Yesterday evening, when checking my blog stats (which I do quite regularly), I discovered an influx of visitors from an unknown source. Hmmmm. Unexpected referring urls/sites usually turn out to be spurious and suspect, the source links activating the protection software: "This site has tried to install Trojan (whatever); your computer has not been infected." You learn soon enough never to click on them. But yesterday, for no clear reason, I did and was taken to Reddit.com and this message:
This post is just a placeholder to keep the lights on. Think of it as a pre-launch. I will get a full introduction up Sunday. Right now I just want to give a few links to weblogs I have found useful to read about male femme, and make an open call for ideas from all interested redditors about what they want r/MaleFemme to be.
And the various bloggers in the links comprised Asher Bauer, Andrew O'Neill, femme guy!, and me. Well, goddamn!
So what is Reddit, first of all? From the FAQ: "Reddit is a source for what's new and popular on the web." and "Reddit is made up of hundreds of sub-communities, each focused on a specific topic." Okay, clear enough. And now someone's started a MaleFemme sub-community. Awesome! The founder, who has the username Winterlong, asks (elsewhere) for signal boost:
Hello. I found a lack of groups on the internet specifically for “femme, effeminate, faggy, non-masculine and gender-non-conforming guys and the people who love them”, so I’ve started a group on Reddit. I am trying to publicize the group, and soliciting ideas for what people want it to be. Signing up on Reddit is super anonymous, with even an e-mail address being optional, so it could be a great safe forum for male femmes and similar male people to get support and connect. I would be very thankful if you could mention the group in a blog post.
Yes, I can indeed. The group is at reddit.com/r/MaleFemme — "a reddit for peer support of male femmes and discussion of the male femme identity. Male femmes of all sexual orientations and cis/trans male genders welcome."
I've signed up (as MFJonathan), along with 77 other readers (so far). I'm looking forward to the conversation with some excitement :)
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Sunday, 18 March 2012
More on "women's" clothes.
Last June I wrote (in this post): “if most aspects of human behaviour are not inherently gendered, why should inanimate objects attached to humans be gendered? Why should the majority of human clothing be designated either as male or female? What in fact are women's clothes?”
Nine months on, I'm increasingly taking this view: that the entire construct of "men's" and "women's" clothes is just so much bullshit. (Even those designed for specific body-parts.) I mean really.
This may seem like a strange view for a cross-dresser to take, since I'm hardly coming at it from a neutral position: the gendering of clothing has always been fairly important to me. Indeed, it's important at a deep emotional level that my clothes are "women's" clothes. But intellectually... it's a load of crap, isn't it?! Why should we, as individuals or a society, be insistently gendering pieces of fabric by garment, pattern, style, texture, etc? The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems.
Going back to last year: in December I read Sandra Bem's 1993 feminist opus, “The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality”. Okay, Bem may not have been, shall we say, "fully up to date" on trans issues, but I'm not going to critique those bits of her book here because I love the rest of it. Her basic premise is that gender is distorted by three artificial cultural lenses: androcentrism, gender polarization, and biological essentialism — in other words, that male perspectives are taken as standard; that all aspects of humanity are divided according to binary gender; and that these perspectives and aspects are determined by biology and hence immutable — and that these lenses perpetuate a dystopian gender reality, in particular for women and sexual minorities. If you want to know more about these matters, you should read the book itself; I've mentioned it solely in order to quote one passage (from "The Construction of Gender Identity"; p150):
Although the terms sissy and tomboy do not apply to adults who have crossed the gender boundary, the asymmetry between male boundary-crossers and female boundary-crossers is as strong as ever for those who have left childhood behind. This is why a woman can wear almost any item of male clothing—including jockey underwear—and be accepted socially, but a man still cannot wear most items of female clothing without being stigmatized.
The heavy-handed suppression of impulses in males that are culturally defined as even slightly feminine—including what I see as the natural impulse to adorn oneself in vibrant colors and silky textures—makes it extraordinarily difficult for many men to acknowledge the existence within themselves of desires that have even the slightest hint of femininity; the layers of their psyches are thus filled with the kinds of repressed impulses that cannot help but constitute a continuous internal threat to the security of their gender identities.
