~'Cause I'm just trying to be a better version of me for you~

[flyboy_fox]

I had a highly bizarre dream last night (one of the ones where Jei and I are Sonic and Tails). Lemme copy & paste what I told Jei:

"[W]e'd been captured or something, but it was Knuckles and some others who captured us, because for some reason they believed us to be evil (or maybe they were evil, I dunno). Anyway, we were in separate areas, but we each managed to escape and we were trying to find each other... but the guards (and Knuckles) got alerted and there were a whole lot of people after us, and even though you as Sonic could run fast, they still captured us both again... I think maybe they were Echidna* tribespeoples or something and they used a spell to stop us from running, I dunno. But anyway, they were marching us back to the cells, and you as Sonic were just being really cocky and cheeky to Knuckles and making him even more pissed off n.n; it was kinda funny... but we were walking back through this forested area and I guess I tried to make a break for it or something because we weren't being physically restrained at that point... but then Knuckles grabbed me roughly before I could get away and he slammed me into a tree pretty violently and yelled at me to not try anything like that again and to just keep walking o.o; he was kinda psychopathic n.n;; anyway, yeah, that was pretty much the gist of it..."

Yeah, pretty much whack. Jei's response? "gaaah n.n;; crazy Knuckles dream!" ... yeah XD Pretty much. Poor Knux... he often gets written as crazy/psychotic in fanfiction and fanart I've seen, and now he's flipped his lid in my dreams too :P But yeah, he was scary O.o;


Anyway, that wasn't the main thing I wanted to write about. I actually wanted to post about something I've been thinking about a lot again...

I haven't really posted about 'gender' stuff in a little while, but it's still something I think about a lot. I dislike gender a whole lot. I don't see why I have to have one. For the longest time I've felt... well... trapped by gender. Not so much in the sense that I'd like to change my gender completely, but to the point where I just wish I could get rid of any semblance from either side and just be completely and utterly gender neutral.

If I could, I would identify by a gender-neutral pronoun. There are some out there, I guess, but they sound so fake and theatrical and flamboyant. I wish there was just a plain gender-neutral term I could use that wasn't 'it' (as that implies an object rather than a person - I don't even like calling animals 'it' and get a little cross if someone knows my cat's gender and still calls him 'it'), but there really isn't, so I find myself stuck between 'he' and 'she' in my head.

It's not so much that I don't like my given gender... I just dislike gender, period. I'm lucky that I'm actually fairly androgynous in appearance, young-looking too, but I often wish I could appear truly androgynous to the point where it would be impossible to assign a gender to me. As far as sex itself is concerned, I would be content to give it up. Although I suppose I'm not entirely asexual, I'm far less driven by it than many people I know. I had one furre tell me I'm defective as a fox if I don't want sex all the time ^^; But what can I say? It's never been a high priority. Doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it, but... I can live without it. There are other things in life, and in a relationship, that are far more important to me.

I'm not sure why I dislike gender so much... perhaps just because I feel it really doesn't define me. Maybe part of it is also to do with wanting to keep the androgyny of youth. Overall I think it's just a 'me' quirk. I don't feel I really fit either role, and I don't feel comfortable settling on one, because neither 'human male' or 'human female' feels completely 'right' to me. And so sometimes when I have to check a box, I literally pick at random.

Ironic for someone with 'boy' right there in his/her/its username, huh? ^^;;



*Why is 'echidna' not in LJ's spell-checker dictionary? Prejudice! >O

Comments

[overlord-mordax.livejournal.com]

I know how you feel about the whole gender thing. Its really inconvenient. :( the majority of people expect us to have a gender, whether the gender they were born with or not, and it can be distressing to people who have a more fluid concept of 'gender'. :P

[flyboy-fox.livejournal.com]

Gender ID is so overrated :\

Also, your icon is win.

[shadowdingo.livejournal.com]

Aarrgghh... tell me about it! I hate being labelled 'female' because of the stupid stereotypes that come with it (liking of cute fluffy animals, constantly obsessed with hair and makeup, loves shopping etc.)... because for the most part, I break these stereotypes (I like snakes they're awesome, I hate makeup and I rarely brush my hair, I also hate having my hair up. And shopping... gah! I only go games shopping, otherwise don't even THINK of it.)

Gender is supposed to define what you act like, and certain things like that. But... what if you don't act your gender (like me), just WHAT do you do? The only thing feminine about me is the fact my hair is long, otherwise, I prefer to think of me as "myself" and not "female".

