[ SECRET POST #1652 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1652 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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03.
[Burlesque, Christina Aguilera]


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04.
[Pretty Little Liars]


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05.
[Suburban Knights]


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06.
[Veronica Mars]


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[Glee]


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12.
[Harold Lloyd]


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14.
[5 Days a Stranger]


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15.
[The Laws of Magic]


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16.
[Megaman]


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17.
[Uncharted]


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19.
[Sherlock]


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20.
[The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire]


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22.
[Mass Effect]


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23.
[Ano Hana]


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24.
[Colonymired, Blocklocked and Team Paradox]


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25.
[David Bowie, The Hunger Games]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 07 pages, 130 secrets from Secret Submission Post #236.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - take it to comments ], [ 1 - not English ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

"Genderqueer" is a concept I think I will just never really understand. But more power to you, OP.

[(Anonymous)]

What is there to understand? Not attacking you, but I'd be happy to help explain, if that's something you'd like (:

[(Anonymous)]

It's really hard to explain (and I probably won't do it well for at least several comments) but, I just don't get it.

What does it mean to not feel like either gender? What does it mean to feel LIKE a particular gender? I always hear people talk about how gender isn't a binary, but when they start inventing third options I feel like what's really being said is "there really IS only this way to be a girl and this way to be a boy, and since I don't fit, I must be 'genderqueer'" And if anything, that's reinforcing a binary system of thought on gender.

Maybe I just conflate gender and sex more than most, I don't know.

[bloodrivendream.livejournal.com]

What does it mean to feel LIKE a particular gender?
I tend to wonder about that one as well.

[(Anonymous)]

Its the agnostic of the gender spectrum. Atleast to me.

[(Anonymous)]

Which I just don't get. Not everybody has to believe in God, but everybody is born with a sex, whether they like it, feel like it fits them or not. And for me - barring trans issues, I suppose -- gender is an extension of sex (and a fairly useless one at that, because while societally it seems to function as a sort of shorthand for sex, it's not like there's any one way to be a boy or or a girl).

[(Anonymous)]

If there's no "correct" way to be a boy or a girl, why does society criticize those who go against the norm so much? Why do you look at a character and decide that he is "boyish" or she is "girly" or he is "girly" and she is a "tomboy"? So to you then, do the words "masculine" and "feminine" mean... absolutely nothing, because there's no one way to be masculine and no one way to be feminine? You might be a time traveler from the post-gender future but trust me, it matters to everyone else (perhaps too much).

You might argue that well, why does it matter what other people think? You can just pick one and do whatever you want. Well what if you don't think either option fits you? And there are only two options to choose from, it's either one or the other, according to you or most of society. You can be a masculine girl but you must still be a girl. You can be a girly boy but you must still be a boy. If you feel like neither or something in between, you have to pick one anyways because it makes everyone else comfortable! God! Just take one for the team, like all those gay people who never tell anyone they're gay.

tl;dr: "there's no one way to be a boy or a girl." So if boy and girl are so meaningless, why does everyone have to pick one in the first place?

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like I'm being insulted somewhere in this comment, but I'm not quite sure how or why.

I really don't know how to respond to a whole lot of this, other than to say I never said anything about "picking a gender."

[(Anonymous)]

It wasn't directed toward you, more like the world in general.

My question was more: if you feel gender has no bearing on identity, then why bother to identify as male or female in the first place? Shouldn't identifying as male or female confuse you just as much as not identifying as either of them, then?

[(Anonymous)]

if you feel gender has no bearing on identity, then why bother to identify as male or female in the first place?

Because (in general) people are born with sex traits that determine their sex/gender. I have a vagina, uterus and ovaries* -- I was born female. My brother has a penis and testicles. He is male.

I love monster trucks and baseball and I hate dresses and makeup with every fiber of my being. That doesn't mean I'm not a girl -- I'm just a girl who likes monster trucks, baseball and hates dresses/makeup. Obviously it's a little different for people who are trans, but I GET trans-ness. I still don't get genderqueer.

