Skip to main content

Hello Mx

There can be no doubt that we've made some progress.  There have been significant shifts in the media portrayal of those who identify as sitting somewhere above or beyond the gender binary.  I was reminded of this at a conference organised and attended by those interested in supporting those for whom the trans* identity appeals. 
 
For far too long, those of us who did not subscribe to, or comfortably fit into, the boxes hitherto afforded to us have been pathologised as deluded or perverted.  It is no longer inconceivable to have experiences that validate, or even honour an alternative identity. 
 
Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught.
Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Between Pink or Blue
 
 
Gender is, after all, what resides between your ears, not your legs.  It is not fixed and can be fluid.  It might be best regarded as a relationship.  And, for some, may be the journey of a life time.  It has, I think, very little, if anything, to do with anatomy or physicality.  Though these can make gender far more straightforward...
 
Identity and expression are two very different things.  And this is where there is still an enormous amount of awareness raising to be done.  We assume too much, and do so far too quickly. 
 
The first question we usually ask new parents is: 'is it a boy or a girl?' 
There is a great answer to that one: 'We don't know; it hasn't told us yet.' 
Personally, I don't think any question containing an either/or deserves a serious answer, and that includes the question of gender. 
Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the rest of us
 
 
Please don't call me 'Sir'.  Thank you for not calling me 'Madam'.  Gendered forms of address are rarely necessary, and carry with them an inherent risk.  I look forward to the day when we have a greater opportunity to self select our title, and to a time where this preference might be regarded as flexible as it truly is.  Hello 'Mx'.
 
As far as I'm concerned, being any gender is a drag.
Patti Smith
 
 
The soul has no gender.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
 
 
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Table. Apple. Penny.

Whilst there were several places I might have been that morning, I wouldn't have been anywhere else.  The practitioner from the Memory Service arrived promptly.  I liked her instantly.    Mum was nervous.  I think I was a little, too.  It's been a difficult year.   "It's Friday, it's the fourteenth of December and I'm at home..."   No problems there.  CAMCOG, or the Cambridge Cognitive Examination is a thorough assessment tool used to assess the extent of extent of dementia, and to assess the level of cognitive impairment.  The standardised  measure assesses orientation, language, memory, praxis, attention, abstract thinking, perception and calculation.    "Table.  Apple.  Penny."   Three everyday items that were introduced at one point, and then referred to again later on.  Again, Mum was able to recall each.      I am reminded that the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Glass half full? Glass half empty? Or perhaps the glass is broken

I am, constitutionally, a glass half empty gal.  I will always first acknowledge what I don't have, what I have lost, and what it is that I am seeking.  I tend to overlook my strengths, concentrating only on those bits of me that are underdeveloped or weak.  I refer to myself as a realist, but in doing so compliment myself and insult those who genuinely are simply realistic.  My modus operandi is to identify what's not working and acknowledge this before seeing more clearly what functions perfectly well.  This has its place: I edit others' written work pretty well.  My fastidious attention to detail serves me, and the author.  Accuracy counts, for me and I have an excellent memory.  I can remember a great many of my sessions with clients verbatim.  Even this asset is something I can, and do, diminish the true value of, by concentrating on 'I should have said...' or 'why didn't....  occur to me during the session?' Earlier this we...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joan Miro: Emotional Art

"Painting and poetry are like love; an exchange of blood, a passionate embrace, without restraint, without defence.  The picture is born of an overflow of emotions and feelings." Miro, The Farm 'La Masia' (1921-22) I learnt a great deal about Miro on a recent visit to the Tate.  I learnt a great deal about a lot more too. Miro wanted to discover the sources of human feeling.  He described his method of creating poetry by way of painting, using a vocabulary of signs and symbols, metaphors and dream images to express definite themes he believed to be fundamental to human existence.  The exhibition displays his sense of humor and lively wit.  His chief concern was a social one; he wanted to get close to the great masses of humanity, and he was convinced that art can only truly appeal when it resonates with roots of lived experience.  "Wherever you are, you find the sun, a blade of grass, the spirals of the dragonfly.  Courage cons...
Post a Comment
Read more