project gendered

This is a project based on gender identity and my struggle with it. While I am an educated theorist with upcoming publications in the field of Sociology, I do not presume to know a thing about what it means to exist within dysphoria. Except that I do exist there and that I am utterly and wholeheartedly lost. Compounded by this is the fact that I am a daydreamer and a persistent creative maniac. From a young age, I have always been questioning my reality and blending notions of things beyond our existence into real life. I have always questioned my gender, but I have always accepted it. Somewhere along the way, I became tired of being this regular, immovable being, though I have very rarely been all that regular to begin with. What may not be obvious is that I am on the edge of losing everything because of this and I am waiting on the edge, trying to decide how the rest of my life will look like while struggling to come to terms with my gender dysphoria. Some people might relent about help and where to seek it, but I assure you that for as much of a chaotic enigma that I am, I am also a deeply connected individual with what's going on around me. As such, I believe that this project will have some value. It starts from the moment I decided to acknowledge and address my internal gender conflict and will move through observations, expressions, and changes along the way. I also have recently decided to open up this project to others. If you are struggling with gender dysphoria or have a related item to discuss, please don't hesitate to put it through the submission form at the top ^ of the page. Please be aware that this project may be compiled for future purposes and that if you do submit your writing, you give the project full permission to use it in future publications (with credit, of course).

[project-gendered]

Dysphoria Doesnt Go Away

I’ve had such a tumultuous couple of months. 

While the dysphoria itself was not the catalyst for ending my four and a half year marriage, I believe it was a part of a wealth of different things that went wrong with it. 

That being said, there was no room for exploring myself and being myself in the relationship, so we parted, mostly amicably, though I had to deal with a lot of short tempered bullshit directed at me. I’m not one to fight about unnecessary things, but being in a relationship with a partner who knows how to blow up at the small things gets exhausting and does a lot of damage to one’s self esteem in ways I never really noticed before, especially when you don’t have the will to respond to it.

Since parting, I’ve been able to explore myself again and after moving, adjusted my life back to where it was before, but better in that I’m more experienced and well-adjusted to life in general (I hope, at least, in ways that allow me to manage surviving). Of course, finishing my last year of school meant having to drown myself in debt again, but I at least feel better able to manage it, but it definitely terrifies me. 

No, the dysphoria didn’t go away, of course. In fact, I’ve found my ability to explore it more has worsened my relationship with it while making it a more important part of my life. Quite the conundrum. I’m not sure if I’ve entered a period of crippling depression or what (I take medication that now prevents me from getting overwhelmingly sad depressed or as impulsive as I would have, but that doesn’t take a lot of other symptoms away), but every time I sit around thinking about my relationship with dysphoria and sexuality I get this soul crushing feeling like my body is being sucked inside out. Sometimes, if I overthink it, I can feel the anxiety rising in me and I just need to get away from it or away from myself, which is definitely impossible.

I turned back to drinking for a while, I recognize. Admittedly, I was never an alcoholic, but I have a long relationship with using substances of all kinds to avoid my life. Opiates and other painkillers were probably the only thing I was ever truly addicted to, but I know enough now to stay away from those things. However, this means turning to things that don’t overtake my life as bad but still affect it when I turn to it. Honestly, I’m an excellent partier. I’m so much fun, got great ideas, make everyone laugh, but at the end if the day a part of it is all about avoiding other things for me. With how close I moved to a vendor, my supply is never far, so I need to work on chilling out with the drinking before it gets out of control.

Returning to my relationship with dysphoria, I’ve been having all kinds of weird thoughts about it, such as if I’m a woman, then it’s only right I be with a woman. That not only makes sense, it’s a desirable thing. If I’m a man, then I should be with a man, because again, it makes sense. But somehow I keep getting caught up in the logic behind it. Sexual identity and sexuality is one of those things a lot of people say aren’t related, but then how can I feel this way? At the end of the day, one thing I know now is that I am, inarguably, gay. I am a big homo and there’s no changing that. I’ve tried to rest on the pansexual scale and I think in many ways I am pansexual, but that if there is to be something rigid, then if my partner is going to be a singular sex (man or woman with no queerness) then I should be the same. All that’s between is fair game for me. Lmfao. It feels completely and utterly fucking stupid, but it’s where I’ve been in my head for so long. 