*Please, let's not turn this into a "What about women who've had hysterectomies?!!! Are they not women anymore?!" wankfest.

DA

[(Anonymous)]

You don't "get" genderqueer because you're conflating sex and gender. Sex traits do not determine a person's gender -- and even if they did, what about intersexed people? Do they have to "pick a side and stick with it," like doctors did at birth for many of them?

[(Anonymous)]

Uh, if you GET transness and don't GET genderqueer, I don't think you really GET transness at all. If someone was born a man and hated dresses and makeup with every fiber of her being, and loved monster trucks and baseball, you'd be asking why didn't she just stay a man, right? Because otherwise, if you understood that being a girl who loves monster trucks and being a guy who loves monster trucks is different because that's how they identify, you'd also understand that being a person who feels sort of like a girl and sort of like a guy who loves monster trucks is the same question of identity.

Transness is not about gender stereotypes. Neither is being genderqueer.

[citrinesunset.livejournal.com]

I'll be honest: I'm a little confused that you say you can understand binary trans-ness, yet, based on what you're saying here, your difficulty understanding genderqueerness seems to stem from a difficulty understanding how people can relate to gender outside of physical sex and gender roles. In that regard, being trans and being genderqueer aren't all that different. You say you identify as female because of the body you were born with, but the existence of trans people shows that gender identity doesn't always correspond with the body you're born with. It's just that most people born with "female" bodies do identify as female, and vice versa.

Like binary-identified trans people, many genderqueer people don't identify as the gender they were assigned at birth, and many experience some degree of psychological, social, and physical dysphoria. Some choose to transition. The main difference is that genderqueer encompasses a wider range of non-binary identities.

It's hard for me to explain beyond that, because if it's possible for someone born with a "female" body to have a firm male identity, I don't see why it's so much stranger for someone to have an identity that's neither male nor female.

[(Anonymous)]

thanks for giving me this case of nausea, i'll cherish it always
you don't get "trans-ness"
you equate sex with gender
and i highly doubt you actually see trans person as their identified gender
until transition
here's a hint both those traits are really fucking unbecoming
and just
hurtful to a lot of people, including me
and yes despite the monster trucks, guess what
you're a girl
why?
you identify as such
it's in some way important to you
just like genderqueer people and their experienced genders
it has no bearing on whether you've got a fucking vagina, ovaries, tits, et al.

DA

[(Anonymous)]

then why bother to identify as male or female in the first place?

Out of convenience? This sounds like horribly silly reason, but...I'm just sticking with my birth sex and people assume my gender is the same. But I have no particular connection to my gender/sex and I see it as having up and down sides which is pretty much how I'd feel had I been born the other). I have learned through living that some people place much more emphasis on gender while to me it's just as annoying thing that gets in the way. If that makes sense at all.

So, long story short, I think that the way people perceive gender, even their own, differs.

[(Anonymous)]

I think anon's point was that even if you don't pick a gender, everyone else insists on picking one for you out of the two and only two available choices and if neither of them fit you are forever uncomfortable

I'm curious though you never answered anon's question about masculine and feminine, what do those words mean to you if masculinity and femininity can be exactly the same and there's no one way to define it

[(Anonymous)]

I couldn't find the words for it before, but I think masculinity and femininity are an established shorthand for society's traditions and stereotypes about the sexes. But also don't think anyone necessarily has to be bound by those traditions and stereotypes. Bucking the norm might not always be easy and it might not always be comfortable, but it makes more sense to me than trying to say "I'm neither!" (which also seems like it would be neither easy nor comfortable as far as dealing with haters goes).

I replied to anon just above your comment in a way that might explain it better or differently or something.

