genderqueer

I identify as genderqueer. This is both a personal and political identity. I reject society's need to categorize us into feminine and masculine roles that limit our human ability to be authentic. Why must we live up to these standards of being a 'real' man or the 'perfect' woman? I say we are more than these categories, and we can only achieve authenticity when we can break free from gender roles.

Feminism was and is the idea that gender roles are oppressive and limiting. I respect second wave feminism and radical feminism and have read many from that time period. I have learned a lot from them and continue to read them. I have read Dworkin, Firestone, Wittig, de Beauvoir, Carol Hanisch, Sarah Lucia Hoagland, radicalesbians, etc.

I understand that the queer movement suppresses and/or ignores the needs of women and those assigned female at birth (i.e. ‘girls’). How often do we hear about transwomen but not of transmen? How often do we hear of the needs of gay men, but not of lesbians? Those assigned female at birth are ignored and dismissed because under a system of patriarchy the concerns of "girls" are second to men.

However, I do believe that the queer movement has validity, and I respect them just as much as I respect feminism. They have given us a language to speak about breaking down these barriers of femininity and masculinity, to diffuse these roles so that others can take them up and transform them.

Firestone says, “The sex role system divides human experience; men and women live in these different halves of reality; and culture reflects this.” She goes on to argue that women need to be fully integrated into larger society… that women’s role in society need to be diffused into the wider culture so that women are no longer oppressed by their roles as mother, wife and sex object.

The queer movement to me is one process that is conducive to this process… they are attempting to break down these strict, oppressive identities where all females are to embody femininity while all males are to go along with masculinity. A queer identity allows for difference, something other than what has been possible to imagine.

It is not the queer movement that I have a particular problem with. It is a system based in heterosexism I have a problem with…

Our entire society is built around the suppression of women and ‘deviants.’ Even feminism is not free of it. Women’s oppression is a societal problem, not just the problem of individual movements.