Lately, I’ve been wrapped up in all the hot topics of trans violence and loss of LGBTQAI rights in Canada. Alberta recently ended the protective rights of LGBTQAI children in schools and then CELEBRATED. I felt sick to my stomach and I’ve never been one to react emotionally to things, but lately, it’s like I’m starting to realizing I’m not as advantaged as I once was. It’s bizarre to be on the advantaged side of things for so long and then come to terms with the fact that I have to fight for myself and those like me. I’ve always been in the community, but there are definitely different levels of disadvantage within a minority group and while it’s not a competition, you feel when you’re worse off. You feel just how fucked up things are for you. Maybe that’s what’s getting to me lately. 

Anyways, for those interested, here is the joyous celebration of conservative assholes in Canada after basically bending a bunch of kids in school over and fucking them:

https://north99.org/2019/07/06/alberta-conservative-mlas-celebrate-immediately-after-repealing-protections-for-lgbtq-students/?fbclid=IwAR3UXOmZRByKGKoNb0USz3gQzY2cW9tPbljJtTEmzythAJhtYX_c9xFxIuw

I love my country, I do. I love it very much and although we have a wealth of problems of our own, it’s truly a great country to belong to, but this hurts me in my identity, my heart, and my patrioticness. RIP Alberta.

Honestly, I just can’t believe that progress in this point in history means working backwards on harmony. I just want to exist.

[elles-unsure]

This Canada Day, I fucked up, but it’s never a Canada Day if I don’t get fucked off my face. I deadass walked in and slapped money on the counter of this body art shop doing deals in spirit of the day as I walked by the street festival and got a nose ring, continued to wander until I met up with friends and tripped, my fat ass landing on my wrist as my ankle twisted. Fuckin just rowdy lmao. 

[project-gendered]

One other thing I did was finally call an old friend to talk about being Transgendered. She was shook. I went through her entire Transition at her side and she was so... supportive to me in that convo. I love her <3

[project-gendered]

Coming Out...ish

So today I came out to my grandma, who like my grandfather, raised me.

To be fair to life, I did have a bunch of dirty beer, so I think that’s why I did it BUT! I can always count on her. She’s such a doll and admitted she’s got no idea how to handle it but will support me all the way. I love her so much that she deserves this random ass internet shout out.

We used to fight a lot growing up (but our fam is weird, we just fight and then 10 mins later no one cares) but now we just roast each other and laugh all the time so, I can honestly say I’m thankful for her. It’s interesting though that she tells me she has no clue about these things but asks me all kind of relevant questions. I think a lot of people might know more than they realize but simply don’t know how to *approach* it. 

Perhaps I’ll write something more substantial on all of this but my heart is warm right now so it’s worth putting out there!

[project-gendered]

Phobias

As a sociologist, I like to think I’m well versed in theory. That being said, I had this friend for a very long time, since childhood, who I had to stop being with because he’s a straight up piece of garbage.

I had a conversation with another friend of mine who was also friends with this mutual person in our lives for almost as long. He sends me this really methy-like rant from this guy who rambles on about marxism in really painful ways and claims to be a great philosopher himself (barf). At any rate, he’s over this guy now too and we can carry on with out lives with one less goof in it.

What grates on me the most is how over the years, I took a lot of his misinformation as him just needing to learn. I let a lot go by. My personal breaking point was when he went off on gender politics to the point of saying *faggots* get all the rights while he, as a man, gets lets. My friend’s breaking point was his rant, which wont be repeated, about transgendered people. He wanted to know why he would be excluded from trans circles as a man being a lesbian. ... I shit you not. 

Part of me wonders if he has a very deep rooted issue with his own gender and has been overcompensating all these years, but if that’s the case, I’d still never be comfortable with him in any circle of mine. 

I do reflect on my life as this person’s friend because for a long time I thought I should be able to overlook his flaws because of our friendship. I’ve always believed in trying to educate others than being at odds with them, but sometimes there just isn’t enough patience in the world worth that kind of hatred. It’s sad because a lot of my enjoyable times in my youth included this person, so I do sometimes feel like a lot of it was wasted because of him. 

The other issue I have, straight up, is with the inability for a large portion of the world to accept their own lack of knowledge. I don’t presume to know more than anyone else, but I find that when you do bring knowledge and try to diffuse misinformation, you quickly get told off for not allowing other voices to have a say. But... it has nothing to do with voice and everything to do with lack of knowledge. 

All I’m saying is, Marxism =/= whatever this verbal vomit is: “I cannot substantiate how marxism tries to make an enemy or opposite out of every but it. Its not proper to force people to do what you are doing. It doesnt ask it just projects. Thats unjust in a primordial way. It's anti-liberty, tyrannical in executed force and uncomprimising thereby. Let people be to their experiments in life and not to say one philosopher is the arch philosopher. Whats the incentive to deny all other thinkers. Whats the... Appeal to forfeit oneself to uncomprimising marxist ideology? Its just one of many ways to think and to be yet its very subversive plus unwelcomeingly forceful when projected. No I say, I explain to you what I am and do. I tell you what I stand for. Thats how I begin my rebuttals to the projections”

Lock em up and throw away the key, this one needs a brand new mindset.

