I've resigned myself to almost literally uttering aloud, "this is what my life is going to be like." If I had a nickel for every time someone gendered me - ma'am, sir, ms., miss, buddy, dude, man, he, she, ladies, gentlemen, etc. - I would be so independently wealthy that I could easily pay off half the world's debt and still have enough to play with. Navigating a gendered world as a genderless being is incredibly challenging and painful. At the end of most days my energy is just gone. There are very few places I can go to recharge.
I remember those Boso the Clown blow up balloon things. You inflate 
them and they are weighted on the bottom and you can punch it and it will fall back but because of the weight in the bottom, it will spring right back up for more abuse. All the while, that creepy perma-grin clown face just mocks you and antagonizes you. Really, this TOY brings out some of our more violent tendencies. Whose bright idea was that?!
them and they are weighted on the bottom and you can punch it and it will fall back but because of the weight in the bottom, it will spring right back up for more abuse. All the while, that creepy perma-grin clown face just mocks you and antagonizes you. Really, this TOY brings out some of our more violent tendencies. Whose bright idea was that?!Most days I feel like Boso, except that it's society's face that continually mocks me, teases me, points and laughs at me, pulls my hair, punches me in the gut,...yet, my feet are firmly planted and as many punches as I get, I can't help but spring back up for more abuse - double takes, prolonged stares, dirty looks, whispers, laughing, outright comments, distancing due to discomfort. Each social interaction takes an incredible amount of energy as I never know if or how someone is reading me. More often than not people assume me to be male. If they pick up on clues that might indicate that I am not male, they will sometimes abruptly switch to female pronouns and labels. Each of those binaries are equally as painful and equally inaccurate to how I view myself and how I identify. But in daily social interactions with people I may never see again, do I really want to expend the amount of energy necessary to educate them on each of our own rights to self identify and the magical world of no pronouns?
I think about all of this in terms of my upcoming international travel experience. Navigating airport politics is so heinously scary to me that it almost makes me sick to my stomach. What do I do if I am chosen to be searched - like a full on pat down search? You know they'll stick a male guard on me. Do I stand there and take it while the gawkers gather round? Because they'll sure be thinking I'm a guy without having to think about it at all! Or, do I tell them they ought to put a female guard on me? Then what will they all think?! In addition, my driver's license and passport all have my legal name which is unmistakenly female. I ALWAYS get sir'd at the airport. It NEVER fails. And then they see my id. And then it's awkward and I wish so hard in that moment of heart racing, breaking out in a cold sweat, and feeling all of the energy shift so hard in my body that, with a physical jolt, I go rigid and try to not be sick to my stomach, that I could just vanish.
Restroom politics get dicey too. Which one do I use
? I pass so easily for male that I know I wont encounter any negativity in the men's room. I'd prefer a gender neutral, or family, restroom, but of course, those are far and few between in most places. So, I hold my pee. I don't drink anything. I dont eat anything. I sit in discomfort and get panicky from how uncomfortable I am. This, in turn, doesnt help with trying to NOT have to use the restroom. Going in the men's room has become the best option when no gender neutral restrooms are available, however, I am VERY well aware of how different the sound is of the pee stream hitting the water in the toilet when it comes from a female bodied person vs. a male bodied person. Perhaps this is a bit much information, but many people do not ever have to think about this. When it comes to my own safety and security, I have to be really mindful of all of these different factors in any given situation. As I prepare to travel to another country and into a culture in which I am not familiar, I realize how much I am leaving the safety and security of what I know here and how I've learned to navigate restroom politics here, and the community I have here. Even though it is so far from perfect here, it's a loneliness and pain I have grown accustomed to and I have found small pockets of support and community that help to provide temporary bandaids to my constantly bleeding wounds. In Korea, I just have no idea. I will indeed be a stranger in my own land and for many different reasons. It's strange to think about how isolating this could be in some ways even in a place where everyone looks like me at least on the outside, and even then, there will be obvious differences. I have, afterall, been completely whitewashed.
Today I filled out my Post Adoption Request form from Lutheran Social Services. They like to coordinate meetings between adoptees returning to Korea and Korea Social Service. As I sat and stared at the name field, it's become second nature now to fill in Shawyn Lee, however, right next to the name field is the social security field and sure enough, that was a smack back into reality that I would have to list my legal name. I did make a note, however, that while I understand the need to use my legal name for this search, I preferred they address me as Shawyn. I have NO IDEA how that will go over. And once again, I find myself in a place where I am emotionally and mentally preparing to deal with gender binaries and people just not understanding what all of this means. *sigh*
For pretty much all of my life I have walked with one foot on either side of the gender line. I know what it's like to have incredible gender privilege in that people assume without even having to think about it, that I am male. Along with this kind of gender privilege comes heterosexual privilege evidenced by being able to, for example, walk down the street hand in hand with a partner and/or showing physical affection in public and being able to blend right in and never encounter any sort of hostility or negativity. I also know the deep stabbing pain of being gender nonconforming and the unhideable things that reveal someone who others are not expecting to emerge given how I have chosen to express myself. I never feel like I fit fully in to any space and operate off of a pretty constant state of exhaustion as I am always having to be on, always having to be hyper aware of my surroundings and my interactions with people, and always having to run through a list of about 50,000 things in that split second of being pronouned (either way) and deciding how to respond.
