Lisa’s Story, Part II: Gender

Recently, I was looking through some storage boxes and came across my high school year book. I found myself more fascinated by the inscriptions than by the old pictures of classmates and friends. Inscription after inscription made mention of my commitment to women’s issues and my feminist politics. Reading my year book reminded me that my burgeoning awareness of gender—mine and that of others—started young. Even before my time in high school.

When I was growing up, my sister and I spent a great deal of time with our two younger cousins (one male and one female). Although our parents were very close and enjoyed one another’s company tremendously, there was one significant point of tension between my mother and her brother that persisted through the years.

I distinctly recall my uncle reprimanding my female cousin for "not sitting like or acting like a lady". In his mind, "ladies" were supposed to keep their legs crossed or closed—especially when wearing a skirt or dress. In the car on the way home from a day of visiting my uncle and his family, my mother often talked about how disturbed she was at my uncle’s constant comments about being a "proper lady". She would rant (justifiably) about how sexist she found his comments. She also spoke with him directly about this on a number of occasions—yet the comments never abated. He felt justified in making these comments because he felt that this was the way to educate my cousin about how to be a proper and polite "lady".

This is not the only time that I remember noticing the role gender played in my family. On both my mother and my father’s side of the family there were rigid and binary gender roles. On my fathers side women were the matriarchs of their families. They were decision makers, encouraged to get an education and often worked outside of the home. Yet, they still bore the primary responsibility for raising children and maintaining the household. On my mother’s side, the opposite was true. Women were not encouraged to get an education, work outside of the home or be involved in family decision making. All of these things were the domain of the male members of my family. Because of some of these events I began to understand that I was a girl—and I understood what that meant within the context of our society. It meant that I was going to be treated unequally because of my gender.

It wasn’t until I came out as a lesbian that I also understood that my gender was more complex than just being "female". It was the activism that I began to do in the LGBTI movement, particularly the friendships and mentoring relationships that I began to have with transgender people, that challenged me to understand that I also had a gender identity and expression. I express myself more on the feminine side of the spectrum than on the masculine. What I mean by this is I feel—inside—more feminine than masculine. I strongly believe, however, that expressing one’s femininity and masculinity happens on a spectrum. Therefore, there is more than one way to be femm/feminine or one way to be butch/masculine. I also believe that there are a lot of gender variant people out there that express themselves in both masculine and feminine ways simultaneously. Hence, when I say that I am a femm, I don’t assume that other femms express or define their "femmness" the same way I do. I also do not assume that butches, transgender people and men do not feel—inside— some degree of femininity. I come from a place of understanding that one’s gender does not automatically correlate to their gender identity or expression. For example, a transgender woman may identify as straight and prefer being with other women. In other words, this is not a "neat equation".

Being a femm is intrinsically tied to my womanness and my feminist politics. Being a femm is expressing my strength, passion, vision, activism, and spirituality, and sensuality, commitment to community and friendships to the fullest. Being a femm has less to do with the clothing or makeup I choose to wear, if I like to be a bottom or a top or that I have been in a relationship with a Latina butch woman for six years. None of these things, determine in an absolute way how I express my gender identity. They might influence aspects of my gender expression–but they do not determine it in a finite way. What determines my gender expression is how I feel emotionally, spiritually, psychologically and physically in my own skin.

Although I outwardly appear as a femm in dress and demeanor and although my partner and I appear to be a stereotypical butch/femm couple, we are not invested in maintaining a butch/femm paradigm. My "femmness" has more to do with how I feel inside than with perpetuating stereotypes or trying to fit into binaries. For example, I do not feel as if my partner’s butchness defines how, when and were I express my femmness. I fully support and love her butchness. However, her butchness does not determine my femmness or vice versa.

In the past six years I have worked for one national LGBTI organization and one broader social justice organization where my primary focus was on LGBTI issues. This has given me the opportunity to do work that I love and feel passionate about. However, it has also allowed to experience up close and personal how deeply embedded gender binaries are in our movements.In one of the organizations for which I was working, I was given the assignment of helping to secure the passage of state and federal hate crimes legislation. (As a side note, I have a lot of serious concerns about how these hate crimes laws lack any analysis of the race and class implications of the prison industrial complex. This concern was something I integrated into this project.). This assignment led me to working with grassroots activists throughout the country who were trying to get hate crimes laws passed in their local communities. One of the biggest challenges I encountered doing this work was the transphobia exhibited by lesbian and gay people who stood in front of their local legislatures to argue that transgender people should not be included in “their” hate crimes bill. The other argument I frequently heard was that if gender identity and expression were added to the bill along side of sexual orientation it would ensure the demise of the bill (by the way, this is absolutely not true. Several states have passed transgender inclusive legislation without a problem).

Gay and lesbian people are the primary opposition for passage of inclusive bills (hate crimes bills or otherwise) throughout the country. Their argument: ‘they’ are not part of ‘our’ community and ‘we’ will not ‘sacrifice’ our rights for ‘them’. After years of doing this work, I have come to realize that many gays and lesbians fear transgender people because they often challenge/represent the fact that gender is not a binary system. Many gays and lesbians—just like the rest of society—strive to fit into an inflexible male/masculine, femm/feminine framework that allows us to “normalize” our sexual orientation. As a result, a good deal of the oppression transgender people face is from gays and lesbians who use their power and privilege as gays and lesbians to create an us vs. them situation.

Several years ago I was facilitating a dialogue on transgender issues for an intergenerational and multi-racial group of feminists (I’ve facilitated this same discussion many times throughout the years). We first watched an excellent video that was geared towards generating discussion among the group. After the video we opened up the space for discussion and questions. One of the participants asked me what the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity was. I explained that a person’s sexual orientation does not determine their gender identity and vice versa and then proceeded to give the following example: “there are transgender men who identify their sexual orientation as heterosexual but who prefer to be in relationships with other men.”

Once this example came out of my mouth, the reaction was instantaneous. All of the younger people in the room nodded affirmatively as if they completely understood what I was saying. The older folks in the room either looked perplexed yet interested or deeply concerned. At one point, one of the second wave feminists raised her hand and very aggressively challenged my example by saying that through all of her years of political/feminist work she came to understand that one’s sexual orientation determines the gender of the person they sleep with. She flat out rejected this example and plainly stated that it was impossible. Several of us in the room respectfully disagreed.

These are just a few examples of how gender binaries play out in our movements. Yet, in general, like any other binary, they are used to maintain the status quo and to oppress anyone who does not fit into an either/or framework. Any individual or group of people that is busting a binary in the very essence of who they are face targeting, exclusion and rage on the part of others who want things to be “neater”. Our movements, out of sheer fear and inflexibility, maintain binaries because we are no better than people who are not activists at grappling with the role that our white supremacist culture plays in our work and relationships with one another. We are just as guilty and capable of perpetuating oppression and the status quo than anyone else. The lack of accountability, the degree of self righteousness (I am a better person because I am an activist) and privilege that guides this thinking only furthers the divides that exist among and between us. Binary thinking and practice are yet another tool we use to chip away at the potential for solidarity that could exist among and between communities fighting for liberation and justice.

I continue to hold onto those old year books not just for the memories they hold, but for how they remind me that I must continue to expand and deepen my commitment to justice and community. Doing so means working every day to be as inclusive and expansive in my thinking and practice as possible. I don’t want to loose any opportunities to build bridges nor do I think our movements can afford to loose any opportunities to build bridges. Our marginalized communities are under assault and we need one another more than ever–why let binary thinking and practice be the dividing line?