaries). As a feminist, a sci-fi nerd, an artist with high appreciation for science, a cuddler, etc. I'm attracted to people who share these qualities.

It makes more sense to me to tackle projects with someone similar than to tackle someone who's my opposite. And much more arousing.





* it is possible, yes, that these women just genuinely aren't interested in those genres. I've been told or overheard too many women say "I wish I could enjoy math/science/sci-fi/history/technology/etc. more, but it scares boys away."

Feminine Domesticity

Wanderlust, the antithesis of domesticity, is a masculine characteristic. And, likewise, domesticity is feminine. I have a very high wanderlust and, frankly, I don't want this to be a gendered quality. For a few years, I've been exploring masculinity and experimenting with masculine traits. The implication, though, that feminine women stay at home precisely because of their femininity concerns me. I don't mean housewifery specifically, also settling down sooner/younger than men and not exploring beforehand.

Many feminine women, particularly from college, say that they admire my "bravery" in traveling disconnected from domestic obligations. That's great, though it isn't exactly "bravery" to follow your dreams and it would be more of a compliment for these women to live their own lives. These women also fear for me. What does this accomplish?!

Perhaps feminine women are more domestic because home is a safehaven from misogyny. Which isn't to say that misogyny doesn't happen in the home, but the facade of control can be held up there more than out in the world. And for all their masculinity, butch lesbians get very domestic and eager to settle down. They tend to get twice the bullshit: misogyny + homophobia. With the understanding that home is a safehaven from these social forces, butches would be even more driven to build and maintain one. This certainly helps explain why lesbians jump into relationships so quickly: to feel safe together from shared bullshit.

And I may be exempt from gender-related domesticity because home wasn't a safehaven for me. The road is my safehaven.

Things I've Learned

- As an increasingly masculine person, I'm primarily attracted to masculine people. People who balance masculinity, not macho people. Because I must relate to a person I'm gonna date and I tend to relate more to masculine people, I date masculine people. There are a handful of feminine people to whom I'm physically attracted, but that's about it. Believe me, I respect femmes and I'm ecstatic that they're around, just not my cup of tea.
subnote: in industrial/blue collar environments,the people to whom I'm attracted are usually butch lesbians. Butches and industry go hand-in-hand, meanwhile most of the straight men there are macho. This is one of the things I miss most about Wisconsin! Chicago has been commercial for decades so the very qualities to which I'm attracted in butch lesbians occur more often in straight guys here. People look at the F on my driver's license and assume that I'm straight in Chicago but a lesbian in Wisconsin. They don't see my masculinity interacting with the masculinities of people in different cultures.

- I would love to learn more about BDSM but have yet to find a free, SAFE environment in which to do so. Recently, there was an offer for a private play party...but my discomfort outweighed my curiosity. I didn't know the people involved well enough and this would have taken place somewhere I don't know. Call me a wuss, but my safety can't be compromised. With regards to that intimacy, I'd rather be a safe wuss than brave with regrets.

- Because I'm non-monogamous, a lot of people assume that my two lovers and other dates are all needed to fulfill some voracious appetite. That is nice, yes, but that's not the motivation. If I meet someone great and we start dating/sexing/loving/etc. and then I meet another great person, I shouldn't have to choose between them. Why not both? And then people are extra-baffled that everyone involved knows about each other, but I've already written about that.

- Combining masculinity with safety, being upfront is great! Though it may be nerve-wracking and you're taking a huge risk, it's usually best to just come out and say "hey I like you, whaddaya say?" Chances are that person didn't even know! It sucks to get turned down, yes, but at least there's closure.

The Closing Scope of Masculinity

Imagine a man with a sleek mustache, a boater with a ribbon, a pink ascot, and a cream, well-tailored, three piece suit. A hipster seeking a classy sugar daddy, right? Nope! Up until WWII, our dapper friend here was the height of masculinity! You may not believe it but, in the early 1900's, pink was a very masculine color.

Unless you were alive at the time (I tip my boater to you if you were), check up some gif.s and YouTube videos of The Beatles early in their career. Watch A Hard Day's Night. Pretty gay, right? Nope! That was masculine fifty years ago. Granted, this is Europe we're dealing with but I think we can let that slide.

Masculinity has gone through drastic changes in a relatively short amount of time, these examples are only an obvious few. Pat Boone, Mike Douglas, Bill Shirley and other suave singers in the 50's had no cause to doubt their manhood; but a man who sings about dreams and his heart flying with joy today just sounds fruity. Not only have the social standards for masculinity changed, but the scope of it has changed over time as well.

Mark Hamil has noted that, in thirty years' time, his action figures have gained at least fifty pounds in muscle. As the Y chromosome shrinks, so shrinks standards for masculinity. It's become a competition of manhood, with more and more men's archetypes falling into girly territory. When an individual man asserts his machismo to the point of emasculating others, it's pretty obvious that he's insecure in his own manhood. On such a cultural scale, though, could insecurity alone have brought about the closing gates of masculinity?