My advice to everyone out there is to not give up on their friends, but to know their limits. There are just things you can’t change or fix and I’m not saying you need to change them or who they are, but there is a fair about of responsibility on their part to be a decent human being and if they can’t, then they aren’t worth it to you.

[project-gendered]

Acid and Literature

So the other night I dropped some Acid. I’d like to say that it was a very profound trip, but it wasn’t really. One thing I did learn from it this time was that as confused and fucking chaotic my life has become, I’m a much more centered person than I ever was before. The last time I did Acid, I had the same revelation, though I have a moment of complete clarity and saw motherfucking Mufasa in the clouds. I shit you not, it was the most intense moment of my life and after it, I got off all the other drugs I was using to avoid my life and found some stability. 

So I thought that Acid would give me another one of those clarity moments where I come up with something amazing, but I didn’t, not entirely. I should say that I came up with something pretty damn great, but I managed to write a few sentences of it then stay in my head. Since then, I was able to develop a wonderful story that I have decided to pursue writing. So I guess again, thank you Acid.

At any rate, I am still working on the plot design and flow of the entire novel, but I expect it to be a very close to my soul kind of journey in writing. I’ve been writing another novel which is near completion, but I’m like a dog with a bone: When I get an idea, I have to get it all out or else risk losing it for good. So its in the development phase until I’m confident that all I have left to do is write it. My process includes spot writing and then plot development until I’m ready to hammer out the entirety of it.

One part in particular that I wrote, which comes near the final chapters is on one of the main characters, Adam, coming to terms with the fact that he has to tell someone he’s in love with that he was born a woman and that he is still partly one in his physiology. In particular, Sam’s internal dialogue to it, while still a draft, is something that I think came from part of my own experiences in the LGBTQ* community; I’ve known far too many within that community preaching acceptance of one another and then shit talking all the trannies out there. I’ve seen enough side eye and witnessed a ton of avoidance. I understand internal politics of all the “cis” and “non cis” gendered shit that goes on, but nothing gets to me more than the two-faced side of the community. Of course this is not all there is to it, but seeing it happen really stuck with me until now. I often wonder what will happen when, if ever, I come to terms with my own dysphoria and have to face the community I was once so heavily involved in. No matter how much they love you to your face, there will always be chatter behind your back about what you did to yourself. I’ve been between sexualities and genders for so long that it frightens me to be judged as someone going through the next thing. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. 

I should reiterate that even though this may happen, I’m not the kind of person to take things so personally. I get angry that it happens at all to others and that there is potential for it to happen to me. I’m strong enough to get through it but for many, they’re not. 

Anyways, here is a snapshot of Sam’s dialogue:

---

      His chest tightened at the realization that his world had become so tiny. Even with all the marches and all the campaigns, no one tells you what it’s like to love someone who isn’t what they were supposed to be. They cry loud and speak louder about accepting one another. Marshall had a boyfriend who he thought was a girlfriend before he realized he was gay. The talk was that he had been so easily confused and never really knew what he wanted. That very same night that everyone realized it, Eva killed herself. Eva killed himself. Everyone marched three months later because another life was lost. They were all ridiculous showmen of flaccid half-hearted meaningless mouthings of words they never really meant. All the two-faced mocking was putrid. Sam felt sick suddenly. They could wear their tights and cram their breasts between the sweaty, sticky tape holding them together, but Sam could still see their eyes shift from side to side at the approach of those so much stronger than them to live their lives wholly as they needed to. Because for them, it wasn’t a performance. It was their lives and their lives were on the line every moment of every day. Sam could try all he wanted to understand it; To understand it would be wading through a quicksand far stronger than him, but he could see it. 

     There was a sliver of him that wanted to be angry with Adam for not saying anything sooner, but Sam was wiser than that to let it surface. It wasn’t Adam’s fault. Whoever Adam had been before he was Adam was a life that was never really his. He lived a lie long before this and if there was ever a lie he was going to tell, it would have been to wear that life proudly upon himself as if it were still a piece to his existence. Perhaps that life was still a piece of the life he lived now, but it was still a structure of lie. It wasn’t Sam’s place to be angry with Adam. Even if he was truly angry, his heart was still so full.

