Pride ‘22
As we wrap up Pride ’22, I’d like to ask you all a question:
What does Pride mean to you?
I was posed this question at the beginning of the month, and I’ve thought long and hard about it. There’s the obvious, of course. Taking pride in who you are, as you are, without feeling the need to conform to another individual or to the culture around you. But that’s still using the terminology inside of the definition. So the question remains: what does it mean to be prideful?
Proud (proud), adj; 1. Lordly; of high estate. 2. Feeling or manifesting pride, as: a possessing or showing too great self-esteem; overrating one’s excellences; hence, arrogant, haughty, lordly.
Well, as a Fae/Fem Gender Non-Confirming individual who loves a Ren Faire, I don’t object to being m’Lord’ed. But that definition doesn’t feel quite right. Let’s move on:
b Exulting (in); being highly satisfied or pleased; elated; often with of, as proud of one’s …*
Ah yes, that feels more in line with what we’re trying to define. So what is it that I’m so elated with; what about the notion of Pride brings me that much joy?
Let me tell you all a story.
I knew young, as most of us who fall somewhere under the EnBy umbrella do, that “girl” wasn’t entirely the right word to describe my identity. For one thing, I didn’t fit in with the other girls in my class. They put up with me well enough when there were playdates outside of school, but in the classroom and at camp… well, I tried. Really I did. I remember trying to take to playing house, or with our dolls, but it just didn’t come naturally to me. I was more comfortable playing tag games with the boys of my class. I remember being introduced to the term “tomboy,” but there was more to my identity than that.
(I also remember taking up the phrase “not like the other girls,” and I hate that I did. But that and why it’s so problematic is a rant for another day.)
I didn’t have the language at the time to simply call myself Gender Fluid, to understand that it was okay to be a little of both. At that age, in that time, there was Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. There was Dear America or My Name is America. I’m sure there were other examples of the binary, but I was a book person, so that’s what’s stuck with me the most. And the older I got, the more I found that I associated with traditionally male stories and characters just as much as I did female.
I needed a word for what that meant for me, but I didn’t have it.
What I did have for myself was the language of science, specifically of genetics. As we started to broach the subjects of chromosomes and Punnett squares in eighth grade biology, I started to understand that an individual could contain both. When we glossed briefly over the notion that sometimes a DNA strand didn’t copy perfect, and mutations could occur, resulting in extra chromosomes, I remember thinking, “that explains me. I must have two x and a y.” Except what it explained was a disorder, something that needed solving and treatment. I didn’t want to be sick, so I kept my suspicions to myself for years and years, until I eventually had a nervous breakdown in a not-so-sympathetic endocrinologist’s office essentially begging her to test my hormone levels.
(Low and behold, extra testosterone. Not a dangerous amount, and on the high end of average for my age range, but not so much for my size and weight. Does that actually affect anything? Who knows. The hard science of gender is still catching up.)
I know enough now to understand that I do not have any of these conditions. XXY results in what is known as Klinefelter syndrome, and folk with this chromosomal makeup present as physically male. (They are also usually very tall and lanky, which is the opposite of me.) I’d still like to have a karyotype test one day, just out of general curiosity, but it’s not as important to me now that I understand the difference between my own physicality and gender identity.
I wish that eighth grade science teacher had known more, to be able to tell us in detail about these disorders. (I wish the text book publishers had been willing to include more about gender diversity for a middle-school-grade aged audience.) I wish, at that pivotal moment in my life, when I was developing my writing voice and coming to understand myself through it, that I had also had the knowledge of using the singular ‘they.’ I think I must have understood it’s use for someone of unknown gender, but not for non-binary gender. I vaguely recall being taught the appropriate beat at which to reveal a name and switch to the appropriate he or she. (I probably had problems at one point mixing the two; ironic, because my own pronouns are best represented as she/they.)
These days, I have the knowledge and the language that I need to understand myself. That brings me peace. What brings me joy though is knowing that today’s youth, in the same position that I was two decades ago, also have that language for themselves. They have the singular ‘they,’ in addition to ‘zi/zim,’ ‘xe/xem,’ and other neopronouns. The use of gender-neutral language like ‘folk’ and ‘y’all,’ is everywhere. And for all the harm that social media can do, it also opens a world of resources that I didn’t have.
This is why I always take the time to add my pronouns when asked. Yes, I conform to the gender that I physically present as enough of the time not to be bothered by assumptions. But it’s important to me to normalize the use of ‘they/them’ and non-binary identities for others. I’m glad, in general, for the world I live in, for the cultural understanding that for the most part is around me.
So happy Pride 2022. The fight and the quest for knowledge never ends, but it’s nice to look back occasionally and see how far we’ve already come.
Citation: Definition of “pride” from Websters New international Dictionary, Second Edition. I just happened to find myself next to one as I was typing this, a beautiful old edition laid out in a hotel lounge. In case anyone is wondering, I found my people.