On my first post of this blog I talked about gender-queers. As promised, I asked some friends what they thought the word met and if they were a gender-queer or not. The first person I asked was my boyfriend and right away he said "does that mean I am gay, because I think you know the answer to that". After explaining it to him we decided he was not a gender-queer because most things he does would be thought of as "masculine". The Second person I asked was my mom, her reaction was "Would that mean I do not know if I am a male or female?". It was a great topic to share with my mom, she would be considered a gender-queer and that is probably why I am too. She always dressed me in dresses but when I came to be able to do things myself I would sometimes tend to do things others might classify as "masculine". My twin brother is a gender-queer but I could not get him to realize it. He dresses in a way other males might think "feminine", and also is a lot more in tune with fashion than I have ever been. He is not afraid to express himself differently then others but said he does not like the word because it has queer attached to it. Other people that I talked to also thought it had to do with being gay or a lesbian. It just goes to show you that people who do not take the time to understand what a word mean can tie a stigma to it. I think being gender-queer is not something someone should be afraid of saying. With everything I am learning in my Women's Studies class, I feel as if the world is changing even if it is at a slow pace. Although people might get attacked for being gender-queer, hopefully in the future people will just learn to accept everyone for who they are. The days of being just masculine or just feminine are coming to a close, there are many people who are a mix of both. So what is wrong with the word gender-queer??
This is a site I found that deals with everyone having a masculine and feminine side. Thought it was a different approach and I found it interesting
finding your masculine and feminine side
This is a site I found that deals with everyone having a masculine and feminine side. Thought it was a different approach and I found it interesting
finding your masculine and feminine side
I think the gender prescriptions we have are pretty much impossible to live up to, so we're all genderqueer. But the idea of not being manly or womanly enough is too scary of a concept for a lot of people, so they accentuate the "right" characteristics and call it a day in the "right" feminine or masculine voice.
ReplyDelete