Ruby Slippers

[description: closeup on a pair of sparkling red, strappy heels]

These are my kind of ruby slippers! The kind that would make Dorothy jealous, and scandalize Glinda the Good Witch. Watch them sparkle in the sunlight:

[description: video demonstration walking in aforementioned heels]

I spent most of my formative Valentine's Days without a date (perhaps that's why I envision the holiday as a celebration of self-love rather than devotion to another), but that didn't stop me from dreaming. In high school, the thing I enjoyed most about the holiday was the way the girls would dress up, in a variety of red outfits (including pretty dresses). Valentine's Day isn't just a lovers' holiday, it's the holiday of desire. The kind of day that fundamentalist Christians must loathe - all those women dolled up in short skirts and painted lips, the color of the devil. But I loved it. And I still do. And now, I can be one of those girls, too!

[description: fashion selfies in a lacy red dress and heels]

Why Nudism? (Part 20)

[description: a nude figure sits on a pile of clothes, in front of a closet in disarray]
Because I couldn't decide what to wear.

I am a nudist, but I don't hate clothes. They can be a nuisance, for sure, but they can also be a lot of fun to wear. When I was younger, I always hated shopping for clothes (as I think most boys generally do). But I've since learned that it was because I was shopping for the wrong clothes. Now that I've discovered what type of clothes I like, my closet is overflowing with them. But I'll be honest. Getting dressed is a chore. Sometimes I'll even avoid leaving the house because I don't want to bother getting dressed. Why can't I just grab my purse, throw on some shoes, and head to the store?

And it's ironic, but sometimes the more clothes you have, the harder it is to decide what to wear. What style are you going for? What's the weather like? What kind of impression do you want to make? Where are you going and what are you going to be doing? Does this even fit me anymore? Do I have shoes that go with this? This doesn't look like it did when I tried it on in the store... Can you blame me if sometimes I'd rather not deal with it and just wear the clothes I was born in?

The Hamil-Stand

[description: soft-focus portrait of a man exposed in a handstand, wearing a delicate pink nightie]

Tell me this is prurient smut that contributes to the moral degradation of society, and not the virtuous pursuit of beauty in fine art. That it is indecent, and inappropriate for public consumption. That a child exposed to it, not knowing what to make of it, would be worse off - and not better for experiencing firsthand an example of such culture and sophistication.

If I were to disagree, would that make me crazy? A menace to society, perhaps? An unremorseful fiend, intent on poisoning society with my radical views? How much room is there for subjectivity in a democracy? Is a perspective incorrigible merely on account of its deviation from accepted wisdom? Can 'good' and 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong', 'moral' and 'immoral', ever be viewed independent of cultural bias?

These are the questions I pose to you. The questions that my art is designed to evoke - my art, that is designed to provoke.

Terminology (The Sex/Gender Graph)

I may not be a professional scholar of human sexuality (although I am certainly an amateur academic), and it's worth disclaiming that, in spite of my unconventional experiences with sex and gender (or perhaps because of them, as even the sexual counterculture is becoming something of an establishment - it's sad, if not too surprising, but I feel that traditional LGBT discourse is too limiting). And I understand that language is fluid (although, again, this is a fact that could actually be used to support my position), and that people use words for specific reasons, even as those reasons vary from person to person.

But I am a scientist, and I like to organize concepts and look for neat, geometrical patterns. So, I may be trying to fit the infinite variations of reality into an artificially limited space (which is ironic, I guess, since I was criticizing exactly that only sentences ago), but this is how science works - by creating frameworks that help us to understand and make sense of the world (always with the possibility of being modified and improved in the future, as our understanding continues to evolve).

So, it is as someone who does not have first-hand experience of the historical perspectives surrounding the label "transgender", but someone who is trying to make better sense of the at-times convoluted and confusing language we use (especially given how sensitive some people can be when you misuse it - I've always been very forgiving of these kinds of metagrammatical errors, as they often stem from mere ignorance, as opposed to active hostility), that I propose the following usage of the various core terms related to cis- and trans- gender and sexuality. Even if it turns out to be not such a pragmatic construction, I still think it has value from a conceptual standpoint.

