link to article ‘Lies about transgender people (and how to spot a rubbish journalist)’

I would like to write so much stuff and focus on words rather than go out and do stuff. I wish I was better with words and could express myself more openly and without always doubting my word choices, my sentence structure or the way I put phrases together.

I am starting a new job on Saturday (what a great day to start work). It’ll be within reach of lots of people, at a major airport, and I’m thrilled to have been given this opportunity but am also very nervous. I hope I won’t get too many things wrong, I hope I’ll make a decent impression.

That’s why right now I can’t write, I can’t even form proper sentences in my head. This often happens when I have a lot of ideas in my head, they whirl around in there for a while until I feel more settled and comfortable and then I can talk. Luckily I can still read.

So here’s a link to a post @ The Independent Blogs by author Paris Lees:

Lies about transgender people (and how to spot a rubbish journalist)

Why not have ‘Neutrois’, ‘agender’ or ‘celibacy’ as categories instead of only Tags?

Accessing the Neutrois is a delicate issue.

I feel like the meaning of the term can only ever be grasped when it is seen or related to on some primal level, to be accessed through some back avenue.
Perhaps if one has their eyes crossed in a specific way and focuses on their peripheral vision or stares for hours at a blank wall, or goes to a psychic they will see a glimpse of the agender or even the Neutrois, because they exist on the periphery, that is where they can be found.

I dare you to step into their environment!

The Neutrois is like a U.F.O, only even less visisble. Sightings of it are minimal.
One questions its existence even if one is sitting right next to a Neutrois individual. One wonders: How do I really know you ae a Neutrois?
The answer is simple: because I say so!

But instead of confronting this person about personhood straight up, one looks at the person from the side, from the back, from a distance, from up close, one walks around this person a couple of times, sits back down, ponders, examines and evaluates…

Suddenly everyone’s a scientist!

So when (here on this blog) someone clicks the category Gender, they are re-directed to the Neutrois.

Agender as well as celibacy are words that suddenly come up when required, when the focus is on them, they are lurking in the blog, ready to be confronted. But they are versatile and timid, they are there suddenly, then they disappear again, sometimes they need to be coaxed to come out in the open and show themselves.

They are valuable little concepts that need to be highly (re)guarded. They are not merely a category…plain text.

T H E Y A R E E N E R G Y

TVIBA (the very insipiring blogger award): My justification for not accepting

I’ve recently been nominated for the very inspiring blogger award. I am not sure whether the rules allow me to mention this without having accepted them in full, but I need to to state my reasons why I am happy to have been nominated, but will not go through with the process a nomination acceptance would involve.

[Rules of the award:

[1. link back to the person that nominated you and  thank them

[2. post teh award image on your page

[3. tell 7 facts about yourself

[4. nominate 15 others and link to them

[5. notify these others of having been nominated and state the rules of the game

 

I felt really elated when I read about the award, especially because I have not been blogging for long and thought I would only get a lot of negative commentary and not much recognition at all. But when I looked a bit closer at the award and what it was, and read a little bit about it on the Net, I came back down to earth so to speak and thought about being an inspiring blogger a bit more. Is it one who blogs a lot, who is nice, who is capable of writing well, who talks about difficult topics?

I don’t really feel like an inspiring blogger, especially because I know myself and all my faults and problems and in the blogsphere, these are not really fully known or shown and I enjoy this anonymity.
I also couldn’t come up with 7 things about me without thinking of really embarassing or stupid things or unimportant things, and sharing that on this blog would’ve worsened my mood and worsened the blog.

I also couldn’t think of 15 blogs that inspire me, not because they don’t exist, but because I couldn’t think of inspiring blogs within a couple of seconds, couldn’t figure out exactly what they were called and couldn’t picture the people who write them.

Those who write inspiring blogs wouldn’t really need an award and especially not from me.

So, instead of changing the rules and not linking to other blogs or letting people know 7 or however many random things about me, I will not continue the award chain and rather say that I wish there was a very big like button (an extra like-button for an upgraded ‘like’) one could press instead of giving awards in a somewhat forced way.

For each person these ceremonies are different, and they are definitively uplifting, but they are also a responsibility to uphold the chain of awards, and therefore I am a bit critical of them. I am not critical of support, just of Internet gimmicks that have not been very well thought through.

I hope I haven’t insulted the award giver nor the ones who would’ve received my nomination had I continued the process, or other people who think differently about this. I was never a game player, and always used to spoil people’s fun…So that’s one token random thing about me….

Casual encounters

I’m not getting anywhere with job or apartment hunting.

