More thought blurbs sparked by Brevard's chapter 3

It was kind of sad to read and feel Brevard's lament of the positive way drag made her feel and was portrayed descending to derogatory gay slurs. 

She mentions that “femininity was not something we feigned; it was something we had.” It seems to align with a “born this way/it’s not a choice” narrative. I think what’s interesting to me is that things like ‘grace, style, and beauty’ often fit into this mutually exclusive category of feminine when men and women both possess or exude these qualities. It’s always felt weird to me you can’t just be a graceful, stylish, beautiful man but that instead a man with those qualities is effeminate or has feminine qualities. Why are certain qualities so explicitly and definitively defined to a constructed gender rather than allowing gender identities to be fluid across qualities? This question is constantly on my mind, and through this class, I’ve realized is sometimes even at opposition to transgender and transsexual concepts. And I don’t know that hours and days and years of wondering this is ever going to hit me, but it’s an idea that constantly plagues me as I observe the world, whether I’m right or I’m wrong. 

But I think the important things I’ve been learning in this class is that my viewpoint of wanting to defy gender roles and stereotypes and my general disdain for those who intentionally or unknowingly perpetuate them is valid and important to my experiences and stems from the way I’ve been negatively affected by them. However, others that have and want to identify and express gender identities strongly are valid and important for who they are and their experiences. Not that I ever thought they weren’t valid. I just think that sometimes I may have been confused (and maybe a bit reminded of hurt) at why people would want to put themselves in boxes of male or female and attribute characteristics to each of them when all I ever wanted was to be free of them or have the boxes be more variant and inclusive. It really bothered me when so many of the readings and documentaries included people that said things like “I didn’t like being in the kitchen, so I knew I was a boy.” Or in the many assorted documentaries of David Reimer, when his mother would make many comments like that in her reasoning, and I may have pretentiously attributed them to her smaller level of education (which I immediately recognized made me a huge prick in that moment and feel bad for thinking it). I was kind of offended, and maybe scoffed at thoughts like that. I don’t like being in the kitchen. My mom’s greatest lament was that as a child I hated dresses and dolls. That didn’t make me a boy. But then I think about the pain people go through. That kid from “Transgender Children” that almost cut off his penis in the bathroom (which reminded me of that scene in X-men where this guy tries to cut off his wings for feeling like a freak by his peers and parents.) It just kind of hit me. That intense desire to be free, just like me. It’s just that their definition of true freedom was different than mine. But no less real, and definitely no less progressive or valid. So I may not completely get how or why, but I do get it. And I think it’s important to. 

At some point, I might actually be able to get through this article without thought spiraling from small striking sentences.