CodingSocks wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 11:20 pm
Entry 1: Why now?
(3)
Putting my money where my mouth is, I'm changing my pronouns from He/Him (questioning) to She/Her (questioning) on my user profile here. This is certainly a space where I can feel securely away from bigotry. As explained above, this is mostly an experimental exercise, however, in the spirit of the exercise, I do genuinely desire to be perceived as a girl in this context. This should also be a helpful reminder to those kind people with who I've already had the pleasure of interacting on this board to make that shift from He/Him to She/Her. Thank you very much for understanding <3.
Entry 2: Exploring exploring:
Epistemology, as told by a laywoman
cw: discussion of
bigotry
TLDR;
- Even if I cannot clearly identify why I want to be a woman, I can still be a woman. Assuming otherwise makes people do stupid things like claiming featherless bipeds are men.
- Being a girl can be becoming a girl
- I need to aggressively be myself to aggressively become myself. Otherwise, my concept of self may never fully reach where it could be.
While writing my previous entry, I stumbled upon a realization that I may have been viewing gender expression as an end state to be derived after consideration, as opposed to a tool which could be used to inform my thoughts. I'd like to relate this to the unification of means and ends, an anarchist political theory. Since, as we may all be aware, the personal is political, and in this case, I believe can offer some insight. To talk about it, I refreshed myself with an article written by Zoe Baker, an academic of the history of anarchism and overall badass (
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library ... s-and-ends).
To quote Malatesta:
it is not enough to desire something; if one really wants it adequate means must be used to secure it. And these means are not arbitrary, but instead cannot but be conditioned by the ends we aspire to and by the circumstances in which the struggle takes place, for if we ignore the choice of means we would achieve other ends, possibly diametrically opposed to those we aspire to, and this would be the obvious and inevitable consequence of our choice of means. Whoever sets out on the highroad and takes a wrong turning does not go where he intends to go but where the road leads him (1).
If you have ever heard the phrase "The ends justify the means", what is meant by "ends" and "means" are identical to what is meant in "the unification of ends and means", but takes the opposite position on the viability of incongruence between the two.
In the context in which Malatesta was speaking, he is referring to the corrupting power that the state apparatus has on well-intentioned greenhorn politicians. That is to say, while power and politics do attract opponents of progress, it also filters out and morphs progress systemically.
A good example could be to consider the Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, a former Greenpeace activist who was arrested for scaling the CN tower in a protest (
nice). However, the path between then and now toward a high-ranking cabinet position dulled his edge and weakened his message (
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/steven ... -1.6230308) (
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fifth-es ... -1.6410657). Effectively, the aesthetics of his past have been effectively used to make my country's climate policy seem radical and ground-breaking while having the real strength of a moist towelette. He does not seriously threaten the O&G industry or tackle environmental issues. This was ensured through the various compromises and deals he was "forced" to accept on his way up to the cabinet as a means to the end of a genuine urge to tackle climate injustice.
Also, note that this is also saying that means
*are* ends. At the end of the day, means are what you are doing, and thus are outcomes in and of themselves. It also implies that the only way we can produce the type of people who are capable of tending to a compassionate society is by living within a compassionate society, as they will not appear suddenly out of the woodwork to implement this society once we "declare" a more compassionate society. Being is becoming.
That is a long-winded explanation of a weird political-wonk theory, but what does that have to do with your gender, nerd?
Fair. Let's get back on topic.
Specifically regarding gender, what are means, and what are ends? How can there be congruence or incongruence between the two? What would the consequences of incongruence be? The benefits of congruence? What are some forces that shape our means to deviate from our desired ends? How do we combat these forces? Importantly, how does experimenting with a genuine feminine identity exhibit a unification between means and ends?
Specifically regarding gender, what are means, and what are ends?
To me, a means to gender looks something like day-to-day gender expression and self-concept. This includes gender traits such as physical appearance, pronouns, and honorifics but also includes attitudes and practices toward queer liberation.
An ends to gender could be seen as the desired, theoretical state of optimum gender euphoria. This is referring more strongly to gender traits and internal/external conditions which can be achieved to become closer to these ideals.
