A few days ago Femme Avenger said...
Dirt,
The shame that you talk about that little girls feel about their bodies, their choices of how to be 'a girl' was not reserved merely to 'butch' little girl's experience. Sadly, the rigid gender education of boys and girls is designed to condition them to social rules in order to slot them into the appropriate categories governed by social, political and religious hegemony. I don't know how many non-butch lesbians I have known (or tomboy straight girls) that have spoken your words. I don't know one woman that rejoiced as a little girl, the day her first period arrived. I was a ‘girly girl’ child, loved dress-ups, loved pink, loved dolls. I was 11 turning 12 when I got my first period and the day it arrived; I sat on the toilet and just cried, I was scared and knew that I hated this it was ‘yucky’ traumatic painful and wanted it to just go away. I should also mention that I felt shame about not only my period, but the arrival of pubic hair, breasts and curves. I looked different to my other little girl friends, most of whom did not reach puberty until years later. Sleep-over parties filled me with dread as did school swimming carnivals, sports days, and even standing up and walking to the front of the class around period time was terrifying because I feared I may have blood on my skirt. I also felt aware of myself as a sexually developed female and began to feel the ‘male gaze’ for the first time and this also made me aware and ashamed of my body. The boys at school looked at me 'funny' and laughed at my body, and my 'boobies!'.
If on the day that my period arrived, and for so many years later, I could have taken a pill to stop my period ever coming back, I would have taken it. I was so ashamed of not only of the physical aspects of menstruation (even its name includes the word ‘men’) but the social responsibility. I was so scared of anyone knowing I had my period that I made my father purchase sanitary pads for me. My mother treated it like a coming of age celebration and made it a family occasion to proclaim “Oh! My little girl became “a woman” today. My brothers burst out laughing and they teased me about it. I was mortified that my mother could take something so private and treat it like some kind of public rite of passage. She was proclaiming to me and my whole family “you are different now” and that made me feel more ashamed.
How many of us still feel the weight of social responsibility and continue to feel shame about our “monthly visitors”? How many of us don’t hesitate in the isles of the supermarket when approaching the ‘women’s hygiene products’ section? How many of us rejoice when our ‘visitors’ arrive each month? How many of us would like to round up and throw a grenade at advertising executives that write advertisements for sanitary products showing fit, non-bloated, ‘happy’ women (often eating health food-yeah right) running through the breeze in skimpy underwear?
We need as women to talk about our experiences of our bodies at various stages in development and ageing, so we can see that these issues of shame and discomfort are often shared. By keeping these stories in the closet, we are not sharing and learning from each other. There are more similarities than differences in our experiences and we need to voice them so that we are not assuming ‘I am the only one that felt shame’ or ‘different’ and that these feelings of 'being different' in our bodies automatically = GID.
FA x
The shame that you talk about that little girls feel about their bodies, their choices of how to be 'a girl' was not reserved merely to 'butch' little girl's experience. Sadly, the rigid gender education of boys and girls is designed to condition them to social rules in order to slot them into the appropriate categories governed by social, political and religious hegemony. I don't know how many non-butch lesbians I have known (or tomboy straight girls) that have spoken your words. I don't know one woman that rejoiced as a little girl, the day her first period arrived. I was a ‘girly girl’ child, loved dress-ups, loved pink, loved dolls. I was 11 turning 12 when I got my first period and the day it arrived; I sat on the toilet and just cried, I was scared and knew that I hated this it was ‘yucky’ traumatic painful and wanted it to just go away. I should also mention that I felt shame about not only my period, but the arrival of pubic hair, breasts and curves. I looked different to my other little girl friends, most of whom did not reach puberty until years later. Sleep-over parties filled me with dread as did school swimming carnivals, sports days, and even standing up and walking to the front of the class around period time was terrifying because I feared I may have blood on my skirt. I also felt aware of myself as a sexually developed female and began to feel the ‘male gaze’ for the first time and this also made me aware and ashamed of my body. The boys at school looked at me 'funny' and laughed at my body, and my 'boobies!'.
If on the day that my period arrived, and for so many years later, I could have taken a pill to stop my period ever coming back, I would have taken it. I was so ashamed of not only of the physical aspects of menstruation (even its name includes the word ‘men’) but the social responsibility. I was so scared of anyone knowing I had my period that I made my father purchase sanitary pads for me. My mother treated it like a coming of age celebration and made it a family occasion to proclaim “Oh! My little girl became “a woman” today. My brothers burst out laughing and they teased me about it. I was mortified that my mother could take something so private and treat it like some kind of public rite of passage. She was proclaiming to me and my whole family “you are different now” and that made me feel more ashamed.
How many of us still feel the weight of social responsibility and continue to feel shame about our “monthly visitors”? How many of us don’t hesitate in the isles of the supermarket when approaching the ‘women’s hygiene products’ section? How many of us rejoice when our ‘visitors’ arrive each month? How many of us would like to round up and throw a grenade at advertising executives that write advertisements for sanitary products showing fit, non-bloated, ‘happy’ women (often eating health food-yeah right) running through the breeze in skimpy underwear?
We need as women to talk about our experiences of our bodies at various stages in development and ageing, so we can see that these issues of shame and discomfort are often shared. By keeping these stories in the closet, we are not sharing and learning from each other. There are more similarities than differences in our experiences and we need to voice them so that we are not assuming ‘I am the only one that felt shame’ or ‘different’ and that these feelings of 'being different' in our bodies automatically = GID.
FA x
Today I answered her with this: FA,
Great points! I recently asked a handful of females I
know (some hetero/some lesbian), that if after starting their periods,
if someone had offered them testosterone and told them this drug would
relieve them of their periods albeit changing their feminine appearance
would they have taken it, ALL said yes! They said due how uncomfortable
they felt, the shame, the dysphoria, the hormone changes, the pain, the
worry of bleeding through clothes, the how could my body do this to me
feelings etc. they believe they would have done anything to stop having
them.
This is a HUGE area where both the lesbian community
(especially Femme/Butch spaces) and the shrinks who issue “T” have a lot
of work to do! As lesbians we need to express the feelings we’ve all
had in and around menstruation, especially the shame based areas and
shrinks need to include this in their understanding of how this issue
alone can cause a female to seek transition.
Shame, dysphoria,
embarrassment, fear, hate, all these feelings around menstruation can be
quite “normal” for many females, it is NOT an indication that females
who feel this way are “trans” and should “transition”. Until we begin
real talks about how our bodies are during periods and how we mentally
deal or mentally crumble during our periods, the shame and dysphoria
will continue plaguing us and some females will continue seeking solace
in a bottle of testosterone.
dirt
