Fixing Fixed
July 13, 2005 – 10:12 amHave you ever believed in something, really and truly, fought for it, propaganized it near and far and then life intervenes and you make new choices with new friends in new places and one day come back to that belief, and say, "what was I thinking??!!"
Yesterday I read a post about That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation at Jen’s fab blog, Transcending Gender. The press release blurb reads, in part:
Elisa seMbessakwini writes as an intersexed person, born with ambiguous genitalia and subject to a lifetime of painful surgical procedures. But instead of a clichéd narrative about progressing towards a fixed and acceptable body, she provides descriptions of events that can not be defined as either fact or fiction.
"Fixed and acceptable body" gripped my attention.
And so, like a dog with a bone, I gnawed on that phrase all day yesterday. "What is a fixed body" I asked myself. An acceptable body I understand. But a fixed one?
Somewhere in the gnashing of my mind I remembered an old belief I held pre-transition. If I took hormones, I would become like the guys on the cover of GQ.
My body existed in my mind, then. My mind did not exist in my body.
Over these last ten years, I can look back and see how nearly 1000 hormones injections/patches/cremes;two surgeries; dozens of pieces of paper to complete, letters to notorize, sign and forward; one fail love affair and one successful marriage; and hours of yoga practice have changed me in my body.
I no longer believe my body is fixed. Most days I think it is acceptable. But fixed, no. My body and me in my body change, shift, float, fart, belch, orgasm, digest, laugh, speak. Cells regenerate and degenerate. Each spoken word or flatus is new. Entropy moves through me and guarantees decay and death.
Joy and relief come easier now that I try everyday to climb out of my mind and live in my body. Living in my body makes easier work of accepting the skin and scars and muscles.
In the secret history of everyone’s life, including republicans or zealots, I think, lives an authentic narrative about the body that can never be reduced to cliche.
We inhale. We exhale. Peace.
3 Responses to “Fixing Fixed”
Hi Jay - great meditation on the body. I may just have to adopt this as my new sig line: “My body and me in my body change, shift, float, fart, belch, orgasm, digest, laugh, speak.”
As I think about it, I’ve noticed at times my identity changed after my body changed, and then at other times, my body changed after my identity changed. No wonder you chewed on these thoughts all freakin’ day!
By Jen on Jul 13, 2005
Whoa! I’m going to have to chew on this post all day! Awesome. (Ignoring the fact that you should be on the cover of GQ anyway).
I can definitely see parallels of how I view/have viewed my body/mind connection. Maybe if I found a way to live more in my body I would find a pathway to better health and fitness easier? Great post.
By Denise on Jul 14, 2005
“Fixed and acceptable”…fixed as in static (past the point of “the change”), or fixed as in no longer seen as deficient? I would suspect some of both!
Most people, I feel, regardless of their gender or orientation, live more in their heads than they do their bodies - witness the scores of kids on campus, for example, who pass us by daily with their cell phones glued to their ears, iPods hanging off of their belts, not once hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting or authentically experiencing the moments they inhabit. It’s as if they are great white sharks, seeking only the momentum to get to the next tasty morsel.
And so we devour our way through our lives, without ever once really savoring them as the complex layering of nuance they are.
Even a less-than-perfect body is a gift!
By Jennifer Gee on Jul 14, 2005