I don't feel pretty ...
My gender identity is something I've struggled with for years. It's something I've only recently - since college - begun to examine, but even as a child I defied at least some gender norms especially around clothing. I don't have the same anti-fem dress stories that some LGBT persons have but they were never my preference. They - especially skirts, since I attended a private Christian school for years - were just part of my mandated dress code and when given the choice I preferred the men's style pants that were my other option.
More important - as far as a "rejection of femininity" - was my refusal to wear makeup, paint my nails, or wax from a young age. Bain an avid fan of what not to wear (like all great, gay men) mean I learned how to dress well and wear makeup at an early age and applied those rules to myself. However I didn't feel the way the peple on TV or my mom or my friend felt when they did these things. I didn't feel pretty.
Now you might assume that this is fairly normal for a teenager - low self-seteem, body image issues, and all that - but no. For as long as I've been aware of weight as a measure of beauty (since maybe age 11 or so) I have been overweight, however, it has rarely affected my self-image and had basically zero effect on my confidence. Even as a teen I was accepting of my body - flaws and all - and knew the flattering things to wear from my devotion to WNTW ... STACY AND CLINTON YOU ARE MY GODS ... ahem.
However, even when I wore my hair right for my face (which was rare), wore the cuts that flattered my figure (about 50/50), and wore the right shades of make up (I'm pretty sure there's only one picture of this event) ... I didn't feel pretty.
Now in retrospect, it's easy to be confident about what my younger self was truly experiencing but - redactive memory or not - there is something even more important that I don't remember from my childhood ... I don't remember wanting to be pretty.
Now this was a fairly earthshattering realization for me: after all, it's a fairly common assumption for young girls:
Mom: Here lets try this on ... there, that looks so nice.
Girl: What about this, Mom?
Mom: Oh I don't think so, after all you want to look your prettiest, right?
Now, the earliest version of this conversations I specifically remember was from when I was about 14. My cousin had forcibly dragged me to the salon after she had gotten her ears pierced so she could get a waxing, and decided to buy one for me too.
Cousin K: Come on, it'll be fun!
Me: But it hurts ...
K: Well, yeah, but it's all in the name of beauty [laugh]
Me: .........................
K: ... oh come on, your brows are huge*! You'll look so much prettier when we're done with you!
Me: ............................... [inner thought] ... but thats not me ...
For a few years, when I was struggling with depression, it was really difficult for me to separate the feeling that - at my fundamental core, I am not pretty - from self-hatred or destruction. After all, I didn't feel that bad knowing I wasn't pretty (except for my one failed attempt at romance) and it didn't make me like myself less. I never really told people how I felt about myself because the automatic reaction was to puff up my ego**: "What are you talking about? Of course you're pretty. You're so beautiful when you smile. You have a gorgeous body, I wish I could pull of that dress" et cetera, et cetera .... Did feeling unpretty mean I thought I was worthless? Well, I didn't really care about that? Was I bad person for not caring more? I should care ... shouldn't I?
Now since then, in the wake of my sociology class on the deconstruction gender and of being less repressed in general, I have been able to think more about my looks and about myself. I know that I can be pretty, but the question really is, should I be? I'm reminded of a great comic from A Softer World "I asked my mother, What should I be? Fuck should, she said." A big catalyst for all this introspection was actually a video I saw for a Kickstarter project called St Harridans - a new suit company catering to female-bodied people who like mens clothing. Their motto really spoke to me: Saint Harridan makes you look like you. And that's exactly it. My gender identity is ... me. I want to look like me, act like me, and be treated like ... me. And the fact that I don't feel "pretty" doesn't mean I can't look damn attractive, and may I even say ... sexy?*** Saint Harridan had a great post of their blog called "It's just clothes, but it's more than clothes" and a lot of the stories spoke to me, confusion from friends and family, attempts to pidgen-hole me into either "female" or the one acceptable alternative "tomboy", and the importance of feeling comfortable in both your skin and your second-skin.
Writing this, I was actually reminded of a line from Wreck-It-Ralph: "I bad and that's good. I will never be good and that's not bad! There's no one I'd rather be... than me."
Delightfully yours,
Jem, the one and only
~:~
*This is an empirical fact. A small mammal could use them to hanglide ... http://spoonyexperiment.com/img/8x10/tekken-eyebrows.jpg
**Which really doesn't need any help there: hubris and sloth being my two fatal flaws
***You decide! (far right): https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/2989115659/2a7add99df2068031a07303731d4db33.jpeg
http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=452
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marygoing/saint-harridan
http://www.saintharridan.com/3/post/2012/11/its-just-clothes-but-its-more-than-clothes.html
... I really should have written that paper that was due yesterday instead of this ... eh, fuck it.
