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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 2011)
{ ( jfl 2 8 voices- OCTOBER 21.2011 WWW.JUSTOUT.COM The Rules Of Attraction? I’m attracted to women. I always have been. Well, when I was a teenager I was attracted to teenage girls and women, but my attractions were always toward females. I knew this was true, but something told me it wasn’t. The something was my gender. If a male was effeminate, he was supposed to like tnales. That was the idea I picked up. That left me in a conundrum. I could be ef feminate and like males, which I didn’t, or I could hide my gender and like females, which I did. How did it work? Not so well. I had girlfriends. Lots of women like sensitive men, and the women I dated seemed to like not having to adhere to gender stereotypes too rigidly, but I spent the relation ships cut off from myself. W hen we made love, I retreated into a place of fantasy. W hen we talked, I was always hiding secrets. Now that’s not the case. I’m out and I’m in a loving relationship. In my life, though, people often assume I’m gay, and it bugs me. W hen I transition, and I’m with my partner, I assume they’ll think I’m lesbian, which bugs me, too. Actually, sexual categories bug me in general. I don’t believe I fit in any of them. I’m androg ynous. I don’t see myself fitting into the gay/ straight continuum. I also don’t feel like ex plaining the last five paragraphs to people ev ery time I talk to them. Sexual categories bug me in general. I don’t believe I fit in any of them. In truth, I’ve never had to. W hether I edu cate people about gender or define the particu lars of my sexuality is my business. So why does it bother me? Perhaps because it was always a mystery to me. W hen I was closeted, I wouldn’t have called myself “androgynous.” I didn’t know what my gender was. People sometimes as sumed I was gay, and I wondered if they were right. I tried to date men a few times, with di sastrous results. Now, for the first time, I know who I am, and I assume no one will understand. Maybe I’m wrong. If I tell friends, I assume they’ll be lieve me, because they care about and respect me. I can’t imagine anyone at work, or a stranger, ever asking. The co-workers and the strangers are pre cisely the people I’m annoyed about, though. “Don’t try to put me in your categories,” I think, “because your categories are all wrong!” Am I mad at them, or at me? I don’t like be ing misunderstood, like I am when people except when I want to wear drag and be flam boyant. I’m not male, except when I want to dress male and watch basketball. Damn, maybe I’m a male drag queen. O r maybe none o f those words mean anything. That’s a comforting thought, except that I’m planning to have an orchiectomy next month and start estrogen, and it would be nice to know “what” I am. I guess I’m someone who wants an orchiec tomy and estrogen. I’d like some electrolysis, too. I always have, really— I just didn’t know how to listen when I told myself as much. It’s hard to hear what you want when you’re telling yourself you don’t want it. So now I hear myself, and I want to hold myself to every word. “Okay— I’m androgy nous. I like women. I want breasts, but not a vagina. Right? Right?! ”Yes,but... That’s the tricky part. Jude Law’s attractive, right? Admitting so doesn’t make me not an androgynous, woman-loving, breast-wanting penis-keeper, does it? Policing myself this way is exhausting, and I’m ready to stop. I’m surrendering my gender house-arrest ankle bracelet... but I’m keeping the tiara. J0] think I’m gay, but I’m also embarrassed for having misidentified myself. W hat about later? Then, I fear, I’ll be per petually misunderstood. W ho will look at me and think, “There’s an androgynous person who is attracted to females. I can tell just by looking at zim?” Probably no one. Will that exhaust me? I hope not. A part of me likes the idea o f being unique. I’ve hidden myself for so long, it’s fun to have my identity show. Hut another part dislikes it, and thinks my clothes and hair send messages that are inaccurate. Sometimes it seems important, other times it doesn’t. W hen I wrestle with the question, however, it seems really important. That’s when I need the answer, and when anyone who might misperceive me seems villainous. Most o f the time the world seems benign to me now. Unlike when I started my transition, I think of people as tolerant and accepting. Questions about the future, though, bring back my old fears— and with them, my old hostility. I want clear boundaries and definitions: “My gender is...” But gender doesn’t seem to work L e e l a G i n e l l f . is a journalist and writer. Visit that way, which is scary. 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