It seems to be a topic of late, in both my personal and online interactions, so I decided it was time to put some thoughts out there.
Obvious fact: I support equal rights. This means nothing more than it is; no one is more equal than any other, regardless of what the pigs in Animal Farm believe. I don't want to get a job because there's some quota to fill on employees who aren't white males. If someone is more qualified for a job than I, by all means, they better get the damn job. I believe in equal pay, equal benefits regardless of race, class, gender (or lack thereof), sexuality, and chosen lifestyle. I don't call myself a feminist because, quite simply, I am not one. Once again, I don't fit in the box of crayons.
This extends beyond just the workplace. I have yet to run into a situation where I haven't been able to get a job because some other minority applied, mostly because I grew up in an area where minorites just don't live. Back in the town where I grew up, we had a grand total of three people who were out of the closet, one Hispanic family, and the only black person in town lived at the Manor (a home for the mentally disabled). When one of the guys in my class came out, he was instantly alienated because it just wasn't done there. Back there, men had specific roles to play, and women were supposed to keep the house, have children, and maybe teach, because those were the only acceptable things for women to do. I can't count the number of female teachers who left their teaching jobs because they had children to raise.
I mentioned in my first post about an argument I had with my soon-to-be mother-in-law. Well, today, that argument decided to rear its ugly, ugly head again. I spent a good chunk of my day trying not to yell at her through email because I just don't think gender has any business in ANYTHING. How much you love someone shouldn't have a damn thing to do with what just happens to be between their legs. It does in this society, though, because there is something WRONG with people who don't fit gender norms. For some reason, it's wrong to be who you are if it means you don't fit nicely in the box of crayons.
This, as many things, draws a lot from the way I was raised. My brother turned out a kind, sensitive man. He is quite honestly one of the nicest people I know, and his dream in life (last I heard) was to stay at home and raise the kids while his wife does whatever makes her happy. He's amazing with children. My family makes fun of him for this. My grandfather flat out refuses to accept that it's possible. Granted, he's a product of the Great Depression and still believes women shouldn't have an education beyond high school. Every time I visit, he asks why I'm dressed like a man and why my brother turned out such a "floppy-wristed faggot". Neither of us can look at what we're labelled and be satisfied.
I came out of childhood entirely opposite of my brother. The thought of having children flat out terrifies me. I have the maternal instincts of a rabid wolverine, and when combined with the degree of mental fuckery I have going on, it's probably a good idea for me to not have biological children. I turned out the way I did because I learned early on in life that if I don't stand up for the way I believe and what I think, no one will.
I once spent two hours sitting after school with my increasingly more frustrated classmates (not to mention the teacher) because I refused to agree that anyone has the right to kill someone for any reason (more on that later). They spent every minute trying to bribe me into agreeing with them, even for a moment, promising I didn't have to ACTUALLY agree and I could change my mind two seconds later about it for all they cared. The teacher had foolishly decided no one could leave the room until we were unanimous one way or the other, and the few who shared my viewpoint were quickly swayed when it became obvious she was serious. So we sat there. It was the class right after lunch, around 12:30 PM, and she had to phone our other classes to let them know we were all going to miss class. Everyone thought I was just being stubborn, or taking the less common option to be "different" and stopped trying to convince me my view was incorrect. It wasn't flawed, it was just WRONG. It was wrong to not agree, for whatever reasons I may have had. Even those who agreed with me at the onset of our five-hour 'debate' were suddenly convinced I wasn't entitled to my opinion. When they started yelling, the teacher finally let people go home. She and I never got along very well, but she didn't treat me quite as harshly after that day. When I graduated, she gave me a card that said, "In five hours, you never tried to make them believe anything you did. I thought you were stubborn at first, but when it came down to it, you left the room with my respect that day."
The point of this little tangent? The instant it became obvious I wouldn't sell out my beliefs, everyone turned on me. People have been trying to force me to fit into the box since I came into this world, whether it's my grandfather and his belief I'm just another dyke, or my former classmates and their decision that I must be ostracized for not wanting to fit.
I grew up completely unsure of why I had to be a woman when clearly I was more suited to the "male" lifestyle, and somewhere along the line I decided it's not only hugely unfair to expect everyone to fit into the box, it is simply not right to make them fit in pre-made slots. If you expect a marker to fit where that crayon should be, you're going to end up disappointed.
