#performative gender

[cactus-pat]

Gender is a performance and I am

s Rodeo Clown 🤠

[twnpkdinhighschool]

I have a substack where I talk about gender in media, often with a focus on horror film, so if you're into that kinda thing, here's my latest post about Barbarian (2022)

From Barbarism into Civilization

The dehumanization of civility in Zach Cregger's Barbarian (2022)

[arcanda]

[ask-a-nonbinary-ace]

Managing a work wardrobe has been interesting. I’m not much of a shirt and tie person, but occasionally I think I really rock it. I hate polo shirts, and am not much for button-downs alone. This pickiness of mine has meant that I’ve ended up dressing femme on many work days.

It's been quite an adjustment. I'm not upset by it, but it's definitely felt strange. Just... out of the ordinary. I know it's affecting the way students see me, but I'm reminding myself that how other people perceive me is not my concern.

It has actually been somewhat fun enjoying the bright colors and fancy patterns more easily found amongst femme clothing. I think that's what's keeping me happy in this--I've always loved things that were eye-catching, and the steady parade of masc tee shirts and gym shorts I'd fallen into definitely didn't meet that description.

Sometimes we trans people need to remind ourselves that our genders need not be performative. We are allowed to enjoy the trappings of our assigned at birth genders without feeling guilty. Liking things traditionally associated with our AGABs does not delegitimize who we are.

This still applies if it means some people won't see us as our true identities because of it. The transphobia of others is not our concern, not something we are required to fix.

So I'm learning to live in my new clothes, learning to embrace how I feel in them, and learning to ignore those who'd misgender me for it. The transphobia of others does not strip me of my identity. Nothing can do that. Nothing is strong enough.

I am me. And while who I am may change and evolve over time, it is always authentic.

[rishafar-blog1]

The Gender-Fluid Performer Who Changed the Academy’s Mind

Kelly Mantle became the first performer eligible for best supporting actor or actress; the news drew an emotional outpouring. But he has taken it all in stride.

Kelly Mantle,  the gender-fluid performer

[haunted-hideaway]

Whelp. I performed Gender for the day. I tweezed and shaved all the things 😬 my gender is “that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” I do, however, perform femininity pretty well. I do this for a variety of reasons.

One is because I’m kinda locked into a feminine body shape. Another is that when you have one of those, and you’re fat, and you don’t perform a certain amount of femininity and do a sufficient amount of a very particular type of grooming, you are treated poorly and are not taken seriously. Well, moreso than if you’re fat and do not do these things. Then you’re a slob and don’t care about yourself if you don’t do those things.

And lastly, I’m tired. Too tired and old to explain my relationship to gender or sexuality to people. I don’t wanna with strangers cos social interaction is already exhausting, then we’re going to add that layer? Sounds miserable. Doing it with people around me?

Sounds exhausting to explain everything then have them be like “yeah, but…” cos I’m 46 years old and they’ve known me that way all that time therefore I can’t possibly be done secret other thing. I’m old and tired. I pick the path of least resistance. You wanna say she? Ok whatever. That’s just like your opinion, man.

And I wear a lot of dresses and feel naked without dangly earrings, so I understand how you could have gotten to “she.” I dunno. I don’t care. Do what you want with your gender. I love you, I support you, I will defend you, and also I am tired.

But if I woke up as a cis dude tomorrow, I’d shrug, get on with it and say “I guess this is what we’re doing now” and perform masculinity. I also don’t feel like explaining my sexuality. You think I’m straight? Ok sure whatever. I’m too tired to present otherwise, even though I’m not.

Social stuff is do hard. I admire people who put their foot down and demand to be recognized for who they are. And I acknowledge that I am riding their coattails in those few circles where I feel like declaring myself.

I’m like, y’all (including people I am close to) have assumed stuff about me this long, how’s about I just don’t say anything because saying things is difficult and I’m A++ at autistic masking and being who you need me to be in any situation, to the point that I’m rubbish at being myself.

Subverting expectation would face too much resistance and I’m too tired for resistance. Sorry for the rant. Just point me in the direction of the exhausted queer autistics, I guess. /TED Talk

[thesillydoll]

My professor from Social Theory 201 tried to show us a *new radical theory*: this baddie. Sir, with respect, I'm in love with this woman since I was 14 lol.

Ps: years ago I wanna study performative roles for my research class, and my female professor doesn't know who Judith Butler was. The audacity of teaching feminism courses without acknowledged this baddie.

[twnpkdinhighschool]

Meditations on the Mess

Meditations on the Mess

An off-the-rails analysis of my clutter and sloth

Originally posted on my substack, which occasionally includes my personal ramblings

I want to be a different kind of person than the one I turned out to be. I want the things I do and the way I live to make sense, to be congruent with my values, preferences, and ideal aesthetic.

I want to be neat, not too neat, just functionally, reasonably situated. My things as tools, items at hand for me to manipulate, not as an artificial environment that I live in, fabricated to distract and entertain me like a hamster in its cage.

I want to feel pretty, and I think deep down, I won’t ever feel pretty in a stable and mature way until my home does as well.

But cleaning up won’t do it anymore. I don’t live in mess, I live in squalor; the walls need to be scrubbed, scoured. The floors are overgrown with roots, the vines creeping up kitchen counters and bedside tables.

I seem to infect, inhabit, and corrupt my spaces, a symbiote, a mass with vasculature, a cancer too insidious to ever get good margins on. I’m in its bones.

This place has been animated while my body becomes superfluous, reduced to a mere go-bag of blood and body fat, my own veins acting as an IV; to leave my house feels dissociative, like I’m astral projecting into the CVS drive thru.

During the winter, when the snow is fresh and the roads not yet plowed, the host succumbs, the possessor asleep inside as muscles atrophy and open sores fester and rot and gangrene. The filth does not hibernate, only its witness. As the frost turns to dew, mummified bodies and detritus show themselves.

Extended metaphor is the tool of cowards and revisionists: my home looks like shit.