One of the many things my sweetheart and I bonded over when we first got together was a love of Whileaway, the place where people live in Joanna Russ’s story “When It Changed.”
We’d both like to live there – that is, in the there before it changed.
I should point out that my sweetheart is a man and, for those of you who haven’t read the story, only women lived in Whileaway.
But he would, in fact, fit into that world rather well, despite being essentially and comfortably male.
It was, in fact, by being around him that I realized the most accurate statement of my gender is “not male.” That’s despite the fact that I’m the one with a sword and a black belt and, even though I know better, much more likely to end up in a physical fight.
I’m not talking about the kind of masculinity we often discuss as “testosterone poisoning” (though testosterone is not nearly as powerful as many believe) or the toxic masculinity of the fascists who just got elected.
It’s not as easily defined as that. It’s a maleness that is not uncomfortable in an all-female setting while still being itself.
I wanted to do many things in my life that were coded as male, but I never wanted to be a man. I am resolutely not girlie, nowhere near as feminine in interests or appearance as many of the trans women I know, but I am still comfortably a woman.
I set my pronouns as she or they because I don’t have a lot invested in my gender identity, but I would, in fact, correct you if you called me “he.” I am not male. (I wouldn’t be offended, but then I am not someone who gets subjected to intentional misgendering, another issue entirely.)
It isn’t likely to happen. I may be big and aggressive and loud, with a black belt and a law degree and an unwillingness to let people walk over me, but people don’t ever seem to take me as male. I don’t know if it’s the hair or the way my body’s shaped or just my presence, but something about me seems to say “female” to most people in much the same way that my quieter and calmer sweetheart’s presence seems to say “male.”
In fact, I suspect it’s my apparently obvious womanness that makes some men get very angry when I don’t turn tail or apologize profusely when they try to walk over me (or run me down with their cars). Women are supposed to quail before men like them, and I do not.
I often put that attitude down to years in martial arts, but as I reflect on it, I think the attitude was there long before I started training. Training made it safer for me to stand up to such men because it gave me tools to use in response, but I was always going to demand my rights.
Funny, though, while those men scream at me and clearly want to hit me or grab me, they never do. That might be because even as they are dismissing me as a girl and showing their contempt for me, they can read something in my presence that tells them it would be a bad idea to lay a hand on me.
I hope that’s the case. I make every effort to convey the attitude that messing with me is a bad idea. I may look like an old woman, but don’t assume I’m harmless just because you have some stereotypical idea of old women.
In an pre-emptive attempt to keep myself busy on Election Day, I volunteered as a poll worker. 10/10 would totally do again. It was not only a way to keep myself from doom scrolling all day yesterday, but I met some good neighbors, and spent the day supporting, in a tiny small way, Democracy. As I write this (on Tuesday night before falling into bed–I reported to the Poll for setup at 6am, and got home at about 9:30) I know nothing much about how the election went.
