What is gender and why the hell does it matter?

What is gender?

If we consult Webster’s College Edition of 1983, the dictionary gives two definitions.

The first definition is purely grammatical.

Gender is a system in certain languages of classifying nouns and, the dictionary asserts, for the most part has nothing to do with “male” or “female”—never mind that in French, all long, cylindrical and/or pointed objects are masculine.

The second definition is as follows verbatim: “[Colloq.] sex.”

The problem with this definition is that it makes the assumption that a person’s gender identity is equated with having certain genetalia. Biology does not determine destiny. There are men with vaginas, women with penises, and people all over the gender spectrum with every which reproductive organ, a lot of whom don’t feel a need to obtain surgery to change their bodies. Your genetalia do not automatically determine your gender, and not everyone feels a need to expunge from their bodies organs traditionally associated with another gender.

In her memoir Gender Outlaw, Kate Bornstein writes of her own surgery, “I didn’t hate my penis because I was a woman; I hated it because [in the world’s eyes] it made me a man.”

Another problem with a definition of gender as “sex” lies in the first definition the same dictionary gives to “sex”: 1. Either of two divisions, male or female.

A definition of gender as “sex” makes a further assumption that there are only two possible genders: male and female (or man and woman, if you prefer).

However, not everyone fits into this neat binary system. Writer Kate Bornstein advocates an end to calling gender “sex” altogether in Gender Outlaw and writes, “Don’t call it ‘biological sex’ or social gender. Don’t call it ‘sex’ at all --- sex is fucking; gender is everything else.”

A lot of people (myself included) don’t identify as either gender of the dominant binary system. Some of us call ourselves androgynous or genderqueer; others simply stand under the transgender* umbrella or make up new terms for our genders.

I call myself gender-indifferent because I am not concerned with presenting myself as a gender, and I am far more concerned with presenting myself as a person. I wear board shorts because I like them, not to present myself as a man; I wear fitted jeans because I like them, not to present myself as a woman.

A person’s gender is built on presentation. If your actions and behaviors have said to the world “I am a woman” and you agree, you have successfully presented yourself as a woman. If your actions and behaviors have said to the world “I am a man” and you agree, you have successfully presented yourself as man.

The same is true for all other genders, although it’s considerably more difficult to keep most people from wondering, “What’s in that person’s pants?” (As if it mattered.)

For those of us who don’t bother presenting ourselves as a gender, we have a voice in American musician Patti Smith: “As far as I’m concerned, being any gender is a drag.”

Tulog na mahal ko... tabi tayo...

There is something about sleeping with another that changes the very foundation and sense of what sleep is and how it works.

To sleep alone provides the needed rest. The sheets are comforting, the blanket warm.

When I think of sleeping with you, I think of something different. Sleeping alone refreshes the body. Sleeping with you refreshes and strengthens the spirit.

My favorite sleep is in the rainy days, in the cold. It is my favorite because the comfort and the warmth of the bed are accentuated. There is the feeling of the softness and texture of the sheets surrounding and comforting your body. The chill of the air has made the sheets cold, but I also know that my body heat will warm them quickly. With two of us, I know the sheets warm that much more quickly because of the shared warmth.

After the sheets come the blankets, which bring warmth with them, too. They bundle around us, and make us cozy. I am not sure why this feeling is wonderful to me, perhaps it has to do with the childhood memory of being bundled in a mother's arms, carried in security.

The comfort of the bed, the soft firmness of the mattress and warmth of the sheets and blankets, becomes something more with you in the bed with me. It expands, and is a shared experience. It's like the difference between seeing a movie alone, or with someone; it’s like going on a roller coaster alone, or with someone. When you are with someone, the experience is shared and enjoyed because of the sharing.

The sharing of bed with you becomes a means of sharing simple pleasure in comfort. It is one of the most basic things that one can share. When we both climb in together, this sense of sharing is an unconsious but very real thing that makes sleep of a fundamentally higher quality. The sense of comfort moves from the physical to the emotional with this sharing.

Some of my feelings may be from sharing warmth, because when in bed with you, even when we do not touch, I can sense and feel your warmth. If it is especially cold, when we first snuggle in, we can be closer, and warm each other. It is almost as if in a time of need, you reach out to me with your being, and use it to envelope and support me.

Touch between lovers is the physical manifestation of the emotional union. This is why having sex is termed making love. Sleeping with the one you love has the same sense of physical bonding that reflects the emotional bonding. I love to touch you at night.