---

For anyone interested in following the development of Midnight Flowers, you can do so here: https://elle-kastle.tumblr.com/midnight-flowers

[project-gendered]

So here I am on acid

[project-gendered]

Two-Spirit Things

As a disclaimer, I am pretty much White on the surface. However, I do have an Indigenous heritage from a couple of generations back. I’m at the cut off point for registering as, what we call where I live, Metis. I probably explore and express this heritage more than my genetics connect me to it, but I recognize that I’m mostly White on the outside. This has it’s own set of connotations, but I think it’s important to recognize this.

In addition to my small ethnic heritage, I also lack any other form of cultural heritage in my life. My father was adopted and through a serious of years, we are not connected right now. My mother’s side was never culturally expressive, though it is also where my Indigenous genetics come from. Everyone since back then grew up trying/having to hide the Indigenous roots, so I think it had a lasting effect up until now.

That all being said, I have taken a considerable amount of time wondering about whether being Two-Spirited fits into my life. 

The short answer is no. The long answer is yes. The honest answer is I don’t actually know.

Since I’ve refrained from using gender pronouns in referring to myself (I don’t care if anyone calls me he, she, or anything else, I just don’t want to give it away for various reasons), I’ll just say that being Two-Spirited is definitely a blend of genders, but that it still identifies them as individual parts with one being within the other. Obviously, I’m glossing over the complexity of being Two-Spirited, but my point is that it makes me kind of unsettled that I can’t share an affinity with being Two-Spirited even though it sounds like a pretty good way to describe myself. It’s just not correct.

Just a brief thought and awareness I guess.

Elle

[elles-unsure]

First Time for Everything

Oh god I just requested my first counselling session in well over a decade and the first to address gender. I literally feel sick to my stomach. The more I dig deeper on this the more scared I get that Im leaning in certain directions and its just beginning to swallow me whole right now. Rip me.

[project-gendered]

My counselling post on my garbage log deserves a repost on the project I think.

[project-gendered]

The Flag we Shouldn't be Proud of

*From the Gay Times

I find it fitting that this flag has torn out sections for Life & Harmony. I think that was the point, but there is something very close to me in this team up that made my stomach sink deeply. Yes, I have lost someone to suicide who struggled with their gender identity, but it was much more than that. 

Lately, I’ve been struggling a lot with all the news of violence and loss of life in the community. I always had an affinity with the people who struggle and the news was always something that I would shake my head and feel pity about, but things are so different now. It wasn’t just about the fact I lost someone to it, but that I was beginning to feel like part of me was dying in each case. Even when I watch these kind of projects which aim to help the community, I get reminded of the way things are for a lot of us and the awful feelings return. I wouldn’t call it being “triggered,” but I imagine it’s a hell of a lot like it. I’m not the kind of person that gets triggered and even if I am, I prefer to work through my limits because I am the kind of person that has always tried to push my limits and boundaries.

Never mind the fact that my research career is heavily embedded in a myriad of awful things throughout history and in the present. I’ve worked with traumatized individuals, addressed traumatizing issues, and written about them flawlessly. I have the ability to reason with terrible things, disconnect from them to analyze them theoretically, and present them with confidence, but this whole new life I’ve entered has left me shook on a level I can’t even begin to dissect. 

So why do I now feel such immense pain on an issue that I’ve reasoned with in the past? I don’t believe that it can all be explained away by the fact I’ve accepted and entered this journey. 

On top of all of it, I think something needs to be said for the fact that I’m a very confident person. I’m the type that faces things head on. I give change to people trying to buy drugs and I talk to strangers off their rockers on the street. But no one ever tries to attack me, because I have the ability to work within the limitations of my situations to diffuse anything that could lead to my safety being in danger. I say this because when I watch these things, hear the stories, I don’t feel unsafe. 

I feel safe.

But my narrative has never been “I feel safe so you should too.” No, I get it, these situations shouldn’t exist in the first place. I’ll gladly tell someone off for bugging a girl too shy or scared to stick up for themselves and I won’t tell them to do anything different because they shouldn’t be in the situation in the first place. I’d sooner kick someone in their teeth for harassing anyone than back down and feel bad about it.

So why do I feel such existential emptiness when I read/watch these things? Of course the easy answer would be “because you’re empathic to the situation,” but I reiterate that it’s just not in my nature to feel this awful out of empathy. It’s got to be much more complicated than that. I know it is.