Ends in this context are likely to be very ambiguous but may become clearer over time. This is the case with many ends. Consider the desire to have fun, and socialize with friends as an end. Some possible means may be easily identifiable, board games, snacks, or responsible alcohol consumption; however, what it means to "have fun" and "socialize" is very different from person to person and can even vary within a person from day to day. Sometimes you may think that an activity like playing a couch-coop game is a direct means to achieve an end, but you end up bored or frustrated with the game or your friends.
Similarly, what it means to experience gender euphoria is very ambiguous. However, that does not mean that you don't know what you want, and it
certainly doesn't invalidate your identity, much like not knowing how to have fun, or being able to clearly define "fun" doesn't mean you don't know what fun is, or don't understand fun as a concept.
(
https://preview.redd.it/tfcxef8c3m281.j ... b3e61f1670 <-- relevant post tackling bigotry)
As I understand it, this acceptance of ambiguity is can also be explained nicely by Ludwig Wittgenstein's "Family Resemblance" (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_resemblance); however, I only have a weak understanding of the concept, so I won't go in much further detail than that.
You can also check out this video (https://youtu.be/sWSY_Y5fxUA?t=498), which goes into this specific concept in detail to debunk Matt Walsh, who can eat shit.
How can there be congruence or incongruence between [means and ends]?
To quote an anonymous stranger, who I trust said this earnestly:
My cognitive dissonance has grown so much that I’ve defeated dysphoria through sheer madness.
I’ve never been within 10 feet of [an] estrogen molecule yet I see a female in the mirror.
The language implies a level of levity, but what is being described is such a radically strong conviction that the means and ends to gender euphoria have merged into one synthesis:
I am a girl.
The means:
- A radically strong conviction that she is a girl.
The ends:
- A radically strong conviction that she is a girl.
That is to say; I believe a congruence between means and ends is achieved with gender when practice, means, is a direct emulation of ends.
Being is becoming.
It makes me so hopeful for humanity to know that we are capable
On the contrary, having incongruence between means and ends in this respect, I believe, could lead to undesirable outcomes. I think taking a trepidacious approach as a means of seeking gender euphoria is an approach that compromises and makes concessions to patriarchy and only leads to an understanding of oneself in the confines of a system that is designed to marginalize and oppress the lives and dreams of souls multitudinous. As Malatesta identified:
Whoever sets out on the highroad and takes a wrong turning does not go where he intends to go but where the road leads him (1)
I understand the motivation to give concessions to society for one's own safety, it can be a dangerous world. It, however, is a force I deeply resent and want to show the most amount of irreverence as possible towards. I certainly will have to make compromises with the world, as
~we live in a society~ 
. However, I strongly believe that every concession to the world would not just damage who I am but who I will become.
Being, after all, is becoming.
In what I hope is self-evident, I wish to minimize the damage I cause to myself and to give the bird to whatever forces I encounter that would have me fit into someone else's box. If I'm going to upend my personal and professional life, I almost see no point in going half-send with this. It is not going to make other people have any less compulsion to further chip away at who I am until they take everything right back to square one if they had their way.
What would the consequences of incongruence [between means and ends] be? The benefits of congruence?
I touched on this just above, but I believe that the consequence of allowing incongruence is that it basically opens the doorway for a slow erosion of my own identity back to oblivion and perpetuates notions that the world should be allowed to tell queer people how to act out of a supremacy narrative.
Having congruence, on the other hand, is freedom. Easily attainable, perfect congruence is part of my ideal of what queer liberation means to me and the path towards true trans joy. It will be, and is, hard to maintain. I will fail. I will also succeed. However, I ought to embark upon my concept of self firmly with the notion with my eyes set on the horizon, a beautiful horizon. It is, after all, so important also to remember why I am doing this. For joy, freedom, life, and fundamentally what it means to be human.
What are some forces that shape our means to deviate from our desired ends?
I think I've found a way to answer this by answering the previous questions above. To repeat, I think that supremacy narratives from a hierarchical and patriarchal society are responsible for attempting to shape our understanding of the range of possible means that are viable to us.
How do we combat these forces?