[overlord-mordax.livejournal.com]

Exactly. My so called 'gender' behaiors are pretty much split right down the middle, and tend to fluctuate from one to the other. I don't have a coherent gender identity, or even a cherent sexual identity. And I don't think thats a bad thing. :D

[flyboy-fox.livejournal.com]

Sadly, where I grew up, pretty much EVERYONE fitted (or tried to fit) the gender stereotypes. All the girls did gymnastics and swooned over Leonardo DiCaprio and tried to get in with the 'popular' crowd, and all the boys obsessed over soccer and wrestling, rap music, and 'hot chicks' x.x I honestly felt like an alien among both sides. (I thought the icon was fitting, but guys can be just as weird XD)

[shadowdingo.livejournal.com]

I don't fangirl over actors either... another way I'm not girly! XD

[shaboba330.livejournal.com]

Gender is a very tricky subject... I agree with you though; life would be a lot easier if people weren't always demanded to classify themselves. Maybe we don't wanna classify ourselves, hmm? :P

And yeah, sex is nice, but DEFINATELY not the only part of a relationship. It pisses me off so much when people brag about their sex lives... it's like "ok, if that's the only reason you love your boyfriend/girlfriend, then I pity you"... so irritating x.o;

[flyboy-fox.livejournal.com]

I could never base any sort of relationship on 'lust' alone. It just seems so shallow. Sex can be a healthy part of a relationship, but if it's the sole basis? Eh. Might as well just spend the night with your hand if all you're after from that person is an orgasm. (#It's just you and your hand tonight...# Sorry, just made me think of that song ^^;)

[shaboba330.livejournal.com]

OMG I LOVE THAT SONG!! :o

*falls over*

[way-past-cool.livejournal.com]

Gender shmender. :P Society wants us all to fit into little check boxes. But you know how I feel about your gender quandry. You've got more personality that a "gender" can handle :P so just never stop being you! n.n Cuz I loooove you...

[flyboy-fox.livejournal.com]

>>You've got more personality that a "gender" can handle :P

O RLY?

But seriously... thank you, vuu n.n I love you too... ::Hugs soooo tight::

[dia-aren-marie.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's true. It's get rid of all those homo and hetero arguments... XD;

I tend to wonder a lot about gender, too (especially since someone I've been watching has decided to go transgender- now that REALLY piqued my interest :O) But, really... should we restrict our personality to our physical body? Like... uhm... gee. Now I'm confused ^^; But, like example... if a girl decided she was more of a boy in personality and ALL stuff than a guy, does she really have to change her body to prove it? o.x;; Y'know? And I'm really confused by the whole "You can't be one AND the other - just one!" thing... gah~ ^^; I do refer to myself as female but man, I'm... pretty much inbetween. I'm not into make-up or fixing myself up, or shopping (I only go hobbies, art supplies, computer and game shopping) so... meh n_n;; I think it's more of I have no problem with GENDER itself (tho it's super confusing), but the STEREOTYPES that people have stuck to them x.o

Mouu~ I like pink but it's not cause I'm a girl. DX I JUST DO. *whimper*

[flyboy-fox.livejournal.com]

I'm mildly phobic of pink ;_; I dunno why... it just scares me XD Like... if I'm in a room and there's a pair of fluffy pink slippers in the same room, I'll actually feel slightly nervous and queasy :P ... but yeah, stereotypes suck majorly.

[tallycola.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on the gender part. Disliking the structure of gender is a big part of my feminism, too. Even though I've never been umcomfortable being female or being perceived as female, the wider gender roles really bug me, and it's very easy to extrapolate about a million problems around the world to gender being just a plain stupid idea. I mean, we can put a man on the moon but we can't stretch our minds and language and society to fit more than two kinds of people? And consider them all valid and equal?

But you can see how language can be really powerful in just that- there is no alternative to "he" and "she". A lot of people resist pronouns for other-gendered people because it is actually so hard to wrap their heads around there being more than a binary. And you can't use "it" like you said because it's so dehumanizing- dehumanizing because we have already divided all humans into "he" or "she" (we could debate how they were split into a serving and ruling class along "he" or "she" in a different post ;) ). So what's to be done? Most people just play along and it's going to be a very very long time before we see how gender itself as a social construction is the root of a lot of distress, not just for people like you and me, but for people who try to live up to their roles and just can't. Nobody can be everything that makes up their gender, and everyone will have traits that lap over into another gender- so the whole system is just stupid.

I'll probably have to continue this in another comment so here goes:

[tallycola.livejournal.com]

A big part of it is that I resent "femininity" being basically everything that is weak and frivolous, even the positive aspects. If "understanding" and "sympathy" and "compassion" are feminine traits, then they won't be taken seriously both in normal every day life and in governance and politics. Because femininity also means "shopping" and "makeup" and "ickle kittie cats" or whatever bullshit. (The opposite being that "boorishness", "selfishness" and "violence" are accepted, since they masculine traits, and masculinity means "rationality" and "logic" and "intelligence". Drives me frickin nuts.)