Yesterday I was supposed to have a look at one, but the realty person did not turn up. Our group of people waited for more than an hour, then I left, so I don’t know if this person eventually did turn up. I had time, but it’s still frustrating. I did not have the number, otherwise I would’ve called and perhaps found out about why we were all standing in front of a house, us strangers thrown together by the need to move from our current places into a new one. It was interesting to see so many different characters thrown together, a really interesting mix of people were there, including me 🙂 Some interesting dress styles presented themselves, but in the end our boredom and frustration and the need for comfortable housing united us. I wonder what happened in the end and where all these people went, in the end.

Then I forced myself to do some socialising, because it was in my area. We all met (strangers again) in a restaurant almost across from where I live because of this desire to be socially more active whilst also doing sports or learning new things or being cultural. There’s an organisation that organises events where complete strangers can meet (for whatever reason, mostly to socialise and do stuff together and not alone). For a modest fee and a 6 month contract basically one can avail of the many choices of events and strangers. 40 Euro per month is a little much for me, especially with this job thing not materialising and the search for a new place to stay. It also feels very forced and fake, and desperate. I’m not saying I’m 100% happy with being not only single but not knowing anyone in this town and having my closest family member living at least a 2 hour plane trip away, and having him not really care about me anyway, and that is almost the nicest of my siblings. Even with all this in mind, I still couldn’t force myself to tick the boxes of what events I would prefer and leave my bank details. I’m curious though if this sort of thing works (if one’s expectations are met) at such events and what sort of people turn up.

waiting for the fog to lift

One of the people at the restaurant gave me a good opportunity to out myself, he was a guy. He mentioned that there were all girls (women) at the meeting and his face was overcome with a glow, a shining that I only ever thught pregnant women and drug addicts to have (sorry, I am trying to be funny, but have a feeling I’m not so funny today). Anyway, I casually outed myself as a Neutrois, which was quite amusing. The look on the man’s face changed abruptly and he did not seem to be amused, as his exquisite comment was hijacked by a pint-sized gender gangster.

But the reception I got was something to remember. The women sitting opposite me started to ask, in the most friendly way I have ever encountered, but with a wry smile, if I didn’t event want to be male and wether I ‘liked’ men or women. The woman who started the conversation after I had mentioned Trans somewhere (she couldn’t see the star that usually accompanies this label) also casually mentioned that she had given herself a nickname, too, that was more gender neutral. The woman who managed the event, who was hostile to me for a while as I did not become a member, even warmed up to me and we chatted for a bit. This warm and casual reception at an event with strangers was really uplifting and gave me courage to actually take part in group activities: badminton, concerts, etc…

I still have the feeling that I will only see these people again if I sign up with the group and pay good money for my inclusion. But that is kind of to be expected. I’m also very tempted by it, but right now, I don’t want to spend money again when I can afford it the least (which I always seem to end up doing).

postscript 1: The mentioning of my queerness was not planned, it just happened to escape me. I guess the atmosphere was such that I let the words out, the need to express myself overcoming the fear of retaliation or ridicule (I can’tstand ridicule).

postscript 2: I wonder if the writing analyser I heard about would recognise that all these posts are from one and the same me. I wonder what gender I would be if I was baing analysed by a machine.

postscript 3: I still don’t know what people see me as, nowadays. I’m afraid it might still be female (I have some extremely hard-to-overcome female mannerisms that I’m also attached to). If I’m wearing a really open-cut shirt do people still assume I have breasts even if there’s nothing to see?

 

A lot has changed since I started out…

…blogging. And yet I still feel as if I just published my first post, a bit insecure, wondering who might read it, if anyone really is interested in what I write.

Right now, I’m a bit stressed: My mom is here to visit and I am trying hard to change the standards of how I am adressed: I’m trying  to make my family agree with me on some new gender terms and conditions and it feels like a full time committment (which I’m not usually very good at):

I am thinking of changing jobs and have already gone through the Interview process, but am so clumsy that I lost the number of the person I was meant to call. Then my phone, of course, was set on call divert, and that did not give a good impression.
There was a misunderstading about cancelling my work agreement with the agency, and now this new workplace relation has gotten off to a bad start.

I’m looking for a new place, since my landlord is coming back soon to take over again. I have just gotten used to this one, and now I have to leave again very soon. The area is great for jogging and strolling along the riverbank. I might have to move further into the city.

My wordpress blog is giving me a bit of a headache, because I am not able to reply to all of the comments and am almost wishing to go back to the start, where my blog was still neat. I am happy that a lot of people have read my posts, but this sudden exposure has also made me fret: I am now under duress to produce more blog posts and more quality material.

