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Defining Genderqueer
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Also found under the Transgender Umbrella—besides Transsexuals—are Genderqueers. As defined by Wikipedia Genderqueer is a “catchall term for gender identities other than man and woman. People who identify as genderqueer may think of themselves as being both male and female, as being neither male nor female, or as falling completely outside the gender binary. […] Genderqueer people are united by their rejection of the notion that there are only two genders…” Since Genderqueer has such an open-ended definition I decided to interview six people from different backgrounds to learn what being Genderqueer (or even toying with idea) means or has meant to them.
Adrienne, 24, defines genderqueer as a term that “defies gender roles…it means I play with gender, that I don't conform to what a man or woman or even an andro person is ‘supposed’ to look like. It means that my gender is queer.” Though Adrienne no longer places herself under the Trans Umbrella she used to. “I identified as a boy for a while, I think because I liked it, and it fit for that time in my life. I also think I was more genderqueer—and less trans—but didn't have the language at the time, so I thought I just identified with trans. Today, I basically pass as a straight girl. But that doesn't mean that I won't ever go back to being andro. I see gender as something fluid and as performance which sums it up.” Adrienne currently identifies as a femme genderqueer queer.
19 year-old ‘Cornelius Frost’—sophomore at University of California Santa Cruz— identifies as an Adrogyne who goes by male pronouns. For him being under the Trans Umbrella is about “transcending gender […] It means your gender is odd, it’s queer and not what people expect it to be like having both or more than one gender.” He also clarifies that as an Adrogyne he identifies as neither male nor female. “No dictionary can give you a set definition of what words mean […] It is up to us to mold the language that defines us..jpg)
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Taty, 24, also places himself under the Transgender Umbrella as Androgynous though he though he would prefer not to label himself. He defines Androgyny as “bending the gender laws by being in between masculine and feminine.” Musicians Pete Burns, from the band Dead Or Alive, and Boy George are two of his gender ambiguity influences. “I’ve always found gender bending very eye-catching but just because I wear makeup and feminine clothing does not mean I want to be a Transsexual, a woman, or a drag queen. It just means that I’m comfortable in my skin and I’m not afraid to be what I want to be. Society has too many unnecessary gender rules.”
19 year-old poet, Nina Saraphina, was the only person interviewed who identifies as a Stud—a label more commonly found in the African American community. To the mainstream eye this might seem like a butch lesbian but there’s much more to the identity. “To me being a stud means having something in your body that makes you feel more masculine than other females.” While ‘Stud’ is another term that’s difficult to define Saraphina’s writing sheds some light on the subject. A poem she recently performed at #Youth Speaks’ 12th Annual Queeriosity reads: “Sometimes I feel a little more Adam than Eve in my step, a little more Samson then Delilah in my talk, a little more hero than heroine in chest.” Saraphina also wanted to clarify that “a stud is not someone who dominates femmes just because. A stud does not pull down her community by pulling down herself.” (There will be more on Studs in an upcoming piece).
Mr. Kelly, 27, is a queer in all its forms: sexuality, gender, and simply being odd or different. “I would say I’m both/neither or just queer because, though I’m biologically female, I have never felt female, but that also doesn’t imply that I am male.” Kelly notes that most people look only to work within the binary: not female equates to male. “I would rather stay outside of the binary system all together, however impossible it may be.” Like Taty, Frost and the others, Mr. Kelly tries to avoid labels because they often leave her feeling limited or pigeonholed. “I am very cautious about placing myself under any umbrella, I feel it makes you vulnerable to the ‘-ism’s.’ I want to confuse people with my gender. Confusion leads to more questions and more questions often leads to more questions and more confusion, which I think helps us look outside the binary.”
Morgan, 22—the last person I interviewed for this piece—identifies as Genderqueer, currently female-bodied, LGBTQQI “as a gender queer person the identity labels I use to describe myself are androgynous, acknowledging my desire to transcend behaviors, interactions, ideas and institutions that derive their power from pre-existing gender norms.” Yet Morgan does hesitate to use labels to describe gender queerness “because, for me, the root of gender is change. […] I do put myself under the Transgender Umbrella to the extent that transgender is the catchall term for non-binary gender identities. However, more than anything I identify as a post-structuralist and a feminist, but do not necessarily identify as a part of the ‘trans community.’ I would not want to imply that my struggle is the same as that of all or most trans identified people. In that way I think Genderqueer is a whitewashed identity politic that could potentially create ‘trans-erasure’ in the more binary identified trans community due to its accessibility in communities where sacrificing for the ability to live gender and sexuality as an identity is one of relatively less sacrifice, read white, middle class. I think a ‘less white’ politic would acknowledge that gender variant identities have always been a part of many people’s lives, particularly people of color. Black people specifically have spent a large part of their time trying to gain the right to identify as men and women in the first place…My best hope for the genderqueer movement is that we can use genderqueer identities to challenge binary gender identity as a concept in the ‘straight community.’”
The completion of this article seems to be a testament to how truly complicated gender is. For many people gender—like sexuality—is fluid, however, outside of the queer community (and sadly, but often within the queer community as well) I wonder how much is this gender fluidity talked about—let alone supported? My hope is that with the inclusion of more articles like this one people will start talking and asking questions because like Mr. Kelly said “confusion leads to more questions and more questions often leads to more questions” and the best way to learn about anything is to start the dialogue.
For more information visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer.
For more on Youth Speaks and Queeriosity check out their website: http://youthspeaks.org/word/
http://www.genderqueerrevolution.org/gqr/home.html
http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/genderqueer.html
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