Well, we could probably debate the relative truth of all that for quite some time, but again I'm not going to. Instead, I just want to highlight this bit:
“the natural impulse to adorn oneself in vibrant colors and silky textures”
These twelve short words – virtually an aside – leapt at me from the page. Because: Bem thereby degenders clothing, posits femme expression as human rather than female (or merely a stereotype) and negates cultural prohibitions at a stroke.
Bravo! :)
Nine months on, I'm increasingly taking this view: that the entire construct of "men's" and "women's" clothes is just so much bullshit. (Even those designed for specific body-parts.) I mean really.
This may seem like a strange view for a cross-dresser to take, since I'm hardly coming at it from a neutral position: the gendering of clothing has always been fairly important to me. Indeed, it's important at a deep emotional level that my clothes are "women's" clothes. But intellectually... it's a load of crap, isn't it?! Why should we, as individuals or a society, be insistently gendering pieces of fabric by garment, pattern, style, texture, etc? The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems.
Going back to last year: in December I read Sandra Bem's 1993 feminist opus, “The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality”. Okay, Bem may not have been, shall we say, "fully up to date" on trans issues, but I'm not going to critique those bits of her book here because I love the rest of it. Her basic premise is that gender is distorted by three artificial cultural lenses: androcentrism, gender polarization, and biological essentialism — in other words, that male perspectives are taken as standard; that all aspects of humanity are divided according to binary gender; and that these perspectives and aspects are determined by biology and hence immutable — and that these lenses perpetuate a dystopian gender reality, in particular for women and sexual minorities. If you want to know more about these matters, you should read the book itself; I've mentioned it solely in order to quote one passage (from "The Construction of Gender Identity"; p150):
Although the terms sissy and tomboy do not apply to adults who have crossed the gender boundary, the asymmetry between male boundary-crossers and female boundary-crossers is as strong as ever for those who have left childhood behind. This is why a woman can wear almost any item of male clothing—including jockey underwear—and be accepted socially, but a man still cannot wear most items of female clothing without being stigmatized.
The heavy-handed suppression of impulses in males that are culturally defined as even slightly feminine—including what I see as the natural impulse to adorn oneself in vibrant colors and silky textures—makes it extraordinarily difficult for many men to acknowledge the existence within themselves of desires that have even the slightest hint of femininity; the layers of their psyches are thus filled with the kinds of repressed impulses that cannot help but constitute a continuous internal threat to the security of their gender identities.
Well, we could probably debate the relative truth of all that for quite some time, but again I'm not going to. Instead, I just want to highlight this bit:
“the natural impulse to adorn oneself in vibrant colors and silky textures”
These twelve short words – virtually an aside – leapt at me from the page. Because: Bem thereby degenders clothing, posits femme expression as human rather than female (or merely a stereotype) and negates cultural prohibitions at a stroke.
Bravo! :)
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
META Magazine.
The first issue of the digital META magazine came out a couple of weeks ago. It looks glossy and bright (design by Fernando Safont) and... very promising. Just the cast list is impressive in itself: Paris Lees, Roz Kaveney, Jane Fae, Del La Grace Volcano (!!), CN Lester, Dru Marland, Jennie Kermode. As the subtitle proclaims, it's a magazine by t-people for t-people, where "t" stands for "trans". Paris Lees expands on this in her editorial:
What do we mean by “trans” though? You probably have your own definition, but we use it in the most inclusive sense; covering all types of genderqueer, genderless, transsexual, gender variant and gender non-conforming people, and also those with a trans history, loved-ones, family, friends and allies. It’s an idea which is sometimes expressed using ‘trans*’, but we’ve opted against this asterisk. This is partly a question of style, but also a matter of principle. We believe that everyone should feel welcome under the trans umbrella, regardless of punctuation. Roz Kaveney wonderfully outlines this broad concept of family on Page 25.
Indeed she does — in her strong piece "Cat Herding" (definition at Urban Dictionary), which concludes: "So here we all are at META magazine – passing men and stealth women and trans dykes and genderqueer bois and neutrois and two spirit people and hijra and galli and katoi and the rest. We may not be able to stand each other, but we are all still family." Nicely put.