That's why it's so easy for those in charge to deride basically any peace movement or change towards a kinder world, and why the most powerful women in the world have usually been shocking conservative and hawkish. For real change to happen we have to accept all humans being as just that- human- and having a variety of traits that have nothing to do with their gender, which aren't any better or worse than others just because they are traditionally masculine or feminine.

I don't want to hijack your journal so I'll just give one anecdote- I was at my sister's waiting for her so we could go somewhere, and she had a bunch of magazines- Cosmo, Vogue, all that crap. I think it was Marie Claire that I picked up, and it had an article about female guerrilla soldiers in Afghanistan (I'm pretty sure it was Afghanistan... I faintly remember these women as fighting not with the western armies but still against the Taliban as an indigenous force). "Wow," I thought. "This should be interesting." I was expecting a good, thorough article, you know, about the state of women in Afghanistan, why these particular women started fighting and if it was even a choice they made or if it was one of those child-soldier type dealies. What did I get?

An article about how these women managed to stay "girly" even though they were fighting a war, and how they found time to wash and brush their hair, how they shared make up, etc. "Just because they're at war doesn't mean they're still girls!" The article chirped at me. "Sergeant (Lady's Name) is shown here, plucking her eyebrows in the morning before battle!"

I threw the magazine across the room. There were fewer instances in which I've been mad at a magazine. Really though, I should've expected as much.

[tallycola.livejournal.com]

Wow, typos. That should be "shockingly conservative."
And "there have been few instances in which I've been madder."

[flyboy-fox.livejournal.com]

One example that sticks with me, personally, is the adverts in Nintendo Magazine, obviously trying to appeal to female gamers by showing girls playing DS games. Which is all fine and dandy... but what do the pictures show? Giggly girls all dolled up with lip gloss and sparkly nails, playing Nintendogs on a PINK Nintendo DS Lite... x.x ... WTF. Also, my local Woolworths, until recently, had all computer/games magazines listed under 'Male Interest' and generally on the same shelf as all the Playboy/XXX magazines. I asked about it and they said girls never buy gaming magazines... well, yeah, I'm not surprised when the magazines are hidden between Pamela Anderson's ample assets x.o

[sphix.livejournal.com]

Totally off-topic, but I thought you'd enjoy this, Jai. ^_^

[flyboy-fox.livejournal.com]

;_; WAAANT. Where are those from?

[sphix.livejournal.com]

Kimi Trades

contemplation and mourning....

[jagyggdrasil.livejournal.com]

hi, its me again...after my own bout of 'harsh rem' on the 26th...i had an inclination to visit your livejournal again?...well the consequences of such for me...was a combination of utter grief and mourning and bewilderment for all the 'testimonials' here...after 15 hours of this state...and a 'respond or not' question loop...i came to the decision that i would not 'preach'...and just share my experiences....before my scary march in faith to a 'psychiatric examination' in 2006....and my dismissal and a clean bill of health on a basis of a 2004 'documented online' vision account...and my 'near death experience' due to an 'allergic reaction' to 'drugs' subjected before my show of evidences....and a resulting 'nde' which shown me *awakening from a coma* and *in* such a place, a real colorful world with 'superpowers' capable girls...and...*sigh*...me being such a girl...instead of a '3.7 gpa biology' honor student and 'black weightlifter' (as shown in the 'comment pic')..before all that....i had to come to terms with 'anime' not being enough...nor 'rpgs' or 'm.u.d's' or 'money'...along with intuitively knowing a 'male' false pov as being not of my own and not of my needs....i had to come to terms with my true...soul nature/gender...and my hopes that gender is spiritual not 'biological'...and that a true paradise could be...it was *only* then the visions came....of 'human world events' and a real world where girls can lift cars...summon personal starcruisers...and dash at light speeds *and* be fashionable, heroic, beautiful, glowing...all in gestalt...and to have such because they yearn for such a world of peace with all their hearts....such a world was only revealed to me because the likes of love hina/hare nochi guu/sailor moon/seiken densetsu/saga frontier 2/pop'n twinbee/sonicx...all terrifying me...and not being enough..as if i known a greater truth...and (as i) witnessed an awful disinformation....i first posted here because of concern and a driving need to help due 'the encyclopedia dramatica' horrors...i came back yesterday because of a vision attesting the impact of an immense meteor cluster...but now i see what true death really implies...and, i just want to say....thanks and that i'm sorry...i truly am....

[twitchytwitch.livejournal.com]

Awww, all I can see Knuckles as is amusingly gullible. ^^;
Eggman: OMG HELP MEEEEEEEE. TT-TT
Knuckles: Uhhh... OKAY!
Eggman: -grins evilly-
Knuckles: -does not notice-