Note before. This piece is written about myself and my personal experiences with gender and identity. I do not speak on behalf of any other people as each individuals experience with identity and how they choose to gender or not gender themselves is totally unique.
My perspective is only one drop in an ocean of experiences.
Before I was born my mother said, quote, that she wanted to have a little girl whom she could “dress up and take shopping”, and she got just that. A CIS born girl who, as it happens, does love dressing up and shopping. As a child I was obsessed with styling the outfits on my many Barbie dolls, and dressing up as different characters was absolutely my favourite thing to do. I loved looking good. Little has changed since then. Almost daily I am dripping tip to toe in very deliberate “femme” clothes and accessories. Bright colours, sparkles, liquid eyeliner and platform heels. Some people may judge because they believe that caring so much about aesthetics is superficial. But I don’t care, because I love it, and my love runs deep and true. It makes me feel good to present as femme. Because every time I look in the mirror and am satisfied by my reflection I get a boost of confidence in knowing that I am externally matching a significant part my internal identity.
When I was growing up I was a tomboy too. Stomping around on a farm in baseball caps with a pair of Nike runners, climbing trees and fake burping in class to show off. These are traits typically likened to the masculine, because it’s the “give’s no fucks” attitude. It is practical and unapologetic. And I’ve come to accept that these self-assured parts of my identity are just as valid as the more passive femme traits that I was raised with. Many choices I have made for my aesthetics are assertive and totally opposed to the traditional notions of wom*n as being placid, elegant and gentle, as men are conventionally considered by comparison to be tough, powerful, dominant and unyielding. I know that people have viewed my self-confidence and considered me to be masculine. Many people have made assumptions about my sexuality and personality based on the fact that I do not adhere to all the implicit rules of femininity. For example I stopped shaving my armpits at seventeen when I became fed up with rashes and ingrown hairs. I had people often telling me that I should loose the hairy pits with the main reasoning being because it didn’t look “feminine”.
More recently I have allowed my monobrow, the mole hairs on my neck, and my leg hair to grow back too, which has been a real experiment in self-love. I wanted to know if I can still feel sexy with my naturally growing body hair, and the answer is; Fuck yeah I can. I feel sexy like a wild persxn, like an warrior who has more important things to worry about than paying $60 and giving up 90 minutes of my life to get my legs waxed and it’s just not my problem if other’s don’t agree. I’ve even let the surprisingly abundant black curlys growing around my nipples get long and wild at times.
I’ve been removing my nipple hairs since I read a Dolly Dr that said that if I plucked them they’d go away after puberty. Well newsflash Dr. Dolly (if you are indeed a real doctor), my nipple hair ain’t going anywhere unless I personally do something about it. So sometimes I let those strands grow long and free. But I do still pluck them occasionally, although not as often as I used to. Intellectually I know that men shouldn’t be the only ones allowed to have hairy nipples, but emotionally I am still conditioned to think that it’s not a desirable trait in a wom*n. I also keep my misstache waxed because I am just not ready to have an “Errol Flynn” on my top lip. I attune that to teen trauma and to the fact that I already get called Frida enough. Another femme aesthetic that I have given up, due to caring more for my personal comfort than societal expectations, are bra’s. Call me an old school feminist but I seriously haven’t worn a bra with underwire for three years now. Are my breasts sagging? Do they hurt when I run for the tram? The answer is no, because without the restrictions of underwire and elastic my pectoral muscles have adjusted to support the weight of my breasts and I swear my tits are as perky as they were when I was nineteen. But whether or not I choose to wear a bra, shave my legs or participate in any other typically feminine aesthetics does not impact on my identity or my feminist ethics. I’m actually free to do whatever I want with my body.
What I’m trying to express is that I do not present totally as feminie, but also not totally as masculine either. I choose to think of the way I present my gender as a performance, and that I have autonomy over the depth and specifics with which I choose to play into those roles. The presentation of gender exists on a spectrum, but it even goes beyond the polarity of male and female, instead it fractures into infinite possibilities. This is why I can wear a mini skirt with hairy legs while getting a shellac manicure and belching after drinking a beer.
There are many flavours in the identity soup and we are free to pick and choose from the unlimited options without shame or guilt because everyone has the right to be whoever they want to be, and to look however they feel most comfortable looking. There are actually no rules when it comes to how we present ourselves, only choices.
