Fluid Identities in a Solid World

Kate Bornstein in her natural habitat.

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"In my case, however, it's not so clear. I identify as neither male nor female, and now that my lover is going through his gender change, it turns out I'm neither straight nor gay. What I've found as a result of this borderline life is that the more fluid my identity has become, and the less demanding my own need to belong to the camps of male, female, gay or straight, the more playful and less dictatorial my fashion has become -- as well as my style of self-expression."
-Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw, page 4

In my previous blog post regarding intersex bodies, I challenged the notion that another person's genitalia should not be the business of others, and that our obsession with other people is passe and, for a lack of a better word, downright annoying. In this blog post I will continue to complain about this invasive behavior so many of us like to indulge in from time to time, as well as offering insight from a transgender woman's perspective as opposed to the intersex.

Kate Bornstein wrote Gender Outlaws in order to tell her story as a queer trans-woman dating a trans-man and how it has affected her life. She starts off reflecting on her own love of fashion and how she uses clothing and accessories as yet another means of self-expression, especially when it comes to her feminine identity. She details how she rigidly stuck to stereotypical feminine styles of dress when she was less comfortable with her identity and felt the need to prove herself to the rest of the world that she is, in fact, a "real" woman. Whatever that means. However, she tells the story about how her lover, transitioning from female to male, has helped her come to terms with her identity. She began to recognize for herself how unnecessary the binaries are in terms of sexual identity and gender identity. Her life, as she recalls, is a mix of a little bit of everything: biological male body and female mind for her, and biologically female body and male mind for her lover. Her own style begins to reflect this mash-up as she cares less and less about sticking to the rules of gender, happily going about things her own way.

Her words are peppered with confidence as she briefly tells her story. She admits to being a great fan of accessories and says that they are the most important part of her wardrobe: essentially, the smaller details make up the most vital points in the big picture. Perhaps I am reading too deeply into her piece, but metaphorically speaking, this is a great representation of how much happier one can be when one rejects the large concepts of the binary and instead invests interest in doing little things to express how one may feel on a particular day. She embraces the fluidity of her identity and, as a result, the fluidity of her fashion sense. It is clear that she has become much more content with her life as a result. Instead of rigidly following the rules, she blatantly breaks them and frees herself from the grips of cisgender society in the end.

Stories like these are always a delight to read because it is always a pleasant surprise to see someone break the rules of our two-gender society and reap the benefits from that lifestyle change. We have heard too many stories countless of times of people who differed from society's expectations of what a "real" man or woman should be: two names that stick out particularly are Brandon Teena and Larry King, both of whom were murdered because outsiders felt threatened by their expression of identity. Brandon was a twenty-something transgender man living in Nebraska and Larry was a flamboyant schoolboy. Though their expressions were different, their tragedies were the same. When the media covers stories of people like Brandon and Larry, it is almost as if they are using their faces of examples of what not to do: "stick to the binary or else you will suffer like these people" is ultimately the message that they deliver. While the voices of people like Kate Bornstein are so hard to find, it is always vital to listen nonetheless in order to see that, yes, you can be happier if you do what you want instead of what people want you to do.

A woman like Kate Bornstein is the perfect threat for the gender binary. She is strong, confident, and almost reckless in her rejection of heteropatriarchal standards for what is normal/acceptable and what is wrong. Her briefing on how her fashion sense reflects her fluid identity is short and sassy, but her message is clear: when I accept myself as I am, I am much more content with my life and I am not afraid to inform others of my newly found confidence. When people like Bornstein come out of the woodwork and declare their brand new liberation as exciting and useful, others will begin to follow suit and down comes the binary.

Fluid identities in a "solid" world are hard to celebrate because so many people try to crucify anyone who falls outside of the norm. Too many Brandon Teenas and Larry Kings have been thrust in our faces as examples of what happens when you try to challenge the system. For the longest time, it has been enough to scare non-binary people into silence, but people like Kate Bornstein are able to break the silence, come out as fluid, and inspire those who were previously frightened to gain their own self-confidence and approach the world with a more fruitful outlook. Whether your outfit is fashionably tacky or your gender expression varies day by day, Bornstein and others will embrace your differences and accept you the way you are, just as society should. Those who benefit from the binary will always be out for the blood of those who do not conform, but it should not be something that silences and suppresses those who seek liberation from these norms. All bodies are created equal and equally beautiful, which Kate Bornstein celebrates in her writing.