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about and upfront than I could have been,” she
says. “When 1 was young, there was a lot of
abuse toward me around the gender issue.”
Nelson, who facilitates the Trans Youth Group
at the Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center,
concurs. “A lot of young people are getting more
comfortable coming out earlier,” she says.
Schaefer notes: “Because older people
fought hard for the gains that have been made,
younger people have a different history. Some
times for older folks, my being pre-op M TF and
lesbian is anathema to them. Younger people
just seem to accept me tor what 1 am.”
A new wave
of gender pioneers
driyn Hayes, an 18-year-old self-described
“queer femme in training,” is an example
of such a young and open person. She
became involved with TAG through her more
extensive involvement in BRO’s Youth Advisory
Council. Her experience there has taught her a
great deal about gender.
“YAC is gender creative,” says Hayes. “It is
the first place I’ve been where everyone indi
cates their preferred pronoun when they intro
A
Click Patterdale reads from one of hir zines
at the Night of Noise
duce themselves. That is important because it
means that a person can’t look at another per
son and know which identity they have. Most
times you just can’t tell.”
While YAC is a group formed more around
age than gender, Hayes says the fact that YAC
is gender aware changes the group.
“They don’t just accept body as identity,”
she says. “Being a part of a group with gender
newness allowed me to explore my own gender
and learn to relate to gender in general. Now
the idea of pinning people into two genders
seems silly to me, but before, it made sense.”
Hayes explored questions about her own
gender and was a boy for a year while in high
schtxil. (The pronouns used here reflect her
current identification.) She changed her
appearance to more closely reflect her internal
feelings, called herself by a different name and
asked those around her to address her with
male pronouns. She says she experienced a
great deal of resistance to her requests for
recognition, primarily in refusals to use the pro
nouns and name she had chosen for herself.
As a result of her change in gender pre
sentation, Hayes endured a lot of direct
harassment.
“People felt justified in walking right up to
me asking if I was a boy or a girl," she says.
“Sometimes they called me ‘it.’ ”
This type of dehumanization is just one
example of the ridicule individuals can face
when their perceived sex is read as being at
odds with their gender presentation. Once
when Hayes was living as a boy, she endured
two opposite gender-specific homophobic slurs
against her during the same bus ride. First,
one rider called her a dyke. After stepping off
the bus and embracing a male friend, she
heard a different passenger shout, “Fags!” out
the window.
While some might find it difficult to relate
to Hayes’ desire to play out and experiment
with different gender identities, it feels like
natural exploration to her.
“The only sacrifice I’ve made to express my
gender is my public safety,” she asserts. “But I
have never had to sacrifice anything internally.
“For me, ‘genderqueer’ means not taking
gender for granted,” Hayes continues. “It is
being consciously gendered rather than accept
ing that the doctor spanked me and said, i t ’s a
girl!’ I can play at this role and then take it off
and do something different. Gender should be
fun. If it is not fun for you, you should look
into that.”
Hayes feels that changing identity puts her
at the margins of the queer community. “I feel
included right now because, visibly, I look like
a girl is ‘supposed’ to look,” she says.
However, she says she feels excluded
Adriyn Hayes welcomes a friend to sit with
her at the Night of Noise, a queer youth event
because of her age. Also, she says, not all
queers “know how to respect pronouns or how
to respect people who date many sexes and
genders.”
As a young person exploring gender, and as
a person who believes gender education is a
vital part of building queer community, Hayes
thinks conversation is the best way to start
learning.
“Everyone needs to chill with the language
so we can talk to one another,” she says. “Take
a breath and fceus on the respect. If we could
get the words ‘fluid’ and ‘spectrum’ into every
one’s gender vocabulary, I think we might actu
ally solve the problem of exclusion.”
Click Patterdale, another young participant
in TAG, identifies as “trans and genderqueer,
with queer sexuality.”
“I pass as male about 80 percent of the time,
I think,” says Patterdale. “I’m nor sure what
people think of me.”
Like nationally known transgender pioneer
Kate Bomstein, Patterdale rejects the common
personal pronouns of “he” and “she” due to
their inherent gender and sex specificity. Pat
terdale prefers the alternative gender-neutral
pronouns “ze” and “hir” (pronounced “here”).
Requests for the use of gender-neutral pro
nouns are becoming more common among
trans folks who don’t feel they fit into cate
gories of “he” or “she." Patterdale has found
that gender-neutral language does not come
naturally to many people.
“1 often ask that people use gender-neutral
pronouns for me, but it doesn’t usually hap
pen,” says Patterdale. “Outside the bubble of
SM YRC, most people have difficulty with it.
Even in the queer community.”
Patterdale was bom female-bodied and is
receiving testosterone hormone therapy but does
not identify as a female-to-male transsexual.
“I don’t believe that I am either male or
female,” says Patterdale. “It is not that black
and white for me. I am not changing from
one specific thing to another. I am not having
surgery.”
Instead, Patterdale says ze feels “more at
home in my body this way, even though that
ambiguity confuses people. Outwardly, people
don’t understand that decision because most
p*eople would not be happy living the way I do.”
Practically speaking, this means continuing
to take testosterone, which Patterdale says
“puts me in a more fluid place, presentation-
wise.” But ze is not ruling out future changes,
including ending hir hormone treatment.
“I have no plans to stop,” says Patterdale,
“but that’s not saying that there may not come
a day when it doesn’t feel right anymore. I am
op>en to that.”
Patterdale's presentation of genderqueer is
representative of a growing movement among
young people to expose what they see as the
absurdities of the gender binary by consciously
chexising a nonclassifiable gender presentation.
“The reason I like to create confusion is to
make people aware,” says Patterdale. “I don’t
want to become invisible by passing as one
thing or another. I am definitely most comfort
able being in a visible middle ground.”
The confusion that Patterdale s presentation
sometimes causes is not confined to straight folks.
“I know older dykes who see trans as mov
ing away from butch identity,” says Patterdale.
“That is where a lot of confusion lies for
female-bodied people— that line dividing
butch dykes from trannies.”
Friction around Patterdale s choices comes
from within the genderqueer community, as well.
“Sometimes my trans friends who do want
to pass are frustrated because by purposefully
not passing I draw attention to them,” says Pat
terdale. “Some p»eople are concerned that the
trans aspect of my identity devalues what they
are doing with their gender.”
Patterdale has received the criticism that by
living in a state of ambiguity ze undermines the
legitimacy of transsexual transition. Ze has
come under fire for deciding to take testos
terone without also intending to have chest
revision surgery.
“It is important for people to realize that
identifying as genderqueer is not necessarily a
temporary position on its way to transition
but can be its own permanent identity,” says
Patterdale.
Though sometimes difficult, these are just
the types of conversations and interactions that
Patterdale values. Ze concurs with Schaefer,
who says: “We have to talk to pieople, show
them that human face. That is what helps to
change culture.” J H
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