OK, boomer.
As I was saying to Sylvester just the other day, to have another language is to possess another soul. The reason I say this is quite simple. For those of us older than millennials, we are in the process of learning a new language.
No longer can we talk about chairmen, manning the ship, or even manhandling the sails. Today we have chairpersons, we staff the ship and we manage the sails. The way we speak has rightly come to a point that change is not merely become a desirable goal; failure to change identifies us as dinosaurs. As uncomfortable as that sentence makes me, I realise it is true.
The term ‘OK, boomer’ comes to mind. It encapsulates tolerance of a dinosaur that grazes idly in the village, but that everyone realises is going to die out sooner or later, leaving the world a better place for their eventual departure. So society changes.
We are learning a new language, and rightly so. It’s high time change happened. As our language adapts so too does our soul. These are not mere cosmetic nuances, they are fundamental changes to the way we perceive gender and the way society treats itself. As a parent I welcome this, reminding myself that I want my girls to grow in a world that is more equitable than the one I both perpetuated as a younger person, and participated in. Like most of us, I think I was an unthinking participant, and I did inherit many outdated values from my own parents. While this is no excuse, it’s one that does explain why so many outmoded values have been perpetuated.
The reason these things matter is that we would all like a fairer, more equitable society for our children. We would like to see the world become a better place. And as a crossdressing nonbinary individual I feel that I am not only benefiting from that change, living as I do in a wonderfully liberal city, I am also contributing in a small way to the betterment of our society.
It’s important to me that other crossdressers, and others who are as I am, find a way forward without some of the pain and prejudice that so many others have felt. In the course of chatting online with visitors to my site I often hear a repeated theme.
“I have always known something was not quite right, but it was only when I started to question some gender norms that I truly realised that I was walking around pretending to be someone I am not.”
I also hear “I’ve gone through life thinking there was something wrong with me, I’ve felt depressed and suicidal, and I never knew why. It’s only now that I am accepting that I am not the person I’ve been forced to be over the years. As I do so I am finally finding happiness that’s eluded me all my life.”
It’s a common theme. I also suspect that for every one time that I hear this regrettable refrain there’s hundreds of people who slide by and continue to live a life that is woefully incomplete because they have never found a way to question their existence. I think it fair to say that in my own case, questioning that existence and realising that I am not the person that society has tried to force me to be resulted in me finding that my gender is just not as simple as a binary choice. I consider myself about 70% femme and 30% masculine. To even think in such terms (that there may be something between masculine and feminine) is a relatively recent concept both generally, and for me specifically. For my parents, and even my elder siblings, such concepts would have been completely foreign and would leave them slack jawed and wondering ‘what’s the idiot on about now?’
“We must have raised him wrongly. Did you drop him on his head, when he was a baby? It’s all your own fault! Always knew there was something not right about that boy.”
I can almost hear the words my father may have said to my mother. The trouble is, they never got to see how much more relaxed and self assured their child became as he developed into the person I have now become, regrettably after both their death and my realization that I am more she than he. I suspect that given the chance they might have come to like me.
As luck would have it we are moving toward a less gendered world. I see it among my children, but also as people release typical ideas not only of gender roles, but of gender itself. I don’t wish to live in a world where ‘the boss’ is assumed to be male. I don’t wish to live in a world where the picture of our political leaders making a statement around a microphone is simply a sea of white male faces, old and pasty. I don’t wish to live in a world where just because my daughter is of a specific gender it is assumed that she will have to put up wish gender discrimination at work, or in a store, or when she goes to get her car serviced.
Is this a genderless world? Not at all. It’s a world where there is a spectrum which moves between the extremes of male and female, with a wealth of color — think of it as a rainbow sandwich. Whole that may sound a little Polyanna like, it’s a vision I feel comfortable with. I sincerely try to live in a world where gender is less relevant. I like to be among friends, rather than ‘men’ or ‘women’. I find I can interact with others better when I deal with them as people, rather than man or woman. And where possible I try to use pronouns that people are comfortable with.
In so doing I am learning a new language, and gaining a new soul. Of course, I’ve mentioned to Sylvester that this sole is on a spectacular pair of heels, emblazoned with rhinestones and bling reminiscent of my millennial children’s teenage diaries of years ago. It matches the bling on my new mask.
Fiona
http://FionaDobson.com — It’s the crossdressing blog you’ll love even if you’ve never tried on your sister’s panties.