Sometimes it is just our legs brushing against each other, or a hand or arm touching to remind me that you are there and with me. At other times, the ability to reach out and touch you, to feel your body move as you breathe, provides the comfort and security of the emotional union during sleep.

Perhaps the most relaxing and intimate thing to experience in bed is to be spooned. To literally be enveloped in the warmth and love and comfort, expressed physically, is something I cherish. To spoon you, brings out the feelings of protecting, love and support I naturally wish to express. When you allow me to spoon you, it is an acceptance of my love and protection which is tremendously satisfying.

After the hard day, with stresses and problems, the world can simply melt away. I strip myself down, naked so that I can feel the warmth and touch, and climb under the covers. Laying on my side, I feel the covers briefly turn down, and then your touch as you climb in with me. The sensation of your body as it presses against mine begins the immediate sense of relaxation.

As you snuggle close, and your arm wraps around me, your legs slightly entwine with mine, my eyes close, and there is nothing in the world but you, covering me, protecting me, loving me.

I relax, and sleep...

A sleep that refreshes the soul as well as the body.

SOMEDAY, SOMETIME, SOMEDAY

Sometimes the world seems dark. Your friends abandon you, your family hates you, your lover uses you, your teachers fail you, your bosses screw you over in unimaginable ways. Sometimes it seems like hope has faded, along with the moon and the stars.

Days seem dark, nights seem cold.

Sometimes it doesn't seem worth it to get out of bed. Sometimes, it hurts like hell.

You watch everyone around you --- friends, co-workers, people on the street. You watch, and you see that they seem so happy.

And then you wonder --- why?

Why can't I be happy like that? Why can't I go buy expensive shoes and feel fulfilled? Why can't I get laid and think everything's okay? Why the hell do things leave me empty, when everyone else feels just fine? Why does it have to hurt so bad?

You cry. You let the tears spill from your eyes, burn your cheeks, leave trails of salt over your lips. You sob silently, or maybe not so silently. Maybe you cry out, because it just hurts too much to keep quiet about. Maybe you let it eat you alive, like I did. Maybe you never let the tears fall at all.

Maybe you're just proud enough to put on a mask and pretend everything's okay. Maybe you hide the way you feel. Maybe you're scared of the pain. Maybe you're terrified to let people think there's anything different about you.

Or maybe, you just don't know how else to be. But even if the tears never make it past your eyes, they're inside you.

Sometimes, you turn the music up so loud, you can't even hear yourself think. Sometimes, the pills numb the hell out of you, and the doctor says that means you're okay. Sometimes, you tear yourself to pieces, because watching yourself bleed makes you believe you're real. Sometimes, you can't even bring yourself to do any of that. Sometimes, there is nothing you can do, so you just sit there and wait for the darkness to pass.

But someday, the scars will fade, the meds will be gone, and the deafness won't even be necessary. Someday, things will really be okay.

Hope really is like the night sky --- it's there, even if you can't see it. Someday, the pain will go away and you will find out that there is only one thing that actually lasts --- love. Not to sound cliche, but love is the only real thing in this world. Pain, hate, sorrow --- they're all illusions. Love is what makes this world worthy of existence. Love is the only thing that opens our eyes to the beautiful things.

Sometimes, it's still going to hurt. But sometimes you have to suffer for the things that are worth it, the things you really love.

And sometime, someday, you're going to be glad you got out of bed and faced the day.

"I WAS HUMAN"

I am a human being.

I keep strands of worry around in my pockets; I bite my nails, I nurse my arms. I’m naturally tired, no matter how much sleep I get. New situations freak me out and I don’t want attention. I tend to be very self-centered.

Well, myself isn’t always centered. Sometimes it’s off-key, off-cue, late; dead.

But that’s all okay. I’m different from most other people, and that just makes me all the more human.

When I think of soldiers, my own is not the image that comes up. I’m not athletic, I’m twitchy, and I’m a coward. Soldiers have never translated into something human for me.

And yet, there’s a footprint of a whisper behind a coffin full of flames, working like a seashell to bring the sounds of bombing to your ears.

And it says: “I was human.”

I am not a monster.

I am not a superhero.

I am not a savage.

I am not a God.

My bones aren’t woven of a bloodbath.

You can’t find the bombs underneath my teeth.

I am a human.

There’s something untouchable about a soldier. Something that takes a pebble and adds a stone, something that makes you think of red ribbons tied onto a string of bombs: ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

That near feebleness, those pictures you get of brown-uniform-red-sky that could never make something human and whole and breathing. They’re paused in an agenda of corpses.

