Androgyny?

I don't like being androgynous -- if I want to be a woman, I want to go all the way. If I am in guy mode, I want to be all the way guy. Or as all the way as a guy with a feminine haircut and plucked eyebrows can be. I realizing that by insisting on being one or another, I am doing my bit to perpetuate a gender binary that's kept free expression in check for millennia, but I can't help it. In the words of the great Aristotle (or maybe it was somebody else), I yam what I yam.

Younger trans-folk are experimenting with gender as never before, doing their best to obliterate that ol' binary. A good friend of mine, who I'll call Sue, is offended by this ... she doesn't want to obliterate the binary, just to live on the pole opposite from that which she was assigned at birth. I think our reluctance to gender blend is in part generational -- we were raised up with pretty rigid gender roles. Womanhood was defined by 50s icons like Donna Reed on one end and Marilyn Monroe on the other. Neither, of course, were in the least androgynous.

Today, pop icons mix n' match with abandon. One of the earliest women to do so was, of course, Madonna, who at 55, I am happy to say, is still kickin' it. Spiritual descendant Lady GaGa is currently on top, and on the male side, Andrej Pejić has graced more trans blogs than Ru Paul (thank God). Popular culture has loosened up tremendously in over the past couple of decades, and young trans-whatever's willingness to play around in the middle of the continuum is a direct result, and a great thing.

It's just not for me ... until recently. In the next post, I'll let y'all know what I mean.

Posted with Blogsy