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The Topic of Gender Identity - JM Focus

So. This is something that I’ve gotten asked about a few times since people became interested in my analyses. And it’s something I’ve always avoided answering because it seems to me that the topic of gender is way more touchy than the topic of sexuality.

I’m also the sort of person who doesn’t like people talking about things without some form of experience on the topic. I can talk about how I see the potential of someone being gay because I’m gay. I know what it’s like to be gay. I know what it’s like to be afraid for people to find out that you’re gay (passed that, but been there). Someone who isn’t gay and never questioned it wouldn’t have any idea what it’s like.

As someone who has struggled with gender identity myself, I’ve decided that I’ll talk about this. I’d say that I have a controversial opinion on this topic, but no matter what you say about gender identity, one person or another is going to think it’s controversial. So, really, everyone has a controversial opinion on the topic. As it is not my intention to offend anyone, I decided to share that controversial opinion. Anyway. Read on if you can handle someone talking about their opinion without getting riled up that it might be different than yours, and if you’re curious about my thoughts on the topic. If not. Move on. (BELOW THE CUT)

So. Let me start by putting in the “short story” of my gender identity, so you kind of get the idea where I’m coming from when I state my opinion on this topic. You can skip this to the part where I start talking about Jimin, but I just wanted to add this in here so you have an idea of where I’m coming from.

Currently, I identify as a cis-female lesbian, but it took me a long time to accept myself as a female. Honestly. When I was a child, I was more okay with the fact that I liked girls than the fact that I was a girl. Liking girls never felt wrong to me. Liking girls as a girl is what felt wrong. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I know how I felt.

I was what they called a “tom-boy” back in the day. I’m not sure if that term is offensive now? But I always related with the label for some reason.

My parents have a lot to do with my current view on gender identity. My mom told me when I was a little baby, my favorite color was pink. It’s currently pink. She said that once I started learning the names of colors and that they had “genders”, I took a hard turn to the color blue. I pretended that blue was my favorite color for a big part of my life, throughout high school, because I didn’t want to be associated with the “girly” things.

I also liked Hotwheels as child. I was obsessed with cars. This is something I was genuinely interested in, and not just because I wanted to distance myself from girly things. At McDonald’s they often have “boy toys” and “girl toys”. I also have one brother and two sisters. When my mom took us to McDonald’s, she’d always say she wanted “two hotwheels and two barbies”. If the checker ever said “girls and boy toys” my mom would again specify hotweels and barbies. Because she didn’t understand why they were “girl and boy toys”. As a child, I was changing her perspective on gender.

We used to go to Christmas parties when I was a kid, and Santa would always hand out presents to the kids. It always seemed they gave the boys certain toys, and the girls always got dolls or doll related things. So I started to hate going to these Christmas parties. I also question why Santa didn’t buy me the gifts I wanted. He was supposed to know what every child wanted. One year, my mom talked to the people who decided the gift buying, and they got me a giant collection of hotwheels. This Santa became my favorite.

Anyhow. I always wanted to be my dad’s son. I wanted to him to play sports with me and grill with him like he would do with my brother. When I showed more interest in those things than my brother did, he started doing them with me instead. I’d help him build things. I’d play sports with him. And we always grilled together. Until I got older and started going through the inevitable changes that every girl goes through. He stopped treating me like a son and started treating me like a daughter, and it really upset me that my dad’s whole attitude toward me would have changed like that. So I started hating being a girl even more.

Anyway, long story short (believe me, there’s a lot more to this story, but this is a Jimin focus. Not a Koala focus). I eventually came to accept that I was a girl, and actually like feminine things. But, at the same time, I actually like masculine things, too. Coming out to my family as gay really allowed me to express my gender identity more. And I think it’s funny because they often point out how I became more feminine after coming out when many females do it the opposite. I explained to them that I always wanted to be “straight” and like girls, but when I fully accepted myself as gay, I fully accepted myself as female, too.

That being said, I didn’t give in to gender norms or anything like that. I just stopped pretending to hate all feminine things for the fear of being “too much of a girl” to like girls. Pink is my favorite color, but I’ll take the whole fucking rainbow any day. I love hotwheels, and I know more about cars than most modern boys do. I know about computers, and I love math. I absolutely love playing sports (I don’t like watching them so much). I love high fantasy, and I love playing d&d with my friends. But I also love sitting down to a nice romantic movie every now and then. I play all kinds of video games from fps to dress up games, and I love the fact that I don’t have to be apologetic about any of it. I can fix my own kitchen sink and give you tips about how to get stains out of the carpet. I still hate dolls, and they are fucking creepy to me.

I can accept the term bigender for myself, but I label myself as cis-female. Because I don’t want society to tell me that “feminine” things are for girls and “masculine” things are for boys. And tell me how I need to identify because of my like or distaste for either. I don’t mind “feminine” and “masculine” labels, but I don’t think it should determine how much of a “boy” or “girl” you are. I know that people identify as trans and anywhere on the spectrum for reasons that go beyond that, and that’s fine. My story goes far beyond that as well, but that’s pretty much my main focus that brings me to this point.

So. Let’s talk about Jimin now.

