When I was younger, I was pretty feminine, but a notch less than other girly girls. I chose yellow or teal over pink and purple. While playing house I took the role of the dad or boyfriend when there was no boy available. Throughout my youth I got pixie cuts, idolized masculine girls, and quite a few of my close friends were boys.
I was still very feminine. I love and feel at home in the theater of femininity. The close-up details of an eye makeup look. The empowering strut only a high heel inspires. The breezy freedom of a skirt. The timelessness of a red velvet lip. I am a femme to this day. I have almost exclusively played the role of “feminine counterpart” in my romantic relationships, and my wife is masculine-leaning.
As I got older I learned in layers the challenges that exist for feminine folks. I found myself caught up in the exploited version of femininity…the kind that leads to, and in some cases triggers, psychological problems.
My mother took me to my first therapist in high school, and luckily, she was a goddess-loving witchy feminist who planted seed after seed within me about our connection to the moon, earth, and the divine cycles of the universe.
After high school, and then in college, I dove into feminism, queer studies, art and music and felt liberated to be myself.
And myself is more than feminine.
I learned I was queer and felt validated by my community. I started to lean heavily on that notched-down feminine, more androgynous gender presentation, and I also began to thoroughly enjoy this side of myself.
At a college drag show, I lip-synced and danced as Justin Timberlake in NSync’s “Bye Bye Bye.” I had recently buzzed my hair ultra short. I bound my breasts and stepped into masculinity for that night. It was utterly life changing.
I become another person on stage. I relished that masculine role and the dance to that song that was so so fun to learn with my friends.
That night I got to be masculine at the little gay bar down the way from my university. I lost myself on the dance floor in a blissful sea of queers like I’d never experienced.
My community both in and out of college housed a great deal of gender-fluidity. I majored in Sex and Gender Media Studies, a mixed media art/womens studies/queer studies program I designed myself with my professors.
I found my first ever queer partner, an instant heartbreaker in my story. I tried hetero relationships again, and I loved my partners madly, but I was so gay, and not only that—more gender fluid than I knew, and the queer community I found and loved celebrated that. I eventually fell completely into the queer world.
In my history of partnerships I choose masculine partners. I love my femininity and am overall very femme leaning. But in truth androgyny is what’s very sexy to me.
I had moved to LA for design school when I decided to try they/them pronouns. But nobody was really doing that back then except my tight group of (super COOL) friends and I wimped out and leaned back on she/her pretty quickly.
I love she/her and I’m glad I took more time to decide on she/they. And these days I have a deeper clarification.
I go by they/them to everyone, and she/her to those who are close to me and know me.
I have a desire to protect myself from some of the dangers that plague femininity. And they/them/gender neutral pronouns can help to disarm a person’s ability to assign gender stereotypes.
There is nothing so cringy as being told that I’m a “girl” or a “ma’am”. Those words not only slather on a thick layer of unnecessary gender meaning, they also put a person into an infantile or overly mature category of being, and both are considered by society to be in need of looking after.
I like being able to correct a person who feels at liberty to be inappropriate in response to my radiant femininity, matter-of-factly stating that my gender identity is neutral and I prefer to be addressed as such.
I love being me. I know I’ve been male and female and all kinds of other beings in past and future lives. I know that for a great deal of those lives, I was a powerful femme.
But most certainly I was also a dapper dude a time or two. I feel that part of me deeply. I really like it. I like they/them because that part of me gets named, claimed, and encouraged to flourish.
And my femininity is also all mine to keep and share. With they/them, I get to have and share all of my gender. I get to covet she/her and offer it to my lover and those who are respectful of my femininity.
I am very excited to live in a world where gender fluidity is becoming the norm. I think it’s normal.
In addition to addressing me with they/them pronouns, I suggest using they/them as a default for everyone, especially if you are someone who isn’t used to the grammatical evolution inherent in our society’s adaptation of these pronouns. I believe that as our species evolves, gender fluidity will become more and more widely regarded as a common human trait to be celebrated. It behooves us all to evolve the way we address each other, and neutralize and open our thinking about gender in general.
If you are new here, hello! My name is Wren, and I am an artist and Taro/Oracle deck creator. I am currently releasing weekly blogs/vlogs revealing the development of each new card in my new deck, the Sextile Oracle. I'm layering each video time lapse with storytelling and commentary from my life as a queer art witch, all of which lies within this blog post as well.
This deck is being designed to offer you effortless support as frequently as you need to use it. Each card is a layer cake of meaning that will meet you where you are at and offer a means for your guides to communicate with you in your lifelong pursuit of love and knowledge.
Three
Letting myself grow
Feeling balanced through balancing
Constantly
Gently
Everlastingly
Day dreaming dreams
Breathing
Dreams into life
Feeling
Happy in one's self
And joyous in
Wealth
That is friends including
Friend number One
You
Give what you can
Automatically
by and by
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Many, many blessings!
Thank you, ~wren
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