They have looked death in the face of every soldier. Is that all they can see when they look in the mirror?

Or was it life they see, staring back at them?

Maybe it’s just that teaspoon of courage --- or what is mistaken for courage: desperation.
They don’t look like ordinary people. There are no windshield wipers on their eyes. They don’t try to rub off the bad things. They don’t even look like corpses, preserved in their garden of underground dirt.

They look like some sort of drowned fire.

But you know they fought all the way down.

I would love to lay the wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I would love to use the leaves to branch out into their hearts, to just connect like woodcuts down a leaf, singling us out and putting us together, and maybe we could make our hands out of branches. Green-skin-flesh-sky.

To just feel a little less human, and a little more secure in my elbows.

There are people who will tell you there is a definite line between life and death.

Soldiers aren’t human.

And maybe I’m not, either.

My New Year's Message to all

The approach of the new year 2008 again augurs fresh hope for new beginning. It evokes anticipation, better tomorrow, bright days ahead, no matter the dark ominous shadow at the heel of the old year that is fast fading to the irretrievable past. For lodged deeply in man’s being is that stubborn hope that springs eternal.

One should not try to become a perfect being, because it is only by chance that someone is born perfect, but we can definitely try to become good beings. Connecting with the goodness of life is the culmination of human effort. When we connect with the positive, the uplifting and the inspiring, we connect with contentment, joy and peace.

From the new year, you have to understand the true meaning of humanness and transform your life. You will then be true servants of the nation. Play your part in every field of public life, keeping your heart pure and unsullied.

We, the youth of today! Remember that we are in a "golden age" in our lives. Let’s not waste it. Do our duties. Love and revere our parents. Serve society. Adhere to the good qualities associated with right education. Be happy and make others happy.

Ultimately we are responsible for our own happiness. Nobody else can give us happiness. To attain happiness we need to work at the levels of head, heart and hands – intellect, feelings and performance. Knowledge is the quality of the head. Softness of sentiments and feelings, compassion, is the quality of the heart. Appropriate behaviour and performance according to the demands of the situation and circumstances is the expression of human character and behaviour. Attainment of these three makes one happy, healthy and wise. So during this coming New Year we should know that we are responsible for our own happiness.

When we are young, we feel that the world is ours and we can do anything and everything we want to. As we become a little older, we gain in maturity, common sense and strength, and one should use these strengths to do what one can to improve the life and the environment.

Pain is a part of life, but to be a slave to pain is not a part of life. When we are slaves to our suffering, we identify with weakness and limitation, with the words 'I can't', but when we identify with strength, with the words 'I can', then goodness, wisdom and willpower combine to become more dominant, and in pain, the infertile self becomes more dominant.

So the aspiration for the New Year should be a determination to expand the horizons of intellect, emotions and performance.

On this coming New Year’s Day, I wish you all every happiness and prosperity. The ancients used to bless those who came to them with long lives of 100 years and good health. They wished the people long life so that they may lead worthy lives.

Lead a long life, happy life, peaceful life, loving life, and divine life. Redeem your lives by practicing Divine Love.

And in this time and age, in a world where you can be anything you want... be yourself.

Happy New year guys!

2008 New Year's Resolutions

This coming 2008 (damn, typing that felt really awkward), I will…

Choose life.

Choose another job.

Choose a worthwhile career.

Choose a pink shirt.

Choose friends over dates.

Choose a fucking big television set.

Choose washing machines, cars, ipod touch and electrical tin openers.

Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance.

Choose red tea.

Choose to stay young and fresh... hahaha...

Choose not to grab all I can but to selectively choose the best.

Choose a peaceful life over fame.

Choose to go back to the gym.

Choose to forgive and forget.

Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments.

Choose a starter home.

Choose a new scent.

Choose to sing.

Choose to grow up but not too fast.

Choose to listen.

Choose to say NO.

Choose a condo unit in Makati.

Choose my friends.

Choose leisurewear and matching fabrics.

Choose a religion and wonder who the fuck I am on a Sunday morning.

Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit crushing game shows, stuffing junk food into my mouth.

Choose eating ice cream, popcorn and dvd marathon over boy-hunting in Malate.

Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing my last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brat I spawned to replace myself.

Choose to be happy.

Choose my future.

Choose to move on.

Choose the right way, but not always.

Choose a pet.

Choose the beach.

Choose a new gadget.

Choose praying rather than watching porn... (Lord help me.)

Choose writing again.

Choose my husband who would stay.

Choose life...