Bonus:

Elle

[project-gendered]

You saw me covered in blood on a bus. But do you get outraged about all homophobia? | Chris

The photo of me and my date went viral after our attack – but only as we’re white, feminine and cisgender. Sympathy and action must be for all

As a sociologist, I’m forever intrigued by social phenomena. Even I hadn’t put as much thought into the attack earlier this month, but I think Chris’ response is so eloquently put that it deserves to be highlighted here.

“Lesbians attacked for being lesbians” is quite the headline. They labeled her without any discussion about who either of them were and what the context of their lives meant within this attack. I can see part of why it happened: It’s far easier to just put a general label on what happened than to waste space trying to explain to uninformed readers what identity politics are and how it affects lives. Of course, the larger narrative is “how can we reach as many readers as possible,” which includes glossing over a myriad of issues in the limited space of society’s attention span. So how do we summarize identity and identity politics in these cases? Are the media solely to blame for this neatly packed sensationalized story or is it society at large? The easy answer is “yes, but…” Because nothing is an easy answer with respects to social phenomena.

Anyways, it’s more than just worth a read, it’s worth learning from.

[project-gendered]

QUEER

I always hated the term queer.*

*I don’t have an opinion of it with respects to others, but I’ve hated thinking of myself as queer. I spent a lot of time considering this connotation and even thought of what it would be like to give up on this whole thing and just go by “queer,” but every time I say it in my head that I’m queer, it doesn’t seem right. I feel far too disconnected with it and I’m not sure why.

I have a lot of queer friends and I enjoy a lot that goes with queerness as a concept and expression; I’m sure that I have queer characteristics myself, but is it the sum of my parts? No.

There is nothing wrong with being queer and queerness is actually something I admire. So my conflict with it is more of a hatred I have in having to somehow construct it into my identity. 

The other part of it that I hate is the concept of “labels.” That is, I don’t want to say that I’m avoiding labels or spout the age old adage like why do we have to put a label on it, man? Nothing about this has anything to do with labels. When we say we’re just doing away with labels, we are really doing ourselves a disservice on many functional and societal levels. No, I don’t mean that we have to have labels because of or to suit society. I’m saying that the whole linguistic and perceptional construct of how we communicate as intelligent beings requires we make meaning in our environments, otherwise we just can’t communicate. 

So that’s the catch 22: We need to designate something before we can address it. It’s not just to reference it symbolically, but to put it into a political, economical, and social space. Of course, the implication of labels is a deeply rooted investment in the narrative of power itself. Alas, no matter how much we want to claim to do away with “labels,” we’re kind of stuck with it until we come up with a whole new form of communication to get around it.

Even if we didn’t, it’s still not right of me to say I’m nothing of these ideas. I’m starting to wonder whether the concept of gender is in a state of transition and those of us waiting at the other end are anticipating the changes that go with it while trying to cope without them. I don’t know.

What I do know is that the concept of queer and queerness is something that’s been coming up a lot for me in my slow reintroduction into the community I was once involved with (LGBTQAI); It’s come up in the related social circles I’ve been thumbing through online and beyond. Maybe I’ll have to address it further over time and really consider the implications of being queer on the whole and for me. 

[project-gendered]

Installation

You told me you had three days. I laughed at your fright, because even you told me that I have a way with making everything seem normal, even when you’re at your worst with uncertainty. I loved you then, like I love you now, my friend.

You told me you had eleven hours. I ate with you and made you laugh; I made you smile; I made you full in your stomach and in your heart, but you were still scared. You never wanted to show me who you were before, not even then. Some time after, I believe we laughed at the photographs. We laughed at a lot of things you became so comfortable to share.

You told me it had been a day. You recovered well, but the pain was excruciating.

You told me it had been two weeks. I came to see you on the fortnight. Believe me there is nothing more disgusting than the things you shared with me. It’s alright, I thought it was pretty wicked that it was who you had become. You transformed, but I don’t think you ever noticed that you had changed along the way. One operation doesn’t change who you are, it just makes things easier once it’s over.

You told me I had been a bad friend once. I never forgave you for that, but I understood it. I was there for you when they wouldn’t say your name. I was there for you when you needed real help to get through the bitterness of a world around you that wouldn’t accept you. Except you were more afraid of it than it was of you. I was even there when your damn cat died, the one that hated me. I held the damn dish up to its face and with some of its last breaths it growled and hissed at me.

But I was a bad friend because you never knew why there were times I couldn’t make you laugh. You said I didn’t seem interested, but it was me who was afraid. 

Its been nearly a year since you moved away. I didn’t go to see you the day you visited.

[project-gendered]

After You Died

There has been a lot I’ve been wanting to say for a long time about this.

