Gender and sexuality musings.

After watching a National Geographic documentary on sex and gender, I became aware of the hijra, one of the many gender variants that are recognised in other cultures even if not openly accepted and well tolerated. This spawned a search for more information on gender identity, and I came across this link on Wikipedia: Girlfags and Guydykes.

This struck a chord in me, since I used to refer to myself, long ago, as being a gay male trapped inside a bisexual female's body. This was, of course, when the closest word I knew to defining my sexuality was "bisexual." I prefered neither men nor women over the other, but didn't feel any particular attraction to males or females at all, when push came to shove. I was much more interested in the parts of a relationship that didn't involve any sexuality at all.

I remember trying to convey this to friends in high school, but not being articulate enough to say it properly to people who weren't patient enough to fully listen to my explanation. I said that in a romantic relationship, I wanted the perks and closeness of being part of a couple, without that pesky responsibility. I didn't have the words or time to explain that a big part of the responsibility I didn't want involved having sex, or any of the consequences and annoyances that came in sexual relationships. But the people I was explaining this to jumped instantly to the conclusion that I didn't want a relationship, but instead wanted, in their terms, a fuckbuddy, and refused to listen to my objections.

It wasn't until relatively recently that I encountered the term "asexuality", and the more I looked into it, the more I realised that it was the right word to describe what I felt.

While struggling with gender identity (I never liked being nor thought of myself as female, and I certainly wasn't male), I came across the concept of being agendered, of not really having any gender at all. A few people tried to get me to use the terms "third-gender" or "androgyne", but I refused. They didn't feel right. Claiming I was of a third gender implied that I felt some connection to a gender at all, and calling myself androgynous implied that I was a mix of both male ("andro") and female ("gyne"), and I was neither.

I got comfortable with the concept of being someone with no particular gender identity who didn't want sex. I used to make jokes about it, saying that since so many people defined themselves by their gender or sexuality, I was a nonentity, but friends objected to that too, saying that the joke was too close to my old attitudes of not feeling important and trying to be invisible. I stopped making the joke for their sakes, though if truth be told, I still think it's amusing.

But here's where the girlfag/guydyke issue comes in. I do have an attraction to gay male relationships. This goes beyond my interest in fandom. If I ever picture myself with a romantic partner, I often picture them as being male, and in many ways in that picture, I too am male, or at least have more masculine features. (This can be accounted for, I suppose, by stating that the masculine features I have in that fantasy are the lack of breasts and a vagina, which ties in with my gender identity.) But I do not feel, in my mind, that I am male.

I feel wrong calling myself a girlfag, since that implies, for one thing, that I'm a girl. I'm not. Tests involving thinking patterns and personality traits typically expressed in either gender often show me as being right down the middle, between the two, and if there's a slant in one direction, it's a very slight slant to the female side of things. But despite the discomfort inherent in the word itself, I can't deny that the attitude applies to me.

I also can't deny the fact that I find females crossdressing as males to be very attractive, either. Where does that fit into the equation?

This is why labels are both useful and terrible. Useful, because they help us identify ourselves and given names to feelings that we can't always articulate. Terrible, because there's no label for every cirumstance, and as humans it seems we feel a burning need to explain everything and to put it in a neat little box. I won't change myself to fit somebody else's mold, and I don't feel right using a label that doesn't properly apply to me.

Maybe I should start looking for my ideal romantic partner in an asexual homoromantic male who doesn't mind being with someone who's physically female but mentally right down the middle and outside at the same time. Or perhaps an asexual homoromantic female who identifies as male who doesn't mind being with somebody like me.

Can you imagine what that personal ad would look like?