Mind of Adrian (Drag: A Conversation, cont'd)

 Disclaimer: this is a personal conversation in the sense that it's about my own thoughts and experiences. I am not speaking on behalf of anyone or anyone else's experiences. I'm not trying to pose as a trans person. I'm not speaking from authority or from any kind of time-tested opinion, but I am speaking from an informed perspective and from a thorough examination of (again) my own experience. Read with a pinch of salt and an open mind. If you don't already understand a fair amount about queer gender, this isn't the best place to start.

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  Any more Adrian experimentation?
  

  
  

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  Mentally more than practically, since what I sent you above. Was interesting. Four main realizations have come of it:
  

  Firstly, that I'm more queer than I am gay, and that I'm more gay than I'm attracted to women. Because I randomly start becoming vaguely attracted to men when thinking as Adrian (which hasn't happened substantially for quite some time), but - and here's the weird part - I lose most of my attraction to the same person if I can switch back over to Marie Perspective quick enough before the person's gone. And it's not just that I can't see myself with them because it'd be straight... it's largely because I actually don't find them as attractive. It's suuuper weird and nothing I've learned about sexuality suggests that this should be possible, so I'm very intrigued.

  Secondly, that I'm much more secure about my girliness when I'm adventuring in - dabbling in - transfaggotry. (That phrase kept getting stuck in my head. I feel like it describes pretty well what we're doing.) The extent to which I've been self-conscious about both presentational femininity and secondary sex characteristic femininity since puberty-ish makes so much more sense in so many ways when I think of myself as a male-gendered person that's naturally "feminine" in a lot of ways. I thought at first that I was more feminine as Adrian, but it's not that I'm any more or less feminine as a guy... I'm just more confident about what femininity I do have, and it stands out more in a male identity.

  Thirdly, the above brings up another weird thing I've encountered that runs contrary to everything I've ever been taught or learned, though this is about gender. My gender identity is much more fluid than my gender expression. I feel comfortable in a fairly particular array of outfits, hairstyles, jewelries, and gendered activities, and none of those things change depending on whether I'm thinking as Adrian or Marie. Even if I end up looking what might be read as pretty "gay" (skinny jeans, rings, long hair, feminine-leaning mannerisms), I feel as comfortable that way as I do as a similarly-gendered woman. But evidently, I can feel perfectly male and perfectly female and both feel validating and correct. I haven't pulled off anything nonbinary yet - not sure if it exists in me.

  And lastly, I've been interested to find that my sex identity seems to change with my gender identity, but I have about the same relationship to my body regardless of gender. It all feels male when I'm thinking of myself as a man-ish person (as genderqueer or transgender people describe it, my boobs are just man boobs, my face's just an unusually bald guy's face, etc.) and it all feels female when I'm thinking of myself as a woman-ish person (my hands are just a little more masculine than normal and my limbs are a bit less shaved than normal). But the parts Marie does and doesn't like are the same parts Adrian does and doesn't like.

  How have you encountered these things? I'd love to hear you unpack your experience in these terms.

Drag: A Conversation

The following is a conversation with the friend I mentioned in my previous post. It's been abbreviated and paraphrased as necessary, and pictures have been added as is relevant. It is my hope that access to and openness about these conversations, which I find enlightening and exemplary of my love of queer people, will help to spread some of the critical dialogue around gender that's been so meaningful to me.

Oh my god. This is. I just. AAAH. You make for a fucking sexy guy. Well done, seriously O.O

I really liked it. It's that moment when you look in the mirror and feel like you see all kinds of personality traits that have never been validated about yourself. Did you have a similar experience?

Also, huge comment to be called a sexy guy by a lesbian...

That's actually exactly how I felt. Funny you can put it into the right words, I definitely couldn't... And that validating feeling alone gave like half of the adrenaline rush XD And I CAN HAVE GOOD TASTE IN GUYS.

Oh it was so weird. I didn't expect myself to be at all how I was as a guy. But it immediately made so much sense, and it was so freeing, because seeing myself as a guy, I can see myself without a gender-conforming socialization, which means I HAVE to see myself as queer, which makes my gender more naked and authentic.

