Some People See Me as THE STRAIGHT DOPE
Oct. 23rd, 2017 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ahunter3No, I don't mean I'm seen as the poster child of the Straight Dope™ (that message board that I post to), or as the person most associated with it. I'm a long way from that.
Also not the real deal, the genuine article, the "shoot from the hip / tell it like it is" person. Nope, not that either.
More along the lines of "So check it out, there's this straight dope who thinks he's, like, transgender, except he's not, he's not gay or bi, he's attracted to women and he identifies as male, but he says he's genderqueer, because, I don't know, reasons and shit. Like he played jump rope with the girls when he was a kid or something. So, like, I guess straight people can be in denial, too, huh?"
And, in response to that, "He wants to be edgy and trendy. He feels left out when he sees all these transgender and other LGBT people describing their experiences so he goes running along after them with his hand waving in the air, saying 'me too, me too', and they're all probably looking at each other and going, 'Who is this straight dope who keeps trying to tag along?', like how pathetic is that?"
Yeah, that kind of straight dope.
From my vantage point, this translates as "You don't get to talk about your situation and experiences. We've got the list right here of the relevant categories of marginalized orientations and gender identities, and, dude, you ain't on it, so you don't count!", along with "He's trying to explain stuff by tying it in to stuff we have already been hearing about from other people, how lame is that?!"
I could try explaining my issues as a cisgender straight male who is at odds with sexist expectations of males, and with the male gender role. I've done that, I did that for years. It was a different way of packaging my stuff, but I still had stuff I wanted to talk about, see? The same stuff, really. Just packaged differently. I was a women's studies major in college. Back then I was tagging along after the feminists. Waving my little hands in the air and saying "me too, me too".
It's something different. It isn't already being said by other people, it isn't representative of ideas and concepts being promoted by a social movement you've read about. Does that mean I don't get to talk about it? Seriously?? That it doesn't count, because if it was real and of genuine importance someone else would have already made it a Thing?
Well, it could legitimately mean I'm nuts. That's always something you need to consider when one person, by themselves, is going on about something and there aren't other people who appear to see things the same way and have the same concerns. But I've certainly acknowledged that. I've given people plenty of opportunities to consider the possibility they should dismiss me as a mental case, if they think there's sufficient reason to do so.
The burden is on me to make sense.
One of the primary ways to go about making sense to people is to connect what you're trying to say to things they already understand. Or, to put that the other way around, one of the primary ways to NOT make sense to people is to NOT connect what you're saying to things they can already relate to.
Yes, I do package the things I'm trying to say in what I hope to be familiar wrapping paper, a set of concepts I expect people to already be aware of.
But there's nothing cynical or dishonest about my choosing the LGBTQIA environment and explaining myself as genderqueer. They've raised a very inclusive umbrella and the issues and experiences I'm trying to describe do fit there. And the specific term genderqueer describes me and my situation even more closely. Even though I am not a really representative or typical genderqueer person (most of the people who identify as genderqueer are either genderFLUID or AGENDER; they also tend to be considerably younger, not that that should be terribly relevant), it's a good fit for me.
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Also not the real deal, the genuine article, the "shoot from the hip / tell it like it is" person. Nope, not that either.
More along the lines of "So check it out, there's this straight dope who thinks he's, like, transgender, except he's not, he's not gay or bi, he's attracted to women and he identifies as male, but he says he's genderqueer, because, I don't know, reasons and shit. Like he played jump rope with the girls when he was a kid or something. So, like, I guess straight people can be in denial, too, huh?"
And, in response to that, "He wants to be edgy and trendy. He feels left out when he sees all these transgender and other LGBT people describing their experiences so he goes running along after them with his hand waving in the air, saying 'me too, me too', and they're all probably looking at each other and going, 'Who is this straight dope who keeps trying to tag along?', like how pathetic is that?"
Yeah, that kind of straight dope.
From my vantage point, this translates as "You don't get to talk about your situation and experiences. We've got the list right here of the relevant categories of marginalized orientations and gender identities, and, dude, you ain't on it, so you don't count!", along with "He's trying to explain stuff by tying it in to stuff we have already been hearing about from other people, how lame is that?!"
I could try explaining my issues as a cisgender straight male who is at odds with sexist expectations of males, and with the male gender role. I've done that, I did that for years. It was a different way of packaging my stuff, but I still had stuff I wanted to talk about, see? The same stuff, really. Just packaged differently. I was a women's studies major in college. Back then I was tagging along after the feminists. Waving my little hands in the air and saying "me too, me too".
It's something different. It isn't already being said by other people, it isn't representative of ideas and concepts being promoted by a social movement you've read about. Does that mean I don't get to talk about it? Seriously?? That it doesn't count, because if it was real and of genuine importance someone else would have already made it a Thing?
Well, it could legitimately mean I'm nuts. That's always something you need to consider when one person, by themselves, is going on about something and there aren't other people who appear to see things the same way and have the same concerns. But I've certainly acknowledged that. I've given people plenty of opportunities to consider the possibility they should dismiss me as a mental case, if they think there's sufficient reason to do so.
The burden is on me to make sense.
One of the primary ways to go about making sense to people is to connect what you're trying to say to things they already understand. Or, to put that the other way around, one of the primary ways to NOT make sense to people is to NOT connect what you're saying to things they can already relate to.
Yes, I do package the things I'm trying to say in what I hope to be familiar wrapping paper, a set of concepts I expect people to already be aware of.
But there's nothing cynical or dishonest about my choosing the LGBTQIA environment and explaining myself as genderqueer. They've raised a very inclusive umbrella and the issues and experiences I'm trying to describe do fit there. And the specific term genderqueer describes me and my situation even more closely. Even though I am not a really representative or typical genderqueer person (most of the people who identify as genderqueer are either genderFLUID or AGENDER; they also tend to be considerably younger, not that that should be terribly relevant), it's a good fit for me.
————————
I am now echoed on DreamWidth, like many other LJ folks. My DW acct is here. Please friend/link me on DW if you are a DreamWidth user.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
