A Dream i once had

In a dream I had when I was a few years younger, I encountered a being who made me challenge my thoughts about my place in life. 

I was in a winding wood, deep in the forests near my home.  As I walked I found myself confronted by a tall man looming shadows over my perception. 

“You are a dying thing,

made in the image of a dead

God, Only knowing this life.

You do not belong here.

This is a place of knowledge.”

I asked why I was there speaking to him. He considered me for a moment, then showed me a path leading back to the woods. 

"You have yet to live these lives yet. 

They are not yours to see. 

Your time has yet to come, and your mind has yet to mature. 

Leave. 

We will meet again soon."

I walked shortly down the path before turning to look at the strange man again. 

"Are you a God?",

I asked. 

"No. We are another manifestation to reach kinship with yourselves.

See where your lives walk before you..." 

I turn and see many people walking past me on the path I take. 

Some crying, some holding their heads proud. 

Some white, some tanned. 

Some old, some newborn. 

All share my path. 

Before I left the Man spoke to me again:

 “You create an infestation of Hope where none is found,

and hold guardianship of fool's symbols by which many die.

You have not learned of why you are, or what you are. 

We will one day welcome you home."

I awoke the next day, feeling as though id lived a thousand lifetimes. Thousands of memories of joy and sorrow, anger and fear all contained by the small dimensions of my mind. 

My Professor Taught Hate

 In the second semester of my doctoral studies, I took a course on Learning and Cognition. It was a simple class with readings, videos, and written responses. The homework was the same every week. As the third quarter of the semester approached, the module I had noticed earlier "Sex and Gender" was upon us and the mundane and boring week-to-week routine was disrupted. For the module, I read the chapter in "Brain Rules" by Medina on some of the differences in men's a women's brains and it all sounded credible. But then I started to view the videos the teacher had cherry picked from around the web on the sex differences in brains. All of a sudden, I was fired up. In one video, the speaker went on and on about how allowing young children to identify as a gender different from their genitalia was potentially traumatizing and confusing, I kind of lost it. I honestly thought it was a joke and he was getting at how this was hateful and contrived. On the contrary, when I posted in the threaded discussion that I found this material offensive and short sighted, he responded in defense. I couldn't track down his exact response but I did find one of his comments in response to another assignment in the module that is remarkably defamatory: 

From a brain and cognition and point of view, males and females are definitely different sexes and not interchangeable. From a brain perspective, you don’t wake up one day and think “I’m a man” and the next day decide, “I’m a dolphin” any more than one can decide that today they are 39 years old and tomorrow they are 17 years old. There are a teeny, tiny number of people born intersexed, but that is an incredibly small number of folks. Gender, on the other hand, is how people “feel” and is often socially influenced. Nonetheless, just because people are different, doesn’t mean in any way that some are more valuable than others. As teacher’s it is not our job to pretend everyone is the same; instead, I believe it is our moral obligation to recognize that each student is different, and teach each accordingly as best as we can given our highly constraining “stack ‘em deep and teach ‘em cheap” school systems. In any event, it is our burden and our privilege to teach these students—and based on your answers, I wish my grandchildren were able to have you for a teacher! I'm glad you pointed out the example of girls in Africa. And, in terms of the military, I"d speculate that this is mostly due to the suicide rate problems that are already inherent in the military....it is dangerous to put people who are already prone to suicide in a suicide inducing environment if you don't want people committing suicide in the first place. In our next module, we’ll move back to talking specifically about using what we know from the science of learning in designing learning experiences and environments that really work for our students.

Nevermind the typos and mansplaining that always drove me nuts (can a professor mansplain or is that their job), this guy literally said, "it is our burden and our privilege to teach these students." He even defended the US military's anti-trans legislation! Foucault has called attention to the false narrative that science has conveyed throughout recent history in efforts to control populations. This includes throwing out outlier data that might point to similarities in the sexes. Looking back on that class, I wish I had done something and reported this. Is it too late? 

