Coterie – a small group of people with shared interests or tastes, especially one that is exclusive of other people.
So many things to unlearn…
The Other me
The past six months have been tough but not necessarily for the reasons you initially assume. I’ve started openly discussing the fact I’m genderqueer and it feels like I’ve joined a coterie. But that’s the opposite of what I want.
The world we live in is more gendered than you realise, until you open your ears and eyes to it that is.
It starts in early childhood with boys and girls toys and clothes but we also forget that there’s an assumption at birth that our sex and gender aligns. And it keeps going all that way through adulthood. For example, changing rooms and toilets are male or female but which one do you use if you’re non-binary? I’d even go so far as to say it’s harder in adulthood because adults judge each other far more than children do, or at least until children learn to judge from adults.
One of the hardest things for me right now is the medical world. The people you think should be most caring and understanding of all are often actually far from it. I lost my words on a recent experience and just didn’t know how to ask them to use my correct pronouns because it seemed more hassle than it’s worth.
In the kink world we’re incredibly gendered in our language too. We speak of D types of being Dom for males and Domme for females, we often use the term Daddy/Mummy, when we could use caregiver. Then there is cuckold or cuckquean and if it’s shortened to cuck it’s usually assumed that you actually mean cuckold. These are just a few examples but the list is endless.
And on a personal level, my partner would often call me his girl and he asked what he should call me now. I honestly don’t have that answer because our language is so gendered. I love to be called boi but that also sounds like boy so it’s hard to hear that difference so is that right to use?
Don’t even get me started on the overthinking of his sexuality now I’m openly genderqueer. Have I inadvertently changed him from a straight guy to a queer one. He clearly took it in his stride and just rolled his eyes and pulled me into a hug when I voiced my concerns.
We, as a society, put so much weight onto these binary labels in makes it so tricky to try and extract yourself from them. The feeling that because I was assigned female at birth I should adopt a femme style because that’s the expectation or at least my expectation of what people find attractive because we internalise these cisheteronormative assumptions. A big thank you to Honey for helping me unpack that one!
We need to unlearn these binary assumptions. There are more of us that don’t fit into these nice binary boxes than you realise. We aren’t a coterie, we are everywhere, trying to fit in and be accepted into a world that does everything it can to exclude us.
E.L. Byrne
Thanks for sharing your feelings and experiences as you make this journey! There IS a lot to unlearn eh?
Julie
There’s more than one reason he is called the keeper! Thank you for sharing this post bee, I am trying to learn or unlearn all of the gender language and behaviour that was assumed before. But of course mine is from the outside looking in. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to sort through the gender assumptions when it is about you and your identity. Thank you for sharing.
LittleSwitchBitch
I agree with Floss, growing up in a similar background and really only learning about gender and even sexuality more from being in this environment. This is the way forward through – educating our children and hoping they pass on their education to those who aren’t as fortunate to have open minded parents, and sadly more of those exist! 🙁 x
Floss
This is so well expressed. I grew up with boy/girl, man/woman, male/female being not only ‘the norm’ but the only way that gender existed. There simply wasn’t talk of any other options. The kink community and the blogging community was definitely where I began to unlearn that and it is an ongoing process. I am also trying very hard to pass what I learn down to my son in age-appropriate ways given that he is only 8. Sometimes though it is him that reminds me to be careful with how I gender things. This last week I asked him if a ukulele was ‘too girly’ for Mr F and he was horrified … ‘Mummy, what do you always tell me, there aren’t girl things and boy things, just things.’ So I have hope for the future, these lessons seem to stick quicker in youngsters. I am so thankful to folks who are willing to share their experiences though because the only way I keep learning is to keep listening to people who identify differently to myself xxx
Oxyfromsg
Thats a lot to think about. But its also really informative and made me think of some stuff that i had not before. Thanks you for sharing