Transcript
Speaker: Hey, welcome to this week's episode of the Sluts Podcast. I'm here with Devin Price. Hello. And today we're going to be talking about the prison that we know as gender norms.
Speaker: ah I guess, like, let's start general and, like, working our way down. Or actually, let's start with something different. Let's start personally with your story. So I guess, like, what is your personal relationship with gender? Yeah, so i am I've been like every pronoun and under the sun and at various points. um Right now I'm a a non-binary it it's kind of former trans guy. And I think through being both, I had a phase of being non-binary and then I went more kind of like ah stereotypically masculine ah because people kind of respected that more. And then I kind of circled back to being more non-binary and being like,
Speaker: It doesn't matter if people can understand what I am, I'll just be the freak that I am. And so I've moved through both like straight spaces, gay male spaces, and now kind of more general queer spaces. And so that's given me, I think, a lot to see about just the different ways that everybody is kind of influenced by gender. And almost no matter what kind of queer or straight you are, you like are still reenacting a lot of cishet stuff, just in different ways. Yeah. Go into like like, how do you think that like queer people around the queer spectrum still reinforces, I guess, cishat gender norms? I mean, i guess it's hard to break through it because it's at the end of the day the dominant culture that we live under. her Yeah. Yeah. I think people kind of grasped on like male female gender roles onto dating and sex, even if what they're doing is queer. So like, there's a lot of, one of my like big hobby horses with it is people like complaining about the top shortage when they are a bottom who won't take initiative. Yeah. um And that's because of all of this like cultural programming that says, you know, the person who is like the receptive partner in sex is the woman and a woman is not supposed to have agency. And so therefore, if you are more of a bottom or more submissive, like you need to be pursued and not ever like express your desire. And so that's something that I see in a lot of queer spaces where people kind of really shoot themselves in the foot. Like you'll see either queer women who feel like they don't have the right to initiate with people. um And that's and then they kind of get stuck where, you know, they might be wanting to pursue another woman, but they just can't because both of them are like frozen like that. Or it can just be somebody of really any identity. But if they're
Speaker: But they have this script in their mind where like there's this masculine person who's supposed to top and supposed to be dominant and they're supposed to be the pursuer. And then they're supposed to be like a feminine person who doesn't do any of that. When really like any combination is possible at any time and everybody has to communicate. So that's definitely something where I've seen people get stuck.
Speaker: so, so much and like they can't let that go. I've seen that conversation play on TikTok a lot between like, and a lot of gay man conversations about the idea of reinforcing gender norms between like more femme and more mass identifying gay men. And it's like, we don't have to do this. Like, is it that the point of being queer is that you're stepping out of heteronormativity so you can have that freedom to like pursue gender and relationships and how you interact with the world the way that you want to be. But I feel like it's so hard because we're conditioned from birth to like, this is the way that the world works. Even if there's no physics or any other metaphysical reason that defines why this is why we relate to gender. And also if you go back hundreds of years, gender looks very differently. And I guess like, if you want to talk on this a little bit, um not to move the ghost pulse again,
Speaker: But how do you see that we're conditioned from gender before we even have the freedom to even understand gender, if that makes sense? Yeah. Oh, well my God. We could go on and on. It kind of starts everywhere. um I often like to think about because I'm a psychologist in training, so I think about link development and stuff. We start grouping kids based on gender without explaining it to them from such a young age and all these like arbitrary ways, even when gender would not ever conceivably mattered, right? Like line up boy, girl, boy, girl. And we're not going to tell you why that matters or why you even being one of these things, like where it comes from or what it is. and There's like a really harsh punishment in in a lot of families that are more traditional up with gender norms of just any kind of stepping out of line. ah But even like subtle ways to where what kind of attention you get really can shape you like kids are just sponges for.
Speaker: positive attention. So if, for example, if you're, you know, a girl and you're a little too aggressive, that is going to get nipped in the bud way faster typically than a boy just kind of play fighting and it's just seen as play fighting and like maybe a good thing for him to be a little bit aggressive because he needs to defend himself. And so there's all these little policings. It's almost like a, like a sailboat. That's just getting these winds blowing it on a certain course over and over again, where, um, as you know, as a kid, you're like an alien dropped onto this planet and who with this culture you're trying to learn. And you see who gets singled out, who gets bullied, who gets seen as a freak, who gets seen as dangerous or perverted, you know, any kind of queerness is kind of seen as really scary. Um, and any kind of gender, um, rule violation really does too. And so this stuff just really builds and builds where even if you're in like a pretty like progressive home growing up, like even if you're in a setting where people are trying to push against it.
Speaker: At the end of the day, people are still really uncomfortable seeing a man be weak, right? Or they're still uncomfortable with a woman holding certain kinds of power. And so that really shapes what you feel comfortable in in yourself and what feels safe in like hundreds of ways. And I think that's why gender fluidity scares people so much because it's the first time that you actually have to confront the fact that you can never gotten to choose anything about how you relate to gender before ever in your life, especially for like a lot of cis straight people. Because like you were saying, everything from the type of compliments that you receive as a kid. Where if you're born some if you're born someone who society views as a girl, you're going to get compliments on how attractive you are, pretty, and reinforce those type of dynamics. If you're born and society views you as a boy, a lot of times they get compliments on intelligence and bravery and aggression. And it reinforces the type of person that you end up becoming and you never...
Speaker: got to choose that. You never got to explore if you would enjoy different types of personality traits. Or this is the story about me real quick. i did not realize how much I enjoyed color wearing colorful clothes until I was in college.
Speaker: And I always found myself, ah I grew up watching WWE and I always gravitated mentally towards the more flamboyant wrestlers, either the flamboyant wrestlers or I hate this term, but WWE called the divas, the women wrestlers. yeah and i didn't know why i always gravitated towards towardsurist people like sean michaels who was his persona did you watch wrestling my train a little bit okay yeah yeah i'm familiar yeah for context sean michaels personas was he was um he was a man stripper and he would wear very flamboyant clothes he was very sexual and provocative and i wanted to be that and i didn't know why and it seemed that more i couldn't conceive that i could be that because
Speaker: The way she presented himself was more feminine. And I think when you start intersecting race with odd gender, there's not a lot of room for black men in society to be able to express any form of femininity without ah that automatically being rooted out.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that seems like something that is so heavily punished from all sides, right? Like the more you're a narrow intersection, like in queerness, you won't see yourself up represented because white people are so predominant. And then, you know, like I've certainly seen the like, oh, you're you're threatening that black masculinity by being like feminine as a black man, like seeing that come from from black people, which really, it really sucks when people internalize that.
