ILS Reflection #14

“As I move into tomorrow and consider my politics and where to place my activist effort, I have to remember that oppression is based not on what I am but rather on what I am presumed to be. Oppression does not ask how you wish to be identified. It takes one look, nails a label to you, and proceeds to dispense perverse justice upon your body. I don’t have to feel like a lesbian to suffer the consequences of being presumed one. I just have to looks like one.”

This is a quote from the story “Performing Translesbian” in a book called GenderQueer: Voices from Beyond the Sexual Binary, and it sums up the importance of appearance in society. I believe that this connection between how we choose to portray ourselves and society’s reactions goes further so that ultimately society chooses how we present ourselves. This makes me think of gender as a costume or a kind of performance and expected behavior that most of us have conformed to. However, there are other people who seem to be a little more conscious and less controlled by rules that we have imposed on ourselves. Nora is one of these people. In fact, the shift in the last scene of the play when she takes control over life starts when she tells Helmer that she’s “getting out of her costume” (Ibsen 107). This is exactly what I believe gender queer people are doing, turning their backs on the limits that we have put on ourselves.

How do humans establish rules for other humans? Through culture. Just as Nora felt her life was determined for her, I have been thinking of gender as determined (along with many other aspects of my life). In this country, it has been deemed “proper” that only women wear dresses and men keep their hair short, that baby girls wear pink and baby boys wear blue. Anyone who breaks these rules is leaving and disregarding the social construct, the same way Nora does at the end of A Doll House, is someone I admire.

I’ve been thinking about what most exemplifies “the miracle” to me. While reading these true stories about people who have had so much trouble finding a fit, or acceptance, or even just the right word to define their gender identity, I’m seeing that this is a struggle of being individual and separate, unique. They go beyond human construction and what we have defined as reasonable and logical into an identity that is much more personal and creative. That sounds like a miracle to me.