Let's Have a Rant

You can ignore this if you want, I'm certainly not going to blame you for doing so. Many of you may find the subject incredibly ridiculous and I can assure you I do not expect to revolutionize the way everyone in the world thinks. However, to me this is a subject which is not ridiculous.

For the past four months, I have had no gender. I identified as a gay male for almost four years, but for about a year now this "title" has meant nothing to me. I didn't make a big deal of renouncing my gender, and many of my closest friends still do no know I have done so. I do not correct people when they say I am a gay male, I simply know that this is not entirely true.

I do not say that I am a girl, though at times I would surely like to be one. If at some point I do decide this is what is right for me, I will not make a big deal out of that either. But for right now, I do not identify as either a male or a female, and I don't see any reason why I should have to.

But that is not the real point, it's merely an asset to the core of my frustration. This subject, which has been picking away at my patience for a while (I can sense the laughter I am about to invoke) is the simple subject of gender roles.

It frustrates me to hear daily that every male from a certain country looks like the opposite gender. It frustrates me daily to hear people say that women have a "manly" voice, or that men have a "girlish" figure. If a woman has a deep voice, than obviously it is a woman's voice and not a man's. If a man has a slender figure, it is obviously a man's figure and not a woman's. It seems so simple to me.

Hundreds of times a day, I hear the two genders compared. I hear how one aspect, which is apparently supposed to belong exclusively to one gender, presents itself in someone of the "inappropriate" gender. Whether it is intended or not, the implications of such comparisons are that this means they have failed to comply to what society requires of them in order to effectively exist as whatever gender they are.

I do not see why a man that wears a dress is womanly. I do not see why a woman who knows how to fix a car is manly. I wonder how a society that tries so hard to come up with a unique label for every new sexuality and every new religion can still be anchored so deeply to the ancient concepts of what is "masculine" or what is "feminine". It boggles my mind to hear residents of the twenty-first assume that if a man bakes a cake he must be gay, and if a woman owns a certain breed of dog, she must also be gay.

It completely BAFFLES me to hear people talk about how angry racism makes them, and how people are so closed-minded, and then turn around and say that everyone of a certain race looks identical, and that everyone from a certain country looks a certain way. I have seen people of every colour of skin who looks like someone else with that colour of skin. I have seen people of every colour of skin who people might question which rest room they use. But still I know better than to assume that this must be true for everyone else who shares some minor, insignificant quality with them.

Human beings in general have been trained to put a label on everything. "If a person has two lumps on their chest they are called a woman. If a person has one lump in their throat they are called a man". One of the first things most of us do when we meet someone, subconsciously usually, is make a decision on which gender they are. However, when something about them seems out of place then we stop, and we begin to think about it consciously. We may reach a state of panic "Should I call this person Sir or Ma'am, should I avoid using any gender-specific pronouns at all? What if I use the wrong one, that will be embarrassing. Should I ask them what their name is, maybe that will help. Am I taking too long to reply to them, what if they think I'm being rude?"

English is not a language that is built well for these types of situations. We do not have many gender-neutral pronouns, and most people probably would not be pleased to have themselves referred to as "it". Although theoretically "it" may be less embarrassing than assuming someone is the gender they are not, the word has been weighed down with connotations of something that is inhuman, something that is below those other things that possess a gender.

The fact of the matter is that a grocery store cashier may see someone with two lumps on their chest and say to that person "Have a good day, ma'am," only to have the person respond with a sigh and a forced thank you and not understand what went wrong. The general populace of society does not realize how many transgendered, gender-questioning, transsexual, transvestite, etc citizens there are out there.

Everyone knows that old cliché "don't judge a book by its cover" and people apply it to everything. Don't assume a person is stupid because they're blond. Don't assume a person speaks a certain language because their skin is a certain colour. Don't assume a person is inferior because of their gender. But of the most simplistic label, people hardly speak of. What about don't assume a person is a certain gender because of their facial features, or their hair cut, or their clothing.

From the moment we are born, we have a gender slapped onto us which theoretically defines our whole lives. It is supposed to define what clothes we wear, whether or not it would be acceptable for us to wear makeup, what hobbies we are supposed to have, how often and which body parts we are supposed to shave, what our bone structure is supposed to be. It is nothing short of absurd.

Gender does NOT define who someone is, any more than their sexuality or their skin colour. Gender does not define who we can or cannot love, who we are superior to, or who we are inferior to. In technical terms, gender is decided by our chromosomes. The purpose of chromosomes is simply to make sure that some of us are born innies, and some outies, so that babies can still be made and our species does not collapse into a frothing pit of extinction. If a person is born with a certain set of chromosomes and decide they want to be an inny and not an outy, isn't that what should matter? If a person is born with a certain set of chromosomes and decides they want to wear a dress and makeup, is it really okay for people to say that they are ugly or "girlish" because it is not immediately apparent which sexual organs they have?

It is all well in good to not be turned on by a man in a dress, because any one aspect of a person will never be attractive to everyone. But to outright state your opinion as if it were a fact is degrading to anyone whose opinion varies from yours. It is all to common for people to use the word "ugly" to describe someone who simply doesn't turn them on. Even if they do honestly believe the person is hideous, it would be nice if people could accept the fact that maybe everyone else does not think they're hideous. That maybe when they say this person is ugly, someone who thinks they are beautiful might be irritated.

But I digress. This is really about gender, and the two issues are just ones which I often see coupled together, and both irritate me. Not so much to the point where I am deeply offended, but enough that it irritates me after happening so many times in so many days.

Actually, I do believe I am done now. I hope you all didn't die of starvation reading this, if anyone actually bothered to scroll through the entire thing.

 

I watched Beyonce's video for "If I were a boy" one time. There was a link to it at the bottom of msn, and I was curious as to what it was about. I really liked the video - until the end. The beginning of the video would be awesome for dispelling stereotypes, but instead at the very end they turn it around and it in fact reinforces stereotypes that do not need to be reinforced.

People say the same thing to me. "Guys suck - oh, but not you!" People like to generalize. "All men are pigs, all women are sluts" And no matter what, if you make a blanket statement, saying all somebodies are something, you're going to be proven wrong sooner or later, and most of the time you're going to look like an idiot.

Though admittedly, I have also said that boys suck a couple times. -.- But I don't say it now that I know better.