When I say I'm genderless, I mean it. I don't see myself as "part this, part that". Growing up without a sense of gender identity didn't give me a huge identity crisis. It let me find out who I am without limits. It's what made me push the rules to see how far I could go and gave me the space I needed to breathe. I grew up outside the crayon box, and while at one point I did wish I could fit nicely inside it, life is more fun out here. I never would have fit, even if I had been willing to try.
26 June, 2011
Things I Do When I'm Manic: Part I
See also: Shit Cai Does When She's Bouncing Off the Walls.
The flip side of being so depressed I can't get out of bed (the Black) is the days when I'm so ON that I can't sit still. This is the Red. It's the fiery feeling that grows in the back of my mind and keeps building and building until everything I do is just a blur of Red. People don't usually see me when I'm Red. I'm too busy doing everything there is to do to bother with people who aren't just as fast-paced and excited about things as I am. I'm constantly looking for more time, better efficiency, and things I can do so I can point to them later and say, "SEE?! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO! CAN YOU DO ___ IN TWO HOURS?! I CAN!" The Red is usually what inspires my maniacal cleaning rampages, when I clean the entire apartment, do ALL THE DISHES, wash all my clothes, and can occasionally be found scrubbing each individual tile in the shower.
It's hard, I will admit, when everything is clean. That pairs up nicely with the OCD, though, which is rather mild. I don't spend hours cleaning because it MUST be clean. My OCD manifests in eating, mostly, and the way things must be arranged. That, though, is a story for a different day. Back to my topic.
When all the things are cleaned and organized JUST so, I tend to throw myself into video game marathons. Last time I was truly Red, I spent three days without sleep making a perfect save file (100% of all items, quest completion, secret dungeons, monster data, weapon and ship data, all the secret endings, and defeating all the optional bosses) in Star Ocean: The Last Hope (aka, SO4). That was after I'd spent a day scrubbing the grout in the bathroom. I've been known to play Final Fantasy IX and make it through the entire game in under ten hours (my perfect save file is now juuust under 9 hours, while my "just get it over with" file is sitting pretty at 8:14:21). Yes, that's right. When I'm manic, I turn into the crazy uber-gamer. I don't sleep, I eat only what is necessary to keep my stomach from rebelling, and I run through batteries like they're going out of style. If I run out of batteries, I will quite seriously run to the store and buy more. It doesn't matter that the only 24-hour grocery store is two miles away, I will sprint there and back at 3 AM if needed. I'm aware that driving is faster, but it doesn't FEEL fast enough. I make people hide my car keys when I'm Red. I don't trust myself behind the wheel.
Once upon a time, I tried to spend time with people when I was in the Red. It's almost impossible for other people to keep up with me, though, because I'm zipping along faster than anyone can track. These are the days when I know it's hard for my friends to put up with me, and they are all saints for doing such. Fiance is the only person who sees me Red on a regular basis, and he's pretty much learned to just leave me be. Even I have a hard time keeping track of where my thoughts are sprinting away to, so I can't really expect it of anyone else. I'm infinitely distractable and surprisingly focused all at once. Such a perfect contradiction.
I'm supposed to keep track of my ups and downs because they're fairly predictable if I do. I don't. It's just not fun if I do. There's a little tiny bit of warning before I go from being stable to thinking I'm invincible, and like all rollercoasters, you have to go down from there. Would the rollercoaster be much fun if you knew every bend, twist, peak, and drop? I don't think so. Then again, when you've been riding as long as I have, it's not hard to notice what's coming. You just have to know what to look for.
The flip side of being so depressed I can't get out of bed (the Black) is the days when I'm so ON that I can't sit still. This is the Red. It's the fiery feeling that grows in the back of my mind and keeps building and building until everything I do is just a blur of Red. People don't usually see me when I'm Red. I'm too busy doing everything there is to do to bother with people who aren't just as fast-paced and excited about things as I am. I'm constantly looking for more time, better efficiency, and things I can do so I can point to them later and say, "SEE?! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO! CAN YOU DO ___ IN TWO HOURS?! I CAN!" The Red is usually what inspires my maniacal cleaning rampages, when I clean the entire apartment, do ALL THE DISHES, wash all my clothes, and can occasionally be found scrubbing each individual tile in the shower.
It's hard, I will admit, when everything is clean. That pairs up nicely with the OCD, though, which is rather mild. I don't spend hours cleaning because it MUST be clean. My OCD manifests in eating, mostly, and the way things must be arranged. That, though, is a story for a different day. Back to my topic.
