Gender 101, Episode #13 Redux: Presenting & Passing

Join me as I continue the conversation with Benji, my gender-variant friend, as we dive into the issues of "presenting" - as cis or trans or other, and "passing" - being perceived as non-queer when you are queer. We even play with the lexicon, minting some new words to describe love:



You can get those "Legalize Trans" t-shirts Benji mentioned here.

I'm learning so much from these discussions (I'd never even heard of Queer Femme before.) Fascinating stuff!

Thanks, Benji.

Namaste,
Lee

You can check out the original post here.

Gender 101 Episode #7 Redux: Gender Neutral Bathrooms - And Why They're Important

Lucy brought it up in episode 6, the issue of gender neutral bathrooms. Here we discuss why that's an important safety issue for anyone who's not gender conforming.

I learned about the term 'passing privilege' and frankly was stunned to learn about this issue - one that I've never really considered before.

Here's the one link that's still archived, referencing the stories Lucy and I mention in the video:

The Trans Woman arrested for using the woman's bathroom in Houston, Texas Trans Woman Speaks About Restroom Arrest

Ever since this conversation, I think about the challenges Gender Queer people face each time I have to use a public restroom.

I'm so grateful to Lucy for sharing this with me... and with us.

Namaste,
Lee

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There were five comments to the original post:

HumanDuctTape said...
I'm studying in Germany right now and am living in the student dorms, which are entirely co-ed. There is one bathroom and one shower per wing, the shower is single occupancy and the bathroom is dual. And you know, it's really not that awkward for the person in the stall next to you to be a different gender (at least, no more awkward than peeing next to someone of the same gender). Granted, most public bathrooms are still segregated, but no one in the dorms treats it like a big deal. America is way too silly when it comes to keeping the genders/sexes separate. Because, you know, if a guy and a girl are in the same bathroom at the same time, babies will magically appear or something.
May 18, 2011 at 7:31 AM

ivanova said...
Thanks for this great video. I am working on a chapter in my book right now where a trans character gets harassed in the bathroom, and this is just what I needed to see. I give props to the LGBT Center in NYC for having a women's, a men's, and a gender neutral bathroom.
May 18, 2011 at 8:31 PM

Sarah Laurenson said...
Having been questioned about being in the women's bathroom does give me pause on this subject. But I also work with a bunch of guys who do not clean up after themselves in the kitchen and their bathroom habits are less than desirable given what I've heard from the cleaner ones in the group.

I agree that having gender neutral bathrooms would be good in many respects. I'm just not sure I would want to use one given the lack of basic hygiene exhibited by some of my male coworkers.

Maybe I'm in the wrong profession.
May 19, 2011 at 8:58 AM

Benji said...
Single-stall gender neutral bathrooms can be very, very helpful and are far more prevalent. You can be an ally and add to the growing map on http://safe2pee.org
May 22, 2011 at 6:38 PM

Anonymous said...
I was at a queer youth dance recently where they just designated both typical bathrooms gender neutral because it was at a community center that wasn't typically a queer space and there wasn't a single stall one. I was in drag at the dance, so at first I was really relieved when I saw there was a neutral bathroom, but I thought it might be a little weird when I saw that they just made the men's and women's multi-stall bathrooms gender neutral, with multiple people of different gender identities using them at once, but it wasn't awkward at all. At one point I was even adjusting my binding when someone else that was fairly androgynous came in, but it wasn't really awkward at all. As long as there's stalls, I don't think public restrooms need to be gendered. Besides, that would solve the family restroom issue, the uneven lines issue,and the trans or gender non conforming issue if there was just one bathroom with a bunch of stalls.
June 20, 2012 at 8:56 PM

30 Days of PRIDE Year Two: Knit, Pearl, and Pride

Last year’s response to my decision to wear out and gay t-shirts for all thirty days of June was loud and clear – the project made an impact, not just on me, but on others, and I wanted to do it again.

The parameters this year were the same, and while I had a few more t-shirts, the idea wasn’t to have a different gay pride t-shirt for each day.  It wasn’t a fashion challenge, it was more of a not-in-the-closet challenge.  An experiment.

See, in my life, it is not always assumed I am gay.  In fact, if I’m not holding my husband’s hand, and if I’m with our daughter, the assumption strangers tend to make is that I’m straight.

I “present” as a cis-gendered white guy (a guy who feels like a guy inside and that matches how I look on the outside), and I “present” as straight.  This gives me a lot of ‘passing privilege’ in our culture.  How much? 

