A Dialectic Identity

Dear World,

My gender and sexuality interact with one another. I am not always sure who it is others are attracted toward in me. For example, gay cismen expect one identity while straight ciswomen another.

This creates a tension, a consequence of my constant growth. My answer to this tension between my gender & sexuality is genderqueer. I am “queering” my gender.

My conception of my gender and sexuality is dialectic. A dialectic conception is one in which the idea is never fully formed.

Animatronic sculptures by Nathaniel Mellors. Links to the wiki article on dialectics.

A cup of sugar is a cup of sugar, right? But from one moment to the next, the temperature and humidity in the room changes the quantity and/or quality of it. Though surely, in a single moment, a cup of sugar is a cup of sugar.

Yet what defines a moment: one month, one day, one second, one tenth of a second? In what moment shall we choose to identify that cup of sugar? After all, the moment we choose impacts what that cup of sugar is.

My answer is that we cannot choose a single moment; a cup of sugar is not a cup of sugar. This is my gender and sexuality. It is constantly shifting from one moment to the next. It is never fully formed, rather it grows as I grow & changes as I change.

I am queer; I see my sexuality as never wholly straight or gay. I am genderqueer; my gender is never purely feminine or masculine. I am a hodgepodge not only of masculine and feminine qualities, but also of homo & hetero sexual ones.

My identity is my choice, my decision. Through a dialectic conception, it is a choice I get to make over and over. The choices I face, and answers I create may vary from one moment to the next.

Resolving that tension is a part of my life. This is my genderqueer identity. This is how my gender & sexuality coalesce. Through constant growth as I expose my  eclectic sense of self to the world.

A Frolicker of Fluidity