When all the things are cleaned and organized JUST so, I tend to throw myself into video game marathons. Last time I was truly Red, I spent three days without sleep making a perfect save file (100% of all items, quest completion, secret dungeons, monster data, weapon and ship data, all the secret endings, and defeating all the optional bosses) in Star Ocean: The Last Hope (aka, SO4). That was after I'd spent a day scrubbing the grout in the bathroom. I've been known to play Final Fantasy IX and make it through the entire game in under ten hours (my perfect save file is now juuust under 9 hours, while my "just get it over with" file is sitting pretty at 8:14:21). Yes, that's right. When I'm manic, I turn into the crazy uber-gamer. I don't sleep, I eat only what is necessary to keep my stomach from rebelling, and I run through batteries like they're going out of style. If I run out of batteries, I will quite seriously run to the store and buy more. It doesn't matter that the only 24-hour grocery store is two miles away, I will sprint there and back at 3 AM if needed. I'm aware that driving is faster, but it doesn't FEEL fast enough. I make people hide my car keys when I'm Red. I don't trust myself behind the wheel.
Once upon a time, I tried to spend time with people when I was in the Red. It's almost impossible for other people to keep up with me, though, because I'm zipping along faster than anyone can track. These are the days when I know it's hard for my friends to put up with me, and they are all saints for doing such. Fiance is the only person who sees me Red on a regular basis, and he's pretty much learned to just leave me be. Even I have a hard time keeping track of where my thoughts are sprinting away to, so I can't really expect it of anyone else. I'm infinitely distractable and surprisingly focused all at once. Such a perfect contradiction.
I'm supposed to keep track of my ups and downs because they're fairly predictable if I do. I don't. It's just not fun if I do. There's a little tiny bit of warning before I go from being stable to thinking I'm invincible, and like all rollercoasters, you have to go down from there. Would the rollercoaster be much fun if you knew every bend, twist, peak, and drop? I don't think so. Then again, when you've been riding as long as I have, it's not hard to notice what's coming. You just have to know what to look for.
25 June, 2011
Sick Days vs. Mental Health Days
Two posts in one day? I'm spoiling you guys.
I spent most of today hacking my lungs out. Then I spent the rest of the day puking my guts out. There's pretty much nothing I want to do on my actual sick days but crawl into bed and be lazy on the internet while pretending to watch a movie/TV show. Granted, that's what I do on my mental health days, too, but there's a difference. On those days, I don't do anything because that's what I want to do; on sick days, I just don't have the energy to do anything else. I tried to read a book today and ended up falling asleep on it. I tried to watch a movie with Bestie and ended up taking an unplanned nap. I "worked" on my knitting project for a few rows, noticed I'd managed to turn 40 stitches into 51 by what can only be called magic, and then took another nap.
I'm a big supporter of mental health days. One of my professors refers to them as "mocha breaks", and another encourages us to use them if we're getting close to a breaking point. I've found in my collegiate career that the occasional day off keeps me from using sick days as often. It's probably because I tend to do way too much, so the stress eventually builds up and explodes in my face if I don't take a day without worrying about something. I remember way back when i was a freshman when skipping class actually made me so nervous that I made myself sick, and a part of me wonders what happened to that person.
Sick days, of course, are things I don't particularly enjoy. If I'm only a little sick and just don't feel like pushing myself too hard, they aren't horrible, but days like today are not worth it. Days like today are best spent curled up in bed with a movie I've seen countless times, something I don't need to pay any attention to because I already know the entire movie word for word. That way, I can go read random things on the internet, nap randomly and without warning, and spend whatever time I need praising the Porcelain God without missing anything important.
Today's choice? Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog with Thought Catalog and some random awful fanfic I found the other day. Yes, I admit it. I read fanfic. I read mostly slash, because it's just addictive. It doesn't require a lot of attention, either. Oh, and chat. I spent a lot of time in chat today.
Compare this to my last mental health day, during which I watched the entirety of A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel (they're both on YouTube, for those who are not familiar with the joy that is AVPM). After that, I dedicated the rest of the day to powering through the game I was playing. I don't remember which game it was, now that I actually stop and think about it. Probably Radiata Stories, seeing as it was pretty much all I played for two months.
So that's what I did today. Well, that and wrote two blog posts, which is practically unheard of for me. Two in a week seems like a lot most of the time.