Returning to Femininity

EDIT: you may have to click on the pictures for them to show up correctly

Several things have been coinciding lately:
- I've recovered from graduation and from a few difficult friend-break ups
- it's a year since a pretty traumatizing experience in which a boss told me that, by not being feminine, I wasn't working hard enough.
- http://kkriesel.blogspot.com/2010/08/femme-day.html happened
- it's fall
- I finally visited a wonderful friend who reminded me how awesome it is to be fabulous
- a Milwaukee butch veteran acknowledged me as a fellow. That was an honor, even though she was drunk.
- I cleaned out and re-organized all my clothes TWICE
- .....really really really awful shit. No, I won't elaborate.

Because all of these things have happened in the period of a month, this happened:



And this:



And this, too:



While living on campus, I did crazy, dramatic drag all the time! Poofy skirts, swishy dresses, CORSETS, and all manner of wild femininity. And then there were days when I looked like a young Michael Cera going to his 70's-themed 8th grade graduation dance. Because I was in such a safe, cloistered environment, drag was fun and expressive and vulnerable. I tried to carry that over to post-college life but that didn't work so well, especially when that douche-boss equated uncomfortable femininity with hard work...douche. From that incident sprang a year of butchitude. Butchitude...tubular.

Now that I'm getting more comfortable with my adult life (that word isn't so scary anymore!), I'm getting more comfortable with my femininity. And since that really awful shit is happening, dramatic drag is a good distraction. I need distractions now in order to keep a grip on reality and running around looking like this is certainly distracting:

"Self-Made Man" by Norah Vincent

I just finished "Self-Made Man" by Norah Vincent. This book has been on my reading list for a long long time.

I was expecting a lot more queer/feminist/etc theory, but was refreshed to discover that this isn't the case. Vincent is much more blunt and honest about her experiences as a man. It is clear, from her report, that nobody benefits from the current gender norms. The "men's movement" and other efforts to "reclaim masculinity" aren't at all like the "White Power" movement: they focus on becoming more whole persons rather than masks of hypermasculinity.

The one downside was that Vincent went into this project with a lot of bias, particularly about working-class, straight white men. The year and a half she spent posing as a man nearly tore her apart because her concept of reality and her place in it was so dramatically altered.

More evidence that nobody benefits from privilege.

"shoes make the man"

I'm starting a new job that requires simple, all-black shoes as part of the dress code. The only all-black shoes I had were heeled and I'll never wear those again, so I made a trip to Payless. Fortunately, I fit into children's shoes, which are far cheaper. I bought http://www.payless.com/store/product/detail.jsp?skuId=072507020&productId=66480&subCatId=cat310012&catId=cat10091&lotId=072507&category=&catdisplayName=Boys+

I already own some "men's" shoes but they look androgynous. I wore these news ones to soon-to-be-old-job today and, for the first time, really paid attention to what people wear. I was feeling pretty spiffy, physically and socially comfortable. Then I got into an elevator with a bunch of men who . . . how shall I put it . . . have a very intimidating masculinity? A lot of trans/genderqueer people report feeling like imposters or discomfort-bordering-on-fear in such situations, but I had a hard time empathizing until the elevator experience. Having just finished reading "Nobody Passes" which had essays on this kind of experience, I was reassured that this wasn't unusual. I'm most comfortable in queer/mixed spaces, comfortable in some men's spaces, comfortable in almost all women's spaces, and not comfortable at all in the intimidating men's spaces. I just can't navigate there.

Another topic in "Nobody Passes" was the near-revulsion a lot of trans/genderqueer people experience when they realize that they're read as straight/bi/gay men/women. The idea of being read as a straight/bi/gay man seems so . . . WRONG. As incorrect as being read as a straight woman, but much more foreign. The bi/gay woman appearance is most familiar and the time spent there was healthiest and happiest until I outgrew it.

Being read as just an odd individual with a love for the Beatles is perfect.

Needing a father, not a borderline personality

I posted a few months ago about my dad and my gender (http://kkriesel.blogspot.com/2009/08/gender-related-to-my-dad.html): he raised me androgynously until I hit puberty, the masculinities I managed to learn from him, etc.

He's returned to emailing my half-sister. The two emails so far are pleasant, friendly rambles, the most recent of which he asks for the contact information of others - including me. He has my email address, but probably won't use it until this current attempt at manipulation fails.

October '08, he contacted my half-sister that he was dying and, after eight years of no contact, I emailed him that I would forgive him when he dies. I made it clear that I wrote this for MY OWN CLOSURE; he rampaged for a while until he realized that I wasn't going to reply anymore. After writing that email (and learning how to weld. Nothing works out anger like getting metal hot and hitting it with a hammer), I finally was able to reflect on our relationship from a healthy place.