For the rest, there are: features on Justin V Bond, Lewis Hancox, Steffi Moore, Céline Sciamma, Diane Torr; articles on Gendered Intelligence, gender-free parenting, queer bodies, the trans "community", the word "tranny"; columns on binary finery (this time American Football and baking), clubbing, media watch, personal problems (agony aunt), and queer culture.
And all for the completely unprohibitive price of £1.99 (or £9.99 for six issues). I got it at pocket mags. Alternatively, there's an edition available for an i-app.
I'm already looking forward to META #2 :)
What do we mean by “trans” though? You probably have your own definition, but we use it in the most inclusive sense; covering all types of genderqueer, genderless, transsexual, gender variant and gender non-conforming people, and also those with a trans history, loved-ones, family, friends and allies. It’s an idea which is sometimes expressed using ‘trans*’, but we’ve opted against this asterisk. This is partly a question of style, but also a matter of principle. We believe that everyone should feel welcome under the trans umbrella, regardless of punctuation. Roz Kaveney wonderfully outlines this broad concept of family on Page 25.
Indeed she does — in her strong piece "Cat Herding" (definition at Urban Dictionary), which concludes: "So here we all are at META magazine – passing men and stealth women and trans dykes and genderqueer bois and neutrois and two spirit people and hijra and galli and katoi and the rest. We may not be able to stand each other, but we are all still family." Nicely put.
For the rest, there are: features on Justin V Bond, Lewis Hancox, Steffi Moore, Céline Sciamma, Diane Torr; articles on Gendered Intelligence, gender-free parenting, queer bodies, the trans "community", the word "tranny"; columns on binary finery (this time American Football and baking), clubbing, media watch, personal problems (agony aunt), and queer culture.
And all for the completely unprohibitive price of £1.99 (or £9.99 for six issues). I got it at pocket mags. Alternatively, there's an edition available for an i-app.
I'm already looking forward to META #2 :)
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Anniversary.
Damn. The first anniversary of my first post has been and gone and I didn't even notice. Or rather, I knew it was this month but thought it was later on. Whereas, checking the date just now, I see it was February 7th, which was a week last Tuesday. Oh, well, never mind.
So, how has it all progressed...?
Reviewing the first year, I think the reason (“related thoughts”, etc) given in the first paragraph of that first post, ‘Why this blog?’, still stands (though perhaps I should have said “especially me”). I've found it extremely useful working on the 26 posts (now 27 posts), drafting, redrafting, editing, reediting. The mere fact of putting something in a public arena for other people to read, to judge, requires you, forces you to be far more rigorous about it – at least it does me. And when it comes to personal matters I'm much more coherent writing than talking.
Looking through the first year stats: By far the most viewed post has been the ‘sexual fantasy’ one. I guess that's because it contains phrases like “sex with men” which get picked up by search engines – in which case readers may have been disappointed by its actual content, since it's not really very steamy.
My own favourite is probably ‘Femme clothes, women's clothes’, about which I have become more and more convinced since writing it. (There will be another post on this topic in due course.) Other personal highlights include: the penultimate paragraph in ‘Pronoun trouble’ (which sums up my own problems with social gender); and ‘Reading my way into femme’ (which should be self-explanatory).
More stats: Monthly traffic peaked in December at 1093 hits (and no, I don't track my own pageviews ;)). Google is (of course) the highest referrer, followed by T-Central and Samantha's Blogspot. Thanks Calie, thanks Sam.
Thanks as well to anyone who's read anything I've written, and especially to everyone who's commented on anything. Although I'm primarily writing for myself, it's nice to know that it's not completely in a vacuum, that some people are at least slightly interested in what I've had to say.
Here's to Year Two :)
So, how has it all progressed...?
Reviewing the first year, I think the reason (“related thoughts”, etc) given in the first paragraph of that first post, ‘Why this blog?’, still stands (though perhaps I should have said “especially me”). I've found it extremely useful working on the 26 posts (now 27 posts), drafting, redrafting, editing, reediting. The mere fact of putting something in a public arena for other people to read, to judge, requires you, forces you to be far more rigorous about it – at least it does me. And when it comes to personal matters I'm much more coherent writing than talking.