Speaker: And I think that like. there's an illusion of choice here when it comes to gender um and like i'd love to hear your thoughts on this but like i think when people are talking about hey hate trolls x y and z and it's like well how much choice did you have in this option did you really have the ability to decide to portray gender in any other way would society has punished that and i would love to hear you talk about One, do people actually have a choice of around, initially, around how they interact with the world and gender? And two, what are some of the ways that you see the society punish people for deviating from how they're supposed to relate to gender? Yeah, well, I think the big way that people are kind of quietly punished for deviance is just a total lack of belonging, right? Or like a total lack of like, coherence, kind of the example you were just showing, like, of if you've never seen somebody like you and people find it confusing, like, there's no sense of belonging. And humans fear, like, being ostracized. Like, we want to be part of a community. And so when you don't see that, like, that can really feel, like, I think more threatening than we really give it space for. That it is really hard to be that kind of flamboyant figure if you're perceived as a man. um And, you know, to the choice piece, like, what you're saying kind of makes me think of, um ah In the twenty ten s we kind of called it choice feminism. This idea that, well, as long as usually a woman is making the choice herself, whatever she chooses is okay and it's all equal. And that kind of stuff would be used to kind of justify a lot of people going with the herd of like, oh, I choose to shave my legs. I just like how it feels. Or like, I choose to wear makeup. I'm doing it for me. And those things can be true, but you're never making those choices in a vacuum.
Speaker: um Why do you like it? Why does it feel good? What rewards do you get? Does it really feel possible for you to think of the alternative? And, um you know, it's it's always sort tricky to talk about because, of course, people do have the right to go in whatever path that they want, but there is so much pushing people in a certain direction. And the majority of society is only going to reward you if you're doing something that they have seen before and it's coherent. And if it's not, there's it's just going to be really hard for people to know where to slot you in. and so um it is a really lonely position to be in. And that alone can do a lot of work on you to make you change.
Speaker: And I think that the loneliness and the shame aspect, the alienation are like really powerful ways to get people to conform to behavior norms. Because I think that a lot of times when we think of punishment, we think of carceral type, the state or family doing physical acts of violence or...
Speaker: ah other ways to conform behavior and stop people from doing things that they don't want. But I think the more powerful social and cultural tool is shame and loneliness. We're social creatures. We want connection with people and the idea of like, hey, if you don't chart check these cultural norms, even if you're not hurting other people,
Speaker: We're going to force isolation upon you and we're going to make you internally feel bad. So instead of a cop having to watch and police your behaviors on the streets, you end up watching it or watching and policing your behavior your head. The cop lives inside of you. That makes sense. And I think that was like my thing for like the longest was...
Speaker: I'm even after I knew that I was queer, i knew that i enjoyed fluidity with gender in certain ways. That religious indoctrination and shame piece that cop living in my head were always telling Hey, you can't do that. Or, Hey, it's bad to do that. Or, Hey, you lose your friends if you do that. And I don't think people understand how powerful of a conditioning tool, getting people to think that way.
Speaker: yes Yeah, if it's massive. And I think it's really visible for people who are kind of the boundary breakers within the queer community, where there are clear spaces that are for cis gay men, right? And there's sapphic spaces, though those are still like very rare and under attack. But if you're outside of a category that people can kind of easily interpret,
Speaker: who is gonna understand you, who is gonna accept you and recognize you as one of their own. um That's definitely something that I really struggled with. um I came out as non-binary in 2016, and that was a time where people would give it lip service. Like if people cared, they would like try to use your pronouns and stuff like that. But if you weren't in some binary category that they could really easily read, they were just gonna treat you as what you were assigned at birth. And so I really felt this need to like, well, maybe I can find meaning and belonging and still be seen as queer if I go more in this gay male direction. There's lots of spaces, you know, there's lots of media. I can have my little queerest folk like life fantasy, you know, like, and I really thought like, oh, I need to be accepted by like cis gay men to really be like a valid
Speaker: queer person and to be queer enough, right? Like you can't get any more like visibly queer than that. um And then you get into those spaces and like you're still gonna be picked apart for all the ways in which you're not like the masculine, like attractive miss ideal or because you're trans or just because everybody there is so insecure.
Speaker: about their masculinity, that like if you're at all femme, even if you're like a guy, they will have a problem with you. And there is no belonging. um And, you know, trans people, we do it to ourselves. Gay people do it to ourselves. um We take a lot of society's judgments or what we're afraid of being seen as and then we use it to kind of police and pick apart each other.
Speaker: And there's just often a really big sense of loneliness that comes from where am I going to go where people are actually going to see me and going to get it? And if there's nowhere to go, if those spaces don't exist for bisexual people, for an non-binary people, you kind of end up having to round yourself into some category to even be seen as queer at all or have any home at all. Because the straight world is not going to take us. yeah i know um But a lot it can feel like a lot of the queer people aren't going to take us either too. Can you talk a little bit more about how you see or how you saw in the cis gay men communities about how masculinity was a prison for them? Because I feel that like the way the society views masculinity, it's a masculinity is a very tight definition where any deviation is an automatic stripping of your masculinity in a straight road. And how is that, I guess, in the gay men world too?
Speaker: I think a lot of gay men try to not be what they were afraid of being seen as and bullied for being um when they were young. So not going to be seen as weak or feminine or sissy or like those kinds of like weighted things. And so you even see it in just how people move through something like cruising culture. um I spent a lot of time in like ah gay male cruising spaces. There's a lot of things I love about it and love about the history. But a lot of it comes from the need to be really discreet, where you're not talking to people. You're not even looking people in the eye or in the face at all. Or you're just doing a really brief kind of eye contact, and that's the only way that you convey desire. you know like Sometimes I'll be in a cruising space, and even just saying like hello to someone will creep them out and scare them because they are so used to, us especially gay men of older generations, because they're so used to having to hide.
