If SBS is only good for one thing, it’s triggering my brain and making me thing about shit. As well as my awesome LJ friends. Love your work, guys.

What started my thoughts was a friend writing about her sexuality, and mentioning that she thinks she’d be better suited as a gay male. Amongst the comments were a couple of other people airing the same view. This combined with my own gender issues got me thinking about why it is that I hear more and more females expressing this view that they’d rather be gay men.

I’m not offering anything but my opinions and musings here on something I keep seeing all over the net. I’m sure others have attempted to explain this phenomenon in much better ways than I plan to, but that’s not what this is about.

I know of the phenomenon in yaoi fandoms, where yaoi fangirls express their desire to be (gay) men. As someone not involved in yaoi at all, I don’t know of this firsthand, so I may be getting biased information. I have heard scorn heaped upon them, that they’re only wanting to be (gay) men because they’re obsessed with their lust objects, or some other delusional idea. I don’t know. Yaoi is out of my league. Anyone saying that fandom helped them realise their gender and or sexuality is usually ridiculed.

But I keep seeing it. Females saying they’d be better off as gay males. Why?

Have they such a warped view of femininity and femaleness that what would normally be seen as merely variance in female expression is seen as not female enough and therefore they must be more male, and that gay males are seen as femme and male, in some form of warped androgyne?

I know this may seem ironic coming from a female bodied human who would like to look more male, so in a sense you could call me biased. But I like thinking about these things, and I’ve spent a long time thinking about what exactly is male and female and why they are problematic for young people today.

I see both a wide scope and an incredibly narrow definition of what femininity is. In amongst the feminist mindset that female can be anything they want to be is a narrow definition that wishes girls to emphasise their femininity to the extreme, to be proud of being girls, and what role models are there in the media to show girls what they can be?

Beautiful women, obsessed with fashion, make up, boys, and all that jazz. So girls feel the need to follow suit for lack of any other image to base their femininity on. I see it emphasised in girls’ magazines, girls’ toys, everything geared for girls is designed with that same image in mind. No wonder girls are confused.

If they recognise they don’t fit that uber-female model, they are potentially not female enough. There’s no one to tell them that the uber-feminine is NOT the only expression of femininity, and that they’re actually quite normal human females.

Now, I realise this won’t be the case for some. For some, they are trans* and their reasons for feeling like a gay man will be completely different. Some will even ID as straight men. Some will ID as something else completely, like me.

But back to gay men. I’m not sure there’s one cause for this, but there is the stereotype of gay men as being effeminate and camp, even if this is not the case for many of them. It’s part of the taunting of gay men, that they’re not masculine enough. In high school, boys who aren’t seen as masculine enough are perceived as gay. Conversely, girls who are seen as strong and not interested in beauty are taunted as lesbians.

So there’s this use of perceived sexuality as a comment on gender. So in this way, the two concepts are linked because society sees gay men and lesbians as expressing a different version of masculinity and femininity than the heteronormative community.

It’s funny to see them interweaved like this. We like to see gender and sexuality as separate expressions, but they are linked together. Until we are more accepting of variants in gender, we’re going to have a hard time accepting gays, lesbians and others outside the heteronormative community.

A lot of things have been on my mind lately. Politics, as always, has been lulzy and awesome. The state election, however, was almost a disappointment. But the fallout has been interesting to watch, before NSW Labor decided to one-up us.

But that’s a rant for another day. If I finish it, of course.

I keep feeling like a broken record when I keep returning to gender as a topic. As if I can’t find anything else to write about. No, it’s not that. I’ve been talking to my girl. Yes, that’s all I’ll refer to her as for now. We spent some time not being in communication, but she’s now in a position where she can talk to me at least twice a day, and it’s refreshing. Because now I can finally discuss things with her that have happened since we’ve been out of communication.

Because a queer thing has happened to me of late. My femme boi appeared. I thought my boy/girl sides were kinda separate, and my genderless middle ground was the default. But no. There is boy side, and then there is femme boi side. They are… quite different expressions of my personality. Boy is confident and gay/bi (depending on mood), and deals with people in a certain manner. Femme boi is different. Zie wants androgyny, make-up, a flat fucking chest. Zie is more softly spoken but just as confident as Boy. It’s almost as if I do experience a spectrum, and I move along it depending on my mood.

I mean, fuck it. I actually bought eye make up and tried to put it on, to varying levels of success (I clearly need more practice). I have never had any interest in make up, until now. I’m… less scared of it than I thought I would be. I think it’s because I can accept a feminine expression when coming from a male base, whereas coming from a female base, it seems like overkill.

Perhaps this femme boi is my new middle ground.

Perhaps it’s all due to the posters I ordered that now grace my bedroom door: a rainbow flag and a Velvet Goldmine poster. It’s released this inner femme, I think, and I’m okay with that.

