I came of age on MSU’s campus in the early 1990s when Women’s Studies was still a thing. In fact, it became its own major while I was matriculating. I minored in it. Women’s Studies was mainly run by lesbians, and dominated, at least in Lansing, by the thinking of separatists. I was very comfortable in that space.
The definition of Woman was an enormous umbrella. Safely tucked underneath its purple awning was permission to sleep with anyone (of age) in any manner you chose (woo-hoo!); work in any occupation or be a homemaker; have a dozen children or none at all without judgement; be humble or wealthy (as long as you drove an eco-friendly vehicle), dress modestly or rakishly in any style: from ankle-length hippie skirts, to logging camp lumberjack flannel; work a sewing machine or a forklift like a pro; wear your hair anywhichway: from shaved pate to as femme as you cared to be; sport your natural beard or laser off your wispy, middle-aged mustache. I felt very welcome there.
There was room for everyone.
Who didn’t have a penis. Who had never had a penis.
The umbrella got a little cramped for people who wanted to acquire a penis. And there was active squabbling if you went the hormone route and talked about gender reassignment, but really the problems came if you were trying to come in under the umbrella when you weren’t “assigned” there at birth. Woman-born-woman we called it. And being a woman-born-woman made you a member of the club: with what were assumed to be a set of experiences and societal expectations that, when combined with a relatively commonplace-for-the-times concept of biology, made you a Woman. Not everyone bought into this idea, but it was definitely the going theory. It was taught in class. It was certainly my going theory.
Then, along comes the next generation. Out goes Women’s Studies. In comes Gender Studies. Phrases like “non-binary” became commonplace. I ignored it for as long as I could. I wasn’t comfortable with it. It flew in the face of everything I had adopted in my much-beloved college years. I admired the women who figured in my classes and wasn’t ready to let go of the philosophy they taught me. I thought again and again of how big that umbrella felt for my cohort, how cozy it was under there. Was I misremembering? Had my philosophy excluded people? Should I revisit my thinking? Or were changes around concepts of gender something I could push back against? I wasn’t sure.
I looked around me. During Church Tour last year I was once asked to identify my gender on my name badge. I chose not to. When I went back to UU Lansing, we were invited to add any of a whole range of alternative pronouns to our name badges, with some very moving language about how those of us who clung to traditional ideas of gender were being oppressive. I passed again. Later, I heard Katie Couric interviewing Millennials and reporting that 50% of them believed gender was a fluid concept. A fluid concept? 50%? What happened to my purple umbrella? Was it not big enough? Was it just not useful anymore? Was it possible that it was OK for me, but later generations needed something different? Could we agree to different philosophies of gender without anyone coming up short-or being called oppressive?
I started watching the reality TV show called “Jazz.” It’s about a transgender teen. It felt like a safe way to become exposed to these new concepts. It was OK at first but when she started seriously pursuing gender reassignment surgery as a 17 year old with the strong possibility that she would never experience orgasm, I had to stop. 17-year-olds are notoriously fickle. And knowing that the long-term hormone suppression therapy she’d undergone as well as this surgery would negatively impact her adult sex life made me so uncomfortable and upset that I had to stop. Her father had reservations about allowing the surgery before she was 18 so I’m not sure what happened. I’ll let you Google it if I’ve piqued your curiosity.
Yesterday I saw a new podiatrist and I was asked to fill out the standard sheaf of paperwork. I was asked both my gender, and the gender of my spouse. Was that really necessary to my foot care, I wondered? Both the nurse and the doctor double checked that I wasn’t diabetic before plunging ahead and that felt appropriate. But did they need to know if I was a woman-born-woman to treat a cyst? Maybe…
I feel torn. I like what my community came up with in college. I believe those philosophies in my bones. They’re as deeply rooted as my MSU-cultivated take on 17th century Welsh poets. And I don’t want to oppress anyone, but at the same time, gender is simply not a fluid concept in my mind and I’m not prepared to change that. Gender has always been easy for me. I was always happy to be female, never questioned it, and reveled with the other females I partied and argued and laughed with my whole life. I like my umbrella, damnit. Have I become stodgy and callous at 47-unable to see other people’s situations and change with the times? Or are new ideas about gender fluid themselves and not something I have to change alongside? I wish I knew because I’m unaccustomed to being called oppressive and I don’t much care for the experience.
Still, that form yesterday, it chaffed…
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