Speaker: Like, hide the fact that you're queer, hide your desire, only just like quickly look at someone and then look away. And that's the only way that you kind of can express desire. And like, the only way you can get tenderness from another man is like in this dark room um where you're touching and then you're never going to see each other again because then this person won't out you or see you as lesser. um And there are beautiful things about that culture, but it also comes from like that trauma of like the HIV epidemic and homophobia and stuff. and There's definitely a very long running history of just kind of worshiping like a very buff ah masculine physical form. People will just kind of outright say that they don't want short guys. They don't want guys who aren't muscular. um Guys who are just more feminine presenting or perceived as more feminine will kind of be circling these spaces and not... ah not given a attention um in any way, like any sense of belonging, right? Like, of course, you're not entitled to somebody wanting to to fuck you or whatever. But like, there's this sense of like, you are embarrassing us. You're like a bad example of a man. And so, you know, my experience being like a very feminine when I was a gay guy, a very feminine one, the people who would really acknowledge me were the bisexuals and the non-binary people in those spaces who didn't quite have that same baggage in the same way. um Or maybe they were just already also outsiders in their own way. so they weren't as much trying to like overcome this stereotype of like gay men are seen as weak and so I need to be strong and have no feelings and have no tenderness. That I think really, it really limits people a lot.
Speaker: I'm not someone who's been in sapphic spaces. ah Is that type of gender policing happening there too or sapphic spaces more gender expensive? than cis gay men spaces, if you have any inclination about what goes on there. Yeah, I think it definitely is more like diverse and experiences. I think, you know, um there's always debates happening online um that I'm sure people have seen about whether trans masks belong in sapphic spaces. So, for example, if somebody identified as a lesbian and then they took testosterone and identified as a man, Do they belong? Do they not?
Speaker: um But I think for the most part, the community kind skews on the side of saying, yes, they belong. they They've been part of the culture. And like, it's more than just being a woman. Right. There's so many non-binary lesbians. And um what I think I've really noticed being in Chicago for many years now is a big change in terms of being more um trans women inclusive and trans women led. um There are just way more sapphic spaces now in this city that are are shaped by trans women, um which is fantastic to see. um And still like way more is needed because there is just a big history of excluding trans women from sapphic spaces.
Speaker: But I think where we are now, I think sapphic spaces are way more likely to kind of be philosophical about this stuff and have these debates. Whereas here, speaking for Chicago, there are gay bars where it's still really infamous that if you're trans in any way, you're going to be excluded or pipped on or told that you don't belong. Whereas I think most of the sapphic spaces here, they are trying to think about who belongs in a more expansive way.
Speaker: But I think people do still have baggage and that it shows up in different ways where people still have expectations of, oh, I'm supposed to be the woman in the relationship. That means I can't hit on someone. um It would be predatory for me to touch someone. Like I know so many lesbians.
Speaker: kind of all across the gender spectrum who are really, really afraid to initiate. Like they're afraid of being kind of the predatory lesbian stereotype. um So I think that's where I see people struggle with kind of gender in sapphic spaces that I've heard the most is this fear of like women aren't allowed to express desire.
Speaker: Do you mind if I keep doing it? This is really interesting. Why do you think that like gender expressive expansiveness happens in like this affect circle? Why do you think that there is this culture that is evolving and changing in a way that gay band spaces or even straight spaces seem to be a lot more resistant to?
Speaker: i think I think there's a lot going on now. I think part of it is because women are already a gender minority. So you have a space that's kind of defined by we're a gender minority. And a lot of those spaces started out as saying we want to exclude men um because they're our oppressor. We're just not interested or whatever. um And that kind of was challenged by the fact that um a lot of lesbians do have some kind of trans masked exploration. um And a lot of ah like butch lesbians already kind of either were non-binary historically or are now identified on the non-binary spectrum. There seemed to have been like, for a lot of reasons, I think having to do with knowing already that they're a gender minority, more understanding of like, there's a lot of different ways people's gender can be policed and none of us here are at the top of the hierarchy.
Speaker: Whereas I think for some gay men, i think especially with white gay men, they are still at the top of the gender hierarchy. They might be oppressed based on jet on on sexuality, but on everything else, they can still kind of move through the world with the power of being perceived as a cis man. And so they don't necessarily have to empathize with people who haven't had that experience. Whereas I think um i think a lot of lesbians, there's immediately this question of like, okay, what does it mean to be oppressed based on gender? Because it's not just having a uterus or something, right? Like they yeah know it's based on a bunch of different things. And so who's included, who's not? Kind of almost anybody who is a gender minority, which includes all trans people. And so I think they've put in a little bit more of that work because it's where they live. um
Speaker: And I think cis gay men can kind of escape having to think about that a little bit more. And the polling backs up what you're saying because there was a poll recently done on a very political poll, favorability of trans people by sexual orientation and lesbians were, lesbians had a more positive view on trans people in today's political climate than any other sexual orientation demographic going down the list from bisexual people, gay people, and straight people. And I've heard this said that
Speaker: While there's a lot online, very loud rhetoric from TERFs, they don't exist as sm much in real life communities, and Napoleon backs that up. But I've also heard part of the reason why is that a lot of people view lesbianism as a not just a sexual orientation but also like it's its own gender in a way and like again i'm not the one to talk on this but i would love to hear your thoughts on that if you're okay with sharing time yeah you know i think sexual orientation gen and gender are always connected right like i think as soon as you're queer your ability to claim like cisgender status is already challenged right like that's already kind of some of what we were talking about with gay men where even if you're a really masculine gay man, if people know that you're gay, they're going to see you as more feminine or the people that age old question of like, who's the woman in the relationship, right? Like your part of how gender is defined in society is by how you
