30 Days of Love: 16/30
By Kayla Parker
There are so many borders in my own life that deeply affect me. I'll stick to writing about one I've been thinking about recently: thoughts on how the borders of the gender binary affect my life.
I used to go to work every day in dresses or skirts and come home to change into wide-legged baggy pants and t-shirts. As a result, I started living a sort of double life: feminine at work and masculine after it. My new friends from my new town assumed that's just how I always presented myself, and my colleagues assumed the same. The truth is I don't really fit perfectly into either, and it was just easier to get work-appropriate clothing that was more feminine. As a result, by the time I got home and over the weekends I just really wanted to wear baggy pants and be as far from fem as possible.
The harder truth is that my issue isn't really solved: I just work from home now and am in school so it's easier to be a bit more neutrals. Of course, this is still difficult as gender expression continues to be a binary in many of the communities I am a part of - and I do have to go into an office every once in a while.
Although I am not convinced that my more neutral and plain dress can be considered as my moving beyond a gender border, I continue to do and explore this. I will wear and act how I want to: super fem when I feel like it, androgynously neutral most days, and butchily masculine when I want.
I hope that my own messing with the binary might help others. I know that gender identity and expression, as well as other binaries and borders that exist in our communities, have been incredibly damaging to so many of the beautiful people I know and love and the beautiful people I would love to know.
I will remember how it affects my self and others, and work to build bridges between borders and push against binaries.