For example, I see myself so much less assertive and "strong" as a guy, because that becomes more taken for granted.

I'm so much more chill and laid back, but kind of a softie and super interested in people.

I'm even more interested in medicine and in care professions as a guy.

It was a huge shift in perspective - I wasn't different, but the way I saw myself was.

Interesting - like two personas.

What was your experience?

There were a lot of very big smiles before we
figured out how to be suave.

Difficult to put into words? You summed up some of the main parts for me. It was weird - I mean, we were putting makeup on my face, but it felt like a mask was getting pulled off. My face could breathe. 

And then everything just felt so much less forced. I felt like I didn't need to force happiness or bitchiness or femininity. Maybe it's because guys have different characteristics associated with them, and I was able to break free of my conforming assumptions about the characteristics women are supposed to have. I felt so much more chill. It was really crazy.

And I actually felt stronger, more confident, to the extent that I didn't feel the need to try to act out confidence. It was more like an epiphany than I had thought it would be. It was really exciting and really weird and surprising.

I guess what it comes down to is that I have a lot of incorrect stereotypes about men and women, and the whole experience allowed me to easily see myself as something more than just a female stereotype.

What was most striking to me is that everything I saw in myself was so true.

All of the characteristics I immediately took for granted upon seeing myself that way were the ones I emphasize more when I see myself and the world sees me as female. I've spent years trying to defend and rationalize those pieces of me, because they didn't fit my prescription.

Those qualities - yes, the strength and boldness, but also my relationship to music and my rough-and-tumble-ness and many other intangible things - just all made sense when I saw myself as a guy.

That's really interesting. So you've been trying to defend and rationalize those pieces of you - I've been changing mine. I came to college in male t-shirts and plaid shirts, and immediately got the impression (for the first time, since I had just been around uniforms before) that I was unskilled in dressing myself. So I went for really feminine stuff: push up bras, close-fitting, skinny jeans. 

Dressing up as a guy on Monday was like, Oh wait. Femininity isn't something I have to force. I can be natural.

You seemed to be a very feminine, androgynous, extroverted, genderfucky guy. More extreme in your gender presentation - a flamboyant, extravagantly-gendered femme gay man.You seem more likely to wear a big ol' leather jacket and shave your head, but wear a pink skirt and lipstick simultaneously.

YES. I feel like a feminine guy. Marie, I feel like a gay guy. I don't even know why.

Well, you certainly acted the part. XD

XD yesss. It was so much fun.

What kind of guy did you feel like?

Where your androgyny is extremely extroverted and engaging, obvious, defiant in a lot of ways - kind of artistic/performative - mine is suuuuper chill and really intuitive. I feel ... kind of like Bo Bice. I remember feeling some kind of connection to him as a kid, like I wanted to be like him one day.

I have a very natural, low-key expression, and I still have a lot of feminine traits, but they're harder to identify as feminine (as my masculine traits are hard to identify as masculine when presenting female). It's caring, softness, a huge obsession with love and compassion and empathy and whatever. I, like you, felt that my strength was assumed - validated, like I didn't have to prove it anymore - and like because I feel like I would keep my hair long as a guy, my gender was so much more obvious. More obviously queer, but in the I-almost-forgot-to-gender-you kind of way - not so in-your-face. There were a substantial number of people like that at the conference, that were covertly genderqueer/androgynous, as opposed to flamboyantly androgynous.

Oh - speaking of, I said I'd link you to genderfork.

http://genderfork.com/

That's cool. Yeah, in general your gender expression has a more natural, inherent way about it than mine.

Yes, I will check that site out. *excited*

I think most of me is like that, tbh. But your more exhibitionist tendencies are such a strong part of your personality as a whole, and that honestly makes more sense to me when I see you present masculine androgyny than femininity.

I don't see the little Elisabeth whose personality became a fear for the life of the burgers we were eating... I see a very obvious, deliberate mind game. A social experiment.

That seems to be what it's always been.