Speaker: experience desire and pursue desire, right? Like one of the most gender validating things for a straight woman is to be desired by a really masculine man and vice versa. Like people's gender is validated by who desires them and what kind of sex they have. So I think the second that you're queer, you're already kind of throwing a wrench in that um and people aren't going to see you as fully cis in a way or like fully gender conforming. um And in particular, there have been so many lesbians historically who have said lesbian is my gender. Like the writing goes back, you know well until the mid 20th century of lesbian saying that Stone Butch Blues is like one of the most like iconic examples of that, where a lot of people don't identify with womanhood, but they do identify with being a queer woman or with loving and supporting other women. um and And butchness is just such a big example of kind of binary bending identity that has been really um accepted in a lot of like sapphic circles since the very beginning. And like butch femme dynamics are just a huge part of like sapphic history. So I think that's
Speaker: I think that's there where it's really understood a little bit more. um There certainly are is that history of TERFs that you alluded to. And um for people who have heard of this history before, political lesbians. So people who um have in the 60s and 70s said they were trying to separate from men entirely and create spaces where there there were no men allowed, um including like if anybody had a kid that was a boy. And those spaces kind of became very TERFy. Or were very turvy from the start. But I think overall, um when we look at queer people in general, you already are kind of forced into questioning your gender or had your gender questioned by others. And then I think especially for women, um it really pushes them into a place of asking like, okay, I know that I'm still in this gender minority category, but I don't feel like a woman or I don't identify as a woman 100%. not what society says a woman is supposed to be, right? Like you don't want be like married to a straight man or whatever. And so that opens up a lot of avenues for like, okay, I'm going to define myself in challenge to that, which can be really freeing. That's a really interesting topic. And like one thing you said that really want like hammer home is, I think the general thesis of this podcast is, I'm supposed to be what X says I'm supposed to be because of my gender at birth. Whether, however you're perceived by society, this is the path you're supposed to go down. And the way that I've heard it described is, you're supposed to just, it's easier to swim with the street.
Speaker: And I guess the idea is that you'll be happier if you just conform and swim downstream versus swimming upstream against the tide of society.
Speaker: But i' I want to challenge that because I feel between online din online discourse and conversations in real life and co-running a bisexual sex-positive party that has a emphasis on fluidity, whether it's in sexual orientation or gender expression, there seems to be a lot of people very unhappy about gender norms. And like, I don't know how much attention you pay to straight TikTok dating i discourse, but over the past year, you see cis straight men and cis straight women
Speaker: constantly and complaining about the roles that they feel that they're being forced or coerced into due to their gender and why they don't like it. And I think you see the same thing in like gay men spaces where it's like,
Speaker: I want to express femininity. I want to express intimacy that is not just assumed through sex, even though like that, I'm not saying that that's bad, but like you see people say that like, I want my relationships and my friendships my dynamics of people to be more expansive than than just sex.
Speaker: So I guess this is a two part question. One, do you think that when you started defining gender by yourself, It made you happier. And two, do you think that a more gender expansive, more gender fluid society would make more people happy?
Speaker: Oh, oh my gosh, absolutely. It is such an imprisoning situation. Like, I do really feel for the straights. Like, they are in such a, like, unwinnable spot sometimes. I was just following this um this advice column, Captain Awkward, where she got a ah letter writer writing in was basically complaining that her boyfriend of many years was, like, not popping the question, right? Like, she wanted to get married, and they had talked about getting married, but the boyfriend wasn't doing it. And the advice columnist was like, well, why don't you, you know...
Speaker: have a conversation with him about this. And she was immediately like, no, it needs to be a spontaneous proposal. Right? Like, like I would be a failure as a woman if a man didn't just spontaneously do this thing that I want without me saying it. Right? Like that it's just, even though she wants things to be a certain way, like the norms are like, I would be a failure. Like I would not, it's not possible to be in straight culture and like violate this rule. Right. That like the man proposes.
Speaker: You know, so that stuff's like all over TikTok it seems to have all as well. It seems to have only gotten worse over time in the last few years, like maybe as like a backlash to transness. People are so obsessed with like being trad wives and like hyper masculine chads and they just can't. They have like even less breathing room than like 10 or 15 years ago. So, yeah, that stream is really punishing.
Speaker: And so, you know, your first question, is it is it better to kind of start defining it for yourself? Yes, but it's so scary. It's it's it's like diving off of the planet into space, right? Like you've lost the grounding that tells you here's what I'm supposed to be.
Speaker: Here's what I'm supposed to want and what is going to be rewarded. And a lot of times you're having to build something for yourself from scratch. um For me, finding trans community and non-binary community was absolutely essential to that. um There was an element of going my own way and saying, okay, I don't want to be this cis straight woman thing that society expected me to be. that started as like private exploration and saying, I don't have to be that. But it didn't really start like really taking off for me until I could see other people also doing it and see people with every combination of like surgeries and hormones and bodies and clothing and really just throwing out the rule book and just playing with all of those things as just like colors in it on a canvas instead of like coloring in lines.
Speaker: That was really, really essential to actually get this feeling of like, Because gender is always social, right? Like it is, do other people recognize you? Do they say that you belong? Like who are the people that you feel safest among? And so if you're in kind of the cishet world, at first there's kind of nothing and you kind of have to find some spaces where it is safe to play around. And that fluidity piece, like ah at Sluts parties, that being part of the goal of like, you don't have to have your identity solved, you don't have to have this label that you're perfectly sure of and like a set of rules for yourself of like what your gender is. Like just feeling like there are spaces where you can try things and other people are trying things is just so, so important for figuring out what feels good. Cause I think that's an easier question to answer for a lot of us. Like what feels good? What feels like home rather than like, what am I for sure?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. That makes lot sense. And I guess I'd get on top of that. how would you encourage people to start asking those questions? Because it is scary. And I think that the other issue is that Gender is so normalized in our society from, like we were talking about earlier, the moment you are born, even before you're born, people are already having a perception of, society has a perception of what you will become.
Speaker: And if what you want to be or what you feel is authentic to you is not aligned with what society wants you to become, How do you start experimenting? How do you start figuring out?
