#the gends

This is also gender essentialism which I feel as a nonbinary person you should probably be rejecting but what do I know since I’m a baby brained man or whatever.

The reality is that my experiences are not very different from this person’s just because I say I am a man and they say they are not. It’s not like I say I am a man and then I start developing ego issues and insecurities and a lack of self awareness, all problems that nonbinary people do not have.

Because I have socially transitioned, I generally am now regarded as a man and treated as such, however, there are many people who may not identify as men who also have that experience. Including all sorts of nonbinary people. This is a material effect of my transition but it’s not exclusive to the fact of “being a man,” is my point.

Gender being essentially a social class position and not a personality type is kind of an important component of feminist theory, I believe.

And you may make the point that, well, being in this privileged class position Creates the ego issues and the lack of self awareness. You may think this is incisive feminist theory. I think this actually creates excuses for men’s bad behavior. Like, oh, they’re a product of their environment.

well it does not seem that different from calling transsexual women male, which we categorically are not!

I don't really tag things much so proceed with caution

White settler

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In perfume making, a perfume has a base chord, a heart chord and a head chord; this refers to the way a scent kinda unfolds.

I’ve been thinking about the order genders happen, and how multiple contradictory gender/sexuality labels are used to tell a story. Concepts like “afab  but also a trans woman” or “female to femme” or even the subtle nuances of “nonbinary lesbian” or “he/him lesbian” or “nonbinary man” vs “man (agender”), it’s a form of layering and storytelling about how we want to be percieved.

Once you start thinking about non-binary genders, things get complex. Like, no one is confused conceptually by an afab person who wants to present in such a way that they are perceived as amab. But it gets complex real quick when you’re trying to express that...you’re an afab person who wants to be percieved as an amab person who is queering their amab gender. Or, you’re you’re a non-binary person who still wants to be grouped with and understood as a woman. and so on.

Part of the issue here is: we can’t make binary genders go away as a concept. To the extent we can, not everybody wants to/can/is fussed with attempting to appear androgynous. And within our community, we so often boil non binary issues down to afab vs amab people that it’s basically just the binary again. So, of course: when you’re trying to articulate your relationship to nonbinariness, of course you start wanting to pull in additional adjectives to communicate how your nonbinary gender relates to binary genders.

So my vague idea for how the perfume model is used is...

Base chord: what asab do you want to be? Like, if someone made you absolutely positively choose one, which way would you jump? Assuming that people are going to scrutinise you to look for an asab, what do you want them to see? Now, this could be a non-binary term. As in, some people want to be seen as Base: amab Heart: non-binary, and others truly want to be seen as base: agender heart: male

Heart chord: what is your gender? For most people, this is going to be the same as your base. This is probably the term you use most often to self-identify, or the way in which you live. Some people might be woman/woman, but others might be woman/genderqueer - or vice versa, genderqueer/woman.

Head chord: this is your opportunity to use a frivolous, playful or niche term. Maybe this is akin to gender expression or presentation? It could be abstract or aesthetic or a subculture or something else expressing an important immutable youness. It could be a gender term, or something else entirely. The head chord is fine tuining, finessing. It could be expressing what kind of man or woman you are. You may well have more than one head chord.

I’m not going to police what terms are appropriate in each chord category, because that isn’t helpful.

I like this model because it’s a way to acknowledge how layered the perception of gender is. I like the idea of an experience of gender as a scent, with these underlying base tones and a strong heart and sparkling topnotes.

And as someone who feels quite messy about who I am, it’s kinda helpful to reflect on...is my base gender, I want to be seen as fundamentally a man, or I want to be seen as fundamentally an absence of gender? How does it feel when I swap the base and heart chord around. Where do I want the queerness to be located? Do I want to be seen as queer because I am a woman who says I am a man, or do I want to be seen as a queer man? There are parts of me that love gender transgression and want to be visibly gender-non-conforming, but other parts which are mortified at the possibility of being visibly transsexual. So, where do I want the queerness to be located? Base, heart, head, or more than one? I know I’m more feminine than masculine, so what do I do with that knowledge? Could woman be my asab? Or my heart, the thing I identify most with, being a femme. Or my head, a glittery sprinkle I live? I struggle to make my gender tangible to myself, so what is that? Do I have an innate absence of gender - but I choose to live as a man; OR, am I a man who experiences an innate absence of gender?

My tounge in cheek way of saying “strongly considering bigender identity”