“The category of sex is the political category that founds society as heterosexual.”
Monique Wittig, one of the opening quotes of Gender Trouble by Judith Buttler
T
he process of socialization is making us apply the role of men to all human bearing the gift of a penis and the role of women to all human bearing the gift of a vagina.
What I want to imply here is that Sex is not Gender. (
And later, Sex or Gender are not Sexuality) So many things this could lead into.
One is born a child with a Sex - with an organ implying that later in life this child will or will not grow a beard. But somehow the Society decided, somewhere down the long line of history, that the same organ will decide for the child (
opposite to the child making the decision on it's own) whether to wear pants or a skirt, whether to wear his hair long or short and whether to have intercourse with another man or a woman - all notions that concert the Gender and Sexuality - and not the Sex.
To break it apart even more.
What's in the name?
We like to name things. We like to give names to things and then we like to expect these things to do as they were named. And it is this expectation that makes me go - “Well, fuck that.”
The constant burden of expectation is something we keep dealing with all the time. There are numberless examples in my memories that I could name now - only you could too and would do it better - scenes from school, scenes from the dinner table, scenes from meeting the elderly, the more important, the more beautiful, the more smart, the more - it seams that everybody is a bit more that you are at any given moment in time. And space for that matter.
And it only becomes far more personal when it comes to finding what does it mean to be your Gender and choosing and expressing your Sexuality. Because what Butler states and I love is that Gender is PERFORMED. And I would even dare to pull it as far as saying that
WE are the
PERFORMANCE of ourselves in any given point in time or space. For everything that I do is an act of my will that I manifested in time and space by my body - and this is the same line I could use to explain what I do on stage when I perform my dances.
To go a bit back at this point.
So the child has been born. It is given it's sex by it's organ which makes it a HIM* or a HER*. The it will be raised to live up to his or hers gender. He will learn to act as a BOY* and she will learn to act as a GIRL*. And then the boy and the girl will get all messed up in the fight called puberty when they will both start to find out their sexualities. In most cases they will realize that they only feel attracted to the person of the opposite sex thus becoming heterosexual*. Some will find themselves as homo*-, bi*-, trans*-, a*- or simply sexual. And specially since these are still considered as minorities in the world of sexuality - performing those might become even a bigger deal than performing your heterosexual role that is, by now, so familiar a role. And all of these sexualities have expectations of their own - and to be accepted you must follow the rules of whatever country you want to join.
(* names...)
Which finally leads me to popping the today's question.
What happens when you don't find yourself fit any of these categories?
For one, you start not fulfilling the expectations of your role which is always difficult to deal with - on the side of the individual - because the Society has a way of dealing with things it can not recognize and the system will have Society back up and running in no time.
It is like in the villain text - the Society is the one holding the Power. Questioning the Power makes the one holding it feel threatened and creates the need of eliminating the source of the problem. Which is, in a way, only natural - depending on who is the one holding Power and how did he gain it. (ex. Monarchy vs. Democracy - Hetero vs. Homo)
But that aside, I want to focus on the individual. Finding out who you are is more important (for me) that fitting the grid. Even though it sometimes calls for fighting the grid. Because the grid, the rigorous Society will search for ways to test you, to put you down and make you become silent and “content”. It will promise you the world in order to come and join, it will make you work for that so hard, but in the crucial moment it will not let you voice out your thoughts but will cage them for as long as is needed - for your thoughts to become the thoughts of the grid.
But my argument here is that there is space for all of us. I guess what I want to say is that there is space for Individualism inside the Society. Because the Individualism is not against Society most of the time. It only reacts when attacked, to protect itself. And in fact, it is more silent and less demanding that Society itself.
The same goes for expecting me to be a heterosexual man that acts accordingly. I am a man. Obviously. I like that my hormones make my body grow a beard and I like wearing that beard. But I also like being a feminist. And why would one exclude the other?
So.
Basically, it is the fight for the Freedom of Thought-Speech-Act.
And this is a fight that will only grow more louder as the Society starts going through a change. Because Individualism is growing stronger. And yet another sexual revolution is upon us. We are going to learn to name things for what they are. Sex being Sex, Gender being Gender and Sexuality being Sexuality. And we are going to deal with all the new possibilities that naming things properly will put forth.
And I am not saying that it is not a lot of work - but it is work that will make us work better together. It is work that promotes compassion, acceptance, equality and support.
Ideas that have a history of trying to be fully employed. But have not been able to do so, and do it ever so fully. Not yet.
P.
