I have a private Amazon wishlist with 125 books to look into for this story. I'm amused that the other wishlist, which has books to look into for multiple other stories, has only 25, adding to a round total of 150 books I'd like to read this summer, not counting the ones I've already got. I'm not going to read them all--the ones that are too difficult to get, too difficult to read, or just bad will get shoved to the bottom of the list.
That's today's plan--organize the list. Books that look the most useful go on top, books that might prove interesting side reading go on the bottom. To do this, I'm looking up each book AGAIN on Amazon, after having looked them all up all day yesterday, and writing a one-sentence summary in the wishlist notes section, just enough to remind me of which book it is I'm looking at. I'm making sure to include details that I think are important, such as whether the book details with FTM, MTF, genderqueer+, or some combination thereof, people--some of these will obviously be more relevant to my book than others. Personal stories are also going to be really important, but I need to prioritize fiction, too.
Why? One of the reasons I'm being this methodical is that the writing conference is part of a college course I'm taking. The course really begins June 6, when I'll send in a paragraph to the conference director describing three books I'm planning to read before the conference starts on July 6. (I may well have already read them at this rate.) One of them has to be about how to craft my genre (fiction), and two have to be in my genre. So as helpful as real-life memoirs are going to be, they won't count toward the course. Let me reassure you that I'm not planning on reading only two fiction books about my topic. I am planning on reading as much as my mind and schedule can handle, fiction and nonfiction. I'm just making sure to keep the actual course requirements in mind as I start research.
Next I go to the conference, and work on structuring the novel and producing actual material, and write a lot about the conference itself, which I'll turn in to the conference director (who's essentially the teacher of the course) with a revision of my work by August 15th.
So that's my summer plan. Look at me being all organized.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Re-Evaluation
I'm Phoenix Tawnyflower, and I haven't written a post for this blog in over a year.
A lot has changed in that year. At the time of my last posting, I was seventeen years old, in the middle of my last semester of high school, terrified of the road ahead. There weren't many days when I remembered who I was, what I wanted to do. Days when I could taste that spark that says yes, this is why you're alive, why you were put on this planet, this is what you were meant to do, go do it.
Since then, (in not much of a particular order) I've graduated high school, become legal, visited England, been to a writer's conference, worked the first job that paid enough for a W2, worked a job that required me to be fingerprinted, completed my first year of a four-year college, changed my name, changed it back, essentially moved four hours away, and acquired a girlfriend.
There's a couple of those points I'd like to elaborate on.
I never said anything on this site that would reveal how young I am, how young I started this blog, because I started it at age fourteen with the lofty goal of uniting the various pro-queer organizations worldwide, a blog where interested activists could come to learn all the news rather than follow dozens of different websites. (At fourteen I also wrote, directed, acted in, and filmed my own movie, because no one told me I couldn't. Just to put it in perspective.) I was going to be the ultimate activist, the hub of information, and I knew I couldn't do it if everyone was seeing me as a little kid.
Then I realized something.
I don't want to be an activist.
Sometime in the past year, maybe even more, I've figured out that I don't have the energy for activism. Political correctness wears me out. As an introvert, I have to think about what I want to say before I start talking, which means the conversation often moves on before I have it figured out. It's a lot worse when I have to be careful not only of certain terms (and the list of things that can offend people is nearly infinite) but navigate different interpretations of the same words, negotiate with various other groups that want equal representation, and balance supporting people who want to live outside or even abolish things like gender, marriage, and other social constructs with supporting people who want to live inside them.
I just don't have the energy. It stresses me out. It makes me freak out about what everyone is thinking about what I'm saying, because often the words I'm using only fractionally explain what I'm thinking. It makes me feel burdened with the concerns of almost everyone. And, as a cynic, I can see all too clearly the impossibility of many ideas, which gets me shut out as a pessimist not helpful to the cause.
Why am I even attempting to justify myself? It should be enough to say, I don't want to do it. Some people are cut out for some things, and other people for other things. This ought to be obvious. It takes a little more work in practice.
I want to study things, and I want to make things. I want to break open viruses and put new genes inside and see what I can do with them. I want to write code to model biological systems. I want to write performance art. I want to write poetry and novels and maybe screenplays and teleplays.
If this blog is going to continue being of any use to me, of any relevance to the name Phoenix Tawnyflower and not merely a dead website with useful links on it, its purpose needs to change.