Below, see the videos that are still up on YouTube. I should emphasize that the video that got me the most worked up was taken down due to hate speech!!!! Also, here's a link provided by the professor to a post about sex differences. 

technically, a poem I wrote about harry styles in high school

 boys boys boys

your body is so beautiful

with art splattered across it like

you’ve never felt pain at all.

i will slice this knife across my chest

for a body just like yours

they can call me Frankenstein 

until my so-called mutilated body is 

tossed into a hollow grave

it will not matter

because with the knife bloodied

i will walk around

like i’ve never felt pain at all.

Collision: Commentary on Societal Opposites in Relationships

When I feel the warmth of your embrace I feel at home,

But I am also drowning in your rays of sunlight because I have always been surrounded by cold.

I have never been bathed by the rays of the sun that stem from your dimpled smile,

But I also do not know what it means to be swallowed by your shade of amber.

Am I torn because part of me is seemingly erased when I admit my love for you?

It is the voices of society telling me I am colorblind.

Or have I just been hidden from the color of your aura?

I have so many questions about what it means to love you.

But I know that I will spend the rest of my life trying to figure out those questions.

For, if I knew all the answers already, there would be no purpose in figuring it out.

What is my identity now that you are a part of me?

I'd be the first to admit I have no idea.

But I am willing to spend every minute of the rest of my life learning more about it.

Part of society tells me that I am abnormal.

But what is wrong with that?

What is normal anyway?

Normal is policing any differences you have in order to fulfill what society thinks.

Do you think that I am erased because I love you?

No.

But do you understand why I ask this?

Yes.

Normality is the bridge in which I have never been able to step across.

It is something that you grew up believing was the only answer until you met me.

So now you cross over into my shades of gray society could never name.

And you sit here with me.

You spread your warmth and empathy.

Your gentle hue, cascading into mine.

Identity.

I am a part of yours, as you are of mine.

So, are you abnormal, and are you prepared to face the shackles of society's prison with me?

I hope so.

TikToks, Talking, and the “Small t” transgender: An Exploration into Identity

 

As a political science major who came into my college career with a background in politics, I sometimes joke with my friends that I haven’t learned anything and am about to graduate with a degree that gave me no additional knowledge. I often point to people who study STEM and look at the amazing things they are able to create after their graduation as proof that they have learned amazing things that they will use to change the world. Take a computer science major, for example, they study things like coding for years in order to create popular apps that all the hip kids use. Now, of course, I have learned several things from my studies, but my knowledge is a lot more theoretical than practical.

Still, I’m extremely fortunate to live in a world and in a society where I reap the benefits of those whose studies are more practical. One of my latest obsessions is the app TikTok, where young people make memes and videos about a variety of topics. The algorithm, or how the app knows how to show you things you’ll enjoy, is highly complex. Many creators on the app joke that the algorithm knows more about the person watching the videos than the person even knows about themselves. I never expected that to ring true.

A few weeks ago, I was mindlessly scrolling through the app while work was dead. When you work for SafeRide in the middle of a global pandemic, you tend to have a lot of free time on your hands. A video popped up where one character was speaking to a second. The first character said to the other that being a lesbian “felt different from being a woman” and that they felt as though it was a unique relationship to their gender. The second character, a cisgender lesbian woman, mentioned that she did not feel as though she was any different from other women. In her eyes, she was just an average girl. The first character is then revealed to be nonbinary as their pronouns, “they/she,” flash on the screen.

Mindless scrolling through an app full of memes and funny, relatable content rarely gives me a pause—unless, of course, I see a recipe that I just have to try out (feta and tomato pasta, anyone?)—but this made me stop my mindless scrolling and think. I had always felt that I was different from being a woman, and had chalked it up to how my sexuality caused me to identify. As a lesbian, I thought it was normal to experience some degree of separation from my gender, which I always felt I had. Just then, dispatch assigned me a ride. I put my phone down, making a mental note to think more in-depth on this later…

The next day, I spoke to my fiancée, Maddie, about the video I saw. Maddie is nonbinary, so I figured they would not mind if I spoke to them about it. Of course, they were happy to speak to me about what I had seen and how it had made me feel. We spoke in-depth about exactly what the separation was that I felt.