I fear death.

I don’t fear dying.

Last year I lost someone who I loved very much. The probability of this happening the night I was thinking of getting in contact with this person is downright cruel. We fell out for a long time and I thought we had left enough time to pass for both of us to grow as individuals. Needless to say, I was far too late, my friend. I found out the next day when I went to send you a message. Cruel fate, indeed.

For that, I am sorry. 

However, the death of my friend, who at one time was like another half of me, did more than just leave me with a broken heart needing to mend through the stages of grief. I fell into a very deep depression that spanned over the winter months and into the spring. Strangely, I had been suffering from a different form of depression before the death took place, which was part of my reasoning in getting back in touch. I can’t imagine what you went through during those months you spiralled deeper and deeper down into the depths of your own self. I only know what others have told me and anecdotally, I find myself imagining the immense pain you felt.

But I can never know what it felt like.

I imagine your final moments. Cut-down fingernails grasping at the frayed edges of sharp twine like a fish out of water. It doesn’t matter if you were okay with it; The body is a funny thing like that. It fights for survival, even when you’ve lost the ability to care.

You struggled, very deeply, with who you were. All this time I knew there was a sorrow inside you, but no one ever knew just how complicated that sorrow was. Everyone always relents that pain is a suffering for the individual that knows no reasoning. Everyone copes by referring to events as time that can’t be altered. They blame themselves and each other and come up with various accounts of what might have caused it, but deep down, you knew what it was. No matter how prepared you are, you don’t expect to find out how much bitter contempt is thrown around when it’s all over. I hope that it’s over for them now. 

Whatever your reasons, you wrote eight pages, but you still took some of your secrets to the grave.

Inside all of the madness surrounding you, my friend, you couldn’t figure out who you were. You know I spoke with her for hours after you died and she told me that you began to hurt because you weren’t right. You weren’t right. 

The body you were born in was wrong, but you were never given the chance to figure it out. They called you gay first. You called yourself that too, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. 

In all the years I knew you, it was you who made me laugh the most. I learned a lot from you: how to laugh and make others laugh too. They always say that those who laugh the most are the ones who go, but I think that there’s nothing wrong with hiding your pain through laughter. It’s just one of those things that they say to make an obscure excuse for not doing anything. The world wasn’t meant for you, and you knew it. It wasn’t fair. It isn’t fair.

Since then, I heard the words “she struggled with realizing she was trans” and they have somehow haunted me. I can still remember the day we yelled out how just fine you were the way you were, our drunken bodies colliding hip to hip in a daze of joyful laughter. Part of me regrets that we grew apart, if only so I could have reminded you, but the heart and the mind are tricky things.

I find it difficult for me to speak about the way I struggle about you and about my own gender unease. Don’t worry, it isn’t what you think. I just hate having to do it. 

I still have your photograph by the way. The one they handed out the day we all said goodbye. It reminds me a lot of things being so complicated. I don’t need it to remind me of you. I need it to remind me that things still aren’t okay. It reminds me of what can happen to us if we don’t do something, but there is no fucking solution to it. There’s no formula for the kind of grief our identities can thrust upon us. We’re trying to get through these tiny spaces without getting scathed against the jagged edges along the way. 

There’s no way for me to end this on a positive note. If I did, then I would be selling out to the masses. Everyone wants a happy ending; They want positive outcomes. The reality is that there isn’t a single fucking solution to this. You either try, die, or die while trying. No one wants to admit that this is a disease, but it is. There’s nothing inherently wrong with either ends of it, but the struggle to get there is one hell of a fight with one hell of a nasty disease. There’s no treatment, no vaccine. 

In the bigger picture of it, we only get as far as our bodies are willing to take us. Too many of us are dying and not enough of us are figuring it out. Because death doesn’t happen only physically, it happens metaphorically. I think that when some of us decide that the struggle isn’t worth it, we either learn to live a lie or take the way out you did. 

But there’s got to be another way, doesn’t there?

Love you always,

Elle

[project-gendered]

Boys Unlike Boys

Today I’m going to talk about boys. Sort of.

Why? Because when you’re trying to figure out what kind of person you are, you tend to get lost in admiration for the kind of expression you wish you had.

Admittedly, I’m not a celebrity watcher. I don’t wade through countless stories and articles about who did what and what they wore. No, I can barely remember the name of an actor or actress that played a role in a movie I loved, but if I saw their face, I would recognize them. However, there are a select few I do keep an eye on out of a weird connection to my gender issues. These are some of my thoughts, however unfiltered they are.