[description: portrait of a man wearing and lifting up a sheer, pink nightie]

I'm starting with the basic understanding of the difference between sex and gender, with the idea that your sex is basically the biological body you're in - which includes your sexual anatomy. Roughly speaking, males have penises, and females have vaginas. And gender has more to do with your mind - your personality traits and identity, how you dress, how you behave, how you see yourself - not in the mirror, but in your mind [NSFW]. Traditionally, feminine gender cues are those that have been associated with females, and masculine gender cues are those that have been associated with males. Most people are born cis-gendered - that is, their gender aligns with their sex in the traditional manner (i.e., males are masculine, and females are feminine). However, there exist a minority of people whose gender does not match their biological sex - we call these trans-gendered. The prefix "cis-" indicates alignment, while "trans-" denotes a discrepancy, as regards the traditional formulation of gender.

Now, some trans-gendered individuals are content to live their life out as they are. I believe these could be considered non-op (this is where I, personally, stand). Others - and this is what constitutes the mainstream discourse on trans-sexuality - choose to embark on a medical journey in order to align their sex with the gender they identify as. Typically, as I understand it, they will undergo hormone therapy, and eventually have sexual reassignment surgery, in which their bodies will be modified to resemble the sex other than the one they were born as, so that they may live out the rest of their lives without disparity between their physical sex and mental gender. In other words, the goal of their journey is to become cis-gendered - to have a sex and gender that match. They weren't born this way, but that's where they've ended up.

Now, I feel that this is a bit of a change from how these terms have been conventionally used. I want to mark a difference between using the suffixes -sexual and -gender (or -gendered), the same way that we've distinguished the difference between a person's sex and gender. (Up 'til now, I feel that they've been used pretty much interchangeably - i.e., transgendered is a synonym for transsexual, and cisgendered is a synonym for cissexual). Remember that, in my conception, "cis-" indicates alignment, while "trans-" indicates a discrepancy. So, a cis-gendered individual is one whose gender matches their sex (according to traditional standards). On the other hand, a trans-gendered person is one whose gender does not match their sex. Cis-sexual, now, is going to mean anyone who remains the sex they were born as. Trans-sexuals, then, are those who have undergone (or, possibly, are currently undergoing) sexual reassignment surgery, and have changed sex. They are no longer the sex they were born as.

Summary:

Cis-gendered - your gender matches your sex
Trans-gendered - your sex and gender do not match

Cis-sexual - you are the sex you were born as
Trans-sexual - you changed sex

So, in this conception, a trans-sexual is a trans-gendered individual who becomes cis-gendered by changing their sex. (Obviously, they don't have to broadcast that fact, once they've completed the change - that's their decision). To illustrate this visually, we can look at the sex/gender graph I produced for my SGO Notation. Let me derive it for you here.

We start with a typical mathematical graph on two axes. The horizontal axis is anatomical sex - biological males are above the axis, and biological females below. The vertical axis is gender - to the left is masculine gender traits, and to the right is feminine gender traits.

The statistical norm - cis-gendered individuals - are masculine males and feminine females, which exist in the upper left and bottom right quadrants of the graph, respectively.

The central area along the vertical (gender) axis, where masculine and feminine traits meet, is the androgynous zone.

We can perceive of individuals crossing the gender axis to exhibit gender cues that do not align with their sex. We call these trans-gendered individuals.

Trans-sexuality, then, is the phenomenon by which a trans-gendered individual changes their sex (crossing the sex axis). You can see by the way the sections are lined up, that when a trans-gendered individual changes their sex (but maintains the same gender), they become cis-gendered (their sex now matches their gender). They may still differ from non-transsexuals in that they have undergone a sex change - we can indicate that by labeling the default (those that have not changed their sex) cis-sexual. This graph does not really have a way to show that - we would, perhaps, need a third axis to indicate the passage of time. Cis-individuals would not do a lot of moving around, while trans-individuals would. We could also, then, depict bigendered and gender fluid individuals by showing their movement across the gender axis.