I knew that I had always felt different from other girls—I wasn’t into shopping or makeup, I never played with dolls as a kid, I liked shopping in the men’s section of clothing and abhorred the idea of wearing a dress. Deep down inside, I always dismissed these feelings as a feminist. Girls don’t always have the same interests. Toys and clothes have no gender. You should do and wear what you feel most comfortable in. Plus, I never felt as though I had real dysphoria—I was happy to have the body I have. I didn’t want to surgically remove my breasts to feel like more of who I was, nor did I want to have a penis (although sometimes my fiancée and I would joke that life would be so much easier if I had one, a nod to sexism and homophobia). But with that being said, I also never felt entirely comfortable with my body. I had always thought that this had stemmed from the media’s portrayal of women or the expectations set by society.

But then we started speaking about gendered language. I didn’t mind when my brother called me his sister, or when my parents called me their daughter. But due to my short hair and the “pandemic chic” style of covering half of one’s face, in public, I sometimes get mistaken for a man. People will call me “sir” or “dude” or some equivalent—that is something that has never made me feel bad and that I’ve never taken offense to. But, when I open my mouth and speak back to them, they correct themselves: ma’am, lady, miss—and for some reason that always made me feel… Bad? Weird? What the hell was the right word for it? Wrong? I mean, even receiving an envelope with “Ms. Hunter Bullard” written on the front always just made me feel… meh.

Maddie understood how I felt. They told me about how when they started going by they/them pronouns, they felt like things were just… right. I didn’t really know pronouns were supposed to feel that way. I had always seen them as neutral. I had started out countless meetings rambling off my name and my she/her pronouns that it didn’t even strike me that things could be different.

“Am I having a gender identity crisis?” I asked the person who I will one day marry.

“If you have to ask me that,” they said, “then yes, you probably are.”

I still wasn’t sure about my identity, so I decided to dig a little deeper. Fortunately for me, in my queer theory class, we were reading literature on trans rights one week, and the next week, literature on breaking the norms. In Wilchins’s 2004 book, Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer, the author describes the “small t transgender,” or what many of us now would describe as a non-binary individual. Reading more into the theory, I realized just how much I related to it. I realized that maybe, just maybe, the jokes about TikTok knowing someone better than they do were right. And that my fiancée, in their infinite wisdom, knew best. I began to use the internet to experiment with they/them pronouns and loved how they made me feel. Although I’m still technically comfortable with she/her pronouns, they just make me feel neutral. Meanwhile, they/them pronouns make me feel right. So, thanks to the internet, an app, conversing with those around me, and most importantly, queer theory, I was able to find my true identity as a nonbinary individual, one who has broken and will continue to break societal norms.

elizabeth

 i dream of her.

 

her almond soap

still gently masking

the sticky sweet sweat

of an august well spent.

her chest, gently moving

up and down and up

its own sweet rhythm.

her lips, parting in the morning sun

drinking in the dredges of starlight.

 

its too early to say good morning.

too late to say goodbye.

 

she stays like this

just out of reach

her sheets brushing against my legs

warmed by our bodies

and the end of a summer.

her curves mimic mine

the way i wish i could erase us

make us into memory

just for a moment.

 

i think to touch her,

kiss her,

keep her complete in this morning

where she is still whole.

i want to wake her.

 

i simply watch her,

feel her breathing,

and dream.

Be Unique

 Be unique,

Like everyone else.

Be quirky,

Be strange.

When you're unique, 

People want to be like you. 

But when they don't like what you are,

You are no longer unique.

You are different,

And different is scary,

And differences must be abolished.

So be unique,

Like everyone else.

And you may live.