How do we combat patriarchy? Friend, do I have an entire literary and oral canon to refer to you. I have a hard time phrasing how to answer this in my own words since the question is so multifaceted. This could be a topic of a future entry into this journal in and of itself. This could be a
book, an entire
academic career, or
field of study, which of course, it is. Feminism writ large.
In one sentence, which I will leave it at for today?
We ought to build a new society within the old, without being naïve about it.
Importantly, how does experimenting with a genuine feminine identity exhibit a unification between means and ends?
I think experimenting with how it feels to allow myself to be a girl has been a positive experience. It has been fraught with emotion for sure, but sitting with these feelings has seen me re-formed slightly anew afterwards each time. What this feeling is, either terror or a genuine lack of identification with womanhood, I have unfortunately a hard time distinguishing. From here on in the journal, I will call this feeling The Grinch.
The best way to describe The Grinch is that it feels like a bomb strapped to my chest, and I am holding the detonator. When it goes off, of my own accord, it will hurt people around me. Ultimately though, I would be at the centre of this explosion.
https://c.tenor.com/7gtRTJVdoDcAAAAC/th ... carrey.gif
I have mentioned The Grinch before in my old thread, but I think I was oversimplifying it by labelling it simply as "stress/tension". It is a different emotion, and it needs a name if I'm going to talk about it. The Grinch, it will be.
I decided to open up further with my girlfriend while writing this entry, which I have been writing over the course of two days. If I know anything about myself, it is that I can't keep a secret from those I love. It was not an easy conversation. I told her about my writing an open journal but refused to let her see it (this). I only told her that it was a small forum I found that had heavy moderation. I told her it fit my needs by being just active enough that I feel that people are out there, but not so active that I should fear being identified or experiencing online harassment. She agreed that it would be good for me to talk about this with people besides her. I also told her that I have been seriously questioning my gender, with the possibilities being:
- Genderfluid (including masculine)
- Genderfluid (excluding masculine)
I did not tell her I had been privately accepting the identity of a woman to see how it feels. I did, however, tell her I had been doing mental exercises on people in my class: male, female, nonbinary, wondering what it would be like to be them; at that moment, and then imagine interacting with someone else in the class. These thoughts have been interesting and could be a good topic for a future entry.
She has a hard time understanding how I don't know myself; she herself has a very boolean mind, describing most of her thoughts as either true or false, and has a hard time understanding how truth can come in shades for me or is obscured, cloudy, or unclear. She is supportive of me and tries to make it clear that, in the abstract, she wants me to do what's best for me, even if it breaks her heart in the end.
However, her being human, I think she desperately wants me to stay her boyfriend. She, at one point, asked me if maybe this was the product of not having positive male role models in my life. I pointed out that this is a popular transphobic sentiment, and she agreed, walked it back, and apologised. This isn't even true, by the way, she was specifically gesturing to my father, but I do have many men in my life who are kind and gentle. I honestly can't blame her for grasping at straws here, but it does hurt when she says things such as that.
She did, however, assure me that no matter what, she would be a support for me during the most stressful first months of transitioning and be there for me. I told her that I did not care if she was lying to me; I needed her to tell me this story whether it was true or not. This conversation also led to us agreeing that we may want to try working through this starting now. She decided to go to therapy, and I urged her to reach out to her closest friend to talk about this.
AS IT WOULD TURN THE FUCK OUT, her friend's partner, her fiancée, had begun questioning their gender recently, so apparently, it's in the water or some shit. This led to us beginning to plan a housewarming party, board games, and food, where later in the night, me, her fiancée, my partner, and her friend could pair off and cry on each other's shoulders. I am very excited about this event; I do not think I am scared about it, though. It's broaching things that have already been broached. Old news. The Grinch has already exploded here, so I feel just about as comfortable in this context as I do talking here.
