2002-07-30 - 1:12 p.m.
I have changed pronouns. Please use "monster" as my pronoun, if you can take the joke. If not, or if it is more context appropriate to utilize something more mundane, please use "he."
Below are some of my reasons for this change.
Keep in mind that I reserve the right to make pronoun changes (and other types of changes) at any time I wish. I don't presume gender stasis as a necessity or as an emblem of health or mental stability (and I hope you don't, either!).
Much of this message is extracted from an e-mail I sent to a friend.
Please do not be offended if this is the first you are reading or hearing of this... I have been talking to people about it slowly and only as it comes up. I don't think it's the biggest deal in the world, and I don't want to inflate its significance with dramatic announcements (which I suppose this could be considered... though I think it's much more overly verbose than it is dramatic). But I do want to keep my sweet and fantastic friends in the know, and this seems like the easiest way to do it.
One impetus for making the decision to change my pronoun was a conversation with a good friend of mine. We had a wonderful talk about trans and genderqueerness and about all of the various and different ways many people we know are enacting genders in creative, subversive, fun, and interesting ways. However, it was also during this conversation that I realized that my work to do trans as a transboy with a female pronoun wasn't having the effect I had hoped it would, because she pointed out that it is easy to forget my trans identification unless I am specifically talking about it. I realized that my vision of myself was as if I were presenting "transboy" to the world and using "she," and that these would be read as dissonant. However, instead, it seemed that for most, my gender presentation read "girl," not "transboy" or "boy." So it ended up being read as coherent with relation to my pronoun... not what I was going for. Maybe the reasons for it failing to do the disruptive work I wanted had to do with fucked up reasons (like maybe it would be more challenging/disruptive if I looked more "boy" or passed more or whatever…which feels kind of gross, but whatever, all this stuff is so incredibly contextual, and often the context is not stuff I'm fond of or have control over) and maybe for other reasons, too. But there's not much I can do about that, so the issue I wanted to take on, then, was how to communicate this dissonance that I was going for in the first place.
I tried to think of ways that I could bring more consistent gender dissonance into my presentation of myself to both my friends and to the world. I toyed with that whole gender-neutral pronoun thing (or whatever you wanna call it… the "ze" "hir" stuff), but it just doesn't quite feel right. Or more like it doesn't feel enough righter than "she" or "he" to go through the labor of employing that as my pronoun…. If it totally resonated with me, I'd be all for it and would gladly go through the trouble of communicating to people and reminding them that that was my pronoun. But it just doesn't. Nothing really does… but that's also part of the point. I heard second-hand that a smart transboy explained his use of male pronouns thusly: (to paraphrase) 'using the pronoun 'he' doesn't necessarily fit better or feel right… but it does something to articulate the dissonance.'
So, that's the conclusion I came to, at least for now. That I'd like to be able to consistently articulate the dissonance, and one way (and if you think of other ways, let me know!!) to do that is to have people use a pronoun that isn't necessarily consistent with the way I appear in the world. I've been trying to do that for quite awhile (though NOT "since childhood"... I'm not of the opinion that I was "born this way" with regards to either queerness OR gender). For example, I used to think that by just identifying as "queer" that I was articulating my understanding of gender-as-imposition. But that stopped making sense when I figured out how many queers are ultra-devoted to binary gender. Obviously, I still identify as queer. I just no longer expect that identification clarify and articulate to people that I don't subscribe to gender as natural and oppositional.
I won't try to pretend that this feels like it "fits" or "describes my inner gender." Some people have the experience of changing their pronoun and suddenly feeling absolutely comfortable. For me, using "he" feels weird. But what feels weirder is hearing people address me as "she" and have them take that to mean that I consider myself female, a woman, and consistently, coherently, and correctly gendered. I know it's possible not to do that (props to one of my friends, a rad fuck-shit-up tranny femme who uses female pronouns, who is totally awesome and radical and challenging in the way she's enacting her gender, transness and femmeness). But at the same time, it weirds me out to feel like I can pull out the trans conversation whenever I feel like it or not when I don't and have that be the only indicator that I understand myself as such. It feels like it makes it too easy for myself to disengage, and for others to pretend that gender dissonance is not part and parcel of my gender and transness.
I also like the ways it sounds both terribly wrong and terribly right to have people refer to me as "he." The wrongness lies in the ways I don't align myself with "maleness," "masculinity" or "being a dude" any more than I do with coherent "femaleness," "femininity," etc. However, it sounds right to have people destabilizing seemingly anchored gender just in the context of casual conversation. Maybe if and when I get surgery, I'll go back to female pronouns, or maybe "gender neutral" pronouns. Maybe not. Who knows. It makes me feel weird to change my mind, but it also just seems like part of the deal, and part of the project. If my whole concept of gender tells me it isn't stable, it isn't natural, it's context-specific, it's something that can be fucked with… then why on earth would I expect myself to be consistent and stable with my own?
Anyway, as I mentioned before, the other thing is that I'm asking is for people to use "monster" as my pronoun. And "he" if they can't take a joke or if it's not the proper context for one. I mean, as in everything with this whole gender deal of mine, I'm dead serious, but I'm also totally having fun and horsing around. I don't want or need this pronoun conversation to be totally fucking heavy or really deeply deeply meaningful or my "true destiny" or "true self" or whatever... I mean, I AM serious. But I want lightness and humour to be a part of both the gender work and the conversations that come of it. I don't feel that "truth" or "core gender" is at all what I'm getting at. I'm just taking part in this game of gender because we are all forced to play. The fun part isn't the game, but the bending the rules, the cheating, and the card-counting. And in my use of male (or monstrous) pronouns, that's what I consider myself to be doing.
For more musings on my transgender (albeit with an outdated mention of my pronouns), please see this.
(could I possibly talk about myself any more?!?)
Also, feel free to call or e-mail or talk to me. Please note, though, that if you just want to tell me this is a bad idea or otherwise give me shit, please read a little more about trans or talk to some non-trans friends who can help you deal before you contact me. Thanks!
To my friends who are reading this, I love you all to death. Thanks for being rad.