I thank people for taking an interest in this space and hope they won’t be disappointed by my lack of communication and topics. I would like to adress more diverse issues, but I don’t really know much about them and don’t really feel qualified to write on anything other than my own ideas and feelings. I tend to read and think more and often I just want to share what others wrote, because I usually find that more interesting than my own stuff.

I want to continue with art and photography, as well, because art is the medium with which I am able to express myself more fully and personally. Writing is still an experiment that I enjoy doing, but that is often incoherent and not well organised. I tried writing a short story once, and it just never really ended….

 

 

Yours truly,

 

Dominic Demeyn.

 

A lazy Saturday post

sex: none (asexual)

gender: none (agender)

gender expression: Neutrois

sexual orientation: none (asexual)

romantic orientation: ‘straight’

 

If you saw this without the context of it being written on this blog, what kind of individual would you picture? Or would you just think that someone who wrote this was making a stupid joke and wasn’t really real?

Also, can one who has no sex or sexual orientation and no gender (or close to none, considering Neutrois is rather agendered than gendered) be called ‘straight’ when it comes to romantic orientation?

And why is there not more emphasis placed on romantic orientation or at least a distinction made between sexuality and romance, between sexuality and sensuality?

I bet many people will still doubt my existence and the existence of countless others, who cannot or are unwilling to display themselves and open themselves up to others because gender and sexuality labels are not written on all our foreheads; they have to be created, edited, established, and communicated, and that is part of the problem of gender. It is difficult to establish, difficult to interpret, difficult to handle, to place boundaries on it, because it is inherently complex and made up of so many personal feelings and experiences, wishes and hopes, fears and doubts…and general life (without the thinking and theorising) often comes into play as well and destroys or reshapes theory, it can interfere in our perception of ourselves and others and destroy our dreams of perfection and throw our ideals into unreachable realms.

I want people to know who I am, to know that I am real!

My mom is coming to visit today for the first time since I had surgery. Will she see me as real or stick to the old perception of me, because being real as a Neutrois does not satisfy her? Will she place the invisible cloak of gender on me in order to hide the new contours of my chest and my ‘gender worth’? I’m not ‘in’ anymore, I am on the fringe of society. How will she handle my decline into oblivion and did she realise that I was being erased and manipulated ‘when I was a ‘girl”, too? Will the fact that I will change my body and expression of ‘gender’ be used as an excuse to bully me and make it more justifiable to do so? Will the bullying become more open and aggressive now that I am openly Neutrois rather than pretend-feminine?

All these questions are running through my mind, but i don’t have the answers and don’t really want to think about them at present, because I know where I stand and whatever comes my way I will have to deal with it as a Neutrois and as best I can. There will surely be times when I will be immensely frightened and act less radical, more subdued, than I want to. There will be times when I will try to compromise to survive, because I don’t want to lose what I still have…..

_________________________________________________________________

 

 

 

A big THANX for the likes

Today, on 30th of June 2012 at 6:56 pm I want to shout out a big THANK YOU TO ALL who had a look at my blog, read some lines of my writing, and even liked some of the stuff!!

It feels like I’ve reached a milestone already since I started out, though I know I’m only beginning and there is a lot I could improve on in terms of writing and my language choice and humour, and art.

I am also very happy that people have visited this blog, because I now knoe about theirs. Their creativity and writing skills and interest in various topics, their ideas and what they stand for really encourage me to look at things from a different perspective. It makes me jealous to see so many great (creative, versatile, beautiful) things and people out there, and that makes me want to be a better person, writer, ‘artist’, and communicator. It’s a distant goal and I assure you, I am working on these things.

So I am raising my [carton of Hohes C Multi-Vitamin juice] to YOU for enriching my life, entertaining and enlightening me!

Cheers to your health and well-being and to a long life of happy blogging!

 

 

so far…

I have got quite a few posts lined up that I want to add to this blog. I’m also working on more art stuff, but everything is a bit disorganised and spontaneous.
I might change the blog settings to a more mature rating, just because I don’t want to offend anyone in case they don’t think this is PG stuff. I also would like to talk about ugly topics (‘mature’ topics).

So far I have quite a few ideas about what to talk about and I wish I was able to use HTML script or was more tech savvy so I could inlcude more fun stuff like cartoons, animations, games, etc…

Another wordpress blog

To anyone who stumbled on this site and is reading this: This is another wordpress blog. I have attempted to create other blogs, but they were not a success, mostly due to the fact that I didn’t write anything in them. So, my bad.

I hope this one will be different and I won’t neglect it as much. I hope I won’t abandon it when i feel depressed or frustrated.

So, here’s to a brand new start !!