Last year, I decided it was worth an experiment to see.  If I was outwardly NOT the majority (by wearing a VERY gay t-shirt each day), would my experience be closer to that of a person of color, who doesn’t get to pass as anything else?  Would I be given a hard time as I made my way through my 30 days?  Or would I find unexpected allies?  (You can read about last year’s results here.)

This year’s experiment surprised me.  Perhaps because I just didn’t get out and about among strangers that much, there were only three days when the t-shirts got a lot of comments/response.

The first was the day I was at Disneyland, wearing this shirt:

Six different people commented on how much they LOVED the shirt, and many more looked at it, trying to read it.  Some looked concerned, but many more smiled.  It made me (and my daughter) really happy.

The second was while wearing the “Smile If You’re Gay” t-shirt.

I had one woman (in a store we’d never been in before, where I’d taken my daughter to learn to knit) read the shirt and then frown, as if to make sure I didn’t think she was… well, you know… queer.  Oddly enough, the other eight women in the store were REALLY kind and friendly, and the shirt was just as gay to them.

It’s interesting how some people find this shirt confrontational, and my daughter and I spoke that afternoon about how maybe we needed to add in pen underneath the “Smile if you’re gay” the line, “You can also smile if you’re straight.”  But I was very aware of people’s reactions.

The third day when a t-shirt elicited a lot of response was a travel day, wearing my It Gets Better shirt.

Standing in the airport in the security line, a pilot (in the fast line next to us) patted me on the shoulder and said “it’s so great to see a father wearing an It Gets Better shirt!”  That was really cool.  The man across from us in the boarding gate stared at my shirt and then smiled, saying, “It really does get better.  It got better for me!”  and practically beamed at me, my husband and daughter as we passed him on the plane.  The shirt was read a lot, and noticed, and was very empowering.

The fourth day a t-shirt got a lot of response was gay pride in Los Angeles, which since I was marching in the parade flipped the ‘assumption,’ and everyone present correctly assumed I was gay.

For those three days of the month when I was in a non-gay context around a lot of people who didn’t know me – the knitting store, Disneyland, at the airport – I think the experiment was a big success.

But what surprised me was something else this month that brought up not only a TON of response from others, but a lot of emotions within myself as well.

I learned how to knit.

I carried my first project around with me as I did things, and in those odd down-time moments of waiting (for a plane to take off, for my daughter to finish an activity, in the doctor’s office) I pulled out my yarn and needles and started to knit.

Oh, the stares.  The – there’s no other word for it – gawking by other dads, especially at kid events.  I became really self-conscious that

I was doing an activity that wasn’t seen as ‘masculine.’ 

And then I got annoyed.  Annoyed with others giving me the evil eye for doing something pretty harmless (and pretty cool, to take a string and make something 3-dimensional out of it!) 

Annoyed with myself for feeling so constrained by the boundaries of what’s SUPPOSED to be okay for men (boys) versus what’s okay for women (girls.) 

Annoyed with myself for not being willing to fully embrace this ‘feminine’ thing I liked doing – and embrace it with PRIDE.

So I challenged myself to knit more.  In public.  To be prouder of being a guy who knits. 

Was I feeding into the stereotype of gay men doing girly things (something I fought so hard against as a teen?)  Was I becoming a stereotype in other people’s eyes, wearing my gay pride t-shirts and knitting something pink and orange?  Well, I know I’m no stereotype.  And that’s good enough.

So this year, my revelation was more about being willing to cross the gender line and do something ‘girly’ with pride.  It didn’t make me any less of a man, but it sure did make me a better human being.

And the funny thing is, over the course of the days that I knit in public, while I didn’t see any other guys knitting out in the world, I DID have a bunch of guys come out to me… about being knitters, too!

I guess I’m learning (once again) that I really shouldn’t care AT ALL about what other people think of me.

They don’t expect a six-feet-four-inch tall white guy to knit?  Okay, that’s THEIR journey.

They don’t expect a father of a young girl to be gay?  That’s their journey, too!

I’m glad I took 30 days to wear my gay pride shirts this June.  And I’m even happier that this was the month that I took up knitting. 

And I hope you take this lesson to heart, too.

Be YOU.  Be PROUD.

That there, is the secret to life.

Namaste,

Lee

ps - My computer laptop cover that I’m making – I know, so butch! – is coming along nicely, thanks!

This is me knitting on a plane... with PRIDE!