Your Bones Will Still Be Female
by Alwick Blouch

Runestone, volume 11

Your Bones Will Still Be Female
by Alwick Blouch

Runestone, volume 11

Gender is an art– bodies smashing together all in their own unique formation of self–  a fully human creation that doesn’t hold the bounds of one medium as other art forms do. According to Merriam-Webster: gender is the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex.  It is a performance that takes skill and training, even the best actors and actresses could falter in their attempts. It’s a painting, with layers upon layers of chemical formulations of every possible color, blending together to create something that could only be described as a masterpiece. It’s delicately crafted costume design with every piece researched and curated so that the symbolic elements can be caught by the focused onlooker. Gender is a part of every second of every day, the roles are forced upon us, then broken, and reinforced again. To break gender roles is to enforce they exist at all, to transition to male, or to acknowledge that gender is something that can be described with a certain set of limiting factors. 

 I dread the question that comes after I tell people my name, “Where is that from?”, they ask. “I came up with it,” I answer shyly, hoping they take kindly to that answer. Most of the time I just get weird looks. Worse, they ask what my name was before. How do I explain to them that person never existed. That name doesn’t even belong on a gravestone. It should be burned with my mother’s memories of a daughter. “Madeline,” I respond with a grimace. I want to shake them to show the pain that name has caused me, to show my burning hatred of the way it feels like old dirty gravel in my mouth. 

The concept of gender only exists within our human species, Homo sapiens. In most species, one’s sex is nothing more than a means of reproduction. In humans, however, gender exists separate from sex, a far more defined, ridged classification. In reality, the term gender was not used to classify an idea distinct from sex until the 1950s. From that point on gender has been used to create a strong separation between males and females, by increasing the number of identifiers needed to fit into either category, which in turn makes for an effective tool to control people’s actions.

I don’t know when I first heard the term “transgender.” Most likely, I saw it somewhere on the internet, scrolling through endless posts, most of which I was far too young and innocent to understand. My parents did their best to avoid such topics, and they still do. If there had been trans people in my small town when I was young, they would have done their best to hide, probably for the best. But once I learned of this new and exciting term, I did what any normal person would in my situation: spend hours and hours researching, until all resources have been exhausted.   

People trying to break down traditional gender roles will often say something along the lines of, “gender doesn’t exist.” But this I believe is a falsehood. Gender as a form of control, only works because it is real. What people should say instead is, “Gender roles are created by society as a way to control people.” Although it is probably a bit too long to say, and it doesn’t fit on the sign all that well. Gender itself is fluid, and complex, and not easy to define. It is multi-factored with cultural, personal, societal, and even emotional parts that make up a whole, singular identity. Labels are nothing more than that, labels, used to loosely describe all that makes up one’s gender. 

I came out on the other side of my research, with the term “non-binary.” By definition, this is an umbrella term used to describe those who don’t identify as male or female. It is also a label people use to describe their own gender identity. In the silence of my own thoughts, I had tried out many gender labels for myself: agender, genderfluid, and genderqueer. But the words felt wrong on my tongue. Non-binary felt right. I had figured out my gender identity. 

I then continued to tell no one this information for over two years. 

There is a term coined by the trans community called “gender envy,” it is used when a person or character’s gender presentation is something you aspire to achieve. This gender presentation can be either a clothing choice, aesthetic, or the physical features of the person. Furthermore, the character does not have to be human, although gender presentation is limited to the physical, human world, gender itself does not subscribe to these limitations. Gender envy was created due to the desire to look or be like someone else, due to the fact that to be trans is to not be who you already are.  

I’m standing in the mirror wearing a makeshift binder using a tank top and crop top. An internet post showed how to put the pieces together to compress your chest. I move my body around to see the makeshift binder from all angles, it barely flattens my chest, but I can hardly contain my smile. I ran to get my favorite shirt, one my mother let me buy from the boy’s section at the local store. A hooded short-sleeved t-shirt, with grey, black, and white stripes, the front pocket barely big enough for a phone. It’s not much, but in these clothes, I feel like myself, I look like myself. I kept the clothes on for the rest of the day (until my parents got home). 

When I was really little, I had a purple dress with little white flowers I wore almost every day, until it could no longer be defined as a dress, but as rags. I wore that dress before gender was a word I knew how to say, before I knew to realize it meant something different than pants. I no longer identify as non-binary, not exactly at least. Demiboy is a much better-fitting label. That purple dress is long gone. Now my closet is filled with t-shirts and pants. Most days I make an attempt to dress masculine, a faint attempt to pass as anything other than a girl. It never works, against the shape of my face or the sound of my voice. No matter what, when people see me, they only see she.