Day 3 of the 30 Day Gender Queer Challenge

Todays question is 'What’s your favorite ways of upsetting gender roles / genderbending / genderfucking?'

Good question seeing as I don't get to do too much genderfucking myself. I suppose just using my proffered name, Natasha, while looking so depresingly male. Then again I also like to mix and match clothes. Wearing a very feme top with boy jeans and lovely wedge sandals.

Small stuff I know but it's what I can do with what I've got. As Estrogen continues to reshape my body I hope to do ever so much more. Suggestions gratefully taken.

I Don't Do Mornings

I really don't, I just can't get going at all. I much prefer afternoon's and night time. I detest morning people because this just won't leave you alone. Then there's their incessant nattering about missing the 'best part of the day', ugh. I do think I'm going to adopt Wrren Ellis's rule, if I've been up less then two hours it's still morning no matter what the clock says.

Freedom (sort of)

I'm sure you've noticed how much the religious right and their allies go on about our attack on their freedoms. The freedoms under attack are their freedom to bully and coarce other people. They hate that they might be forced to follow the rules that everyone else does.

Day 2 Of The Gender Queer Chalange

Today's question is how did you grow up with your gender?

As a young child through the start of junior high school, now known as middle school. I played with dolls and space ships, was at home playing girls games as boys games and apparently had some quite feminine mannerisms. Those same mannerisms lead to teasing and mild bullying in junior high. My reaction, unfortunately, was to bury all feminine aspects of myself quite deep. So deep in fact that they took 40 years to really break through again.

On Shaky Ground

I do live on shaky ground. No not financially, since we sold my arents old place we are very well off. While my SO and I have had to make adjustments as I've transitioned we still seem to be pretty solid. Nor is our house on the sort of hillside that might suddenly move to another zip code, it's foundations are sunk into granite.

The problem is that granite is within easy walking distance to the San Andreas fault and sits over three subsidiary faults. The last time out section of the the San Andreas ruptured was the Fort Tejon earthquake of 1857. At a 155 years we are a bit overdue for another major quake around here. So yeah I live on some potentially very shaky ground.

Natasha The Lucky

Not quite as catchy as Leif the Lucky but equally true. I was lucky to meet and become friends with a community activist just as I was admitting who I really was. My fiend was also just setting up a support group up for gender queer people which did much to help me through the early days of my coming out. he helped me find a trans friendly therapist and trans specific health care. All of whom believed in agency and did not make me jump through hoops to access the medical services I needed.

So yes I have been incredibly lucky to have avoided the gatekeepers that so many of my online friends have had to put up with. Many of these gatekeepers are petty tyrants who just want to keep the trans people they deal with under their thumb. Others are well meaning but so hopelessly cis sexist and hetronormative that they do more harm then good. Yet others are just clueless beaurocrats who are just going through the motions and following outdated policy. Basically the gatekeeper model is a broken system that needs to be totally replaced. I am damn luck to have avoided ever having to deal with it.

Abuse

One of my favorite TV shows is Once Upon A Time. On the last episode we found out that Regina, the Evil Queen was started down her dark path thanks to a very abusive mother. As both my SO and best friend were subjected to abuse to greater or lesser degree by their parents this theme resonated with me.

The worst case of abuse I have heard of lately is that of an 11 year old trans girl who, thanks to the Berlin court system, will soon be subjecthttp://scallywagandvagabond.com/2012/03/german-courts-rule-that-an-eleven-year-old-german-transgender-girl-can-legally-be-institutionalized/ed to 'therapy' to 'correct' her gender. In other words she will be subjected to psychological and quite possibly physical torture until she acts the way her father and her torturers want her to act. this monstrous act will of course be performed 'for her own good.' I would all of my readers to please sign this petition to try to stop this evil act.

The 30 Day Gender Queer Challenge

OK so there's a 30 day Gender Queer challenge is there? Well, I'll take that challenge.

The first day's challenge is 'Do you use any other terms to define or explain your gender?'

Yes, I do, both androrogyne and gender fluid. Androgyne because though I'm more female then male I am still a mixture of both. If I could I would present as an androgynous femme person. Gender fluid because where I am in the gender cloud varies from day to day. I may be a stone femme woman one day, a butch androgyne the next. My gender is complex and I'm having great fun exploring it.

Why I Hate Admiral Ackbar

I thought I knew all the insulting terms for trans women but I just learned a new one, trap. As in 'it's a trap' the line uttered by that overgrown salamander Admiral Ackbar when the Imperial Fleet emerges from the far side of Endor in 'Return Of The Jedi'. It seems the hate and bigot brigade thinks we trans women are just trying to trap the poor menz and drain their precious bodily fluids from them.

Well guess what we aren't trying to trap anyone, we just want companionship and if lucky maybe love like any other human being. It seems some men just can't Handel the fact that a woman they find attractive may have a trans history the poor dears, their egos are such fragil things. Unfortunately they often resort to violence and we end up beaten or dead.

So fuck you Admiral Ackbar, I'm sorry Adimral Piett didn't blow your damned ship to atoms. Lon Live the Empire!

Good Night

Night in the mountains is above all quite, much easier to sleep then in the city. It's also drier and even though that means I use more lotion I don't break out the way I do down on the coast.

Good night and sleep well all.