I'm going back to the writer's conference this summer, and I'm apparently writing a novel examining being transgender through the lens of a gendered language, Spanish. Being not transgender and not a native speaker of Spanish, I clearly have a ton of work to do, a ton of books to read, a ton of notes to take. So I'm thinking of keeping those notes here. It'll work for the public as mainly a site for book reviews, at the moment mostly on transgender themes, but it'll be more personal, more like most blogs are, less impossible for those who know me in person to connect to me.
That's one reason I'm coming out as a mere kid. Keeping everything I write separate from my real life is depersonalizing this site, and keeps me from getting invested in what I share here, which makes it boring for all of us. Another reason is that it's not important anymore. It's crucial for someone wanting to be a cornerstone not to be seen as too young to do it, but not so much for a writer. Anyone who thinks a now nineteen-year-old can't write books ought to go away now, because the purpose isn't to be the best, the purpose is to create to the best of my ability.
Pardon me for a digression which will become somewhat more obviously useful in a little. For a long time, I've had three A names in my head: Audacia, Allegra, and Atalanta. Audacia became the code name of my first crush, for audacious, for a girl bold as brass and not afraid to defy any convention she pleases. Allegra became my first love, for alegre, happy, for a girl with always an upbeat outlook on life and the source of a great deal of my happiness as a teenager. And I've found my Atalanta, for the girl in the Greek myths who needed no man and could outrun them all, my first girlfriend, the girl who constantly tells me that I am capable of all I dream of, who makes me feel like I can outrun the competition, who is always careful to articulate that I do not complete her and she does not complete me--for we are not half people. Instead, I compare us to trees that have grown around each other, creating their shape based on what else is there, so that they can be separated without killing either, but apart their shape is oddly contorted, and only together does the beauty show. I compare us to puzzle pieces, that can easily be used alone in art, hung on a necklace or pasted into a painting, but which fit together perfectly when placed just so. I don't say, "I cannot live without you," I say "I remember what it was to live without you and I don't want to do it again." I have a line of writing describing me and Allegra, saying that I don't remember what it's like to feel like a whole person. Well, here I am on summer vacation, sans my Atalanta, and I don't feel like I'm missing a limb. I miss my sounding board and my cuddles, but I can phone up my sounding board and acquire cuddles elsewhere. During the year, when she wasn't there, it was as though my awareness was used to having her presence there, and when it wasn't, it was an odd sensation, but it felt more like being used to having a warm body pressed against mine, and feeling cold when it was taken away. With her, I am more comfortable, more relaxed, taken care of, indulged, and pushed to make changes, but not more complete, despite being kinda head over heels.
In short, I'm in a healthier relationship than I was when I wasn't in one. Sorry not sorry for digressing, though. I'm a heckuva romantic.
Anyway. I was trying to decide whether to take the safe road that required less preparation and work the conference for the story that was already written, that just needed polishing before publication, or leap off the cliff and work it for a story that not only haven't I written, but I haven't got the experience nor done the background research for. My mother said to leap off the cliff and take the experience I wouldn't get elsewhere for what it was worth. My girlfriend asked me if I was feeling like Phoenix Tawnyflower or my real name. I said I didn't know if there was a difference anymore. She said, Phoenix is an ideal, a personification, a goal, to remind you to jump off cliffs and build wings on the way down. Phoenix was a reminder of who you wanted to be. And if you can't tell the difference anymore, you're on your way to getting there, and you should jump off the cliff.
And I wondered when she got better at articulating my mind than I did. Because that is who Phoenix is to me. That is why I changed my name when I got to college, as a constant reminder from everyone who spoke to me to build bridges, try new things, explore, and leap off cliffs.
A lot has changed in that year. At the time of my last posting, I was seventeen years old, in the middle of my last semester of high school, terrified of the road ahead. There weren't many days when I remembered who I was, what I wanted to do. Days when I could taste that spark that says yes, this is why you're alive, why you were put on this planet, this is what you were meant to do, go do it.
Since then, (in not much of a particular order) I've graduated high school, become legal, visited England, been to a writer's conference, worked the first job that paid enough for a W2, worked a job that required me to be fingerprinted, completed my first year of a four-year college, changed my name, changed it back, essentially moved four hours away, and acquired a girlfriend.
There's a couple of those points I'd like to elaborate on.
I never said anything on this site that would reveal how young I am, how young I started this blog, because I started it at age fourteen with the lofty goal of uniting the various pro-queer organizations worldwide, a blog where interested activists could come to learn all the news rather than follow dozens of different websites. (At fourteen I also wrote, directed, acted in, and filmed my own movie, because no one told me I couldn't. Just to put it in perspective.) I was going to be the ultimate activist, the hub of information, and I knew I couldn't do it if everyone was seeing me as a little kid.