I spent most of today hacking my lungs out. Then I spent the rest of the day puking my guts out. There's pretty much nothing I want to do on my actual sick days but crawl into bed and be lazy on the internet while pretending to watch a movie/TV show. Granted, that's what I do on my mental health days, too, but there's a difference. On those days, I don't do anything because that's what I want to do; on sick days, I just don't have the energy to do anything else. I tried to read a book today and ended up falling asleep on it. I tried to watch a movie with Bestie and ended up taking an unplanned nap. I "worked" on my knitting project for a few rows, noticed I'd managed to turn 40 stitches into 51 by what can only be called magic, and then took another nap.
I'm a big supporter of mental health days. One of my professors refers to them as "mocha breaks", and another encourages us to use them if we're getting close to a breaking point. I've found in my collegiate career that the occasional day off keeps me from using sick days as often. It's probably because I tend to do way too much, so the stress eventually builds up and explodes in my face if I don't take a day without worrying about something. I remember way back when i was a freshman when skipping class actually made me so nervous that I made myself sick, and a part of me wonders what happened to that person.
Sick days, of course, are things I don't particularly enjoy. If I'm only a little sick and just don't feel like pushing myself too hard, they aren't horrible, but days like today are not worth it. Days like today are best spent curled up in bed with a movie I've seen countless times, something I don't need to pay any attention to because I already know the entire movie word for word. That way, I can go read random things on the internet, nap randomly and without warning, and spend whatever time I need praising the Porcelain God without missing anything important.
Today's choice? Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog with Thought Catalog and some random awful fanfic I found the other day. Yes, I admit it. I read fanfic. I read mostly slash, because it's just addictive. It doesn't require a lot of attention, either. Oh, and chat. I spent a lot of time in chat today.
Compare this to my last mental health day, during which I watched the entirety of A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel (they're both on YouTube, for those who are not familiar with the joy that is AVPM). After that, I dedicated the rest of the day to powering through the game I was playing. I don't remember which game it was, now that I actually stop and think about it. Probably Radiata Stories, seeing as it was pretty much all I played for two months.
So that's what I did today. Well, that and wrote two blog posts, which is practically unheard of for me. Two in a week seems like a lot most of the time.
Books I Read When I'm Depressed: Part I
I was thinking the other day about the books I always go for when I feel like utter crap. More fun info about me: I ride the bipolar coaster. I have a rapid-cycle form of the disorder, and within my larger cycles there are definitely further peaks and valleys. The ride is never smooth. It's like one of those roller coasters with the loops and corkscrews, then suddenly it plummets underground with next to no warning.
I turn to books a lot, whether I can barely sit still while caught in mania or if I'm so depressed that I can barely convince myself to get out of bed. Granted, the manic version of me usually can't focus on the book for longer than a few pages before bouncing off to do something else, but I still try. That's a story for a different day.
I'm going to start off with a book I just finished, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In the Rye. The part of me that never grew out of being a depressed teenager loved every freaking word of it. The adult part of me, the part that wants to shake people and tell them to just grow the fuck up, spent the entire novel waiting to slap Holden. Still, though, I wanted to run away with him. I wanted to run away from life in general, leave this world of school and having a job as far behind as I could. I'd take Fiance with me, but only if he was ready to leave everything he knew behind. We wouldn't talk to our families, we would make new friends, we could start all over again.
This book was banned from my high school, all because some guy who already had loads of problems read it and later committed suicide. I'd like to think I can understand that sort of view on the world, but I CAN'T. There is no part of me capable of understanding how reading a work of fiction can be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. I've found a couple books that are entirely capable of shoving me all the way down into the dregs of depression, but I still cannot fathom that being too much for me. I'll pretend to myself that I'm just marvelously well-adjusted (which I'm not) and I have a brilliant concept of fiction vs. reality (which I don't). The main difference, perhaps, is the way I find comfort in characters so flawed they can barely pretend to function. I don't want to read things about characters who are perfect. I despise Mary Sues. Perfection is boring. I read things to escape from my world, even if it's just for a few hours. I can't relate to characters who have perfect lives, perfect personalities, perfect relationships, and perfect jobs. I'm far from perfect.
I digress.
A good part of why I devoured The Catcher in the Rye as quickly as I did (other than my absurd reading speed) is that little depressed teenager who never got out of my head. She knew exactly what was happening. She made me remember what it all was. The entire novel, I was forced back into high school, where no one talked to me, people in general hated me, and where everyone was a "phony". I know what it's like to be an outsider. Maybe I know a little too well. High school, though, is a topic for another day.
