Lucy Grey: Gendernaut

I was waiting for my friends to join me for some excellent dinner last night. I arrived at the restaurant before anybody else showed up, and kind of just wanted some alone time. So instead of going inside to the warmth, I stayed in my car, feeling the air slowly cool around me as I pondered Things that happened that day.

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Gender Policing is something I would expect to see in a class room or on a playground. But never in a work place. And yet, here it is, staring me in the face. It can be a very subtle thing, if you’re not sensitive to it; you could completely miss it. It bothers me to see my coworkers engaging in this. We’re all grown people here; what does it matter? Who are you trying to prove yourself to—the other grown people around you? What should they care? This isn’t a school yard full of growing children exploring themselves and society. This is a workplace made up of mature, established adults who should be more worried about doing their job than establishing that, yes, they are men, and no, they’d never wear pink. If I wore a pink shirt into work today, would that shirt be a detriment to the quality of the code I write? I want to speak up about this, but I don’t have the courage. I’m low man on the totem pole in this job, and as hard as I worked to get it, I need to make sure I keep it. Not that I really think speaking up about all of this could really affect my employment. I hope. But, until I’m more established in this group, I feel I don’t really have a place in speaking my mind about these sorts of things yet. I’m also a little ashamed to admit that I find it humorously ironic that grown men feel so threatened by the color pink.

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Facial/Body Hair

• I wish it was all gone.
• I hate the time it takes to shave it all off.
• I hate the pain and damage that shaving inflicts on my skin
• I hate the way my beard makes my face look and feel. (The roughness, the prickliness, itchiness. I’m constantly picking at it)
• I hate the constant reminder of my inability to control it, and the frustratingly male traits this hair lends to my face.
• I hate that I have to wear layercakes of makeup to hide it
• I hate that it’s a constant battle to look good because of it.
• I hate that it grows all over and is so dark
• I love the way my legs and face feel after a nice close shave. Not the pain of the shave; the smoothness, the softness of my skin.
• I hate the process of shaving.
• If I could remove ALL my beard-related facial hair and the rest of my inconvenient, loathsome, disgusting body hair in an affordable, permanent way, I’d seriously consider it.
• This feeling sucks.

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“Unnatural” “God never intended this”

• I defy you to find the commandment that says “Thou shalt not wear the opposite sex’s garments” or “Thou shalt not feel as if thine own body does not fit” and simultaneously remind you of the Greatest commandment “Love thy neighbor” and the other commandment inherent in the Greatest, “Love thyself.”
• Hiding Grey makes me hate myself. The joy I experience upon finding her in the mirror…is breathtaking. Buoyant. Like a great wind pushing me ever higher. And I can’t help but to share that energy when I’m dressed.
• I seem to remember a parable, paraphrased: “Do not hide your light under a bushel basket.” How can I not express the utter joy I feel when I am myself? My ability to express is one of my greatest talents. I refuse to hobble this talent by killing a part of me.
• Who are you to presume to know what God intended? How dare you impose yourself between God and her judgement of me. It is not for us to judge others. It is for us to love all life, in all the forms it expresses itself.

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Desperate Housewives: what a disgusting concept

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Some days, I wish I could sit down with a radically conservative protester. You know the kind. Those decked out in signs, scowls, and megaphones instead of bibles, smiles, and prayer beads. I want to share a coffee with them and discuss points of view absent of any animosity. Purely in the interests of gaining knowledge and perspective, and perhaps to share my own. I don’t really expect either of us to walk away particularly enlightened about the other’s frame of mind, but I’d love to give it a try.