Speaker: Because you know that this isn't working. How do you start figuring out what you think would work? I think you do have to find community or if you're not finding the spaces for people like you, you have to take a step to kind of start building community, which is really hard. But like,
Speaker: What, you know, find queer community spaces, whether it's a LGBTQ center and volunteering or going out to queer dance parties or going to a queer book club, meeting lots of people who are already going off that path. And it can happen online. It can happen in person, but building relationships with people who are also interested in breaking free of that mold. um You don't have to be like queer enough in order to start doing those things. Like if you have something that you want to contribute, you know, your time, your talents, your ability to like organize a clothing swap for trans people, like whatever it is, give something to other people and you will get it back tenfold. I think that's really important. um Reading your your history, um reading about kind of different things queer people have done. throughout time because we have always been here and we have always been kind of quietly on the margins breaking the rules and really surrounding yourself with a lot of other people and not just in the sense of like what i did for a while of like i need this one specific like gay community to accept me and otherwise i'm not valid um there is no one queer community right there is no one gay community there's there's dozens and dozens of spaces that people are making And it's it's parties, it's raves, it's orgies, it's clothing swaps, it's book clubs, it's feeding people in your community, it's giving some of your old clothes from your cisgender persona to someone else who's trans and you you know you get some of their clothes and you try on a skirt for the first time or whatever it is. Really experiment with it and definitely don't keep yourself out of it thinking that you don't know who you are. or that you don't belong, like gender liberation should be for everyone. um I've felt like I'm doing a good thing for even the cis men when I'm like in a men's restroom looking like this, like they're imprisoned. And when they see people stepping outside of that prison,
Speaker: opens their minds up and it helps them relax relax a little. Like even if somebody is cishet, they still benefit from this stuff, really being explored and challenged and everything we can do to kind of just make the world a freer space for sexual and gender exploration for everyone is, you know, its it just makes you feel more belonging and makes everybody feel safer.
Speaker: i think that last point is really interesting because I think that there's a lot less conversations around breaking out of gender norms and how gender can be expanded for cis and cis-hat people.
Speaker: So I guess, like... i won you How would you talk to like somebody who is cis or cis hat, but they're like, hey, I don't know if I'm genderqueer.
Speaker: And like I'm going to be honest, this is partially me. Because I use he, they pronouns, but I joke and I'm like, he, they. Mostly because like i a lot of times, from most of the time I feel very like a man.
Speaker: But I feel imprisoned. by masculinity and like there's little beautiful moments where like I've realized that I enjoy wearing skirts. One, skirts are so much, skirts for me are so much easier to dance and in than pants and also like okay I get stimulation issues so having something tight on my legs makes me just want to like rip them off. in the same way that like a skirt doesn't or even like something as simple as the color where for 20 something years of my life i cannot get myself to wear the color pink and i've realized that's actually one of my favorite colors i love wearing right now love the color pink so how would you have those conversations with
Speaker: Cis and cishat people who want to see if there's something outside of what society has deemed masculine and or feminine or how they're supposed to experience gender and Yeah, but they don't feel that they're genderqueer or they don't know that. Yeah, I would say the first thing you have to do is stay away from the online discourse because I think there is a lot of really poisonous infighting in the community online that will really be really harsh on people who are exploring
Speaker: um and put these boundaries on who is allowed to claim something or try something that is just not reality. Like when you are actually in like a physical queer community space, nobody's actually being like, oh, why are you wearing a skirt? are you are you What are your pronouns? Are you really like,
Speaker: trans enough to actually explore these things. that's People might get into those kinds of weeds online where they'll be like, oh, it's just performative for this man to wear a skirt or like all kinds of stuff that like I hate even repeating it because it's so it's just so bitter and it comes from nowhere rooted in reality. Right. Like so if you are reading anything online that makes you feel like you can't explore because you're not sure.
Speaker: If you're trans or you're not sure if you're queer enough, like there is no like queer enough. Like this is not something where you need a doctor's note saying that you're trans enough to do these things. Like we moved away from that, right? Like to be able to be trans was something that you used to have to have a psychiatrist approve. And that was horrible for all of us, right? Like anybody can explore with gender. That is more freeing for all of us. You're not like...
Speaker: appropriating anything, you're not being performative, like you don't have to be trans enough to like explore these things. ah Skirts were like the default clothing for like thousands of years until like, what was it like horse riding? That's why people started wearing pants because it's better for horse riding. But for everything else, skirts are more comfy. So you don't have to be femme or a woman to enjoy a skirt.
Speaker: But if trying it on makes you feel something and feel more attuned to a different side of yourself, like, listen to that, too. You know, like, celebrate that, too. It doesn't have to be definitive. I think, you know, one of the big struggles for me where I felt the need to pick a binary gender was that people really...
Speaker: even in our community like they don't necessarily believe fluidity like my experience has almost been that i've been different genders in different years you know you can be fluid from day to day or you can be fluid from year to year or week to week like we're we're allowed to evolve so don't let people tell you that you can't try things try things like take everything from that buffet as you possibly can get the skirts get the makeup get the jewelry experiment with different ways of moving your body.
Speaker: Notice voices that you find interesting, like try speaking in different tones and ways. Like think about who in media you wanted to be as a kid or you were fascinated by and like really explore that. Sometimes for a lot of people, especially I think if you're perceived as a man, it's harder to explore this stuff. It feels a lot more dangerous. And so find the safe people who aren't going to judge you um because there are reactions that people sometimes give of like questioning or disgust or suspicion that are really, really violent, honestly. Like it really, um it makes like toxic masculinity worse. Like people are shooting themselves in the foot when they,
Speaker: suspect anyone they see as a man having a more tender or flamboyant or expressive side. So find the people who really will celebrate that in you. Start in private if that's where you need to go. And then find like the community spaces where you really can do that stuff and go for it because you deserve, you belong. You deserve to do this stuff. Like, and you know, it I love seeing it. Like I love seeing people get more free and that should be the way that we um welcome that as a community.
Speaker: Couple more questions since like we're coming up on a 40 minute mark. There is something I want to touch home on more. And again, this is me asking you a question while talking about myself. I should be paying you because this is like a free therapy session. No, no, you're right. Um...
