Gender Outlaw

I just read a book I thoroughly enjoyed called Gender Outlaw. It was written by a MTF post-op transexual (as the lingo goes, although I'm proud to say that I knew the lingo before I read the book. Color me proud.) The basic theme of this book was not a tribute to, or lamentation of, her sex change. Or a tell all autobiography. Hell, it wasn't even a kinky erotic novel. The point of this book was simply to make an argument against the very idea of gender as a bi-polar rule of existence.

I won't go over her arguments. But this did make me think, and in the end I think I have a better self understanding than I did before. And I think I agree with her.

First things first. I love, love, LOVE my vagina. Wouldn't trade it for the world, and certainly not for a penis. And physical genitalia aside, I've never felt like a "man". At least not in the stereotypical sense. Have I ever really felt like a "woman"? Again, in the stereotypical sense? I don't think so... or perhaps more accurately, I've felt like both, very intensely and often at the same time...

...I tried to "prove" the point with stories from my life and while they upheld it in an anecdotal way they didn't speak to the idea I'm holding right now. When it comes down to it, sometimes I react in a "masculine" way, sometimes in a "feminine" way. I've been a bottom, a top, a Dom, a submissive. Hell, some days I feel more like a plant than anything else, or a river, or an earthquake. And those are all starting to feel like they share an equal importance. I think that I've been shedding my gender identity to a small degree without even noticing for a while now.

Once again, I'm not quite sure how I feel about this or what kind of affect it will have on my life, but I think it will be fun finding out!