Did Catcher in the Rye make me feel better when all was said and done? Not really. It was a fun ride, though. That's all I want to be able to say when I'm done with life. Maybe the ride wasn't perfect, and maybe I got a little distracted somewhere in the middle, but hey, at least it was one hell of a ride.
I turn to books a lot, whether I can barely sit still while caught in mania or if I'm so depressed that I can barely convince myself to get out of bed. Granted, the manic version of me usually can't focus on the book for longer than a few pages before bouncing off to do something else, but I still try. That's a story for a different day.
I'm going to start off with a book I just finished, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher In the Rye. The part of me that never grew out of being a depressed teenager loved every freaking word of it. The adult part of me, the part that wants to shake people and tell them to just grow the fuck up, spent the entire novel waiting to slap Holden. Still, though, I wanted to run away with him. I wanted to run away from life in general, leave this world of school and having a job as far behind as I could. I'd take Fiance with me, but only if he was ready to leave everything he knew behind. We wouldn't talk to our families, we would make new friends, we could start all over again.
This book was banned from my high school, all because some guy who already had loads of problems read it and later committed suicide. I'd like to think I can understand that sort of view on the world, but I CAN'T. There is no part of me capable of understanding how reading a work of fiction can be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. I've found a couple books that are entirely capable of shoving me all the way down into the dregs of depression, but I still cannot fathom that being too much for me. I'll pretend to myself that I'm just marvelously well-adjusted (which I'm not) and I have a brilliant concept of fiction vs. reality (which I don't). The main difference, perhaps, is the way I find comfort in characters so flawed they can barely pretend to function. I don't want to read things about characters who are perfect. I despise Mary Sues. Perfection is boring. I read things to escape from my world, even if it's just for a few hours. I can't relate to characters who have perfect lives, perfect personalities, perfect relationships, and perfect jobs. I'm far from perfect.
I digress.
A good part of why I devoured The Catcher in the Rye as quickly as I did (other than my absurd reading speed) is that little depressed teenager who never got out of my head. She knew exactly what was happening. She made me remember what it all was. The entire novel, I was forced back into high school, where no one talked to me, people in general hated me, and where everyone was a "phony". I know what it's like to be an outsider. Maybe I know a little too well. High school, though, is a topic for another day.
Did Catcher in the Rye make me feel better when all was said and done? Not really. It was a fun ride, though. That's all I want to be able to say when I'm done with life. Maybe the ride wasn't perfect, and maybe I got a little distracted somewhere in the middle, but hey, at least it was one hell of a ride.
23 June, 2011
Greetings and Salutations!
Hai. It's my new super-secret blog! This blog is for YOU, my weirdo internet friends. And, y'know, the people I actually know in my real life. I'm starting with the intent to post weekly; if I can manage to be grown-up enough to post once a week and not fail miserably, I'll move on to posting more frequently.
Here's the basics of me, not that you need to know, because you PROBABLY know me:
I have synesthesia.
I claim no gender.
Now, those might seem like strange things to throw out there as the "need to know" part of the CaiMonster. They're both giant parts of who I am, though. You were probably expecting things like "I have two cats" and "I am a blonde, but not a dumb one". While both of those are true, I don't think they define my existence nearly as much.
First, synesthesia.
What colour is the letter Q?
What does red taste like?
Think of your favourite song. What colour is it?
That's synesthesia. I can see and taste sound. Think of it this way. I can hear in THREE DIMENSIONS. It's like I'm a freakin' superhero, except my powers are amazingly lame.
When I think back, I've always been this way. I can't recall the exact point when I started noticing other people weren't the same. I grew up assuming all people could do the exact same things. Now, in my quasi-adult life, I know life is different than what I once believed. I know people with grapheme-colour synesthesia (colours associate with certain things, usually numbers or letters), others with number form (all sequences have colours, such as the alphabet and musical scales), and a couple people who get colours for the things they smell. I've noticed a surprising number of other musicians with sound -> colour, and I believe we were all drawn to it because it's not just music to us. It can be the single most overwhelming thing and the only way we can calm down.
The one moment that stands out in my life was in a seminar I took on music archetypes in film. We watched the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, "To Jupiter and Beyond". Now, if you've watched it, you're familiar with the way it screws around with your head. The next day, we watched it again, with the alternate soundtrack, "Echoes" by Pink Floyd. I sat there, entranced, watching the colours dance across my eyes and the screen, while the words just struck chords within me. When it was time to leave for marching band, I stumbled across campus, shaking and disoriented, still stuck with how the entire thing captured me, stole my mind, played with my thoughts, and left me wanting more.
