Guess who's back!

Oh. My goodness. I did get a bit behind in my blogging for a while there, didn't I? Life was kind of upside-down there for a while with everything going on.... for those who don't know, there is probably going to be an article in the Juniatian soon with quotes from my girlfriend and I, along with several others. I could go on for hours about what was happening, since I was so inherently involved, and since we were facing so much discrimination and harassment and difficulties. It is regarding gender and conflict, so I could blog about it all quite legitimately, but I don't know if I want to anymore. It has been up to ninety percent of my life for so incredibly long that I don't know if I want to bring it into any more areas of my life. I want to have parts of my life, of my conscious thought, of my being that have nothing at all to do with the harassment and the social movement and the no longer being welcome in the dormitories. We're moved in and settled in our new home, an apartment down in town, and we're happier here. It's such a different experience, you know? But enough of all this, for now, at least. I'll post more about this later, I think.

What's been interesting to me recently is seeing depictions -- not those in my own personal life, but those in pop culture, in the media -- of people who don't fit into gender boxes. I admit that it's been standing out to me because it's something that's been on my mind an awful lot, but it's been more and more apparent.

Okay. So there are pieces of media that are designed to showcase individuals who don't fit into gender boxes: Rocky Horror Picture Show (Sweet Transvestite?) comes to mind, along with Hedwig and the Angry Inch (the main character is a trans woman, albeit a nasty, selfish, conniving, bitchy, if funny, trans woman), and Rent, with all of the various LGBT characters (especially Angel -- by far the most pleasant trans character in a movie / show I know of so far). But there's still a lot of confusion and variation in depictions; it's still a long way from where it needs to be. My mother loves watching what my father calls "cop shows" -- TV programs about medical or legal events and issues. One of my mother's favorites is The Closer, and one night when I was home on a break, I watched an episode with her that happened to be the episode where a former detective from the station returns -- not as George, but as Georgette. Her former partner is dumbfounded, rude, nasty, and hateful. And she struggles through the episode to explain herself:

"I look different. I'm not a man anymore, which means I don't pee standing up. I wear a dress instead of a suit; I walk differently. I changed how I do a lot of things, but not what's in my heart!"

Much of the drama and confusion in the episode seemed to center around Georgette's sex change and her sexual orientation. Her old partner questions her when she tells them that she is attracted to other women:

"You underwent a sex change to become a lesbian?!"

She makes it clear that gender and sexuality are not the same:

"It had nothing to do with my sexual preference. It was more about how I identified with the world, personally. And you weren't bothered that I was a lesbian when I was a guy."

I smiled when I saw that. I had the same conversation when I came out to my father, who spent three hours trying to work though the connections between sex, gender, sexual orientation, and the fact that I'm a lesbian who is dating someone who sometimes isn't viewed as a girl. Why don't we have more characters on television who are like real people? It's getting better, but it's still treated as such a novelty. I know it's not the whole episode, or anything near it, but there's a preview for the episode on youtube.

Much longer rant than necessary. Until next time, I suppose....