Presenting masculine, I'm bolder. That's the main difference, really. And by being bold, I end up less consumed by exhausted internalized emotions. Things flow more naturally. My internal quirkiness becomes my external quirkiness and vice versa.
Regardless of gender, before, anything I'd say about myself was some sacred act of confidence, in which the other person's reaction was in the spotlight. Now I really just don't feel private and worried about people's reactions to the things I feel and say, unless I have a use for their certain perception of me.

Yes, I mean "exhibitionist" in the postmodern art kind of way. XD

XD Yes. That makes more sense.

I express myself by performing with my body, and the image that I present performs on myself.

Going back to what I said before, my new boldness and lack of concern for others' reactions now extends to how I portray myself and my gender. Hence the exhibitionist, femme man

It's just fascinating to me that portraying ourselves as men
was automatically so queer for both of us

We weren't at all normative in any way.

Many transmasculine expressions I see (any drag activity, really, whether transmasculine or transfeminine) tend to be ... very binary. Forced binary, sometimes. Dressing up as a man itself when you identify as female is very binary in technical terms, but it didn't at all feel "manly." It felt so authentic. I mean, I look at my profile picture in the aftermath of that experience and it looks like drag.

We neeeeeeed to have a genderfuck party before going back to school. With the whole group. Or, as much of it as we can gather together.

Actually, I was about to ask about that.

It would be so amazing!

great minds think alike.

That would be spectacular.

We should just go to a park and sit there

and talk

....and wait for someone from Bear Creek to see us, lawl

Yes. Or walk into public places and confuse people

As a group statement. It would be so freeing, too.

And this would never be done... but it would just be fabulous to actually walk into Bear Creek like that.

omfg

My mother wouldn't even let me go to school in Calvin's GSA T-shirt.

yes i know. it would be so taboo.

You know, showing up uninvited would be intrusive.

But how amazing would it be if we convinced about 7 or 8 people to go to a Bear Creek reunion in drag?

Not that that would ever happen, because we'd look immature more than anything.

But IT MAKES MY MIND SO HAPPY TO ENTERTAIN

But the thing is it wouldn't actually be immature. Bear Creek is just Bear Creek. You're right, it would be too intrusive

I didn't say it WAS immature... it would be a fucking social coup. (Which I suppose is what makes it immature.) Anyways, we would LOOK immature, so it would do nothing constructive.

Yeah. It would be more for us though, so their reactions wouldn't be particularly important.

Are you kidding me? If I showed up at Bear Creek in drag it would be such a political statement

Oh, definitely. It would be that, too. But for me it's less about politics and more about freedom and self-affirmation and expression.

Also, since Monday, I've started wondering what "my type" was, since my descriptions had been so convoluted. I decided to look up people - singers and actors - who fit the bill without limiting my search to "female." And I think the answer is that I just don't have a type. Or, at least not really a constrictive one.

I couldn't figure out my type either, so I've abandoned any such attempts and expanded my label to "queer lesbian" and just said I'd be okay with almost anything but an overt desire to be male-masculine because that brings out the unhealthy, strained, binary/forced feminine sides of me more than I like.

We should start a Facebook conversation for that genderfuck party, so we can figure out availability and all that. I'm not sure who to invite. Just the core group?

Yeah... There are some other queer kids at Bear Creek, but I can't think that they'd feel free to come. I would love to invite them, but don't know them well enough.

I wish we could just make a freakin' open group, an event, and invited any relevant person on our facebook friends list to it, like other people do for parties.

There is a friend group I've seen around Bear Creek that gives off a pretty queer vibe - I think they would really enjoy it if they were able to. 

Come to think of it, we could invite some straight people, too. I mean, they wouldn't be able to find a way, but I know someone that would definitely be up for it.

Mhmm.

I'm loving the genderfork site.

Yep. That's where I went junior year when I was trying to unlearn the gender binary.

It worked.

I now actually have a hard time telling whether people pass or not sometimes.

When I'm in certain social spaces, I read people in a queer vs. cishet binary more easily than male vs. female.

Do you mind if I cut chunks out of this conversation and make it a blog post?

Yep, feel free!

Thank you.