In general I haven't found myself to be a political person. I'm interested in people on a one on one level, psychology of the mind and the connection we find in each of our personal relationships and encounters. On the other hand, I have found lately, that after much debate, worry, self-hate, doubt and years of loneliness, I'm getting to where I can talk about one thing that I feel so passionately about, that I'm willing to take a political stance over.
Gender--or possibly the lack thereof.
I hated myself so many years over my inability to confirm with societal expectations of how I was supposed to express myself as a female. I found comfort and resolution through the Goddess community and the Goddess of Wicca. I had other options of how to express myself.
Last year, I took it further by studying Hod of the Qabala for several months in preparation for getting reading for a major ritual. I kept going back to the cloying and undeniable magickal image that corresponds with Hod: The Hermaphrodite. The Hermaphrodite seems strange, and in congruent with other symbols or even the qabalistic system itself, and yet, I liked it! Not androgynous or without gender, but possessing the sexual powers and attributes and synthesized into one being! No wonder occultists of the 30's, even the 60's aren't talking about it. There is a major lesson in the discomfort and power of that symbol.
I'm sure I'll have lots more to say, but for now, I leave you with a couple of other bits of musing to ponder:
1. Kate Bornstein's latest blog post, as encouraged by Dan Savage's response to the suicides in the LGBT community: http://katebornstein.typepad.com/kate_bornsteins_blog/2010/10/it-gets-better.html
2. A bit of journaling I found inside my copy of Kate's book Gender Outlaw, nestled next to some outrageous Revlon lipstick ads on the back of a boarding pass from March 2007:
Are women in porn the aggressors?
If I am third, can I have heterosexual sex?
Does that mean I can only have gay sex?
Do my attitudes toward sex and gender force men to treat me as an equal, not lesser, but HUMAN?
They are uncomfortable.
Where is the blending of polarity. How does magick change if everything is shades of gray? How does my God and Goddess look when they become queer? Become third. ..
I will never be comfortable with being a woman because I do not want to be owned within that group as my identity.
I am queer.
I am learning to trust myself and not be owned by fear.
3. I also recommend highly Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness.
Self identity is magickally unique. The boredom, the lack of choices, the lack of language and experience we have as young adults is fleeting. I promise. It will get better.
We need your truth.
