1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 | My brain is still full of wanting to talk about the struggle of finding comfort in spiritual/religious spaces while uncomfortable with binary gender systems and hetero/monogamous/traditional relationships. It's a weird thing to talk about, because people often don't realize how gender-based or couple-based systems are when navigating them from the inside. In fact, the amount of informal "women are doing this thing and men are doing this other thing" energy even in spaces that don't segregate as part of doctrine or formal service probably goes unnoticed to most. In religious spaces highly focused on duality/counterparts/balance, the experience of a single non-binary individual is one of always feeling unable to fully participate or forced to step into a gendered role based on how one is seen by whoever is leading the group. In religious spaces highly focused on "not being distracted", the gender divide assumes heterosexuality and allosexuality, works from the premise that sexual attraction to the opposite gender is automatically an issue to be dealt with. I think being non-binary in general can create two different experiences with space, depending on whether one experiences dysphoria or in what ways: Either all spaces are for you (because you could assign yourself to either the masculine or feminine side) Or No spaces are for you (because aligning even temporarily to a male/female role can cause dysphoria or discomfort). Even that first experience obviously requires an atmosphere willing to accept individuals making such choices for themselves, ie: generally accepting of transness. BLAH BLAH BLAH HAVE MY THOUGHTS OF THE DAY |
Direct link: https://paste.plurk.com/show/2708383