Onward! To my utter lack of gender identity.
I am biologically female. I identified as a man for a good portion of my not-very-long life, and realised somewhat recently I am not a man. I'm not a woman, either. I've never fit in the cosmic box of crayons. When I was little, I played with G.I. Joes AND Barbies; they were usually having epic battles with the Ninja Turtles. My brother and I would run around, goof off, pretend we were pirates or spacemen, and I genuinely wasn't aware I was different from him until I was in elementary school. It's not fair in a lot of ways. The easiest way I can explain it is that I am a gay man trapped in a woman's body, but even that fails to be accurate. I'm not a man; I'm not a woman. I'm floating off somewhere else, not trapped by the confines of gender.
I had an argument with my soon-to-be mother-in-law over this Canadian family and why it is perfectly acceptable for the parents to refuse to reveal the gender of their children. She insisted that it will cause an identity crisis later in life, and I insisted allowing someone to figure out who they are on their own without forcing society's gender roles onto them is something we should all have. In the end, we both walked away from the argument feeling bitter and angry. I'll probably never have my own children, and while I can't say I would take it to the same extremes as the Canadian couple has if I ever did, I find some degree of comfort knowing other people find gender to be just as confusing as I do.
Here's the basics of me, not that you need to know, because you PROBABLY know me:
I have synesthesia.
I claim no gender.
Now, those might seem like strange things to throw out there as the "need to know" part of the CaiMonster. They're both giant parts of who I am, though. You were probably expecting things like "I have two cats" and "I am a blonde, but not a dumb one". While both of those are true, I don't think they define my existence nearly as much.
First, synesthesia.
What colour is the letter Q?
What does red taste like?
Think of your favourite song. What colour is it?
That's synesthesia. I can see and taste sound. Think of it this way. I can hear in THREE DIMENSIONS. It's like I'm a freakin' superhero, except my powers are amazingly lame.
When I think back, I've always been this way. I can't recall the exact point when I started noticing other people weren't the same. I grew up assuming all people could do the exact same things. Now, in my quasi-adult life, I know life is different than what I once believed. I know people with grapheme-colour synesthesia (colours associate with certain things, usually numbers or letters), others with number form (all sequences have colours, such as the alphabet and musical scales), and a couple people who get colours for the things they smell. I've noticed a surprising number of other musicians with sound -> colour, and I believe we were all drawn to it because it's not just music to us. It can be the single most overwhelming thing and the only way we can calm down.
The one moment that stands out in my life was in a seminar I took on music archetypes in film. We watched the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, "To Jupiter and Beyond". Now, if you've watched it, you're familiar with the way it screws around with your head. The next day, we watched it again, with the alternate soundtrack, "Echoes" by Pink Floyd. I sat there, entranced, watching the colours dance across my eyes and the screen, while the words just struck chords within me. When it was time to leave for marching band, I stumbled across campus, shaking and disoriented, still stuck with how the entire thing captured me, stole my mind, played with my thoughts, and left me wanting more.
Onward! To my utter lack of gender identity.
I am biologically female. I identified as a man for a good portion of my not-very-long life, and realised somewhat recently I am not a man. I'm not a woman, either. I've never fit in the cosmic box of crayons. When I was little, I played with G.I. Joes AND Barbies; they were usually having epic battles with the Ninja Turtles. My brother and I would run around, goof off, pretend we were pirates or spacemen, and I genuinely wasn't aware I was different from him until I was in elementary school. It's not fair in a lot of ways. The easiest way I can explain it is that I am a gay man trapped in a woman's body, but even that fails to be accurate. I'm not a man; I'm not a woman. I'm floating off somewhere else, not trapped by the confines of gender.
I had an argument with my soon-to-be mother-in-law over this Canadian family and why it is perfectly acceptable for the parents to refuse to reveal the gender of their children. She insisted that it will cause an identity crisis later in life, and I insisted allowing someone to figure out who they are on their own without forcing society's gender roles onto them is something we should all have. In the end, we both walked away from the argument feeling bitter and angry. I'll probably never have my own children, and while I can't say I would take it to the same extremes as the Canadian couple has if I ever did, I find some degree of comfort knowing other people find gender to be just as confusing as I do.
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