But, dammit, I got sidetracked. So I’ve been talking to my girl. She’s a lesbian, which I’m totally okay with. My sexuality ranges from gay to bi to straight depending on my mood (currently: gay — I’m really only interested in female-bodied persons right now). I had broached the topic of me being gender-neutral with her in the past, but things were weird at the time and I don’t think she was ready to accept that then. But now, she’s okay with it. I should like to talk to her some more about it, as I one day plan to have my breasts removed and I don’t want to do that without her understanding why. I can live without the testosterone and genital surgery though. I get perfectly good pleasure from my clit right now. I have no desire to get rid of that.

I’m 25 this year. In about three and a half months’ time. I’m beginning to feel age catching up with me. Maybe it’s because I have few friends my age that I talk to, so I feel older than I would normally. Maybe I should have the most childish party I can think of, just to get it all out of my system.

I’m planning a trip to Melbourne at the end of the year. It’ll be the biggest trip I’ve ever done, and I’ll be doing it alone. I’m, quite frankly, a little scared. I’m going to a city I haven’t been to since I was 5. I think it’s something I need to do though. I need to prove I can look after myself and go out and have adventures like that. I’m going to get my mum to help me plan though. Everything she can assist me with will be appreciated. I’m not going in blind.

But I’ve rambled enough, I think. Dinner is almost ready, if I heard my mother correctly. I shoud get dressed and such. I’ve just had a shower. So I’ll leave you with these thoughts for now.

I had a pretty good life growing up. I never went without, my parents haven’t split up, hell, they even job-shared when we were kids so they could spend equal time with us. I went to a private high school, even got to university, and am about to finish a science degree.

To put it in perspective, these things are not universal. Every kid in the world does not get access to schooling. Some kids don’t have parents. A lot of kids are going hungry. I live in a politically stable country that has never had a civil war. I have freedoms a lot of people don’t. I have a damn good life compared to what some have.A feeling has crept up on me in the last year as I’ve been looking for work. I’d rather do a job that pays less but is more satisfying than a job that pays more but isn’t as satisfying. I got a good education and I want to put that to use somehow. I shouldn’t waste this gift by throwing myself into the coporate world to be beaten into submission and strive for nothing but money.

But then, my parents have never really had work like that anyway. It’s been churches and church groups and not-for-profit organisations and such. I’ve met a lot of refugees because of the work mum’s done. Really puts your life in perspective when you hear what they’ve gone through.

I suppose that’s partly why I find the corporate world so disgusting. I find their drive for profits obnoxious, the hours of work unbearable and the stress unwarranted. I don’t want to subject myself to that kind of world. Besides, I hate suits and that really formal workwear. So uncomfortable. I’d rather put my energies into something that’s actually going to do some good to society. I want to be recognised for my work, but I don’t want to be famous. Does that make sense?

Hmm. I suppose it’s good I’ve come to this conclusion before I’ve done a decade or more of unsatisfying work. I’m also noticing I have only a small desire for stuff. My materialism has declined somewhat lately. Sure, I could list off plenty of things I ‘want’, but I probably won’t end up buying any of them simply because I’ve survived quite well without them. The things I need to survive are a place to live, food to eat, clean drinking water and a good family. Everything else is non-essential. Hell, I didn’t even have to pay for university. I deferred my fees til later. Sure, I now have a 25k HECS debt hanging over my head, but compared to what some people have to pay to go to university, I’ll take it. There are plenty of women in the world who aren’t allowed to go to uni. I consider myself lucky that I live in the country I do.

Which brings me to religion, sexuality and gender. (I suck at segues) We have the freedom to practice any religion we like in this country and not be discriminated against. In theory, at least. In practice, it’s different, as evidenced by the disdain by which non-Christian faiths are given. Islam especially has recieved a lot of bad press in recent years, not all of it justified. As for me, I’m a Kemetic Orthodox shemsu who’s flirting with discordianism and warrior spirituality. Such a wonderful combination. And I’m also transgendered and bisexual. I really am at the edge of society.

I might be unashamedly left-wing, but that doesn’t automatically make me a Labor supporter. I don’t like the way Rudd is portraying himself as Howard Lite™ in all aspects apart from the environment and IR as far as I can tell. I haven’t decided if I’m going to vote Labor or not. I’ve long since stopped believing election year promises, which makes deciding who to vote for more difficult. As much as I want Howard out, is Rudd going to end up being the lesser of two evils?

I’ve already mentioned where I stand as regards to climate change, so I won’t go into it again. I’m stuck in the middle. While I applaud the call to live more sustainably, I’m not convinced we should do so solely because of climate change. We should look after the environment though. This is the only planet we’ve got so we should take care of it. I’m just not convinced that our recent weather patterns are solely due to human-induced climate change. I’m a weird sort of greenie, I know. I’m weird in a lot of ways.

But I should stop this rant now and get on with job-hunting. Mum wants me to get one done today. Hmm. Lab job, see? Yeah. And so endeth my rant.