Today's Lesson: People don't change.
I am rather optimistic. I like to believe in the best of people. Sometimes I’m proven wrong.
I had tried to befriend a person and they just played games with me. I don’t know why. I was always forthright with my intentions but they made a mockery of me. I thought they were a person who got it. Who stood for peace and equality not cruelty. They turned out to be one of the biggest jerks I knew by doing things to laugh at me – not with me.
Bounce ahead, four or so years. I still wanted to believe the best of this person. I thought their duplicity was a result of peer pressure so maybe outside of that setting they’ll be a decent person. I don’t like to make a villain out of anyone and I try to see the best. I don’t like having negativity associated with people so I wanted to see if they had change in the past four years. My findings were conclusive that they haven’t. It’s the same old song and dance.
When I told my doctor that I thought this person would change, she laughed at me. I know I’m a completely different person than I was four years ago because I am always working on improving myself. I want to be the best I can be. Apparently, most humans don’t operate that way. They don’t change unless they have a reason to change – and even then sometimes they don’t. Most cases they get worse. I don’t get it.
I am always reading and educating myself. I try to talk to as many people as I can about anything and everything. I have a genuine desire to help the world. I have learned you can’t help the world until you help yourself first. It was a hard lesson for me because I always want to put everyone and everything else first but sometimes you got to make sure you are okay before you can make sure other people are okay. Even on airplanes, they tell you to put your air mask on first before helping others. There’s a method to this madness.
I am disappointed that there are jerks in the world. I always thought life was about living – I mean really living and not letting hatred or pettiness cloud your vision. I would like to think of the world as a big human community – like how we come together for things like Haiti. Why do we only come together in times of disaster? I think the world would be amazing if we kept the community spirit all the time.
This person is beyond my comprehension. I used to try to understand other’s perspective and points of view until I met them. I realize I can have no idea what goes on in another person’s head. It really isn’t my concern either. One of the hardest things I have is finding people who want friendship and connection. Just finding anyone who’s willing to accept love and kindness is really hard. Obviously, this person doesn’t. Not from me anyways.
It’s a hard thing for me to accept that I can’t befriend the entire world. I wish I could. It upsets me that there are people who hate me without even knowing me. That there is even hate at all. But that’s reality.
A Personal Ad
So, I’ve been single my entire life, 26 years and counting. I haven’t meet anyone worth my time. I’ve been out and queer for about four years now. I’ve been looking everywhere for someone to date to no avail. I figured, if I haven’t met someone in a quarter of a century – I am probably never going to meet anyone.
I’ve tried everything: internet dating, speed dating, going to bars/clubs, joining clubs, starting clubs, going to shows, and putting on shows. I don’t know, it just seems like the people I want to meet don’t exist anywhere. There is only a handful of queer punks to begin with and to find one that’s straightedge, vegan, and monogamous is never going to happen.
Everyone keeps on feeding me the same lines, “It’d happen when you least expect it.” “It’d happened when you stop looking for it.” But it’s just not. I feel like I am missing out on part of the human experience of having a connection with someone. I want a partner in life but I feel like I’ll never have one. I am one of the sweetest people around – not nice out of weakness – nice because I know better. I would go anywhere in the world to have a community but there doesn’t seem to be people to build that community with. I don’t know how to put myself out there more than I already have.
I am tired of 1’s, 2’s, and 3’s. I have been feeling very bored with the world and the people in it. I haven’t met any colorful people or anyone who’s been able to hold my interest for more than week in years. I’ve gone on lots of first dates – never a second.
I didn’t even look for someone to date for a long time because I was really broken. I didn’t want to burden anyone with my open wounds so I didn’t look for anyone to share it with. I didn’t think it would be fair. Now, I spent lots of time working on myself, getting to know myself, and healing myself. I felt like I done all this work to make myself as awesome as I can be and I want to share it with someone but there’s no one awesome for me to share it with.
I want an intellectual equal but I have yet to meet anyone who is. I have met people who have more education than me and talk in big words almost as big as their ego. It doesn’t impress me. I have never met anyone as smart as me though. I met lots of people who talk big about love and compassion but don’t live it. I meet lots of people who dress like me and pretend to be like me but they aren’t. I have never meet another anarcho-pacifist straightedge peace punk. They aren’t at shows. They aren’t at the radical feminist bookstores. I have no idea where to look.
I suppose that’s why I started this journal to try to connect with like-minded people. I wish someone was looking for me as much as I am looking for them. I had a hit the other day by someone who googled “transgender” + “anarchist” + “vegetarian” and I was really disappointed that they didn’t say hello. I don’t write just to be heard – I want to hear you too.
