Rock it, E.

I've been wanting to post my message but I keep experiencing issues. Maybe it's because I'm a newbie. Anyway, thanks for sharing that Erika. That's very brave of you. Hoping for your happiness. :)

Back off! I got Erika's back already! ;-)

I think she means high top sneakers.

I think we need to focus more on people than on parts.

You're Ibby to me, and you're a fine person as far as I'm concerned.

So, are you saying that the Ibby-Erika is like the Doctor-Donna and that maybe Donna would be a better name for 'em?

Didn't anybody teach you to share? :P

@Ibby: or Ibram, you'll kind of always be to me, though I am sure you'll also become Erika as well.

I kind of see where you're coming from, I think. Some of it I can identify with from my own experience of gender identity. I think you'll find quite a lot of girls who grew up as 'tomboys' in the 70s/80s found it hard to reconcile society's (and their peers') gender expectations with where their heads were actually at. If what you fantasized about wasn't ponies and a beautiful dress. but clambering up a war torn slope with a lazer rifle slung over your back, as starships collide overhead, there really weren't very many role-templates available.

Wonder Woman? Princess fucking Leah?

This was before Lara Croft, and Starbuck, or even Sarah Connor.

I recall as a youngster, listening to music on headphones (Adam Ant probably :p) and going off into my own little fantasies, and having adventures, and playing it all out like a movie in my mind (I still do this). But the actions scenes I found it really hard to put myself in visually. Too female. Didn't work, couldn't get at the image. Why? because all those scenes I was drawing from, all those movies and tv shows, all had either male action heroes, or 'heroines'.

I remember wondering if maybe I was gay. When I was later into my teens. I just didn't identify with so much that was seemingly expected of girls but ... I have no desire for the vageen (;p) Then I very briefly wondered if maybe I was transgender (once I came across it as a concept). But I also liked goth make up and cyndi lauper dresses. I felt very female. I had no desire to be male. I just liked/had/identified with some male traits and didn't like/have/identify with some female traits.

Later I discovered massively multiplayer online gaming, and played a male character, whilst not letting on I was r/l female/ Partly, because of the response I got when I did let on, but also because I was enjoying playing a male character, and legitimately 'being' a male hero (well, antihero) character for a little while. I stayed in character as male in the game forums, in the guild chat and everything. I didn't specifically lie, buit I was vague with my gender terminology when referring to my partner, and everything that didn't sit with their expectations of masculinity they put down either me being gay, or just that I was British :p

I play a new game now, and a male character (I generally prefer to roleplay male chars) but I am open about being female when out of character on forums and such.

Now. I had and still have the kind of family that doesn't really push strong gender roles. I was bought cowboys and indians sets and He-Man and She-Ra action figures, as well as a Tiny Tears doll and a wendy house. And I don't think my mum ever knowingly dressed me in pink. Not unless I wanted her to, and I suspect that was a rarity. My brother meanwhile grew up an all action dangerous sports type, who was also an artist and as comfortable around a kitchen as around a building site.

But society does operate on a very binary, polarized basis on the whole. And gender is still a 'dominant idiom' through which we organise and understand our society at every level from the individual to the national. It is there in our art, our legal systems, our military ventures and our commerce. It underpins how we function as a society. But the reality is that it has never been an entirely uncontested binary opposition. There have always been and will always be people for whom those stark definitions don't work. The degree to which such people have been able to forge alternatives and have them accepted by the larger community or society is variable and always has been.

As to the use of 'they'...I don't know m'dear, maybe I'm just a little old fashioned, but that doesn't sit well with me when referring to an identified person. Fine with an unamed person...really jars with a named person. But ya know. I'll try and bear it in mind.

*hugs* if you made it this far down :p

Kind of related, this article is doing the rounds on facebook today:

http://togetherforjacksoncountykids....er-bullying-in

There are several "gender variant" kids in our school and many with same sex parents. it's a school where they feel more comfortable. It must be very hard growing up in the States if you don't enjoy the stereotype of your gender because -as a mom who refuses to imprint her kids with a gender stereotype and has dressed babies and toddler in two different countries- I find the stereotypes very rigidly enforced here, and it takes a lot of effort to be gender-neutral. For example, I just bought a snowsuit for my new neice. it's blue and it's labelled as a boy's snowsuit. there were 8 to choose from. four were pink and four were blue. Not even a yellow option. And they were labelled for boys and girls. That was not the case when i was dressing Hebe as a baby in the UK. Seems like a tough road to walk -it's hard enough from my perpective. All the Best, Ibby.

That was a great read.

Hugs all around. Thanks for the support, all of you.

What an exciting new phase of your life Ib. I hope it turns out just as you might hope it will.

BTW, did you know that you're not allowed to call Jimhelm Jimbo? It really annoys him. lol

Oh and Ibram ... it wasn't really much of a surprise. :)

You're kidding yourself... no matter what territory you attempt to stake out, people will still tag you with where they think you fit. That's so they can talk about you, they don't need any tag to talk to you.

There's nothing you can do about it except be yourself and let the tags fall where they may.

Oh god! Imagine the controversy this might cause in the NSFW threads! (again) lol

You know, I see the issue with gender identification being just an extension of what we all deal with all the time.

I might call myself a woman, but that's about where the similarity with pretty much any other woman on this planet ends. There are so many other ways that I identify myself, and it really depends on who I'm with and what I'm doing as to what that identity might be. For example, I identify myself as a mother, but if I'm at work, then I might be a salesperson or any other numerous tags that go with that role. At other times I might identify myself as a wife, but within that role, there are a multitude of other labels I could give myself too.

I think we all struggle with out identity at some time in our lives. It's all just a matter of trying to figure out where we feel comfortable in the world and labels are like the guardrails. They help in some ways, but in other ways they can stop you or others from seeing the truth, which of course is that you're just you (as others have said before), and you're an individual just like every single other person here.