Then I realized something.
I don't want to be an activist.
Sometime in the past year, maybe even more, I've figured out that I don't have the energy for activism. Political correctness wears me out. As an introvert, I have to think about what I want to say before I start talking, which means the conversation often moves on before I have it figured out. It's a lot worse when I have to be careful not only of certain terms (and the list of things that can offend people is nearly infinite) but navigate different interpretations of the same words, negotiate with various other groups that want equal representation, and balance supporting people who want to live outside or even abolish things like gender, marriage, and other social constructs with supporting people who want to live inside them.
I just don't have the energy. It stresses me out. It makes me freak out about what everyone is thinking about what I'm saying, because often the words I'm using only fractionally explain what I'm thinking. It makes me feel burdened with the concerns of almost everyone. And, as a cynic, I can see all too clearly the impossibility of many ideas, which gets me shut out as a pessimist not helpful to the cause.
Why am I even attempting to justify myself? It should be enough to say, I don't want to do it. Some people are cut out for some things, and other people for other things. This ought to be obvious. It takes a little more work in practice.
I want to study things, and I want to make things. I want to break open viruses and put new genes inside and see what I can do with them. I want to write code to model biological systems. I want to write performance art. I want to write poetry and novels and maybe screenplays and teleplays.
If this blog is going to continue being of any use to me, of any relevance to the name Phoenix Tawnyflower and not merely a dead website with useful links on it, its purpose needs to change.
I'm going back to the writer's conference this summer, and I'm apparently writing a novel examining being transgender through the lens of a gendered language, Spanish. Being not transgender and not a native speaker of Spanish, I clearly have a ton of work to do, a ton of books to read, a ton of notes to take. So I'm thinking of keeping those notes here. It'll work for the public as mainly a site for book reviews, at the moment mostly on transgender themes, but it'll be more personal, more like most blogs are, less impossible for those who know me in person to connect to me.
That's one reason I'm coming out as a mere kid. Keeping everything I write separate from my real life is depersonalizing this site, and keeps me from getting invested in what I share here, which makes it boring for all of us. Another reason is that it's not important anymore. It's crucial for someone wanting to be a cornerstone not to be seen as too young to do it, but not so much for a writer. Anyone who thinks a now nineteen-year-old can't write books ought to go away now, because the purpose isn't to be the best, the purpose is to create to the best of my ability.
Pardon me for a digression which will become somewhat more obviously useful in a little. For a long time, I've had three A names in my head: Audacia, Allegra, and Atalanta. Audacia became the code name of my first crush, for audacious, for a girl bold as brass and not afraid to defy any convention she pleases. Allegra became my first love, for alegre, happy, for a girl with always an upbeat outlook on life and the source of a great deal of my happiness as a teenager. And I've found my Atalanta, for the girl in the Greek myths who needed no man and could outrun them all, my first girlfriend, the girl who constantly tells me that I am capable of all I dream of, who makes me feel like I can outrun the competition, who is always careful to articulate that I do not complete her and she does not complete me--for we are not half people. Instead, I compare us to trees that have grown around each other, creating their shape based on what else is there, so that they can be separated without killing either, but apart their shape is oddly contorted, and only together does the beauty show. I compare us to puzzle pieces, that can easily be used alone in art, hung on a necklace or pasted into a painting, but which fit together perfectly when placed just so. I don't say, "I cannot live without you," I say "I remember what it was to live without you and I don't want to do it again." I have a line of writing describing me and Allegra, saying that I don't remember what it's like to feel like a whole person. Well, here I am on summer vacation, sans my Atalanta, and I don't feel like I'm missing a limb. I miss my sounding board and my cuddles, but I can phone up my sounding board and acquire cuddles elsewhere. During the year, when she wasn't there, it was as though my awareness was used to having her presence there, and when it wasn't, it was an odd sensation, but it felt more like being used to having a warm body pressed against mine, and feeling cold when it was taken away. With her, I am more comfortable, more relaxed, taken care of, indulged, and pushed to make changes, but not more complete, despite being kinda head over heels.
In short, I'm in a healthier relationship than I was when I wasn't in one. Sorry not sorry for digressing, though. I'm a heckuva romantic.