It is important to note this experience has also been punctuated by feelings of joy, fun, and confidence. It feels like gliding through the world a little differently. Sometimes there is more pep in my step. Sometimes I modulate my voice very slightly so that I can hear a difference and think of it as fully feminine, while in reality, it is still plausibly masculine. It's
fun to do that. I
really do want to do more of this. The next thing that's really been kicking around my mind is painting my nails maroon. I, however, have had the unfortunate, very stubborn habit of biting my nails all of my life, so the fleshy bit at the top of my fingers is larger than normal, and I have moderately small fingernails. I'm going to
really try for a week to quit biting, and in the meantime, locate some maroon nail polish. One funny thing I noticed regarding confidence today is I did not know how I felt about having breasts, but then I imagined that instead of them being loose and set out to fend for themselves under my shirt, which made me feel vulnerable and
bad. I imagined wearing clothing that offers more protection, a cardigan, and what I would imagine the sensation of a bra supporting them would be, and how all this would make me feel. While I can't say definitively that it was exclusively a positive thought because of The Grinch, it certainly assisted me in feeling less panicked from the vulnerability realistically associated with having breasts a-la male gaze.
In this way, accepting myself privately has led to more and more thoughts, both big and small, vague and concrete. These thoughts do trend towards the direction that I am not lying to myself, and I am unto something with myself, which brings out fear in spades, but maybe not The Grinch...
The only thing I can say is that while doing my thought experiment by pretending to be my male peers, I don't really tend to have a huge desire to be them or a distinct revulsion unless they are very masculine. This trend materializes itself in other ways. Given the option, I would press the magic button that would make me a girl, and everyone else's memories would be magically altered in congruence with this. I also have a much better understanding of trans people who have transitioned to become more feminine while finding transition towards masculinity very... confusing, in a word. I know this doesn't make sense on its face, and in the abstract, I understand it's what I'm going through, but in the other direction. I guess I can understand how someone could
tolerate being a man, but a desire to be, or enjoyment of, being a man is somewhat alien to me. I could equally apply this to cis men, but at the same time, I actually don't understand the active enjoyment of manhood of cis men anyways. So I suppose; further, I actually do understand trans masculine types, but I understand them in the same way I don't understand cis men?
Given the option, I would press the magic button that would make me a girl, and everyone else's memories would be magically altered in congruence with this.
This may be crazy, but the only real negative emotion I could feel from pressing that button is... sadness? It feels like giving up on who I am, with what would be my unique trans identity, which is uniquely me. I would certainly like to be a cisgender woman, as it would offer many advantages in terms of privilege in society. But also... It would make me a different person, or specifically, really, a different
woman. I don't know who I would be today without the various struggles I have gone through in my life. It kind of reminds me of how people who are autistic describe being offered a similar button to become neurotypical. In that instance, autism has shaped who they are in such a fundamental way, that to instantly become neurotypical would mean the death of the person they knew, with a new person taking their place in the world where they had once lived. I have a family member with autism, so I really identify with the sentiment here. I couldn't possibly call the person who would replace my family member with autism the same person. They would be a stranger.
People talk about "existential dysphoria" (
https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/existential-dysphoria) in terms of reminiscing the loss of what it means to have earlier life milestones tainted with the knowledge that you have been missing out on those experience's, or their allegory, as the gender you identify as. This sadness I refer to when considering pressing the magic button is a kind of the reverse of existential dysphoria,
even if I do experience existential dysphoria myself. I do think that I would ultimately press this button, but the radical, "fuck you" part of my brain almost feels like this magic vendor, their button, and their assimilationist bullshit can shove it. I definitely feel very conflicted about the question of being born the other gender entirely at this moment.
I like who I am, but I want to become a girl... I want to talk about this more in a future entry. Something is here,
X marks the spot etc. I don't know if this makes me a sucker for punishment or what.
Maybe it's because the point of this hypothetical is to perpetrate trans erasure; clearly, what is being proposed by the hypothetical is impossible. Literally magic. It is impossible to magically change people's minds to know you as a girl through all time. It is also impossible to have been AFAB instead of AMAB, and vice versa. It implies that trans people ought to accept scenarios where stealthing is the only way to have a "normal" life effectively and that being cisgender is better than being transgender as a means to those ends. If you find yourself agreeing with the concept that being cisgender is better than being transgender, why? The only valid voice in my head saying anything to the contrary is that it may be nice to have the requisite genitals stock, out of the factory. The other voice is basically telling me that it would save the heartache involved with interfacing with a deeply transphobic society. It's really to this, the idea that the most plausible solution to transphobia is to magic it away, that irks me. Why should I have to do something if a big, primary reason to do so is to conform to the standards set by those who would see us dead, which effectively, this question and others ask of marginalized folk? The button proposes killing the
you that exists in this real, corporeal world outside of the realm of magic and replacing you with someone else's life. So
yes, I do want to press the button, but the real answer is that I would prefer a button that magically resolved the bigoted thoughts of people in my life, as this comes closer to an ideological statement of what ought to be implemented in this real world.