I am a very sensitive, kind, and loving creature. I have a real big heart. I don’t play games and I say it how I see it. Most people can’t handle it. I have a hard time relating to people because I really do care and most people don’t. It’s almost a curse to be a 5 in a land of 3’s. My life would be a lot easier if I didn’t care, was stupid, and mean. I’d have lots of people to date just like me if I liked team sports, group think, eating flesh, and had imaginary friends. But, that isn’t me.
I am not a cookie cutter person from a cookie cutter system. I am a beautiful lotus flower that risen from the murkiest of muddy waters. Some people can’t see beyond the mohawk, piercings, and tattoos. The punk t-shirts, heavy boots, and work pants. I like dressing loud and being punk because punk is the only subculture to have stopped a war. My dress is my armor to the world – because my heart is really on my sleeve. I don’t put up a front – I am always me.
I want wonderful and amazing people to be friends with and play with. I have a handful scattered around the world but I could always use more. Good people are really rare. I wish I could find someone good to give my heart to.
Sex, Gender, Gender Expression, and Sexual Orientation
This is something I know very well and live. It’s like breathing – second nature that when it comes time to explain it, it’s hard to do because it’s something I don’t even think about anymore. What brought it to the forefront was that I was talking to a friend of mine and he mentioned it took him sometime to realize that they were in fact separate entities. Society tries to condition us to believe they are one. It isn’t true. There are only a handful of sexes but there are as many genders as there are people.
Sex refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs. Such differences can be distinguished by the fact that male and female bodies behave differently. Females have periods while males do not. Females have breasts that produce milk while males do not. Male and females have different sex organs. There is also intersexed that has characteristics of both.
Not even sex is set in stone but is harder to change than gender. People who feel their sex doesn’t match their body can get surgeries and take hormones to get the mind and the body to match. This is called being transgendered. Some people who identify as transgendered chose not to transition at all, others only to a point to where they can “pass” as their chosen sex, and others transition top to bottom. It’s different for different people and is a personal choice. Transgendered is regardless of operation status. Transsexual applies to those who are transitioning, have transitioned, or intend to transition.
Gender describe the characteristics that society determines to be masculine or feminine. Gender is constructed by society. Unlike sex, people are not born with gender. Gender is something learned. “Gender roles” are what society denotes should be the characteristics of each sex. However, gender and sex don’t always match. For example, my sex is female but my gender presentation is masculine. My hair is cut short and I wear men’s clothing. In my head, I don’t feel like either gender or sex is what I am so I identify as female-bodied genderqueer. Likewise, there can be people who are of the male sex who present a feminine gender by dressing in dresses and skirts and maybe have long hair but in their head they are male sex and female gendered. Sex and gender have nothing to do with each other. They are two separate things.
Plus, gender and gender expression are two different things. You might have someone who is female sex masculine identified gender dressing in dresses to avoid raising eyebrows on the street. You can’t judge someone’s gender by their gender expression because it varies. Gender isn’t set in stone. Some people change gender with the seasons, other daily, some minutely. Your presentation doesn’t define your gender. Just like being punk, it is all about what’s in the mind and inside.
Now, to make things more complicated – we can toss sexual orientation into the mix. Unlike people like to believe, sexual orientation seems to be more fluid than concrete. Sexual orientation is what people find erotically attractive. Most people aren’t a hundred percent gay or straight – some people are but most people on the Kinsley Scale seem to fall in the middle. Also, keep in mind most people aren’t attracted to “just women” and “just men”. Most people have a preference for a sex but also certain gender characteristics they find attractive. For example, I tend to find butch women attractive which confused me for the longest time to think I was straight because I only got feminine women hitting on me and only saw feminine women in my daily life and I am not attracted to them. However, there is no defining rule for attraction. Everyone has different likes and dislikes. I know with me, I have my personal preferences, but if I met an awesome person – their sex and gender wouldn’t matter to me. However, some people have personal boundaries on what they will and won’t do. For example, someone who has a strict heterosexual identity is automatically limiting themselves to half the people due to mindset. Homophobia comes into play because nothing is an absolute – labels are useful guidelines but people are really fluid. That’s when people get afraid is when they realize things aren’t black and white and are shades of gray. Instead of accepting and embracing the unknown to grow and become better, some people respond with hate.
I think if we all learned to love instead of hate and accepted the fact we are humans and everyone is different and that’s okay the world would be a much happier, safer, loving place.
Peace Needs To Be The Foundation of Our Society
In order for there to be peace, the whole foundation of our society needs to change. We live in a society based on violence. If we are to have peace, we need to have a society based on peace.