Anyway. I was trying to decide whether to take the safe road that required less preparation and work the conference for the story that was already written, that just needed polishing before publication, or leap off the cliff and work it for a story that not only haven't I written, but I haven't got the experience nor done the background research for. My mother said to leap off the cliff and take the experience I wouldn't get elsewhere for what it was worth. My girlfriend asked me if I was feeling like Phoenix Tawnyflower or my real name. I said I didn't know if there was a difference anymore. She said, Phoenix is an ideal, a personification, a goal, to remind you to jump off cliffs and build wings on the way down. Phoenix was a reminder of who you wanted to be. And if you can't tell the difference anymore, you're on your way to getting there, and you should jump off the cliff.
And I wondered when she got better at articulating my mind than I did. Because that is who Phoenix is to me. That is why I changed my name when I got to college, as a constant reminder from everyone who spoke to me to build bridges, try new things, explore, and leap off cliffs.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I
could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life,
living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it
was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow
of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that
was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a
corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”~Henry David Thoreau, Walden
I became Phoenix Tawnyflower because I wished to live deliberately. To remember not to sit in the corner and wait for things to happen, but to happen to things. And I build my network, and I found places, and it served its purpose and started to sound less like my name. So I reclaimed my own name, at least in private. Phoenix Tawnyflower is no longer my secret identity as an activist, nor my public identity, the name that everyone knows who isn't very close. It is the personification of cliff jumping. So why on earth shouldn't it be that here, too? It will serve as a reminder of what I still need to do for this project, an accountability for me.
Amusing--I have always appreciated the irony in the name. A phoenix is a bird joining life and death, combining opposites. I have always been a combination of opposites in so many ways, and acquiring an alter ego only emphasized that. If my alter and I are merging, what does that say?
I can't wait to find out.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Equality or Justice? And who's the man in your relationship?
I know I've spoken before on how what the lgbt are asking for is not quite equal rights. I finally found a model that explains it better than I can.
You have three kids at a baseball game, and three crates. One kid is tall enough to see with no problem. One is almost tall enough to see. One is way too short to see.
Equality is when each kid gets a crate to stand on. Justice is when the shortest kid gets two crates and the medium kid gets one, and they can all see the game.
http://slowrobot.com/i/43945
On the theme of explaining lgbt life to those outside it, Ellen Degeneres is quoted as having the best counter-argument to 'who's the guy and who's the girl in your relationship' that I've ever seen.
Which chopstick is the fork?
http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=69584
You have three kids at a baseball game, and three crates. One kid is tall enough to see with no problem. One is almost tall enough to see. One is way too short to see.
Equality is when each kid gets a crate to stand on. Justice is when the shortest kid gets two crates and the medium kid gets one, and they can all see the game.
http://slowrobot.com/i/43945
On the theme of explaining lgbt life to those outside it, Ellen Degeneres is quoted as having the best counter-argument to 'who's the guy and who's the girl in your relationship' that I've ever seen.
Which chopstick is the fork?
http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=69584
More on gender.
Some boys like to wear girl clothes. But they don't want to be girls. The New York Times published a lovely article on the 'middle space' between traditionally feminine and traditionally masculine, one in which girls live with no trouble, but into which boys have to fight for entrance.
One of the blogs I follow is about one such boy, called C.J., and written by his mother. You should read it.
Also check out Twirl and his brother Tornado and sister Firecracker.
In other news, I got into that art show! You should go and check me out! April 1-7, GMU.
One of the blogs I follow is about one such boy, called C.J., and written by his mother. You should read it.
Also check out Twirl and his brother Tornado and sister Firecracker.
In other news, I got into that art show! You should go and check me out! April 1-7, GMU.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Gender
The New York Times posted a very good article on transgender people and pronouns. People tend to think of the pronoun change as happening at the same time as a sex change, but that just isn't true. Gender is gender, regardless of sex.
I do believe that male and female souls are inherently different, and that the soul is what I, at least, and others, are attracted to. Not just female body parts, female souls. It is the only explanation I can think of for several phenomena.
As a junior in high school, I read a very interesting book called Both Sides Now: One Man's Journey Through Womanhood. The author, Dhillon Khosla, was born with the body of a woman and took sexual partners from both sexes before being with women exclusively, and finally discovering the concept of transgender and making a full transition. Even when presenting as a woman, Khosla found that several, if not many, of his female partners were not already in the 'lesbian pool', but had never been attracted to a 'woman' before. They thought of the experience as a change to their sexuality, rather than seeing Khosla as a man. One time in a grocery store, Khosla found himself being stared at by a very young child. The mother apologized and said that 'he usually only stares like that at men.'