Speaker: I do, I personally, believe and this might just be my projection from my experience and how gender is policed for me. I do think that there's a ri rigidity, rigidity, wow, I can't say words, that there is a prison that is masculinity in a way that there's a lot tighter rules about ways that masculinity can be expressed. And I think that you really see this with the idea of like fluidity and sexuality, where
Speaker: there's a lot more room inside i'll say straight culture and even queer culture for someone who is perceived as a woman to be a little bit more fluid around gender sexuality and like presentation and i believe that like it comes from decades and decades of really great work by the feminist movement and i think that like inside the patriarchy I think that there's a double assort where men are benefits so much from the way that society organized.
Speaker: But I also think that that comes with you have to play the game of how you're supposed to be a man to benefit from these or to benefit from all of these, the majority of these benefits. and i think that a lot of times you see when men step outside with the patriarchy how tightly it defines of how you're supposed to behave wearing skirts painting their nails there is this really strong reactionary and sometimes violent reaction by society and a way of like i don't know if you saw the performative man tiktok trend on yeah yeah a couple months ago and it was just like
Speaker: Don't we want people reading books? Don't we want people painting their nails? Don't want people expressing gender? Because even if it's performative, because I mean, one, gender is performative in gender. Right. i It's social. It's always, yeah. Perception. Yeah.
Speaker: But even if it is like. unauthentic. Wouldn't we rather have men performing this version of unauthentic gender presentation versus men performing a hyper-masculine, violent and aggressive form of masculinity, which is also performative?
Speaker: Right. Yeah, I mean, like the guys who wear the cowboy hats and carry a gun or help in one to be John Wayne, and they're performing masculinity too. And I would much rather have a society of people who are performing a soft, less violent, ah more inclusive form of masculinity than people performing a more violent line. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's like really important to shout out that like even if somebody is not in the most gender-powered position in society, so let's say they are a woman or even ah a non-binary person, that they can still reinforce societal norms of masculinity in a way that can be really um contribute to that violence. So you were talking about polling. um it's you I'm sure you've seen the data that shows that a lot of even bisexual women will say that they won't date a bisexual man. And it's it's so upsetting to me to see people who are themselves oppressed, both for being women and for being bisexual, still have this idea in their head of a man is supposed to be masculine, a man is supposed to be powerful. If I have even the thought of my boyfriend having sex with another man, I can't see him as powerful enough.
Speaker: and masculine enough and so I don't want to be with him. Like think of what that says about you as a woman that you like feel like you always need to be lesser in some way in this like gender hierarchy and that you think it's somehow gross for somebody to like be penetrated during sex or like had sex with men. Like why do you see that as a lesser position? Like that sounds like a lot of like internalized sexism and homophobia to me or biphobia. That's just one example. But like there's a lot of different ways in which even people who say we want an men to be feminist, we want men to be in touch with their feelings, they still kind of get the ick from a guy who is, you know, screams when a bug comes out or needs help or cries. And if we want to see that world, we have to take steps to build it. Right. like We have to actually be willing to support men being tender. um And not see that as some kind of violation. and um And I think there is a lot less free reign for people who assume to be men to explore other gender norms because it's seen as a threat to male power.
Speaker: that women, as you said, kind of won a lot more of freedom of gender exploration. But part of that is also because if you're a woman, but you want to be more masculine, people can respect that.
Speaker: People can understand where that comes from because you they see it in their mind as like masculine is better or powerful. They can see why masculinity is good. But I think even a lot of women still think femininity is bad in some way. Like they see it as weak or frivolous or not powerful. You know, like the I'm just a girl kind of memes and stuff like that. Like women will do that to themselves. And then they will also project that onto any man around them that they see as weak. You know, like some of the biggest gender policers of kids are...
Speaker: both of their parents, right? Like, like moms reinforce that stuff in their sons, telling them to be a man and stop crying. um and And women sometimes do it to their male partners. um And so I think it's something that we really, really need to challenge because it boxes men into a position of first never getting to realize that maybe they aren't men in the first place. um And then also forcing them into being this like stoic, masculine figure.
Speaker: that like we say as a community we don't want, but then are we really celebrating that person if they wear a skirt or they cry or they're not like the strong one in the house who's gonna like kill the bug or whatever the thing is? like We have a lot of unpacking to do, um if that's our reaction to masculinity being violated. Like, why do we think masculinity is so important that like, it needs to be upheld like that? Can we actually treat femininity as not suspicious? Like, why is it suspicious that somebody would want to be feminine unless you think they're feminine is lesser in some way? Which is why i think it's really important for everybody, no matter your sexual orientation or gender identity to express and accept and explore with femininity, masculinity,
Speaker: and androgyny everything that covers that entire spectrum i view gender now as a buffet and before gender was a script it was you follow x y and z you say your lines um it was a menu you order what was on the menu if they laid it out for you you didn't have a lot of choice but i view gender now as like hey i get to walk around and say that like i want these parts of masculinity these parts of femininity this parts of things that are in between these parts of things that don't really fit anywhere on the spectrum and i guess like
Speaker: One, what do you think that cis men can learn from trans men? And two, what do you think cis people in general can learn from trans people in general when it comes to gender exploration and finding authenticity in your identity?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I think there is so much more that cis men and trans men have in common than they realize. And they are are we can be such mirrors of each other in ways that like break down like the image what being a man is supposed to be, right? So like...
Speaker: um men can be short men can have wide hips men can have breasts right like men can have all kinds of different personality qualities and one thing that i've noticed throughout my like multiple transitions is like i used to be really like dysphoric thinking about oh i don't meet this male standard my body should like this or i have this thing But then you go into a space where there's a ton of men, like a bathhouse or something, and you're looking at all the bodies and there are very feminine body shapes on supposedly cisgender men.