Everything from entertainment to what we put in our bellies to what games we play as a child are centered around violence. We have the “good verses evil” scenario drilled into our heads. We are taught separation, “us and them.”
Most people are addicted to violence. Their life revolved around it and they aren’t even aware of it. If we really valued peace, why would we murder animals for food? Why would we watch superheroes fighting supervillains for “truth, justice, and doing things our way?” Why would we teach our children to play with weapons? Why would we later send our children to war?
Having violence in news, television, and video games are made to desensitize us. It trains us to even find violence to be entertaining and unquestionably accept it as another part of life. It makes it so when we hear of war people praise it instead of abhor it.
If we built a society based on peace, the current establishment would collapse. Our youth wouldn’t want to fight wars. We wouldn’t murder animals for pleasure. We would detest the taking of life and value tranquility.
Instead of viewing the world as a conflict; dog eat dog or us verses them, we’d start building community. Instead of seeing differences as a threat which is the hostile violent reaction to have – we would cherish our differences and embrace them. If we taught kindness and compassion in place of conformity and unquestioning obedience to authority – we’d have a nurturing and caring world instead of the hostile environment we have.
News flash: The world is the way it is because of us. Humans make the world the way it is. The only way the world is going to change is if the people change. The only way the people are going to change is with education. The way we’ve been educated: from pre-school to college is inept. There are so many problems in this world because people weren’t taught properly. Humans aren’t born knowing how to be human and most people forget that. The current system doesn’t teach people brotherhood, solidarity, or sharing. We need to focus on unity regardless of what limits our meat suit proscribes us. The current school system isn’t focused on building the best people it can. It’s more focus on building the best worker it can.
The quality of people today is terrible. It’s just messed up people having messed up children, teaching their kids the same mistake they were taught. No wonder why the world’s a mess. The cycle needs to end somewhere. It can start with you by learning to be a kind, compassionate, and loving human being. Philosophers, religions, and thinkers across the ages have all been trying to communicate the same idea: That we need to love each other and get along. That we are all human. We are all one.
We need to teach ourselves that fighting amongst ourselves is not okay. That violence is not acceptable. We need to find a way to tolerate each other and not hate. There’s so much hate in this world when the foundation should be love. I was told once by a friend’s mom that “People only act out of pain.” I thought about it, and she was wrong. People act out of love too, not just pain. If we all learned to love a little and have our actions be based in love – the world would be an amazing place.
On Being Genderqueer and the Gender Binary
The interesting thing about explaining being outside of the gender binary is that you first have to explain what  gender binary is in order to understand what it means to be outside of it. There is no quick and easy way to explain what it means to be genderqueer and even after several attempts at trying to explain it, people still don’t get it because they are stuck trying to put it in a box.
The gender binary is a form of hierarchy and oppression. It divides the human race into two groups instead of uniting us as one.  Most people’s concept of self is centered around their identity and it influences the course their entire life. It controls how most people will treat you down to which bathroom you can use. I want no part in it.
For me, genderqueer is beyond male and female. I don’t want people judging me based on genitals or my body. My private parts do not define me as they do with so many of my fellow humans. If we are to eventually have equality in the world, we need people to be treated as people not as genitals.
It is strange to me that I get treated with more respect and taken more seriously when I get mistaken for a male verses a female. I don’t like being called, “Honey,†“Sweetie,†or “Dear†because of the body I happen to exist in. At the time it happens, I don’t even know where to begin because it’s socially acceptable. Just because something is tradition doesn’t make it right.
It embarrasses me that our species didn’t have a women’s rights movement until War World II, that there was a division at all. It wasn’t that long ago and it still isn’t over. It won’t be over until we abolish gender all together. As long as there is separation into groups, one group will oppress the other until people understand equality isn’t the same as sameness.
I imagine a world in which males wear skirts as often as females. A world in which people can just be people. No gender, no sexuality, no racial tension. That we can be fluid and undefined. Once you start worry about defining something, you lose it. It’s like grasping sand, the tighter you grip it, the faster it slips through your fingers.  Be free. As long as you know yourself, that’s all that’s important. People like what they like and that should be it.
The problem with society is that most people don’t know themselves. They know an illusion which they considered to be self – but all those layers are fake. What’s real, is that we are all human and all need love. If we learned to love and accept each other regardless of outside fluff, we can have utopia.
Being genderqueer to me gives me the freedom of having a label for those who need boxes but still be able to be outside the box. It’s not fully definable and that’s okay because our language is flawed and can’t express all aspects of being human succinctly.