Looking through the first year stats: By far the most viewed post has been the ‘sexual fantasy’ one. I guess that's because it contains phrases like “sex with men” which get picked up by search engines – in which case readers may have been disappointed by its actual content, since it's not really very steamy.
My own favourite is probably ‘Femme clothes, women's clothes’, about which I have become more and more convinced since writing it. (There will be another post on this topic in due course.) Other personal highlights include: the penultimate paragraph in ‘Pronoun trouble’ (which sums up my own problems with social gender); and ‘Reading my way into femme’ (which should be self-explanatory).
More stats: Monthly traffic peaked in December at 1093 hits (and no, I don't track my own pageviews ;)). Google is (of course) the highest referrer, followed by T-Central and Samantha's Blogspot. Thanks Calie, thanks Sam.
Thanks as well to anyone who's read anything I've written, and especially to everyone who's commented on anything. Although I'm primarily writing for myself, it's nice to know that it's not completely in a vacuum, that some people are at least slightly interested in what I've had to say.
Here's to Year Two :)
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Nottingham Invasion.
Has there ever been a dedicated t-night in central Nottingham before? I can't remember. There's Chameleons, of course, which has been around for years and provides a safe space for (mostly) MTF cross-dressers on alternate Thursdays. But they're quite a way out of town, which is difficult for those of us without cars. (Never mind that I'm otherwise engaged on Thursday evenings.) And there's Recreation, which started (again) last year. I do go to this fairly regularly (Wednesday evenings in the city centre are more convenient), but it's more of a support group than a social event and caters to different needs.
Now, into the vacuum has come Nottingham Invasion, organized by Samantha Hewit and Maddy Watson, scheduled for the third Friday of every month (the first being last December), meeting at the New Foresters and then moving on to other illustrious venues. And it's really taking off. Apart from the locals, it seems people are already travelling up and down from London and Durham. Which just goes to show.
I didn't make it to the first two Invasions, but I'm planning on going in February — if I can solve three problems: #1 (logistical): how to get there and back; #2 (personal): fear – the prospect of going anywhere to meet up with people I don't know always fills me with trepidation, no matter how nice they all might be; #3 (sartorial): what to wear.
Solutions: #1 Go on the bus (though this creates its own problems) or stay overnight (probably not). #2 Go anyway (to do anything else would be feeble). #3: Hmmmm...
As I said in a previous post (and in the comments thereto), I'm essentially always cross-dressed, in that all my clothes are off the women's racks, if never so overtly as to cause an adverse reaction. This time I should clearly get in the spirit of things and be more overt. But if I don't want to parade myself through the village (and I don't), I'll have to change when I get there and the facilities for doing that are somewhat lacking. My one saving grace is that, unlike (I'm guessing) most other Invaders, I don't intend (or want) to present as female at all — femme, not female, remember — so I don't have to worry about wigs, cosmetics, body shaping, or anything like that. So perhaps all I need is a skirt and shoes in a bag for a quick change in the toilets.
Perhaps a velvet skirt and some gothy shoes.
This is beginning to sound like fun :)
Now, into the vacuum has come Nottingham Invasion, organized by Samantha Hewit and Maddy Watson, scheduled for the third Friday of every month (the first being last December), meeting at the New Foresters and then moving on to other illustrious venues. And it's really taking off. Apart from the locals, it seems people are already travelling up and down from London and Durham. Which just goes to show.
I didn't make it to the first two Invasions, but I'm planning on going in February — if I can solve three problems: #1 (logistical): how to get there and back; #2 (personal): fear – the prospect of going anywhere to meet up with people I don't know always fills me with trepidation, no matter how nice they all might be; #3 (sartorial): what to wear.
Solutions: #1 Go on the bus (though this creates its own problems) or stay overnight (probably not). #2 Go anyway (to do anything else would be feeble). #3: Hmmmm...
As I said in a previous post (and in the comments thereto), I'm essentially always cross-dressed, in that all my clothes are off the women's racks, if never so overtly as to cause an adverse reaction. This time I should clearly get in the spirit of things and be more overt. But if I don't want to parade myself through the village (and I don't), I'll have to change when I get there and the facilities for doing that are somewhat lacking. My one saving grace is that, unlike (I'm guessing) most other Invaders, I don't intend (or want) to present as female at all — femme, not female, remember — so I don't have to worry about wigs, cosmetics, body shaping, or anything like that. So perhaps all I need is a skirt and shoes in a bag for a quick change in the toilets.