More important - as far as a "rejection of femininity" - was my refusal to wear makeup, paint my nails, or wax from a young age. Bain an avid fan of what not to wear (like all great, gay men) mean I learned how to dress well and wear makeup at an early age and applied those rules to myself. However I didn't feel the way the peple on TV or my mom or my friend felt when they did these things. I didn't feel pretty.
Now you might assume that this is fairly normal for a teenager - low self-seteem, body image issues, and all that - but no. For as long as I've been aware of weight as a measure of beauty (since maybe age 11 or so) I have been overweight, however, it has rarely affected my self-image and had basically zero effect on my confidence. Even as a teen I was accepting of my body - flaws and all - and knew the flattering things to wear from my devotion to WNTW ... STACY AND CLINTON YOU ARE MY GODS ... ahem.
However, even when I wore my hair right for my face (which was rare), wore the cuts that flattered my figure (about 50/50), and wore the right shades of make up (I'm pretty sure there's only one picture of this event) ... I didn't feel pretty.
Now in retrospect, it's easy to be confident about what my younger self was truly experiencing but - redactive memory or not - there is something even more important that I don't remember from my childhood ... I don't remember wanting to be pretty.
Now this was a fairly earthshattering realization for me: after all, it's a fairly common assumption for young girls:
Mom: Here lets try this on ... there, that looks so nice.
Girl: What about this, Mom?
Mom: Oh I don't think so, after all you want to look your prettiest, right?
Now, the earliest version of this conversations I specifically remember was from when I was about 14. My cousin had forcibly dragged me to the salon after she had gotten her ears pierced so she could get a waxing, and decided to buy one for me too.
Cousin K: Come on, it'll be fun!
Me: But it hurts ...
K: Well, yeah, but it's all in the name of beauty [laugh]
Me: .........................
K: ... oh come on, your brows are huge*! You'll look so much prettier when we're done with you!
Me: ............................... [inner thought] ... but thats not me ...
For a few years, when I was struggling with depression, it was really difficult for me to separate the feeling that - at my fundamental core, I am not pretty - from self-hatred or destruction. After all, I didn't feel that bad knowing I wasn't pretty (except for my one failed attempt at romance) and it didn't make me like myself less. I never really told people how I felt about myself because the automatic reaction was to puff up my ego**: "What are you talking about? Of course you're pretty. You're so beautiful when you smile. You have a gorgeous body, I wish I could pull of that dress" et cetera, et cetera .... Did feeling unpretty mean I thought I was worthless? Well, I didn't really care about that? Was I bad person for not caring more? I should care ... shouldn't I?
Now since then, in the wake of my sociology class on the deconstruction gender and of being less repressed in general, I have been able to think more about my looks and about myself. I know that I can be pretty, but the question really is, should I be? I'm reminded of a great comic from A Softer World "I asked my mother, What should I be? Fuck should, she said." A big catalyst for all this introspection was actually a video I saw for a Kickstarter project called St Harridans - a new suit company catering to female-bodied people who like mens clothing. Their motto really spoke to me: Saint Harridan makes you look like you. And that's exactly it. My gender identity is ... me. I want to look like me, act like me, and be treated like ... me. And the fact that I don't feel "pretty" doesn't mean I can't look damn attractive, and may I even say ... sexy?*** Saint Harridan had a great post of their blog called "It's just clothes, but it's more than clothes" and a lot of the stories spoke to me, confusion from friends and family, attempts to pidgen-hole me into either "female" or the one acceptable alternative "tomboy", and the importance of feeling comfortable in both your skin and your second-skin.
Writing this, I was actually reminded of a line from Wreck-It-Ralph: "I bad and that's good. I will never be good and that's not bad! There's no one I'd rather be... than me."
Delightfully yours,
Jem, the one and only
~:~
*This is an empirical fact. A small mammal could use them to hanglide ... http://spoonyexperiment.com/img/8x10/tekken-eyebrows.jpg
**Which really doesn't need any help there: hubris and sloth being my two fatal flaws
***You decide! (far right): https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/2989115659/2a7add99df2068031a07303731d4db33.jpeg
http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=452
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marygoing/saint-harridan
http://www.saintharridan.com/3/post/2012/11/its-just-clothes-but-its-more-than-clothes.html
... I really should have written that paper that was due yesterday instead of this ... eh, fuck it.