in relationship to

I feel like most things are dependent upon their relationship to other things... proximity, distance, and directionality.

There is this idea that sexual desire can be located in relation to one's sex. Or more precisely, the sexual organs which one wears. If I have a penis and I dig men, I am homosexual. Gay. If I have a vagina and dig women, I am a lesbian. But this language is confusing. Exhibit A: Bisexual. This term often gets confused by the general audience as meaning two-sexed as opposed to indicating a desire for men and women, or possibly, multiple genders.

Another example: If I am a butch dyke, someone who appears masculine, and read as an androgynous female to the naked observer and I am dating a femme, a woman who's expression of femininity is easily recognized to be in alignment with her sex.... on what basis do I say I am in a same-sex relationship? Based on my organs? This is where it gets confusing. The question from those who have not given too much thought about queerness often is: "So, who's the man, and who's the woman in the relationship?" This is to assume that any relationship that is valid starts from a point of heterosexual normativity. Sex normativity. Gender normativity. These are the standards from which relationships are often judged and classified. But this is besides the point.

In our search for terms that identify who we are and how others can conceptualize us in relation to themselves, terms based on sex organ relationships don't seem quite adequate. I'm just trying to deconstruct this a little bit to see where it goes. Would we use the term same-gender to indicate our sexual preferences in a clearer way? But this is problematic as well. Because if I apply this term to my dating preference, for instance femmes, then I would be in an opposite gender relationship. You get the idea.

Anyways, all this to say that we may very well be too caught up in how we label relationships and desire. Maybe a language that indicates neither/nor would be a better option. My partner. My date. My relationship. My desire. Of course this is not so easily understood and achieved by a broader paradigm which demands positionality so as to determine normalicy. There is also the basic function of indicating one's preferences in order to open the dating pool.

And we are perhaps not at a place yet where queer or non-normative relationships have been respected and honoured for long enough that we can take for granted that we do not need to reclaim our worth by way of self-identifying. But, it will be nice when such language is no longer required. I'm hoping this will be indicative of universal acceptance of diversity.

But in the mean time, I'll just use the word queer.

bridging the divide

Let's talk groups for a minute.

We've got breeders, straights, gays, queers, people of colour, transfolk, disabled, various levels of income and class stratification... religion, age, ethnicity and whatnot. Cool.

Now say, if one was a member of any one of these groups (and maybe two or three or more) how do we bridge the gaps that exist between? If for instance, one is a person of colour and a member of the queer community - how do gaps between those two groups get bridged? Because clearly, there aren't many formal spaces where the dominant Queer Community in Vancouver for instance, encourage spaces for and work to dismantle the barriers that exist for people of colour and queers with white privilege to get along. And by get along, I mean mingle. Like chat. Hang out. Cruise. Dance. Celebrate. Feel safe and comfortable. Desired. Make friends... you get the picture. I'm just wondering how accepting and integrated our community is of all its different elements, and what can be done to improve this?

I know there are fabulous people out there doing fabulous work and organizing, and all manner of social justicey type stuff. And, no, we don't all have to get along. I'm just curious though, how we (and by we, I mean any individual capable of understanding the gaps that exist within subcultures) make an effort as individuals, and within our own little comfort zones and groups for folks who are different than ourselves? How do we make it easier to get along? Do we build spaces for ourselves to meet across difference? Places where segregated groups can come together and understand each other - amongst our own circles? Because forget about the broader community for a minute.... how do we invite or let people in to our own homes, friendship circles and families first?

Just curious.

The space in between

It could be anything really. For me, I am most preoccupied with identity. What makes up that space between our ears? How do we squeeze ourselves into cultural spaces, or dominant society?

It's taken me nearly 31 years of deconstructing the reality that surrounds me in Western European colonized North American society to be able to embrace my gender divergence. I do not fit neatly into what it means to be a biological/behavioral man or woman. I lie somewhere in between.

I was taught from a young age that liking certain things...basketball, wrestling, bmx riding, wearing cargo pants, bodybuilding and cutting my hair short were cause for scorn and exclusion. "You're a dyke!" I remember being called by boys in the playground whom I was looking to play with. I think it was because I was better than them. Or, at least I gave them a run for their money.

Being challenged by a perceived girl made these boys somehow more "girlie." They had already ingested lessons and cues that power and strength = maleness. Timidness and weakness = femaleness. Enwrapped in this idea of weakness in being challenged by a girl is the internalized misogyny of male domination. If you are weak, you are a pussy. If you are strong, you're a man. Homo's are faggots. Faggots are pussies. Gender phobia and violence is derived from innate fears of homosexuality, which in my opinion, is derived from a fear of losing male power and omnipotence, corresponds with misogyny and leads to transphobia.

I had not heard that term before. Dyke. I asked my friends if they knew what it meant. It seems that because I liked to do traditional "boy" things, this qualified me as a "dyke." At this time I had no sense of my sexual attraction to women, and thus became enraged with this categorization based on my likes and dislikes of activities and way of dress. All I knew was that this label hurt, and was meant to degrade.

I did not understand why I wasn't accepted into the dominion of All Things Male, but I knew it was unfair exclusion. Weekly, I would engage in fist fights, tripping and choking with boys on the playground to reclaim some foothold of respect for my masculinity and personhood. Between the ages of 7-10, this was all that I knew to take power back. But it didn't work. I was no more respected for my fighting on the school ground as a hysterical other. And it made me even more of a dyke in their eyes.

Throughout the years these early imprints of gender have haunted me. Like many, I hid my gender preferences until they could no longer sit underneath the pressure of my truth. A truth that comes with severe consequences in moving through the world as a masculine person whose body is read as female. Consequences which my transsexual sisters and effeminate male brothers understand all too well.

unknown gender

How much do we know about gender? Our psyches? There is great speculation and some medical evidence to account for biological differences - for different sexes. But how many sexes are we? How many genders?



The traditional notion has been that only two sexes, and therefore two genders exist. Gender norms and roles, the beliefs and expectations attached to these two sexes: male and female, have dominated cultural discourses dating back to biblical times and span ethnocultural divides. Notions of gender roles go even further back, to ideas of division of labour amongst cave dwelling humans.



To those of us who were born with the knowledge that we are *other* - such categorical identifications have been akin to psychic and spiritual erasure. Who am I? Where do I fit in? How do I fit in? I have this body, but I don't like these rules. Play by the rules. Girls wear pink and boys wear blue.



In this time in which our collective brain and emerging acuity can perceive an implosion of constructed walls and constructed reality: capitalism, oil, poverty, population explosion, migration, runaway extinctions, artic shelves melting, briefcases vs. soiled feet... what is real? What makes you tick? Does the gendered role assigned to your body sustain you? Or do you move beyond - to that place where only ideas flow? Ideas do not have gender.



Briefcases do not have gender, they simply hold things. Documents. Papers of crumbling reality: insurance, business cards, investment, lipstick. Does my hair look okay? What happened to the ground beneath my feet? Where is it? This concrete is the only thing I remember, but where is my soil? My nourishment?



Our basic ideas about our selves and our nature limit us from achieving a singular common connection. A connection that might explode differences in creed, colour, dollar value, purchasing power, ability to feed onesself and live beyond the age of a child.



This space needs exploration. The space in between.