Ezra Miller infuriates me. I mean this with love. There’s a special kind of affinity I have with Ezra Miller that bugs me. No, I don’t mean because it’s Ezra Miller or that anything he does is unsettling, but because it looks so damn easy. Ezra Miller was probably one of the last straws for me before I started really questioning myself. A lot of people tend to get hyper-focused on certain celebrities and their identities, but I don’t really do this. So writing about specific people is a little new for me. I guess that’s part of the process. 

When I wade through the internet’s garbage I discover a lot of banter about what kind of sexuality and gender identity Ezra (and pretty much fucking everyone else) claims to have. The answers aren’t clear still, and I’m okay with that. But there’s this little voice inside of me that constantly judges people like Ezra for not making things clear. As if I’m supposed to figure out what I’m going to do by learning from people who don’t give a damn. Which is in itself a whole fucking laugh because i am one of those people that doesn’t give much fucks about these sort of things. Then there’s the point of why exactly I, or anyone else, would presume that a famous face should be the authority of our own identities. 

Okay, with that clusterfuck of a thought out of the way, I’m going to get honest with myself. I had been reading a bit about the vague way Ezra treats gender and relationships and I immediately put myself in a place of how i am one hell of an enigma myself. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that all the gender pronouns and identity assertions don’t annoy the living hell out of me. But I’ve begun to try and accept it as a part of my own identity issues. That is, if I can’t exist in any and I still want to exist in them all, then maybe I’m more of an Ezra than I thought I was in the first place. 

When asked about my pronouns, I always shrug it off as “whatever.” Seriously, I do not care what you call me. But my problem isn’t with you, it’s with me. So how does this work? I’m constantly fighting with myself about it and considering different avenues that would make me more comfortable, but then when the world demands me to make a choice, I tell them “I seriously don’t give a fuck.” 

Maybe I’m moving into some kind of existential crisis with my gender identity, I don’t know. Anyways, this is what I’ve been thinking lately. Thanks Ezra!

Now Erin Mommsen. Let me tell you, I have such a huge affinity with this beauty. Much relented as an “up and coming” figure of the modelling community, Erin Mommsen is one of those casual cool types that doesn’t make noise about their gender. At least, not that I could tell via the public eye. I envy Erin so much because I want to be at ease with myself, but I’m constantly running scenarios in my head of what goes on outside of the public view. 

But this isn’t the only reason I brought up Erin Mommsen. As much as I’ve been fighting with myself on my gender identity crisis, I have also been having a bit of a sexuality crisis. Fuck if I’m honest, I haven’t had sex in months. There was a time when I acted out and was pretty much in everyone’s sexual business, but now I’m so far removed from it that I’ve begun to question what’s wrong with me. I’ve slept with women, men, and a few in between. Of course, most people would say that this makes me pansexual, but I have problems with this term being part of my identity and I’m not sure why. Sometimes I think about the fact I’m now well over twenty five and been around the block a few times, I should have all this stuff figured out. I’m well past puberty too, so why is this all coming up now?

Anyways, Erin Mommsen was one of those in betweens that got me shook. Enough about that.

So here we go. Troye Sivan. This is a recent discovery for me in life. You know, that he exists and has existed for however many years now. I got carried away once watching various youtubes and reading articles that centred around his own self discovery with sexuality and gender expression. Something about the progress of these topics just got me overthinking myself and I think that part of where I am today is through the overarching narrative surrounding this boy’s gender expression. It’s hard for me to put into words right now, but I think it deserves a shout out. 

Finally, Olly Alexander. There is a totally different reason that I include Olly in this post. When I was younger, in my early twenties, I partied hard. A lot of people have told me that I certainly lived my best life. I wear my stories, no matter how gritty or wild, proudly. I’m also one of those kind of people that can reflect on something I’ve done and laugh about it ten years later. In fact, anyone who actually knows me would probably say I’m a fucking clown, and not in the annoying sort of way. The combination of not giving a fuck and finding life pretty hilarious is a strangely authentic experience I think that I truly do enjoy, no matter how much of it I use to avoid my issues.

At any rate, Olly brings me back to those more wilder years of mine. I used to be a very loud, active participant in the LGBTQ community here where I live and I hung out with a lot of boys like Olly. So whenever I run into a photo, story, or video of Olly, I’m immediately brought back to that time. I was far more confused about other things back then, but I loved my boys. There were a few girls I hung around with. Of course my ex-girlfriend at the time was one of them and I rapidly fell out of the crowd as just another... I don’t know, I almost want to say “normie,” but I don’t think that nearly suits what happened

After we broke up, I fell in love with a neighbourhood QUEEN. Yes, we had our fun, but nothing ever really came from it, but it was definitely a new point in my life. So when I look back at this time, I can remember the things we did and said and how strangely nonchalant it makes me now. I never really had a problem with my sexual identity. I still, to a degree, don’t - except for the fact I’m not trying to figure out where I stand on it again.