When I came out as a lesbian to my mom, she claimed it was because I didn't have enough male role models. My dad replied to my closure-email, in which I came out as gay to him, that I'm confusing my sexuality with my gender. Well, they both had seeds of truth that neither of them could have foreseen. Now that I'm going through a gender transition, I wish that I had more male role models, particularly a father. The masculinities I learned from him were so valuable and, now that I'm an adult, there are more to learn but I'm cut off from them. I was so angry at him throughout high school and college that I honestly thought that I would never need a father figure. And now I do.

Learning about borderline personality disorder, though, has helped me to see that nothing he says/writes is real: it's all just to cover up his fear.

No maiden here

I had a really hard time falling asleep last night, so I began thinking about my family and who'll get married next. Weddings are HUGE for us - I came out at as a lesbian at a cousin's wedding in '05. I was thinking that I would probably wear a suit to the next and, should I ever be asked to be in the wedding party again (I was a flower girl when I was 8), I may request to be in the groomsmen rather than the bridesmaids. One cousin's best man was a butch dyke, so it wouldn't be new for us.


I'm definitely well on my way to...wherever I'm going. I'd like to take more tangible steps (different wardrobe, lower voice, etc.) but can't afford it. It's good, though, that I'm forced to process more before actually doing anything - especially anything irreversible. Masculinity is definitely getting more comfortable and less foreign.


AAC: UnBinaryBot: Restroom-FTM by ~againstallcheshires on deviantART

Cool sites to check out:
http://www.xxboys.net/main.php
http://fuckyeahftms.tumblr.com/
http://transgender.tumblr.com/
http://genderfork.com/
http://www.tophotbutches.com/ <- inaccurate


Al smoking by ~kaelTblock on deviantART

Passing

When I'm in boy drag, I do want to pass. When I'm in girl drag, I don't. Usually, I want to just be seen as an ungendered individual. I fluctuate between androgyny, masculinity, and brief periods of light femininity and go by how I feel each day.

I have very vivid dreams, in which sometimes I'm watching myself - in these, I have no control over what happens - and sometimes I'm myself and I have some control over my words and actions. In some of the dreams in which I'm myself, there is a man who's like the me I watch. He's always a dream person, but not like the ordinary dream people who fulfill a role and then disappear, he helps me fulfill a task or something along those lines.

I don't think that this dream man is someone I'm becoming, I think he's the masculinity I'm finally developing. I still have dreams in which I have long hair and feminine clothes, which I change to fit my current, androgynous self.

I suppose I still have femininities; I giggle, I like decorating for the holidays, I love Disney, etc. I don't do these to be feminine, they just are classified as such. Because masculinity has been out of my grasp for so long, I try on masculinities like I try on shoes: keep the ones that fit you.

Men's Space

A lot of things swirl in my head, things related to gender journey. Androgel, binding, packing, pronouns, bathrooms, etc. Things I want to use, things with which I might want to experiment, and things I just can't figure out.

Today I slashed one thing off that list after running uterus-first into it.

I'm bleeding and I really had to pee so I went into some independent coffeeshop on Jackson & Dearborn to use their restroom. And for some hot chocolate. Attempting to make a beeline to the bathrooms from the door, I hit a brick wall of boisterous dick-wagging. All but two of the twentysome customers were masculine, upper-middle class, white, tweed suit-and-tie men between 28 and 55. They were all talking with each other about the stock market, business deals and strategies, sports bets, and the like. Each one of them emphasized their most important points by speaking more loudly; every word uttered, though, was a most important point so only yelling was happening. It didn't seem to matter that nobody could hear anyone but himself.

After the bathroom and getting my hot chocolate, I found a chair in a corner and read _Rubyfruit Jungle_ by Rita Mae Brown. Realizing that I wanted no part of this men's space brought me peace; knowing that I wouldn't be accepted in it anyway only brought me self-pride. As long as a men's space (and there are many different kinds of men's spaces) involves small-dick insecurity, I want no part of it.

A better place

Apparently articulating my discomfort with femininity was the last step to removing it. I'm still not really attracted to femininity, but that's more, now, out of genuine preference rather than avoidance. It's still a process to tear down the old/poisonous and restructure the new/healthy. And I'm still exploring masculinity, unsure as to whether it's the novelty of it that's so exciting or previously unknown comfort...http://queeries.ning.com has been really helpful.

Tonight, I took a long walk from State/Superior to Broadway/Addison. It was SO GREAT!! I passed a classy Loyola University residence hall in River North. Agape at the atrium and other extravagance, I thought to myself, "This makes my dorm look like a piece of shit." The building also has some designer boutique and super-expensive restaurant. The homeliness of my dorm became much more apparent and I'm sooooooooooooo grateful that we didn't have to share the space with non-campus businesses we couldn't have afforded anyway. Compared to other university/college residence halls, I'm very glad that I was in Austin Hall.

And OMFG I AM SO HAPPY TO BE BACK IN CHICAGO!!!!!!!!!!!