Conclusion

I like this conception, because it makes sense to me, and it creates much-needed symmetry between the way we talk about sex and gender, and using those same terms as suffixes in conjunction with "cis-" and "trans-". It also preserves the mainstream goal of trans-gendered individuals to align their sex and gender, in a sense becoming "normal". At the same time, however, I've come to this understanding because I want to make room for those trans-gendered individuals (like myself) who do not fit the stereotype - born into the wrong body, suffering body dysphoria - and, welcoming the transgender identity, do not wish to one day become aligned (essentially no longer being transgender - as if that were the problem to start with, and not society's expectations that the two sexes should behave in particular ways), but delight in flouting society's conventions and expectations, with an eye to encouraging an even more diverse and tolerant world, where people are free to express themselves in unconventional ways, without fear of unwarranted harassment or discrimination.

Sidelined

Whew! I'm barely getting this post in under the deadline. My apologies - I only discovered that this was Superbowl weekend two days ago, when my partner mentioned she was hosting the game (I find it appropriately ironic that the only people in her immediate family who really care about the game, year after year, are female). So I had very little time to prepare a topical post for today. Certainly not enough to order a new cheerleader uniform (I realize now that the one I have is woefully out of date - pleats seem to be out of fashion).

[description: series of indoor portraits posing in (and out of) a cheerleader uniform]

As you may have guessed from that introduction, I really have zero interest in football. And I grew up in a football town, so it's not for lack of trying. I can appreciate the excitement that comes along with spectator sports, but there's so much tribalism involved (you don't think your team's opponent's fans are praying to God for victory, too? Do you really think He picks sides?), and I've witnessed too many games where the happiness (or, more often, frustration) of a person I care about is tied to the performance of a team of athletes (as well as the team they're playing against) they have no control or influence over (which is different if you or somebody you know personally is actually on the team).

Besides, you're lucky if you like any of the popular sports - in this country, be it football, basketball, baseball, hockey, etc. (notice that these all tend to be more masculine sports) - and screwed if you don't. Why can't I plop myself down on the sofa and tune in to a gymnastics or volleyball match once or twice a week in season? I enjoyed watching the matches during the last Summer Olympics, but those only come around once every four years. Cheer is pretty fun, too. I watched Cheer Squad on Netflix and enjoyed it very much, but you don't really get to appreciate all the hard work and athleticism that goes into cheer just by watching the cheerleaders at a football game (especially on TV).

Groundhog Day

[description: a nude man stands shivering beneath a grey sky; and celebrates the shining sun]
Will he see his shadow?

Groundhog Day is such a ridiculous holiday. As if a groundhog could predict the weather six weeks in advance; highly trained meteorologists can't even reliably tell you if it's going to rain this weekend! Especially the way the weather's been lately - mild '70s in January, snowfall in April, and both in the course of a single week! What it's like today doesn't tell you jack about what it will be like tomorrow, forget six weeks from now!

And isn't it backwards, anyway? Presumably, a groundhog would see its shadow if the sun were shining, yet that means that spring is still a long way off? And if there's no sunshine to create shadows, wouldn't the groundhog prefer to huddle up for warmth in his burrow and wait the winter out? Sounds like silly superstition to me. I, for one, know that when the sun comes out, I'm more likely to wanna follow suit (preferably in my birthday suit).

Why Nudism? (Part 19)

[description: a nude man stands in a yoga pose, in front of a closed window]
Because clothing is uncomfortable, and restricts movement.

To put it simply, clothing can be a nuisance. Even before I spent a lot of time rationalizing the many reasons I like to go nude, there was the simple feeling of comfort that came with not being tied up in my clothes. For most of my life, I haven't put much effort into getting dressed. I'd wear loose jeans and t-shirts (even sweatshirts and sweatpants when I was a kid) in order to prioritize comfort.

More lately, I've learned to appreciate the joy and confidence that an attention to fashion can bring, but it's always at the expense of physical comfort, and not in tandem with it. At the end of the day (and throughout most days, really), I'd just rather not wear anything at all. That's why I don't like to dress in layers, or wear a lot of jewelry - it's just more "stuff" on my body, dragging me down.

I don't think everyone has this problem - certainly, not everyone feels comfortable without clothes on - but for those of us who may be more sensitive than average to physical stimuli, or have sensory overload issues, practicing nudism can be a great relief. If you've ever come home at the end of a long day, and taken off some or all of your clothes to help you unwind, then you know what I'm talking about.