z

Young Writers Society


Let's Have a Gender Talk



User avatar
766 Reviews



Gender: None specified
Points: 650
Reviews: 766
Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:32 pm
View Likes
Brigadier says...



I already did my reach out to the Queer Inklings Club and in my Squills author page. If you happened to be in either of those spots, you might know what I'm here to discuss.

If not:

I'm one of the enby/trans peeps in your YWS neighborhood and I've noticed that people have a lot of questions. Some are repeat topics that I'm working on covering for my Squills column, Pop Culture Corner. I want to talk a bit about the background for enby/trans, the terms, the identities, how we fit into the overall queer community, etc.

But of course to answer those questions and concerns, I have to hear them first.

So...any questions?

the brigadier rides again!
LMS VI: Lunch Appointment with Death

  





User avatar
121 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 110
Reviews: 121
Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:57 pm
View Likes
manilla says...



how do you figure out your gender identity
Pronouns: she/they

From the wild manila folder of YWS's office.

When the last tree has fallen
And the rivers are poisoned
You cannot eat money


I do reviews: https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?f=188&t=108365
  





User avatar
1274 Reviews

Supporter


Gender: Female
Points: 35724
Reviews: 1274
Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:30 pm
View Likes
niteowl says...



idk maybe there's a Buzzfeed quiz that will have you pick some cakes and assign a gender identity or something :P

But seriously, are there any good resources out there to help someone who's in the process of questioning their gender identity? I've seen questions about this in the Queer Inklings club and realized that I wouldn't know where to turn.

I might edit with more questions later.
"You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand." Leonardo Da Vinci

<YWS><R1>
  





User avatar
766 Reviews



Gender: None specified
Points: 650
Reviews: 766
Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:23 pm
View Likes
Brigadier says...



manilla wrote:how do you figure out your gender identity


Ooh @manilla.
A good starter question.

I always like to give a quick timeline of the genders I've attached to myself since I began my journey about five years ago. This first part is about my personal discovery and I would like to tag @Vervain and @biscuitsleguin, for their own commentary on how they work through gender.

For me, it has more or less gone:
Cis queer woman --> binary trans man --> non-binary person --> genderqueer femme person --> genderqueer masc person --> non-binary trans masc person

Many people that I find in any portion of queer communities say that they found whatever part of their identity by having a feeling that something was wrong and/or needed to change. And then most often, they find the right piece that clicks for them by researching.

I've found that the research necessary for gender identity (as well as sexual and romantic orientation) requires a lot of talking to more experienced people. I probably wouldn't have been able to settle myself as a non-binary person without finding friends who had been in the same boat as me. For genderqueer, I found the right label and it was an umbrella feeling for that time, but finding that label means being in touch with your feelings.

I started as a cisgender queer woman because I was not aware of the possibilities for gender. And when I started learned about being accepted as another gender, I was still living in a heavy binary bubble. By this I mean I did not know that being non-binary was an option. So the first time that I went seeking for something else, I was rolling with being a binary trans man but there were certain aspects that made me uncomfortable.

However, I wasn't going back to being cis after thinking I was trans in such a binary way because my problem was with the label and the presentation required for it. This took me to generally saying non-binary but I wanted a more specific feeling, and I ended up with genderqueer.

Genderqueer was very attractive to me because it's more of an umbrella term and I've always been most comfortable with describing myself as queer. While actively using that label, I changed my presentation style and my pronouns, which is why I distinguish between the two periods.

I'm at a point where I use the label of genderfluid, meaning I have multiple gender identities that I experience, but I mainly keep to one identity: transmasculine non-binary
It's a flashback to where I started and one of the few labels that I've felt actually comfortable with.

One of the reasons I keep coming back to masculine identities versus feminine or neutral identities, is because I figured out a comfortable presentation. I've always had a heavy lean to masculine presentation which led me to find a gender identity that made me comfortable.

Now onto the next bit.

-----
@niteowl this might be some of the good starting resources

If you're talking about starting your own "journey", my answer is going to be: research.

It's not the best metaphor but when you go to find the right product for whatever reason, you're going to research the heck out of it. Finding a gender identity that is appropriate for your needs is a little bit more important than looking at toaster models, but the principle still remains. There are so many different genders out there beyond the more well known cis, trans, and enby alignments.

A good one that came up last night was agender, and agender is actually an umbrella term, with many different possibilities. One of my favorites that falls under it is gendervoid because it just evokes a certain imagery.

For lists of genders, I would recommend starting with the Nonbinary Wiki, which is a very trusted source for information. This site is a bit to work through as you slowly piece together which aspects of which identity appeal to you. And then once you find a basic description that sounds like it's the right thing, it's often easy to find another resource (on tumblr) that is related to the identity.