This all seems to point to the idea that these people are reacting to something about Khosla that their subconscious recognizes, without him ever having told them about being transgender. I read somewhere that transgender people are found to have brains structured more like the gender they identify with than that of their biological sex. So, you might say, it's their minds that create this attraction.
I find transgender women attractive, and not transgender men, without even knowing them. This baby could not have known what Khosla's mind is like. I once, correctly, identified someone in a serving line as transgender without speaking to them. I can also easily see the duality in a genderqueer person I know. It's like the person gives off gendered 'vibes' that I can sense, and I think other people can, too. They're just far more likely to ignore that and base their ideas of the person's gender off what they can see.
With that in mind, I'd like to encourage everyone in the Northern Virginia area to participate in a Queer Art Show that George Mason University is putting on.
I do believe that male and female souls are inherently different, and that the soul is what I, at least, and others, are attracted to. Not just female body parts, female souls. It is the only explanation I can think of for several phenomena.
As a junior in high school, I read a very interesting book called Both Sides Now: One Man's Journey Through Womanhood. The author, Dhillon Khosla, was born with the body of a woman and took sexual partners from both sexes before being with women exclusively, and finally discovering the concept of transgender and making a full transition. Even when presenting as a woman, Khosla found that several, if not many, of his female partners were not already in the 'lesbian pool', but had never been attracted to a 'woman' before. They thought of the experience as a change to their sexuality, rather than seeing Khosla as a man. One time in a grocery store, Khosla found himself being stared at by a very young child. The mother apologized and said that 'he usually only stares like that at men.'
This all seems to point to the idea that these people are reacting to something about Khosla that their subconscious recognizes, without him ever having told them about being transgender. I read somewhere that transgender people are found to have brains structured more like the gender they identify with than that of their biological sex. So, you might say, it's their minds that create this attraction.
I find transgender women attractive, and not transgender men, without even knowing them. This baby could not have known what Khosla's mind is like. I once, correctly, identified someone in a serving line as transgender without speaking to them. I can also easily see the duality in a genderqueer person I know. It's like the person gives off gendered 'vibes' that I can sense, and I think other people can, too. They're just far more likely to ignore that and base their ideas of the person's gender off what they can see.
With that in mind, I'd like to encourage everyone in the Northern Virginia area to participate in a Queer Art Show that George Mason University is putting on.
Deadline:
March 18th
George Mason University’s TQ Mason, in association with
LGBTQ Resources, is looking for LGBTQ* Artists to contribute to an art show.
The show will be held from April
1st-7th, with the possibility of some pieces being up more permanently.
This
show is exploring the theme of gender, but it is a theme in the broadest
sense, and not intended to be limiting.
We are aware that parts of the LGBTQ* alphabet get left
out, and this show is aiming to avoid that. We especially want to showcase
artists who are part of the ignored and lesser-known letters.
A photo of the submission should be sent electronically
to our contact email, or burnt onto a CD and dropped off at the LGBTQ Resource
Office. Required information includes: preferred name, contact email and phone
number. We will contact everyone before the show about who has been accepted.
Accepted submissions have to be transportable to George Mason University in
time for the show. It does not cost anything to submit or participate.
Please send submissions, questions, and comments to:
tqartshow@gmail.com
TQ Mason is GMU's trans* and queer inclusive
support/action group open to people of all genders, identities, expressions,
and sexualities.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Boy Scouts Reconsider
Boy Scouts is considering lifting the ban on gay members! The nationwide ban will be removed, allowing individual units to choose their own policy. I'm so excited for my BSA friends!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/us/boy-scouts-consider-lifting-ban-on-gay-leaders.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail1=y&_r=0&emc=tnt
This is even more exciting because Boy Scouts has to make this decision on their own--the Supreme Court ruled that they had the right to ban gay members. It's the same law that makes it possible for private schools to be all-male or all-female--and considering how many women felt empowered by attending an all-female college, I feel duty-bound to uphold the law allowing private organizations to make discriminative calls. That means the only thing to do is persuade leaders to change their minds in cases like this one, where the discrimination does more harm than good. After all, I've never met a boy (there may be some) who really, really wanted to attend a college that happened to be all-female.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/us/boy-scouts-consider-lifting-ban-on-gay-leaders.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail1=y&_r=0&emc=tnt
This is even more exciting because Boy Scouts has to make this decision on their own--the Supreme Court ruled that they had the right to ban gay members. It's the same law that makes it possible for private schools to be all-male or all-female--and considering how many women felt empowered by attending an all-female college, I feel duty-bound to uphold the law allowing private organizations to make discriminative calls. That means the only thing to do is persuade leaders to change their minds in cases like this one, where the discrimination does more harm than good. After all, I've never met a boy (there may be some) who really, really wanted to attend a college that happened to be all-female.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
LGBTQIA
Today I read a New York Times article that explores the term LGBT and whether it accurately reflects how teens are identifying today. There are so many words now, when it used to be just LG and later B and still later T. As the article says, "We have our lesbians, our gays...bisexual, transsexual, queer, homosexual, asexual...[p]ansexual. Omnisexual. Trisexual. Agender.
