I am who I am - I don’t need instructions.

[sparkindarkness]

This piece originally appeared at Womanist Musings where Renee has very generously allowed my random musings to appear on her excellent blog

This is probably going to be less reasoned than my average post. Largely because it comes from a whole lot of anger that has roiled in me.

I am so very tired of being told how to be me. I am tired of being

Comments

[snakey]

Switch out "gay" for "trans" and I identify with a lot of this. :S

"I remember the endless doubt and shame about my clothes, about my appearance about my hobbies. I wouldn’t discuss my taste in music, even with close friends, for fear that my taste would reveal me to be less than a true man, that it would show that I was" ...a woman.

Sigh.

Thank you for writing this.

[sparkindarkness]

Was it due to a large number of people trying to "prove you wrong" as it were or maybe try and force a stereotyped role to make it clear how you should "be a man"?

[girlofavalon]

*bows*

Switch "gay" for "soemthing-I-feel-but-can't-define" and I identify greatly with all of this.
Actually, yesterday during some researches I was doing, I almost e-mailed you to rant.

As for masculine stereotypes, well you probably won't be surprised if say that my father (when I was a baby and he was married to my mum) never cuddled me or took any care because it was not a man's behaviour. Actually, he stopped doing it... guess who made him? My grandmother *snorts*

Well, thank you for posting this!

[sparkindarkness]

We like to put people into tiny little boxes - both those outside a certain thing and those that claim it as an identity. We're always pushing people to conform so we can fit people into little mental pigeonholes

Thankee

[brownkitty]

::HUGS::

In a way, I don't care who you are because you're my friend and that's all the definition I personally need for me.

In another way, I care deeply about the shit you have to deal with because you want to be nothing more or less than comfortable in your own skin in public.

And at the bottom of things, I will never see it but I hope always for a fair and merciful world, populated by fair and merciful people.

[sparkindarkness]

Thank you

And amen to that - one day it will happen. Albeit not for generations yet

[sparkindarkness]

I can purge Beatles from my head - lots of practice :)

I. Am. In. Awe. *standing ovation applause*

[semiotic_pirate]

You are full of awesome, in the sense of the true meaning of the word.

What you expressed there, we all feel it for various reasons. This is why stereotypes are ridiculous, because they are such a narrow definition of who or what an individual is expected to conform themselves to in order to fit into how society as a whole (unconsciously? subconsciously? purposefully?) views the pigeonholed groups that an individual either self-identifies with or is labeled with.

This is why it upsets me when CoB has "hot chick" inspired desktop images on his computer screens at home. This is why I occasionally fall into a "why don't I fit into what (I perceive) society says I should be" slumps every once in a while.

This is why I refuse to wear anything but comfortable shoes.

Re: I. Am. In. Awe. *standing ovation applause*

[sparkindarkness]

Thank you.

I think everyone feels it to varying degrees. the world is constantly trying to put us into narrow little boxes, pigeonhole us into tiny spaces and judge us if we try to leave them