IN RELATION TO JIMIN

So, I’ve had exactly one ask that wanted to know if I would refer to Jimin as “they” instead of “he” because we don’t know how he identifies, but I think that can be true for anyone. Just because JK presents himself as more masculine with the fact that he works out and is a “boy” boy, we can’t presume that he identifies as a cis-male. Even if he likes all masculine things, and there’s nothing feminine about him (which isn’t true, but even if it was), we can’t just assume that he identifies as cis-male and is totally comfortable in his 100% male role. So the fact that this seems to come up mostly in relation to Jimin kind of proves how it’s a societal “masculine” and “feminine” thing when it comes many people’s view on gender identity.

I’ve also had a lot of people come to my inbox and talk about how they don’t see why people question Jimin’s gender. “He’s not feminine at all.” And, let me just say that he really is, and I don’t think it would offend him for me to blatantly state that. When he first debuted, he really tried to present himself as masculine, and he wanted to be seen as a “strong/real man.” But he’s eased himself into what he’s more comfortable with, and he, himself, talks about this transformation. How he doesn’t have pretend anymore, and he can just be who he is. And that’s a wonderful thing. And him talking about it the way he does (I’d love to go back and find examples, so people share links if you have any otherwise it’s going to take me ages to source this) kind of tells me that he wants people to realize his transformation. That he is so unbothered by both his feminine and masculine traits that he isn’t bothered if people see him more one way or the other.

Let me bring up Jimin’s bigender tattoo, if you will. (x) Well, it’s not really a tattoo, and more of a drawing. It wasn’t permanent, but still. I’ve had a few people argue that it’s not the bigender symbol because of both extensions pointing straight instead of the masculine symbol being at an angle (x), but seeing as how I don’t know of any other symbol it could be, I’m going to assume that it was meant to be the bigender symbol.

Does this tattoo mean that he identifies as bigender? I’m leaning toward yes, but I’m also going to have to say that it doesn’t confirm anything. We don’t know the reason behind the tattoo unless Jimin tells us himself, and we don’t know the reason it was altered with both extensions being aligned instead of the way the actual symbol looks (if that detail is significant in any way).

Again, I’m leaning toward a strong possibility of him identifying as bigender because BTS are pretty socially aware, and I’m sure he knows what the symbol means. There could be a list of other reasons as to why he decided to use the symbol, so we’ll never know the truth unless he tells us.

I will say that, similar to how I think TH mentioning the Christmas song to us was to see how we’d react to the idea of him singing a romantic song with a boy, I think that Jimin putting that tattoo on his arm was to raise a similar kind of topic. I think he wants people to discuss and question his gender identity. And I think anyone who has come out to their family, friends, and societies would get the same idea. Because it’s a process, and this seems like a step in the process.

I’d often talk about how I loved it when people would mistake me for a boy, and how disappointing it was when someone would be quick to correct them. I’d talk about how being a “girl” is exhausting and how I wish I could flip a switch and be a “boy”. I’d question my parents about how they’d feel if I brought a girl home. I’d use gender neutral pronouns while talking about people I was interested in. I’d question if it was weird to want to hold hands with my best female friends. And the list goes on.

The tattoo seems like a step in a process. Maybe he’s not trying to come out, but maybe he wants us to be talking about it. I don’t think we should just assume that he’s bigender because of it (the same way we shouldn’t just assume TH is gay for Christmas song talk), but I don’t think people need to be so quick to shut the idea down. Because it’s possible that he might not identify as cis-male, and to shut down a piece of evidence like a bigender drawing on his arm is to shut down a pretty strong piece of evidence. That tattoo was drawn on Jimin for a reason because it’s supposed to mean something. Until we know what that something is, there is absolutely no harm in us fans talking and wondering about his identity. As long as we don’t shove it in Jimin’s face and demand that he talks about it. Let’s wonder together. Among ourselves.

As for which pronouns to use when talking about Jimin, until he says anything official about his identity, I think “he/him” pronouns are fine. If you want to call him “they/them”, I think that’s fine, too. I won’t simply because I only like to use “they/them” if I’m intentionally trying to be neutral or if an individual specifically requests to be addressed as such, but I don’t see the harm in anyone else doing it. I think going as far as using “she/her” could be a little too much and a little too presumptive. I’m not the sort to get offended by any type of pronouns. I identify with them all, but that’s not true for everyone. And it might not be true for Jimin. So I think it’s best to stick with “he/him” or “they/them” because they’re the most gender neutral terms.

And yeah. “He/him” is more gender neutral than “she/her”. And, even if you don’t think so, “he/him” are the terms we use to refer to biological males without knowing anything about their personal identity. I don’t think it’s “assuming he’s cis until he says otherwise.” This is just as harmful as “assuming he’s straight until he says otherwise.” Because, for me at least, “he/him” is referring to the only thing I know about his gender/sex until he confirms otherwise, and that’s the biological part of his gender/sex. It’s not me saying “Oh, I think he’s definitely cis unless he says he’s not”. Because I’m leaning more toward the “not” part of that, but the only thing I can confirm is that he is biologically male. He wouldn’t be in BTS if he wasn’t.

Bringing it back to the first point I mentioned, we can’t assume a gender identity onto any of them. Jimin brings up more questions not because of his “feminine” side, but because of that bigender symbol. But it doesn’t mean that he identifies that way, and it doesn’t mean none of the other members do.

Like I said. I was hesitant about making this post and avoided asks about this topic for a long time because people get more defensive about gender identity than sexuality, but I wanted to talk about this. Because regardless of how offended people get about this topic, I think it’s something we shouldn’t be afraid to discuss.

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