Speaker: And a lot of them feel insecure about it. They feel insecure about having like wide hips or like a big butt or like ah a pretty face or like whatever kind of traits that they've been told aren't masculine enough. But, you know, trans men are men, cis men are men. how Like if that is an identity that feels like home to you, you will find so many different ways that people present that. And there are trans men that wear dresses and skirts and makeup. There are cis men who do that too. And um we are actually so reflected in each other. And it really shows how much like
Speaker: body and gender diversity there is even within like the cis category, you know? Yeah. um And I think generally um what cis people can learn from trans people is to stop holding so tight onto those rules of what they need to be um and get a little bit more comfortable with being an outlier. There's so much fear, I think, that keeps people um restricted in their gender. um And trans people are often the ones who are standing out outside of that and saying, like, no, i'm I'm not going to follow these rules. I'm not going to, like, manicure my body in this way. um I'm not going to present in this way. And you don't have to be trans to, like...
Speaker: question anything. You know, you can be a cis woman who doesn't want to have boobs and you can just get top surgery. Like, don't let anybody tell you that you can't do that. You get to decide what body parts you want. Like, I know cisgender women who want to get phalloplasty and get a penis and they don't identify as trans mass. They just want to be a woman with penis or a woman with no breasts. Like, being a woman can be whatever you want it to be or nothing. You know, like, there are no rules. It really is just a question of I just keep going back to instead of asking, like, what am i
Speaker: Am I this enough? Just like, what do you want to do? Like, what turns you on? What gives you pleasure? Those things are way easier to listen to. Like, when you imagine, like, how you would feel sexiest in yourself, what would you want your body to look like? Well, how would you want to dress? And just try that. Like, see what makes you feel good and empowered and sexy um and free or joyful.
Speaker: And then figure out after that, like, what that means. Like, you don't have to have it all solved. to Just, like, let yourself actually feel like well, this thing's uncomfortable. I don't want to do this anymore. Or this thing seems really fun or really sexy. I'm going to try it. um That just opens up such a huge world.
Speaker: I think there's an interesting world where
Speaker: Nietzsche meets Judith Butler. And are you familiar with all Nietzsche's idea of killing God and what we're going to replace them with?
Speaker: Yeah. And I guess like where I'm at is I think we're kind of there with gender. Where when we as a society, when we started to move into a more secular, worldly view,
Speaker: How do we identify meaning? How do we identify the path we meet in our life? How do we how to orientate ourselves with the world around us?
Speaker: And I think that... the conversations around gender over the past 15 years I think a big reason why there's this reactionary anger is because I think so much of how we identify organize the world organized internally is by how we relate to gender norms and I think that trans people and genderqueer people as this forces society ask well what if it doesn't have to work that way what if the way that you relate to the road and orientate to society doesn't have to be that way and i think that that causes anxiety and i think drew butler does really cool work about how
Speaker: Society, from the moment you're born, forces you to become X, Y, and Gender through this is the clothes you wear This is the way you relate to people the people different people were different genders This is how you made friends This is how you're supposed to view yourself And I think that like a lot of cis people are scared because they don't know how to unpack and understand behavior for themselves.
Speaker: It causes a lot of anxiety. And I guess like, I don't know if if this makes sense. I don't know if I'm just like word vomiting at this point, but how do you think people should go about this?
Speaker: finding identity, finding how to behave, finding meaning in a world of gender fluidity or even a post-gender Yeah, first of all, I love the Nietzsche connection because I have said before that like the way that cis people will like latch on to gender norms is as if they are part of some kind of strange cult or a set of religious beliefs that they like are have been really, really heavily indoctrinated in. And it's like the meaning of their whole world and like the structure of their whole world, but they can't even really explain it and why it's important. like Gender is almost like this cult that's kind of like imposed on us with this like religious structure of like you belong to this class and you have to follow these rules. And um and I love the Judith Butler connection. What you were saving even makes me think a little bit of um Marxist feminism, which sometimes talks about how gender exists. and was pushed on us as a form of labor division that basically will create this class whose job is to like raise children and do housework and not pay them. And that is the role they're forced into doing, and that's also their identity, right? And that's where like a lot gender norms come from. um So it's this structure that people use to understand everything about who they are and what they're allowed to be. And when you threaten that, people get really, really defensive and really freaked out.
Speaker: And I think that is part of why there is such a big backlash of transphobia and and trans misogyny in the last several years is because people feel their world threatened. um So I think um in pushing back against that stuff, I think it's important.
Speaker: um I think it's awful like a little bit of space for just how scary that that is, that people don't feel safe even exploring gender for themselves if they feel like there's no grounding to kind of sit on. So I think talking about the ways in which gender coercive gender assignment at birth and like forced gender norms. The ways that it harms everyone is really important.
Speaker: Giving people space to kind of talk about the ways in which that has hurt them. And really, again, really pushing that this freedom is for everyone. Because I think sometimes some of the transphobic backlash is people saying like, why do you get to be freer than me? And they can't resent that.
Speaker: No. I think you really see that in like Christian circles where grew up Southern Baptist and there was this idea that you could have same multi-gender desire or same gender attraction desire.
Speaker: That's not the sin. The sin is the freedom to act on it. And I think what you see in a lot of conservatives and a lot of Christian people and a lot of transphobes in general is One, just anger about breaking cultural norms.
Speaker: It's something that has evolved with us fer since human nature that we have these unspoken rules that you just have to follow that for some evolutionary reason has evolved in a lot of people's brains.
Speaker: But I think two is jealousy. I think it's jealousy about the idea of freedom and going back to the Christian thing, it's A lot of people in the church statistically will have same gender attraction, but it's the idea that, well, I'm not acting on it. I'm containing myself. I'm dealing with this friction inside of me that makes life suck and hard.
Speaker: Why can't you? Why do you get to explore these sides of yourselves? And do you think that, like, there is a bit of jealousy at play between... cis people and this where was going with like all the cis man conversations and about masculinity being prison do you think there's a world where like a lot of the transphobic and homophobic cis straight guys and i'm not going to do the entire argument that they're all secretly queer right but more that they want to be able to explore themselves and express and be out of this prism prison.