I also did a lot of drugs at the time, so there was that. Years later, a lot of people want to say that the drugs obviously clouded me and my decisions, but I was a very smart cookie. I reflect on those times much more differently than most would think for someone who now has a career in research and academia. I embrace those times as a part of me and that I wouldn’t be the same without them. 

Looking further back, I remember a time when things were far more “normal.” I had a stable relationship, job, school, life. And then one day I cracked. I left it all because I didn’t feel right. It should have been my first clue that something was going on, but I avoided it ever since. Right up until now.

So yes, people beyond our social periphery are important. They remind us of past times, of feelings, affinities, and they confuse the hell out of us. At least they do. So for as much as I say I don’t get wrapped up in celebrity lives, I sometimes really do. This is because I am trying to figure out whether there is something right in what they’re doing that is a part of me. I know I’m still at the early stages of all of this, so everything seems chaotic and unrefined, but it’s all part of the damn process. I hate it, I do, but it’s just something that has to come to pass if I’m ever going to be whole again.

[project-gendered]

They Say it is a Construct

In the cold, sterile rooms of medical intrusion and the murky stench of youth between the seats of academia, they say that gender is a construct.

Every now and then, there is a debate of who should own the liberties and with what narratives we should endeavour to employ.

Years and years go by. Talk is cheap. Bathroom signs and Gillete advertisements stir the pot. Another boy, who became a woman, loses their life. She killed herself, black polish breaking as she clawed the rope around her neck. Another man, who became a woman, posed for a spread. They can barely see the curvature of the scars. 

If I don’t have a penis, I am a woman. If I don’t have breasts, I am a man. If I come up with a hundred reasons why the mutated biology and medical mistakes make it not so, I am still something. 

And you will ask yourself why it matters.

Because gender is a construct.

Today, we have dissected gender dysphoria. Some will exist between the cracks of gender assignment and others within both. He said, she said, they said. Everything is designed for consumption based on what we are and who we are supposed to be, even if we don’t want to be any of it.

Every now and then, I think that I forget who I am and where I belong, because I belong nowhere. They’ll say that I once was with this and once with that, and I will proudly say that I have been with more than those and that my captivation knows no bounds, but then I will recoil and shed it all to avoid having to say it at all. 

Yesterday, I believed I was a boy.

Today, I believed that I was not.

Tomorrow, I may believe that I am a girl.

And the next day, I may want to be both.

Even if gender is a construct, I have to come up with something because they will ask and I will hesitate. I am not upset by this, we make symbols and meaning within them to interact. Symbolic interactionism does have a purpose, but I don’t think George Herbert Mead meant it quite like this. 

Gender is indeed a construct, one that we will need to define and make sense of the world around us. We may not like it, we may despise it. Countless of cultures and individuals will bicker and banter and construct reason and meaning for it to disappear. Fly high, flutter away, fragile butterfly. 

But just because it is, doesn’t mean that I, or countless other individuals, will ever know how to be comfortable in our own skin, within our own social constructs, written in permanent ink the things that we are or that we are not. We are something, they are other things. Us against them. You against I.

I wrote a very convincing piece the other day. A boy touched the skin of another boy and through the frightful chill of their uncertainty, they made love for the first time. If I cannot decide which gender am I, will I still be the owner of this experience, or will I be just another devil in the details? 

I haven’t been to a Pride march in years. Let’s be honest, I have lost my pride.

I might lose my marriage to this dysphoria. Someone I loved dearly lost their life to it a year ago. Neither of us ever said we were uncertain. Is this the future waiting for me if I cannot come to terms with myself?

Does any of this give me more authority than others to speak about gender? I’d like to think that if someone can speak openly, honestly, and with real feeling, that they have the authority to tell us what they’re thinking. But too many people have too many theories and lack the ability to speak about the big picture. They tell us about the what is and how it ought, but they lack the ability to do anything constructive. 

But then, this isn’t an argumentative piece. It is a reminder that gender is a construct. That I am just a construct.

And so here is my opening piece to a project I dread. This is the mindless musings and thoughtful reflections of the steady climb of my gender dysphoria. You might ask if I’m a girl or if I’m a boy, but I will just tell you that I am neither and that I am both.