As I’ve commented on DuWayne Brayton’s most recent blog entry, it would probably be pretty uncouth of me to call him “da man” for putting together such a wonderful examination of the pitfalls inherent in gender labeling. Nonetheless, I feel the need to point you to his post.
While the choices I have made in life have certainly influenced who and what I am, I did not choose to have characteristically ambiguous gender traits. I didn’t choose to have a general sexual preference for women. I didn’t choose to empathize the way I do, listen the way I do, brute my way through discomfort the way I do or take on most of the myriad traits, or labels that make DuWayne Brayton, DuWayne Brayton. I am the sum of my genetics, environment and to some degree the choices I have made.
So are every one of us. Every fucking one.
Go read Gender Binaries, Trinaries and the problem of labels…