Becoming Me

xposted

Hey guys, I'm finally starting up a website, and part of it is going to be about genderqueer stuff. So all you gender fabulous folks out there, let me know what you think should go onto the site, and I'll take it into serious consideration (i.e. It'll probably go up there.)

Leave a comment! :)

EDIT: I've been told I should put my own ideas up here. Hmm. Well I definitely want to put up a thing about gender neutral pronouns, and I already got permission to use that article. I though having a section where various people who have specific identities write their thoughts on what that means to them, as well as a generic definition. (If people have problems with the definitions I write they are absolutely free to e-mail me and I would alter it accordingly.) A section wherein people write about things that have happened to them because of their gender differences. For these last two I probably wouldn't be able to put everyone's up; that would be a HUGE amount of information with nuanced repetition. Maybe a couple of articles of what people think the world should be like in terms of gender? I like charts. Charts showing how people perceive gender with disclaimers that everyone sees gender differently and that it is unlikely that any of the charts fully encompass gender. A couple of articles on the nature of gender, perhaps. There's someone on [info]androgynes who makes some great videos about various gender related topics, and I'd love to get some more videos.

Wow, I have a lot more ideas than I thought I had!

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail a while back. Regarding gender-neutral pronouns, ze wrote, "I have told a couple people what i prefer but no one ever listened and sometimes went so far as to defend referring to me as
female as 'not meaning all the female stuff, it's just a word'".

Pronouns are not just words. They are part of respecting a person's identity. That person would probably not like to be called by the wrong-gendered pronouns by everyone around themself, even if it would probably be a bit funny to mildly irritating coming from just one person. If you are female and everyone thinks you're male and calls you by male pronouns, you are going to be frustrated as hell at the world. The same goes for people who prefer gender-neutral pronouns. I would have a hard time being friends with someone who called me by female pronouns all the time, much more so if they actually tried to defend their choice. I actively avoid a previous friend for precisely that reason, although the chances of us running into one another are pretty small anyway. Urgh, this is a frustrating topic for me and I'm not being as eloquent as I would like. In addition I'm probably preaching to the choir; oh well. I did want to write this down.

The Japanese verb "ochikomu" (おちこむ) always reminds me of the Tachikoma (タチコマ) from Ghost in the Shell, but only cause they sound similar. They couldn't be more different. Ochikomu means "to be depressed" (it was in our vocabulary section this week), and Tachikoma are always very chipper and happy things. And very cute. Here's a picture:

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Or maybe it's somewhere closer to the third step...

Anyway, I finally went to see a psychologist. Had the first meeting on Wednesday. It went about as well as could be expected, and it could've been a _lot_ worse. Before I even met the doctor, I was so stressed I was nearly crying in the waiting room, and then I was fighting tears and a chocked voice (and losing, a bit) during most of the session. But I spoke. And sometimes when I couldn't speak, I wrote. I communicated what I was trying to say, even if not very effectively. And he (the doctor) didn't make me want to curl up inside my head like the one back home did. I have to try so hard to talk, and that makes me sad cause I really want to be able to talk. I need to talk so we can figure out what's wrong and how to make it better. And I can do that with this doctor, I know I can. We're going to get better.

For the last few days, I've felt really young most of the time. Like 12 maybe. Except I'm not good at guessing ages even when I can see people, and in the mirror I don't look as young as I am in my head right now. And I want hugs from my mom and dad. I miss them. But I don't want to go home, not really. And it's not like I could just now; that home is 2000 miles away from here. That's 6 hours of travel at the fastest (driving to the airport + flying), and it can go on infinitely long. Driving takes at least 3 days; walking would take months. Maybe years. Walking would be stupid. And very cold, soon.

I want to paint. The pictures are there, in my head, but I can't put them on a canvas because i don't know how to make the colors do what I want... It's like trying to tell someone something really really important, but being mute and unable to write. The best I can do is crude gestures whose meanings will be misunderstood even by myself after a month.

Today a paper fell out of a book I pulled off the shelf, or maybe it was just stuck to the cover or something. It looks like what my writing most often looked like in high school, and I don't remember writing it at all. I'm not even sure what it is. I guess it's probably from some conlang I was trying to write, but the words I picked for the syllables are so odd... I'll copy it below. The commas are where a new line started; I guess where a new meaning for the same syllable/syllable group began.

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Last night my friend told me I was one of the "fun" people in class. :) It made me really happy. I thought I was boring to most people.

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I don't want to talk anymore.

My coworkers bought me a cake for my last day of work. :) And they've all been telling me how much they're going to miss me for the last two weeks. And my manager and another coworker made me promise to call and tell them that I got to school okay after the drive. They.. they really care. I've never had people express care in that way before, except my parents. It's really nice. I'm going to miss them. They're nice people.

-I have no idea who I am right now.

The aspie forums are good for me, I think. People have concrete things to say, and when they have problems and are asking for advice, I can respond with concrete answers. I can even help people sometimes. And it calms me down. I've been almost constantly on the verge of a panic attack for a while. Just about anything could tip me over, I think. Except I'm calmer now, so it's not that bad.

I hope I'm not giving bad advice. I'm kind of a social idiot sometimes.