Speaker: And since they can't, they're going to violently force other people to stay inside their prison. Yeah, I think for both ah conservative or transphobic men and women, there is this feeling of like, well, I've learned to repress myself. Like, and I repress these desires. I follow the rules. Like, I think ah you see it in a lot of like trans ah transphobic ah women where there's this legacy of like, I had to swallow my tongue and like be a good wife and mother. And how dare you get to like live a life that's for yourself? And so they hate people from those camps. Like they hate feminists. They hate non-binary people. They hate trans people. People.
Speaker: Yeah. People would choose not to give birth. Yeah. People would choose not to. Yeah. Child free people, non monotonous people, anybody who isn't restricting themselves in the way that they've just constantly had to swallow all of their questions and anger and ways that they've wanted to go outside of that. Like they are in such a repressive environment.
Speaker: where they think everybody should have to do that. And it makes them really angry. And I think you even see it in kind of just generational divides too, or just like, well, I, and you know, when I was growing up, we had to do this. So how dare you kind of violate these norms? Because then it'll make me have to think about like how painful it was for me and like how I didn't want to always like be wearing a suit or, you know, be wearing a dress or, you know, like be really conservatively dressed and things like that. And so I think the anger is the only thing people have kind of left when they're in those roles. Like when you're really repressed, anger can really lurch out. And so you do see ah men turning really violent against women and trans people or, you know, having a moment of queer desire and then having kind of a gay panic or a trans panic and they becoming violent to their partners or ashamed of their partners because it reveals that, like, there's this queerness in them that they did let out for a second. um But it's really across the whole spectrum of those kinds of communities. um I think even looking at, like, you know, turf movements like the JK Rowling's of the world and people like that, you see people who feel really like,
Speaker: they as women were denied something and they're really angry at the world and then they lash out at people who they think are like escaping, escaping in. I remember that used to be a really big thing in TERF circles they would say to trans men, it's like, oh you're just trying to escape sexism. And so there was a jealousy there, you know, and that was part of where their violence came from.
Speaker: On an interesting note, there is this, and probably like a final note, There's interesting idea of where people criticize trans people by arguing, you're just reenacting gender stereotypes.
Speaker: But i I think that's an interesting argument because isn't that what we're all doing? um But it's the freedom them to choose which gender quote-unquote stereotypes you want to enact.
Speaker: There's a reason why today I woke up and put on shorts and not a skirt or a dress. There's a reason why you listener, likes the things that you like and the things you don't like. And a lot of it because
Speaker: part of the gendered identity it's embracing the things means that you're supposed to enjoy and do as this gender. And I feel like a lot of people don't put thoughts into why they do this.
Speaker: It's just the quote unquote and gender stereotypes. And I guess like, how would you respond to someone having that statement that like, well, it's just people reenacting what they think the gender stereotypes are. Yeah, well, I think like the first thing people have to recognize is that when trans people do kind of go in a more like binary, gender-conforming direction, it's a matter of survival, right? Like a lot of trans people realize, if I don't take efforts to pass, I'm going to be way more subject to violence. So, you know, a trans woman is not deciding in a complete vacuum, oh, I'm going to grow my hair long and wear makeup and get breast implants and wear a dress. Like a lot of times, if you don't do all those steps, you are way more likely to be hate crimed or to just be not told that you told that you don't belong, which is also violence, right? Like there's also a social death to like not being recognized. So there's that piece of just trying to find belonging and survival that is really, really important that leads a lot of trans people onto that path. But then if you actually look at the realities of trans people, they are always the most gender expansive people in the room. Like there are so many trans women butches who are completely opening up the idea of what does it mean to be a woman? There are so many trans men who are incredibly feminine or very gender fucky and all across the spectrum. And most trans people at the end of the day are somewhere also on the non-binary spectrum, it seems like, where they have a time where they identify in that way, where they're saying, you know,
Speaker: Maybe man or woman is a little bit closer than what I was assigned at birth, but I want to keep some of those things that I grew up with that I do like, you know, like, and I want to play with all the colors in the in the color palette. And um I think it's a really narrow view of what trans people look like and why we're doing what we're doing to say that we're reinforcing gender norms. Because what I see among us is, you know, people with every combination of anatomy every combination of hormones, dressing in all kinds of different ways, all kinds of different passions and jobs and ways of having sex.
Speaker: Everything is just kind of really open up to questioning um once you include trans people in the mix. And so, yeah, if some of us end up landing in a more feminine or masculine kind of binary direction, maybe they did that for safety. Maybe that's where feels right. But for a lot of us, we're really like playing with all of the colors and like playing in the mud and like breaking the rules. And that's like a beautiful thing.
Speaker: I guess ending the conversation. um One, this has been an amazing conversation. I feel like i have so many more questions on the outline that we haven't touched into, but we're past the hour mark.
Speaker: Is there any any parting things that we haven't talked about or anything that you would like to say before we wrap this up? Uh, no, I'll just hit home again, like, explore this stuff. Like, no matter what you think your identity is or isn't, like, you don't need to earn the right to feel better in your body and to feel good and free.
Speaker: Just, like, go do it, you know? Try on different clothes, try on different presentations, speak differently, hold your body differently, go in queer spaces. You belong. Um... Anybody who wants to see some of these walls torn down belongs. And the more people do it, the more free we'll all be. So you are not taking anything away from anyone. You're setting us all free the more you set yourself free. So go do it. And yeah, be happy to see you there doing it.
Speaker: I also want to just end with the final note. The like experimentation does not equal. i did I think a lot of people feel that if I do X, Y, and z does it makes me A, B, C? It doesn't.
Speaker: If you want to identify however you want to identify, you can. That's you. That is your prerogative. But if you feel the urge to explore, or understand that you can be playful and experimenting and that you have a right to do that without having to make that into your entire persona. If you're saying, hey, this wasn't for me, that doesn't define me.
Speaker: And you have the right to change your mind. You know, I was on testosterone for years and then I stopped and, you know, like maybe I'll go on it again. You know, take an estrogen, I'm taking testosterone. Like do what feels good in your body in the moment, you know, explore different things and and be curious about yourself. Be open to yourself changing.
Speaker: that can be a really beautiful thing. I think ending the podcast and be curious is very fitting. So this has been John with The Sluts Podcast. This is Devin Price. Thank you so much.
Speaker: Have nice day.