Perhaps a velvet skirt and some gothy shoes.
This is beginning to sound like fun :)
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
male femme on Twitter.
I've now entered the Twitterverse. @malefemme is my (highly original) handle, in case anyone wants to follow me – though I don't really have much to say: 69 tweets in three weeks, and nothing of consequence so far.
It just seemed that things were happening, trans/gender/queer-politics-wise, over there. So I signed up. And it's true, there is a nebulous community of sorts. And ongoing discussions: #transchat , #queerchat , #MNGW and suchlike. And Jasper says he's building a PostGendered Twitterverse, which could be interesting.
Whether I'll stick with it, I don't know. It takes a definite commitment following everything – increasingly so as my Following list builds up (currently 130). But I'll keep going for the time being at least.
See you on the darkside perhaps :)
It just seemed that things were happening, trans/gender/queer-politics-wise, over there. So I signed up. And it's true, there is a nebulous community of sorts. And ongoing discussions: #transchat , #queerchat , #MNGW and suchlike. And Jasper says he's building a PostGendered Twitterverse, which could be interesting.
Whether I'll stick with it, I don't know. It takes a definite commitment following everything – increasingly so as my Following list builds up (currently 130). But I'll keep going for the time being at least.
See you on the darkside perhaps :)
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Genderpunk.
I didn't post much last month because I was busy elsewhere: finishing a big editing job and arguing online with anti-feminists about feminism. Yes, I know the latter is nearly always pointless. We come in with our opinions already preset, so that all we're doing is trying (and failing) to convince each other that we're right and they're wrong – until, sooner or later, we get round to trading insults, and usually sooner than later. In fact, very often people don't waste any time, they just get on with the insults straight away.
Nevertheless, I thought I'd write something about it all here, setting out my own perspective on feminism as a gender-non-conforming man, away from the arguments as it were (and if they followed me over I could always delete them). To this end I started Googling for anything related to "feminism" and "transvestite" – and after a while I came across this:
I don’t consider the way I cross-dress to be emulating any kind of ‘proper woman’, it’s just that it’s pretty hard for me to emulate the ‘tomboyish feminist welder/bike mechanic’ of my dreams without looking actually more masculine than I already do.
That wasn't quite what I was looking for, but it got my attention and I went on reading:
I think I have a hardwired notion that it is desirable to be a girl. I also have over the years accepted and internalised the fact that I cannot be a girl. Therefore it is desirable to be like a girl, and because of our hugely gendered clothing split, the easiest way to achive that is to wear the clothes of a girl. If I looked more feminine, I think I would probably act a lot more feminine, but as I don’t want to try and fail to pass for female, I ground what I do in an acknowledgement that I am male. The identity I project outwards is therefore feminine male, rather than woman. I want to dress as ME, not as something I am not.
This came from the same blogpost: Issues of authenticity and ‘womanhood’. The blogger: Stand-up comedian, amateur occultist, musician, metalhead, and out transvestite, Andrew O'Neill.
After that I went through the entire blog from the beginning (October 2010), nodding emphatically and enthusiastically as O'Neill laid out his thoughts on coming out, being out, passing, femininity, binary gender, labels, language ... as he talked about harassment, phases, heels, fashion, records, grind(core), noise, steampunk ... as he referenced Eddie Izzard, S.Bear Bergman, Andrej Pejic, Genesis P.Orridge ... basically ticking my boxes one after another.
As for my title, that comes from this post: Gender-punk and consumerism, which is partly about labels and partly about buying pink handbags. All very nice :)
Finding a blog where you agree with almost everything is like a big virtual hug. And it's especially warming after you've been engaged in vehement online disagreement for however long. I may come back to the arguments at a later date; at the moment I don't feel like it. Instead, I'll just add Andrew O'Neill's splendid Postmodern trannyblog to my blog list and make sure to go and see him next time he's in Nottingham – whenever that might be. Apparently he did a Pride benefit here only a fortnight ago and I missed it :(
Nevertheless, I thought I'd write something about it all here, setting out my own perspective on feminism as a gender-non-conforming man, away from the arguments as it were (and if they followed me over I could always delete them). To this end I started Googling for anything related to "feminism" and "transvestite" – and after a while I came across this:
I don’t consider the way I cross-dress to be emulating any kind of ‘proper woman’, it’s just that it’s pretty hard for me to emulate the ‘tomboyish feminist welder/bike mechanic’ of my dreams without looking actually more masculine than I already do.