As hard as it is here,
Restroom politics get dicey too. Which one do I use
? I pass so easily for male that I know I wont encounter any negativity in the men's room. I'd prefer a gender neutral, or family, restroom, but of course, those are far and few between in most places. So, I hold my pee. I don't drink anything. I dont eat anything. I sit in discomfort and get panicky from how uncomfortable I am. This, in turn, doesnt help with trying to NOT have to use the restroom. Going in the men's room has become the best option when no gender neutral restrooms are available, however, I am VERY well aware of how different the sound is of the pee stream hitting the water in the toilet when it comes from a female bodied person vs. a male bodied person. Perhaps this is a bit much information, but many people do not ever have to think about this. When it comes to my own safety and security, I have to be really mindful of all of these different factors in any given situation. As I prepare to travel to another country and into a culture in which I am not familiar, I realize how much I am leaving the safety and security of what I know here and how I've learned to navigate restroom politics here, and the community I have here. Even though it is so far from perfect here, it's a loneliness and pain I have grown accustomed to and I have found small pockets of support and community that help to provide temporary bandaids to my constantly bleeding wounds. In Korea, I just have no idea. I will indeed be a stranger in my own land and for many different reasons. It's strange to think about how isolating this could be in some ways even in a place where everyone looks like me at least on the outside, and even then, there will be obvious differences. I have, afterall, been completely whitewashed.Today I filled out my Post Adoption Request form from Lutheran Social Services. They like to coordinate meetings between adoptees returning to Korea and Korea Social Service. As I sat and stared at the name field, it's become second nature now to fill in Shawyn Lee, however, right next to the name field is the social security field and sure enough, that was a smack back into reality that I would have to list my legal name. I did make a note, however, that while I understand the need to use my legal name for this search, I preferred they address me as Shawyn. I have NO IDEA how that will go over. And once again, I find myself in a place where I am emotionally and mentally preparing to deal with gender binaries and people just not understanding what all of this means. *sigh*
For pretty much all of my life I have walked with one foot on either side of the gender line. I know what it's like to have incredible gender privilege in that people assume without even having to think about it, that I am male. Along with this kind of gender privilege comes heterosexual privilege evidenced by being able to, for example, walk down the street hand in hand with a partner and/or showing physical affection in public and being able to blend right in and never encounter any sort of hostility or negativity. I also know the deep stabbing pain of being gender nonconforming and the unhideable things that reveal someone who others are not expecting to emerge given how I have chosen to express myself. I never feel like I fit fully in to any space and operate off of a pretty constant state of exhaustion as I am always having to be on, always having to be hyper aware of my surroundings and my interactions with people, and always having to run through a list of about 50,000 things in that split second of being pronouned (either way) and deciding how to respond.
As hard as it is here,
I wonder what it will be like for 16 days in Korea.
i seriously think you should consider writing a book.
ReplyDeleteit's something that's been on my mind for a long time. perhaps this trip will be my inspiration.
ReplyDeleteheh. any encouragement i can offer will come off as patronizing. but i guess i can say this: when i first saw you, my head ran through a list of pronouns and in the space of a few seconds happily discarded them all. so while i'm not someone you will encounter on your trip, i am someone who, even without ever really talking to you, decided that gender tags did not apply to you and that this fact made exactly zero difference in how i would form my opinion of you. i hope that there will be at least a few people who react similarly.
ReplyDeletethank you for your comment raven. your words mean alot to me. i know just one other person who has said something similar to me. i hope to surround myself with many more people who embrace fluid identities and who respect and honor genderlessness in our gendered world.
ReplyDeleteShawyn, I was thinking I should connect you with someone I met at the last Gathering who would have some of the same issues in Korea as you - F to M (I don't think he had transitioned fully yet at the time). I'm wondering if he would have some suggestions as to navigating Korean bathrooms. I'll see if I can look him up, we've lost touch. This was, as all the others, a really great post.
ReplyDeletehey jaeran that would be great. ive talked to some folks who have been able to give me a little insight into restroom navigation and queer korean culture, but i am all in favor of continued conversations and networking. ive met some pretty awesome people so far pre-trip who have been really really helpful with alot of things. thanks for your support and the connections!
ReplyDeleteHey Shawyn -- thank you for sharing so deeply, and for your honesty and vulnerability. I can relate personally with parts of your post, and I wanted to share a little of what has happened for me at airport security in case it's helpful. I have been selected out and "patted down" twice, once by a woman security person and once by a man. Each time, various airport personnel disagreed with each other about my gender identity (and thus which gendered security guard to send over to me). My name is legally "Max" now, so that combined with my gender expression increasingly means people who just glance at my ID assume I'm male. If they look closely at my ID, though, they see the "F" (and sometimes they hear my higher voice, or perceive something feminine about my gender expression). This last time, at the Phoenix airport, I literally had a security guy come up to me and ASK me whether I wanted to be patted down by a man or a woman (which was pretty good, I think). I was so nervous I didn't know the best thing to say, and ended up saying I didn't care (which was true). He said "are you sure?" and I said yes. And so he did it. The good news is that each time, the actual pat-down was very brief and did not feel physically invasive to me personally. So I guess my best advice is to be ready for a number of scenarios and know what you're going to say. In my (white privileged) experience as a genderqueer person, mostly the security personnel were respectful and careful, and just wanted to keep things moving. Good luck on your trip!
ReplyDelete-Max
hi max. thanks so much for your comment. i appreciate you sharing your experience with me. i am sorry that you ever had to go through that. im sorry that anyone has to navigate challenging and painful processes around gender identity and expression. it was pretty cool for the one guard to ask you what you prefer and i can only HOPE that if that happens to me, that i will be addressed with at least that level of respect and sensitivity. i just keep telling myself that if it happens, it happens. it will be temporary discomfort, but i will move through that moment and i refuse to let that kind of stuff be a continuous gray cloud that hangs over this experience for me. but again, thank you for your thoughts, and i appreciate the advice that you have shared.
ReplyDelete