Gender Trouble

I got in gender trouble today
(can I get an "Amen" from all the Femme Girlfriends out there)

See, I was registering L* and I for a conference,
and I got to the part of the form to indicate gender.

(This itself is the result of a long struggle, so that when new folks join organization, they aren't confronted with the immediate male/female binary)

And the choices are
o-Male
o-Female
o-Other ____________

So after finding out what L* wanted put in her slot, I filled out my own and checked Other, and wrote in "Femme"

Some time later, L* contests, "I don't think you should get to put 'Other'"

It takes me some moments to actually understand what she's saying. Does "you" mean "one"? "people"? "I don't think people should get to put Other"? Or does "you" mean "you, Ktrion"? Indeed, it's the latter:

"I don't think you, Ktrion, femme, should be claiming transgendered space."

I hate being in gender trouble.

"I wasn't intending to appropriate transgendered space," I explain. "I was striving for a multiplicity of genders. In the vein of Anita Tijerina Revilla's research ¹ on the Raza Womyn de UCLA" "In spirit of Solidarity" I add.

L* allows that this might be OK.






¹See "Raza Womyn Re-Constructing Revolution," Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA: 2004.