God, this site's turning out all emo, with the one and two word titles, ending in periods, and such. I'm not cool.

Hi. This page is supposed to be about where I stand on the gender issue, at the moment, because, while I'm not identifying as transsexual, at the moment, I'm also not identifying as normal, either. So... what? I mean, what the fuck?

I'm not feeling very focused right now and I don't want to write this and plus the Bangles are playing live on TV. So basically, read up on buddhism. It will get you indirectly toward an understanding, which is good since I don't think you really learn anything when you learn something directly: learning indirectly forces you to figure stuff out and everybody knows that you know the stuff you figure out on your own better than you know the stuff that's just told to you. So combine a bit of understanding about living in the moment and paying attention to what's going on around you and also to what's going on inside your head, and also not to pay attention to any of that. Start there.

Because um, at least in my experience- see, I can only speak for my experience, not yours, and never ever forget that. Nobody can speak for your experience- I made gender a bigger problem than it was. All the denial, all the obsessing over what I couldn't do, it made everything gender-transgressed more and more appealing, particularly since I wasn't acting on any of it, just writing and obsessing about it. When I learned to say fuck it and wear shirts from the women's department, if I felt like it- when I told my friend N that I wished I had purple nail polish, and she just gave that shit to me, because she had some? Man, the stigma and the mysticism and the aura and everything became removed and now.

Well, now I'm still working through a lot of the repression. I mean, I won't lie to you, I haven't become perfect in any way at all. I doubt I'll ever be a hundred percent happy with where I am, but that's not just with respect to gender, that's with respect to everything: writing, music, art, self, philosophy, gender. I don't expect to get everything figured out, and anyway, the figuring out itself, that process, is fucking fun! Slow down and enjoy it because things don't end. When's the last time you felt like something completely personal was entirely over? So you learn to enjoy the ride, because you might as well not hate life.

So yeah basically I've become full of indefensible cliches. Oh well yo. I'm a lot happier with this understanding. Seriously, if you want to make some progress (and, um, you're me), start by reading Alan Watt, Steve Hagen, and Kate Bornstein.

Oh, on the Kate Bornstein thing? Yeah, I spent a lot of time having heard about her and not having bought anything because I was afraid my head would explode and everybody would go FAG! if I attempted to buy something like that. Then at some point I said fuck it- well, this is not true. The girl I am seeing introduced me to it; but I did manage to buy some Judith Butler stuff on my own. But the thing you have to realize is that if you're a crazy genderfucked quiet closeted (admit it: closeted, because that's key) weirdo, you've probably built gender up into a huge thing, in your head. And it's not a huge thing in most people's heads. It's not something they question, and it can make them upset or angry or whatever, but you actually can buy information on it without outing the fuck out of yourself. You know? Is it accurate to say that only trannies buy gender theory? No no. I mean, that's a pretty niche market, and then this shit wouldn't get into Borders.

Oh also since we're dealing with the closet issue, here is another thing I did, which I don't recommend: read other genderfucked people's sites, all the time, and not much else. Because then you can't help but identify, and man, identification with other people is sort of a good thing, but it's also a really bad thing, because then you stop being yourself. And uh, you may not realize this, but if you have gender problems then, you know, you probably have problems with yourself, that you need to work out for yourself. Nobody else is fixing this for you. And wallowing in painful identification is not likely to get you very far; so read up on your favorite internet lesbians' pages; read up on normal people, and hate the mundane internet teenage idiots, and scoff at everyone. And don't ignore your fellow internet trannies; just, you know, you are not any of them. You have things in common but remember that you have to be yourself or else you are all fucked up.