[bloodrivendream.livejournal.com]

I think it is true that even if you don't pick a gender, everyone else insists on picking one for you out of the two available choices. However, I do not think having neither fit necessarily means you are forever uncomfortable. It just means you are forever getting gendered as male or female by other people.

[(Anonymous)]

OP here! I'm pretty sure genderqueer is weird for everybody, because as far as I know, there are pretty much infinite ways to be genderqueer. In my case, I'm biologically female, and I primarily identify as female (feminine pronouns and all that), but at the same time I'm just not... a girl, I guess. I feel really weird and uncomfortable when people call me things like "sis" or similar things. As I first started to describe the way I was feeling to the few people I have told, I basically said "I'm a girl, who feels like a boy, who feels like a girl." So while I tell people I'm a girl, and I'm biologically female, there's this part of me that is unmistakably male for one reason or another. I can't really describe it other than that's just... well, how I feel! I'm a mixture of the two.

That probably doesn't help much, but I thought I would give a little description nonetheless. I can't really say how I "feel" like a boy or a girl; I just sort of do. It feels wrong to say I'm one or the other.

Original anon

[(Anonymous)]

I feel really weird and uncomfortable when people call me things like "sis" or similar things
I can relate to this. Because I'm female (whose tastes generally run to the more masculine side of things and who spent a good bit of youth feeling "wrong") and words like "sis" put me on edge, too. But for me, I realized that particular thing was just that I don't like the way the word sounds. There are just some combinations of letters that are like nails on chalkboards for me ("moist" is apparently a similar word for a lot of people).

But hey, I'm me and you're you, and that's okay.

Re: Original anon

[(Anonymous)]

I can't even stand "Ma'am". *shudder*

OP again

[(Anonymous)]

I actually really like "ma'am," but I live in the southern US so that's probably why. I like 'sir' just as much, though--they command a sense of respect, I feel. But yeah, I can understand that. In a fit of irony, pronouns like 'xir' and 'zhe' really bother me, just from a 'this sounds kind of terrible to my ears/brain' perspective.

I was just adding that bit about 'sis' to sort of highlight a random point; it doesn't hold true for everyone, of course. But for me, it feels wrong, because people are deliberately avoiding calling me 'bro' in order to use it. Just a weird thing!

[hoggle2807.livejournal.com]

Read the whole thread. Kind of love you.

The only way "I don't have a gender" isn't a stupid concept is if you accept that gender itself is a stupid concept used solely as a convenient way to define what it means to be a man or a woman. That still makes you a man or a woman, based on your sex. And ngl, when people call you one or the other, they're not peering into your soul to see what you identify as. They're just fucking looking at you and making an educuated guess.

Transexuals and the intersexed excluded, you're a man or your a woman, and its determined at birth. What that means is up to you. Everything else just seems like super special snowflake bawwing because you don't like the stereotypical way "society" thinks men and woman should be (as if society is a monolith, which it's not).

We've got enough words and enough labels and enough boxes. All this isn't creating an absence of labels and boxes, it's just piling more on.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's really a quest to remove labels or boxes; actually, it might be quite the opposite! I know a lot of people say that they don't want to be forced into a box, but from what I've seen, a lot of the people who say that don't have to worry about not fitting into a label or box in the first place. For me, it feels really uncomfortable to try and fit myself into the box of 'male' or 'female' regardless of my biological sex--and, in turn, I feel really out of place, because I don't have a proper way to describe myself. The 'genderqueer' label actually makes me feel better, because I now have a phrase that actually suits me, and a box that I can fit inside. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

For me it doesn't really have anything to do with society's roles, just how I feel. For me, it's not as simple as 'male' or 'female'--I don't mind if people think of me as one or the other for convenience, but just me, personally, it's not that simple. Does that make sense?

Either way, it's up to me to decide what I identify as, and I would hope that even if you think that my identification is 'stupid' you would be willing to respect that it's still how I feel most comfortable!

[(Anonymous)]

follow steps on secret number nine
rinse and repeat as needed