That wasn't quite what I was looking for, but it got my attention and I went on reading:
I think I have a hardwired notion that it is desirable to be a girl. I also have over the years accepted and internalised the fact that I cannot be a girl. Therefore it is desirable to be like a girl, and because of our hugely gendered clothing split, the easiest way to achive that is to wear the clothes of a girl. If I looked more feminine, I think I would probably act a lot more feminine, but as I don’t want to try and fail to pass for female, I ground what I do in an acknowledgement that I am male. The identity I project outwards is therefore feminine male, rather than woman. I want to dress as ME, not as something I am not.
This came from the same blogpost: Issues of authenticity and ‘womanhood’. The blogger: Stand-up comedian, amateur occultist, musician, metalhead, and out transvestite, Andrew O'Neill.
After that I went through the entire blog from the beginning (October 2010), nodding emphatically and enthusiastically as O'Neill laid out his thoughts on coming out, being out, passing, femininity, binary gender, labels, language ... as he talked about harassment, phases, heels, fashion, records, grind(core), noise, steampunk ... as he referenced Eddie Izzard, S.Bear Bergman, Andrej Pejic, Genesis P.Orridge ... basically ticking my boxes one after another.
As for my title, that comes from this post: Gender-punk and consumerism, which is partly about labels and partly about buying pink handbags. All very nice :)
Finding a blog where you agree with almost everything is like a big virtual hug. And it's especially warming after you've been engaged in vehement online disagreement for however long. I may come back to the arguments at a later date; at the moment I don't feel like it. Instead, I'll just add Andrew O'Neill's splendid Postmodern trannyblog to my blog list and make sure to go and see him next time he's in Nottingham – whenever that might be. Apparently he did a Pride benefit here only a fortnight ago and I missed it :(
Monday, 5 December 2011
In vision. (2)
Okay, that's enough introspection for now. Instead, here are some more pictures. They're not definitively male femmes this time – in fact one of them isn't even male – but I like them.
The first two are photos of "The Prettiest Boy in the World", fashion model Andrej Pejic. "Is that you?" I was asked about the second one. I wish!
The third is an 1894 painting of Ophelia by John William Waterhouse. Crossdreaming blogger Deborah Kate uses this as her avatar and you can see why: Ophelia's gender is so ambiguous. Yes, there's the dress and the hair, but these don't denote femaleness necessarily, and certainly not in our context. Meanwhile, Ophelia's left arm and hand seem almost deliberately placed to conceal the more obvious sexual signifiers. I have a print of this picture on my wardrobe door.
The last is Eddie Izzard again. (He also featured in my first picture post.) Compared with Andrej, Eddie doesn't have a lot to work with. He's just a big bloke really. And yet, some feathers, a few highlights, a bit of make-up, and he looks pretty too. As someone who is far more Eddie than Andrej, I find that very encouraging.
The first two are photos of "The Prettiest Boy in the World", fashion model Andrej Pejic. "Is that you?" I was asked about the second one. I wish!
The third is an 1894 painting of Ophelia by John William Waterhouse. Crossdreaming blogger Deborah Kate uses this as her avatar and you can see why: Ophelia's gender is so ambiguous. Yes, there's the dress and the hair, but these don't denote femaleness necessarily, and certainly not in our context. Meanwhile, Ophelia's left arm and hand seem almost deliberately placed to conceal the more obvious sexual signifiers. I have a print of this picture on my wardrobe door.
The last is Eddie Izzard again. (He also featured in my first picture post.) Compared with Andrej, Eddie doesn't have a lot to work with. He's just a big bloke really. And yet, some feathers, a few highlights, a bit of make-up, and he looks pretty too. As someone who is far more Eddie than Andrej, I find that very encouraging.
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