Life in a Panopticon

 Foucault wrote about the power humans hold over one another. It's not a power of force but an invisible power of personal censorship. The power has been likened to a panopticon, in which the prison guards have a central perch from which they can see all prisoners at all times, yet prisoners cannot know if they are being watched, resulting in a constant vigilance with the possibility of surveillance. We carry on our shoulders, everyday, wherever we go, the silent voices of what's normal and what's expected, the prison guards are always watching. These voices talk to us and remind us that what we say, wear, own, are worth, do, believe, is judged against a standard. This standard is dictated by those with financial, political, and, Foucault would argue most prominently, those in the science, claiming to determine the statistical norm. The power that society holds over individuals drilled its way into our minds. People are worried about the COVID vaccine having a microchip in it...hell, the chip's already lodged. 

Image of Panopticon Plan from 
https://fs.blog/2014/07/the-panopticon-effect/

I feel the forces of discursive power (this pervasive, invisible power of the need to be "normal") and they're heavy, even for a middle class person with white privilege, great healthcare, adequate childcare, plenty of food on the table, and access to unpolluted air. Let's imagine what it would be like if I were not heterosexual, cisgendered, and white. Let's imagine what it would be like if I were not naturally relatively "normal" to begin with. When I compare myself with the images of women in the media right now, the only ways I'm outwardly "inadequate" are physical appearance (I'm curvy with flat hair and never wear makeup), perhaps financially as a middle class person (I can't afford designer clothes, fancy cars, and mansions), and  socially (I'm awkward and introverted!). I do, however, align with the feminine gender performativity, the heterosexual binary male/female relationship...I even have a kid, I am a white person so I constantly see my race portrayed in positive ways. 

Even with my privileges and the representation I see of people who look and act like me being accepted as normal in mainstream media, I'm still constantly policing myself. Were I black, trans, gay, or disabled not only would I not see myself in the media (and therefore not be considered normal) but if I did see myself in the media, it would likely be in a token role, played up, caricatured, reinforcing my sense of being "othered." When people are marked, when the groups they are associated with don't match the mainstream-centric definition of normal, life can suck. Deficit narratives, which position those who line up with normal as "better than" those who deviate from normal, pervade society, including in schools and the workplace. So, were I anything but my normal self, I would be at risk of some serious insecurities, self-fulfilling prophecies of inadequacy, and perhaps very real physical danger at the hands of bigots. 

Beyond the extreme hatred that so many "normal" people hold for the "deviant," there are the discrete and somehow justified discriminations and micro-aggressions that those who perpetrate are unaware of. Often white/cis/hetero privileges blind those of us who naturally fit the norm to the ways our words and actions impact those who don't fit. The power society has over the non-normative in our ranks is disproportionately dolled out because, the more someone differs from the norm, the more they are noticed, the more outward the policing, and the more devastating the impacts. 

Foucault said that we can't expect to get out from under this discursive power without some cost. He pointed out that, should we move away from the current metanarrative of what counts in society, we replace it with another metanarrative, putting some other set of standards in control. If we change our current metanarrative, what would we replace it with? Can some imagined future reverse the power dynamics in society? What would it take? Are those of us in privilege willing to give it up to liberate others? 

a poem i wrote about a friend

Letting Go

He writes poetry about him in the depths of the early morning,

I read over it,

I'm standing at the door where they greeted each other,

I feel every sensation he did as I touch the pages.

When he speaks of him,

I can still see the bright hues he once saw months ago

when things were still good

the solid concrete walls of hurt are intimidating

but he still allows us to climb over them

as if he knows they don't belong there.

The colors of love are beautiful and real

when I climb over the wall and allow myself to drown in what he’s hiding.

When we move past the boy who painted the colors

they disappear,

fade into concrete 

fold into a box that will only be opened 

when he's ready again.

Always You - A poem about gender fluidity

Sometimes she is so beautiful 

and occasionally he is so handsome

and intermittently they are so gorgeous

but always you are you

It is a grand performance

and you play each part so eloquently 

so you can use all of your voices

but it is not a costume

It is a unique fluidity

and you flow so effortlessly

and you may not know where you'll be tomorrow

but wherever it is, you will be perfect

Always you are beautiful

and always you are handsome

and always you are gorgeous

always you are you