Bi-gender. Third gender. Transgender. Transvestite. Intersexual.
Two-spirit. Hijra. Polyamorous...Undecided. Questioning. Other. Human."
Genderqueer. Panromantic. Aromantic. Crossdresser. A couple I may have made up, since I've never seen them used: homoromantic, biromantic, heteroromantic. Combinations. Asexual and panromantic. Aromantic and pansexual. There are different ways of being asexual--having sex for the sake of one's partner but not taking pleasure in it, being in a romantic relationship without sex, or simply not being in a relationship--"A all the way," as I put it during a conversation on the topic.
All describe a slightly different facet of the quickly becoming vastly complex issue of gender identity/sexual orientation.
A teacher mentioned in the article tells her students not to use LGBTQ and suggests the word queer instead, simply because the acronym is so unwieldy. Her students complain she doesn't know what she is talking about, but I think she has a point, especially considering how many people don't make it into the acronym (so you can hardly complain about it being too narrow), and how hard it would be to make them fit--does A stand for asexual, aromantic, or ally? Does Q stand for queer or questioning? Do the various gender-related words fit under transgender or not? One college I looked at has a listserv called EndlessAcronym, so as to embrace all the letters without becoming unspellable.
Queer has its promise as an umbrella word, and if it's not acceptable to the community, we need a single word. After all, when I wrote a paper on the topic, the umbrella definition I found myself having to use was "any deviation from a heterosexual gender binary". Now that I understand the topic slightly better, I may have to update it to "any deviation from a heterosexual cisgender binary" or something similar. And I don't even like that. Deviation has a negative connotation, even though its definition is simple--something other. If you breed a long line of white cats and get a black one fourteen generations down, you have a deviation. If you're doing a physics experiment and all your results fall on the same line on a graph but one, you have a deviation. Somehow that became a bad thing, but I think it's not past reclamation. There's a website called DeviantArt, for goodness' sake. In a society where we're no longer settling for second-best self-descriptors, I think we're capable of embracing our deviancy. What we're apparently having trouble with is accepting that we're all the same, too.
Genderqueer. Panromantic. Aromantic. Crossdresser. A couple I may have made up, since I've never seen them used: homoromantic, biromantic, heteroromantic. Combinations. Asexual and panromantic. Aromantic and pansexual. There are different ways of being asexual--having sex for the sake of one's partner but not taking pleasure in it, being in a romantic relationship without sex, or simply not being in a relationship--"A all the way," as I put it during a conversation on the topic.
All describe a slightly different facet of the quickly becoming vastly complex issue of gender identity/sexual orientation.
A teacher mentioned in the article tells her students not to use LGBTQ and suggests the word queer instead, simply because the acronym is so unwieldy. Her students complain she doesn't know what she is talking about, but I think she has a point, especially considering how many people don't make it into the acronym (so you can hardly complain about it being too narrow), and how hard it would be to make them fit--does A stand for asexual, aromantic, or ally? Does Q stand for queer or questioning? Do the various gender-related words fit under transgender or not? One college I looked at has a listserv called EndlessAcronym, so as to embrace all the letters without becoming unspellable.
Queer has its promise as an umbrella word, and if it's not acceptable to the community, we need a single word. After all, when I wrote a paper on the topic, the umbrella definition I found myself having to use was "any deviation from a heterosexual gender binary". Now that I understand the topic slightly better, I may have to update it to "any deviation from a heterosexual cisgender binary" or something similar. And I don't even like that. Deviation has a negative connotation, even though its definition is simple--something other. If you breed a long line of white cats and get a black one fourteen generations down, you have a deviation. If you're doing a physics experiment and all your results fall on the same line on a graph but one, you have a deviation. Somehow that became a bad thing, but I think it's not past reclamation. There's a website called DeviantArt, for goodness' sake. In a society where we're no longer settling for second-best self-descriptors, I think we're capable of embracing our deviancy. What we're apparently having trouble with is accepting that we're all the same, too.
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