... Whoo lass! You apparently have a lot to say about the magic button question that I never knew you had in you. While I understand where you are coming from, this post is a fucking behemoth, so let's get to trying to wrap it up.
... OK.
I have noticed that I very much like the way I can socialize with men recently. It's notable because a very old sense of gender dysphoria came from wanting to socialize more with the girls in my grade than the boys in my grade, but feeling like compulsory heterosexuality made a barrier in the trust that girls would grant me to form a platonic relationship. This was doubly dysphoric when I could feel my attraction toward girls in my class getting in the way of the platonic relationship I wanted with the girls in my class. For a very long time, I developed a very negative attitude towards my sexuality and libido and was viewed as purely a force in my life that made me trip over myself. This frustration was felt most deeply around Junior High when I noticed kids my age starting to feel attracted to each other and thus develop these barriers; these are some of the earliest memories I can identify myself explicitly wishing I was a girl. Other earlier memories of gender dysphoria and euphoria exist, like the time my sister "forced" me to put on a dress to try and embarrass me, but really I was going along with that the whole time XD. But yeah, wishing I was a girl is very solidly associated with wishing to socialize as a girl.
I did feel attracted to boys around early high school, but it would also take me till early university to be honest with myself that I
did not just want to be very good friends. In fact, it was in early university that I had my first queer meltdown;
I even considered that I might be trans. I identified many of the elements of my adolescence that I have identified here in this journal. What ended up happening is that I tried jerking off to men, and it worked, so I correctly labelled myself bisexual. However, I didn't want to, or couldn't imagine that just because I had figured out one thing, there may be more to it, which, a few years later now, I find myself having that second reckoning I had missed then. I do not blame myself for this either, though. It really was a lot for me to process that I fit somewhere on the rainbow. This episode of my life could again be a good thing to unpack in a future entry.
Since I didn't know how to put the words to my attraction toward boys in my grade, I did not feel that same barrier in attempting to form friendships I created with male peers in high school, and they wouldn't have been likely to pick up on it anyways due to compulsory heterosexuality. Well, maybe except for the time I kissed my friend as a "joke," haha. lmao.
lmao. Just joking, guys... I truly am an unstable mass of pure queer that somehow goes through the world oblivious.
So basically, most of my friendships with boys have been coincidences, or I was basically in love with them, whereas I would often actively seek relationships with girls and could frequently find myself with girls being the only people I would be hanging out with at a time.
This is all to say, a more intentional, genuine friendship with men is somewhat new. I'd like to try and explore more deeply what having a group of friends who are men would mean to me if I were to present to them as a woman. After all, women can, and do have groups of friends who are men. This again could be a topic of a future entry.
All in all, really giving myself the space to consider a feminine identity by attempting to embrace it against all forces telling me "no" has opened a lot of doors as to what I desire to do. I recommend 10/10.
In conclusion:
- Even if I cannot clearly identify why I want to be a woman, I can still be a woman. Assuming otherwise makes people do stupid things like claiming featherless bipeds are men.
- Being a girl can be becoming a girl
- I need to aggressively be myself to aggressively become myself. Otherwise, my concept of self may never fully reach where it could be.
P.S: It feels great to shout into the wind here. Thank you for reading. Stay awesome, punks.
P.P.S: I apologize for the absolute size of this post. It's too big for me to edit and took me two days to write, so I apologize if it comes off as somewhat jarbled.
Socks
https://youtu.be/uuLnY0ceR_s
(1)
Errico Malatesta, The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader, ed. Davide Turcato (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2014), 281–2.
