public and private genders
2014-03-18
so these are a constellation of thoughts i”ve been having for a while and partially coming off of a discussion with blackfoxx.
i mentioned to her a while back that i”ve, to a certain extent, have stopped talking about being bakla in my more public posts because i”m no longer interested in setting myself up as a target for people to disrespect me and talk shit about my gender. being a trans girl is hard enough.
part of it is that i know the average person simply isn”t nuanced enough to understand that i can be bakla and transpinay at the exact same time. that being bakla/third gender/ladyboy does not, in any way, create a situation where i can”t be a trans woman at the same time. indeed, my gender/sexuality is such that i was also bakla during the times when i presented more as a femme asian gay boy.1
another part of it is… well, it jsut really isn”t anyone”s business, is it? i don”t owe anyone an explanation about my gender/sexuality. don”t owe anyone access to my feelings about myself and my body.
what i”m saying here is that: i get to determine the boundaries of my gender. i get to decide that different groups of people can refer to me in different ways. and the fact that one group can use one pronoun and the other a different one. or that one group uses one name for me and other people a different one.
this is not an act of deception.
this is me setting my boundaries. this is me.
and acting/saying otherwise is, well, to prove my point.
because all this says to me is that you want to repeat the colonial and historical violence me and my ancestors experienced
you want to lay me
bare and naked
to dissect my body
to stain it with their words
and mark it with sin
i refuse
(and admit it: it is this refusal. this resistance. that has you so angry. has you screaming about how i”m not me. but actually the monster in your vision)