[EnderD_503]

Cool thread. I've been thinking a lot about why I identify the way I do lately, and increasingly I'm finding myself feeling a bit indifferent as far as my identity, but at the same time feel like it becomes clearer every day. It makes me wonder what role it plays in my life.

I identify as queer, stone butch and transguy. The first I see as my sexuality, the second a combination of my gender and sexual boundaries, and the third my sex, but all of them a bit of a mixed of meaning for me.

As far as my queer orientation, the reason I identify that way is very similar to the reason given in the OP, as far as it's ability to mean both nothing and anything/everything. Queer for me means very little about the gender/sex of the people someone chooses to fuck, and more to do with a detachment from a heteronormative framework so that anything flies. I don't see queer as something necessarily opposed to any other sexual orientation, but something that is so open-ended that it is pretty much inclusive of anything...and by that nature is non-heteronormative even if some under the queer banner choose to replicate some aspect of it for the shits n' giggles, or somehow incorporate some similar aspect into their relationship. The important part, to me, is that lack of restriction and ability to be anything without worrying about maintaining an image of what sexuality should/shouldn't be. I also see it as an important show of strength and unity politically/socially, as far as working together with others that count themselves a part of the queer community. Queer means having a community that doesn't exclude you.

I see stone as representative of my sexual boundaries, though I'm not sure how I feel about calling them boundaries. I feel like if they were boundaries for me, then they would be impeding me or restricting me, but I don't feel that way. It's just another marker of sexuality...which kind of leads me on to butch. Butch to me is both about gender and sexuality. For me (though evidently not for everyone) it's about the dynamic I enjoy in a relationship, and a dynamic that isn't really predefined the way I see it. On the other hand, it acts as my gender, too. Gender for me has kind of become a "how do I feel" vs. "what do I find desirable" kind of deal. I've kind of become disenchanted with masculinity/femininity as far as using them to define myself, personally, and I don't feel either fits me, whereas butch feels right on all accounts because it doesn't have to depend on either of those words. Its another one of those words for me that can mean a million different things to a million different butches, and no one ever has to (or at least shouldn't) worry about living up to expectation. There's no butch "archetype," and so there's no pressure to be anything but yourself. It's greater proof that gender isn't as black and white as the mainstream world would have people believe. It also allows my gender to be completely detached from sex, because butch has nothing to do with other people's thoughts on my "biological sex," nor even my thoughts on my own sex. It just is.

My trans identity is both related to the way I view my own sex, as well as the need I feel to pursue obtaining basic rights/protections for trans people. I feel that it's necessary for me to be visible as some form of trans identity in order to help gain certain rights for myself and other trans people in Canada. I also view my sex through the lens of "trans." I prefer trans alone, instead of tagging on any suffix to it, because I really don't feel like I'm going from one gender or sex to another. I just view it as a way of differentiating me from other sexes. I identify my sex as transmale, which I view differently from those born XY and assigned male at birth, as well as those born XX and assigned female at birth, and who agree with those sex assignments. I also don't see my sex as dictating my gender in any way whatsoever. More and more I feel its ridiculous for me to continue to view my sex or gender as dictated to me by non-trans people who see trans people as a "threat" to their own sense of normalcy.