Sailing on a gender fluid sea.

I enjoy sailing. More than that, I love sailing. Sometimes I will take Sebastian out and we’ll race 16 footers at a local club, and we do pretty well. Other times I just want to mess about on the water, just being me. And that means probably dressing in something mildly effeminate which, when viewed from a distance, you’d never know what gender I might be.

There’s something fundamentally genuine about the elemental connection with wind and water, and this strangely indeterminate person between the two. Regardless of gender, how one acts with sail and rudder will result in something beautiful. The wind has no gender bias. The wider world, however is not so generously democratic.

I have noticed from many of my members that there are definitely days in which they are more inclined to be feminine than masculine. For many, it’s not even a question of ‘days’. It’s a matter of situations.

For some they arrive home, get out of their office clothes and slip into something silky. For others, they chat with their children and start to feel what can only be described as ‘maternal’. And for yet others it’s a case of simply finding those moments of extreme relief when they can sink back…