One thing about researching is how much gender identity is sometimes made out to be a joke, and therefore you have to be really careful where you're looking. My mind of course bounced first to non-binary identities but of course there's the more binary transgender options. For that, I've heard the Transgender Teen Survival Guide is good about identities and then technical parts about presentation, depending on how people want to pass. And another good thing is that they also have a page of enby resources:Transgender Teen Survival Guide - Nonbinary Resources.

I know that the next stop for exploration would be different YouTubers and then also more Tumblrs, which might take me a bit to dig up. I haven't been actively involved in those communities...ever, but I know plenty of people who are familiar with both of those scenes.

I'll come back with a more diverse list later. For now, I'm also going to drop a writing guide from the YWS forums, that does follow one part of the process.
Kale's Guide for Researching Queer Representation

the brigadier rides again!
LMS VI: Lunch Appointment with Death

  





User avatar
121 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 110
Reviews: 121
Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:04 pm
View Likes
manilla says...



Thank you so much for your question! You're right, research does help.
Pronouns: she/they

From the wild manila folder of YWS's office.

When the last tree has fallen
And the rivers are poisoned
You cannot eat money


I do reviews: https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?f=188&t=108365
  





User avatar
425 Reviews



Gender: Gendervague he/she/they
Points: 50
Reviews: 425
Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:20 pm
View Likes
Vervain says...



i don't know what my gender identity is!

well, i kind of do -- in that i've thought about it for years and years and years and finally found something i'm happy with. it's not Me with a capital M but it's as close as i can get without laying out my entire life experience in my name like an Ent.

i first entertained the thought of being trans or gender fluid when i was 16, but more often than not, i swung between not two but three points of a many-shaded spectrum and i couldn't figure out what the third point was! i tend to swing between traditionally masc and traditionally femme identity and presentation, but the third point confused me. a lot.

so at first, i was a Cis Person. then i entertained the thought of being a Genderfluid Person, but that didn't feel quite right, and i was 16 and didn't trust myself, so i told myself i was still a Cis Person.

i think i was 18 when i read more into it and decided that 'genderqueer' fit me more than anything else, that this strange thirdness i felt in my identity was just something dragging me away from the spectrum of male and female (i wasn't wrong! but i wasn't right either). i battled a lot with that, with those thoughts, with even the idea of calling myself genderqueer. in the end i came out to a friend, testing the waters, and they accepted my identity; this prompted me to come out to more people. i was a Genderqueer Person.

it was a year or two later, recently, that i found out about more nonbinary identities. in the meantime, i tried on a lot of labels -- Binary Trans Person, Non-Binary Person, Agender Person, Pangender Person -- and none of them fit me quite right. i resigned myself to the idea that i just didn't like labels, and went on my merry way.

then i found the term 'gendervague', which is a neuro-divergent specific gender identity. i'm autistic, and it fit how i felt about myself! after years of trying things out, i could finally relax into a label that fit me as a Gendervague Person. it meant a little explaining when i introduced myself to someone new, and it meant some more explaining when neuro-typical allistic people asked me about my gender identity, but it was finally a term that was specific to me.

except that thirdness was still there. there were the shifts between trad masc and trad femme that i still felt, even if they had lessened as i became an independent adult and could present Any Way I Damn Well Pleased, but there was something else bothering me about my identity. while it covered the way i felt most of the time, the thirdness stuck out, leaving me stranded on the rocks when everything else washed away.

very recently, i found the term 'genderflux', which explained that thirdness for me -- genderflux is like genderfluid, except one of the elements of the fluidity is being agender. for me, it helped explain that mysterious thirdness, the part of me that was not masc nor femme nor fluid nor vague nor non-binary -- but something else altogether, to me. it really helped me figure myself out.

so really, in the long and round-about essay-ish answer to the question, i found out who i was by sitting around thinking about it a lot, doing my research into identities, and trying them on to see how they felt on me! some fell away very quickly (i am not a Binary Trans Person and never will be), while others took some time to fade and lose their luster for my identity (i am also not an Agender Person, though many of my characters are, which was initially what made me explore my propensity for agender identity).

so a quick rundown like Lizz did --

Cis Person --> Genderfluid Person --> Cis Person --> Genderqueer Person --> Binary Trans Person --> NB Person --> Agender Person --> Pangender Person --> A Lot Of Other Identities --> Gendervague Person --> Gendervague Genderflux Person

and it only took me 6 years!

[[ they/them pronouns right now please ]]
stay off the faerie paths
  








Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first.
— Mark Twain