The "man's" world

Today was one of those days. Talk about the bluntest and sublest you can be about sexism at the same time... today I worked out on the field. I guess one can say I did "a man's job". Another male corp member and myself were hauling metal from burnt down homes to the trucks.

Wow

Wow is all I can say. I felt empowered and embarressed at the same time about everything I was. I was empowered to try and work harder but lets face it i'm not the strongest person in the world... at the same time I was embarresed because even though I was able to lift the same amount if not more as some of the older men in my group. I knew I would recieve no acknowledgement whatsoever.... and why you ask? because in their eyes I was female...

Ok that is just fucked up. I feel for all females when this happened to me. At that moment I heard my girlfriends voice saying "You are a girl". Then I remembered and realized something. No matter what I say and what I think of myself to the outside world I AM infact a girl.

So the sexism that I experienced today on the job was one thing but to percieve myself as male and experience this was just a mind fuck overall.... I felt self contradicting. All of this is not helping me... I'm posting another post shortly following this I just want this to stay on topic

End

New thoughts

Boredom has allowed me to marinate in my thoughts. It has created so many new thoughts. This shouldn't be a problem...why is it? I am living my perfect life right now... It should all be stress free... but instead it's the exact opposite. I doubt everything I do and everything I say. I doubt my emotions and my opinions. What is it that I should be doing about all of this? Should I be doing anything at all?

Rant to self

What is the point where I give up compared to the point where I strive my hardest to move beyond it or forward within it... How do I decide? or is it even a decision that is mine to make. I have all this and so much more to say and I just don't know how to say it... what are we deciding to with our lives if it not to live it successfully, If it not to live it in a direction that will lead us to accomplish so much.

*sigh* **Taps pencil on notebook**

It's all lies. It all feels like lies. I like my androgyny. I miss it tho. I feel like now i'm one or the other. What happened to my inbetween? that was my comfort. My dysphoric mind returns to me, and it is now..that I realize it wasn't there in the past.

Alone. I'm alone. Why couldn't this happen when I was among friends? Now i'm among strangers

This is more of a rant to self than anything other....

I am NOT one of the girls!

Day 1 of 2 for spike travel

It becomes more blatantly obvious to myself where i'm begining to stand on the gender spectrum. It's not that I don't appreciate what they do, its not that I don't like what they do. They're behaviours and such. Hell i'd be lying if i said I didn't share some of these behaviours with them. But it's so uncomfortable. I keep trying to figure it out... what is more uncomfortable?? That I can't relate to them even if I try, that even when I try I still lie on the outskirts of both spectrums or that I do relate to them and it shows that i'm more of both and neither. I am so confused. I am so lost. I am so scared. I have been feeling this need, this urge to find my place. I don't have anyone to talk to thus... this is my only source of output. I stay quiet not because I have nothing to say, but because I am so afraid of what you might say...

NCCC vs Myself

Ahh yes... A new beginning which I thought would make things so much easier appears to be doing the exact opposite. I entered what appears to be a new world isolated in its own vicinity. I expecting things to be like they were in college. I have my group of friends and they accept me and if they don't it's whatever. But now i'm in this place where these 12 individuals (my team) will be the ones I am spending 80% of my time with. I feel almost ashamed of everything I am. I try so hard to hide it and accept it as part of being here. Doing this though is making everything so UNBEARABLE. Sexism prevails terrible in NCCC and it's not big things that people would protest about, but it's the small things that so many people do on a daily basis that are unnoticable except for those individuals whom don't lie between said binaries

This weekend we depart for a 5 week project. I'm excited. This is what I came here for! but... a lot of times we know what we want to do, and we know it may get difficult but we can do it, but we forget about the other challenges that individuals of non gender comforming identities face. I strive to fit in at this point... not bringing into the light what is really going on with me and how I feel about many of these situations. It frightens me to share such things. I'll just have to see how it all goes.

(Genderqueer in Americorps):"Are you a boy or a girl?

The words and phrases that used to give me so much satisfaction. The ones that used to tell me that I was just me and not living within these binaries of gender. The same words that used to make me smile, are now the words I dread. As I move deeper into my androgynous form, I hear these words so often sometimes even up to 5 times a day. At the airport, people stumble upon their "Sir"s and "Ma'm"s. I get stopped entering bathrooms, and get stared at when I make it in without difficulty. When did this go from being my goal, to being that which I dread everyday?

Ironic, some say, are my goals. For my gender expression will attract attention to me, and I know this. But the attention isn't my goal. The attention is more like a bad side effect, like when you take medicine. Another goal of mine, however, is to immerse myself in my surroundings. All in all, to just blend in. I want to be the one that no one really notices right now. I want to be just another person. Usually, that's not a problem, but then there are those instances. Oh yes... those instances, where all eyes are on me... Even if all those eyes are 5 years old.

Today I volunteered at an elementary school. We helped the kids paint some banners that are hung throughout the school. In the morning we had grades 4 and 3 followed by grade 2 right after lunch. To them I was just another "grown up" helping them with their work. I know at that age kids are more consumed in themselves then in what's going on around them...thank god. Unfortunately, grade 1 (Yes the ones right out of kindergarten..yea...those :)) always tend to be more aware of their surroundings. They are in the stage of asking questions. The question the world around them, and apparently, ... they question me.

2 little girls whisper to each other. They see past you, and you know it. "Are you a boy or a girl?" they ask. I think young children are the most aware ones around. I hated my answer to that question... but I was at work "I am a girl," I responded, but they continued to question me. It's funny and its cute. They started talking about my hair and how I didn't look like a girl I looked like a boy. It hurt tho. Not what they said, but what I had to say.

"I am at work. I live at work." I tell myself that every morning and every night. These next 10 months are not about me, but about them. I'm afraid to focus too much on all of this which is part of me, because we should be focusing on them right now.

These next 10 months are not about me. I mean that, but it is so hard to not make it a little about me, to use this time to work on myself...I do express myself as more feminine than usual (A LOT more feminine) but that is part of my blending in. This isn't one of those things that are deep and will continue to haunt me...but its just something that needed to be said

Failed attempts towards contradiction

In an attempt to become what I found it neccesary to be, I found myself becoming everything which I have been fighting against and found my definition of my gender to be contradicting within itself. Being "one of the guys" has now come to mean that I am becoming one of "them" and that I have attempted and am currently attempting to fit into the socially created binary. With all of this, we all know that as society expects us to fit into the binaries , we expect ourselves to find a place in this world where we fit in and have a community. Since most of the society is, in fact, part of the cisgender community, we see that we attempt to fit into the binaries to fit into that community. So until we can see and become part of the community of our queer brothers, sisters, and all inbetween, we will never truly become what we TRULY mean to be.