Thinky thoughts
Apr. 13th, 2014 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
estiroseOur sermon was on the abandonment of the human sexual/gender binary (I love Unitarian sermons), and it led me to think about Terolalaine/Photo of a Child in the Moon/Doing it for You, three RPM fics which - explicitly or implicitly - deal with an essentially intersex, male-identifying Ziggy. Well, and my own orientation too.
As I was telling my ride on the way home, this whole issue of identifying on the spectrums of sexual identity, gender identity, affection and other things is scarily complex. For example, I identify variously as bisexual and asexual biromantic; I'm pretty sure I'm attracted to all genders, though more male/male-presenting than female/female presenting (and I'm not sure on the agender folk), but I'm not sure if I really am sexually interested in them. I do get off on erotica and masturbation, but I have an aversion to being in contact with other peoples' body fluids in a non-medical-emergency situation. (Talk about confusing!)
Which brings me to Terolalaine and two works directly/indirectly influenced by it. Ziggy in these fics is essentially intersex. Alelian disorder gives him both internal and external organs. He was assigned a male gender at birth and has very male hips. He is extremely scared of being pregnant for Terolalaine and Photo of a Child (although that's more situational for him - if it came down to it he wouldn't mind having a child for a sterile woman), but it's more of an okay thing for him in Doing It For You, where intersex people are far, far more common and accepted no matter what their gender identification/sexual orientation.
Thing is, when I started Terolalaine, Ziggy says that a certain tiny percentage of men are capable of having children. This is potentially problematic, even though those with Alelian Disorder are inevitably assigned male identities at birth, because it assumes that nobody with the disorder self-identifies as they grow up as female or genderfluid. (And my browser's dictionary doesn't recognize "genderfluid". Bad dictionary!) Now, part of this could be explained by the fact that Ziggy is not as educated on this issue as I am and very, very strongly identifies as a guy, thus he would say that it as he does, but it still makes me go "ouch" looking back at it.
(I also have to think about Homura in Sekirei, because his sex is incredibly fluid and he self-identifies as a heterosexual male. But I'd be at this all day if I started talking about him.)
This brings up issues, because one of the characters rattling around my head is Winter, who is truly genderless (and not human), has a somewhat male physical appearance, but doesn't really care and prefers the pronouns "hen"/"henself". Someday I'll get hen's story written, but I want to understand hen better before that, and understand more about the complexity that is human sexuality.
So, yeah, I think I'm giving myself a headache, but I think I'll be better for it when I've thought it out.
As I was telling my ride on the way home, this whole issue of identifying on the spectrums of sexual identity, gender identity, affection and other things is scarily complex. For example, I identify variously as bisexual and asexual biromantic; I'm pretty sure I'm attracted to all genders, though more male/male-presenting than female/female presenting (and I'm not sure on the agender folk), but I'm not sure if I really am sexually interested in them. I do get off on erotica and masturbation, but I have an aversion to being in contact with other peoples' body fluids in a non-medical-emergency situation. (Talk about confusing!)
Which brings me to Terolalaine and two works directly/indirectly influenced by it. Ziggy in these fics is essentially intersex. Alelian disorder gives him both internal and external organs. He was assigned a male gender at birth and has very male hips. He is extremely scared of being pregnant for Terolalaine and Photo of a Child (although that's more situational for him - if it came down to it he wouldn't mind having a child for a sterile woman), but it's more of an okay thing for him in Doing It For You, where intersex people are far, far more common and accepted no matter what their gender identification/sexual orientation.
Thing is, when I started Terolalaine, Ziggy says that a certain tiny percentage of men are capable of having children. This is potentially problematic, even though those with Alelian Disorder are inevitably assigned male identities at birth, because it assumes that nobody with the disorder self-identifies as they grow up as female or genderfluid. (And my browser's dictionary doesn't recognize "genderfluid". Bad dictionary!) Now, part of this could be explained by the fact that Ziggy is not as educated on this issue as I am and very, very strongly identifies as a guy, thus he would say that it as he does, but it still makes me go "ouch" looking back at it.
(I also have to think about Homura in Sekirei, because his sex is incredibly fluid and he self-identifies as a heterosexual male. But I'd be at this all day if I started talking about him.)
This brings up issues, because one of the characters rattling around my head is Winter, who is truly genderless (and not human), has a somewhat male physical appearance, but doesn't really care and prefers the pronouns "hen"/"henself". Someday I'll get hen's story written, but I want to understand hen better before that, and understand more about the complexity that is human sexuality.
So, yeah, I think I'm giving myself a headache, but I think I'll be better for it when I've thought it out.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-15 07:56 pm (UTC)It's very complicated and hard to address without getting really clunky. The gender field on the at-con registration system we used at Otakon is required for some reason (it's an old system), so I tried to ask people what gender they preferred last year. Most people I asked looked at me like I had grown another head, so I mostly went off the gender on their IDs so I could process faster. I wish there was a way to ask that wouldn't sound so strange to people unfamiliar with the concept.
I also have a character who's nonhuman and genderless, but she very much identifies as female. It's a little complicated, but basically she self-selected female because she identifies herself with female-identified people rather than any deep personal feelings.