Joe
Tags: Feminine, Masculinity, Femininity, Transgender

Joe is 26 years old and a psychology major.

I was able to get in touch with her thanks to one of my colleagues who put me in contact with a member of the Dragones community in Lyon. I had never heard of them before. I looked up Joe on Facebook to get an idea of her “drag style.” Most of her characters were fictional (monsters?), not very feminine. This came as a surprise. I guess I had always associated drag with the “ultra-feminine,” the “diva.”

We met last Thursday at a local coffee shop. I was stunned by her beauty. Perfectly androgynous. Hard to describe, a combination of sexes (?) genders (?) personalities (?). We were joined by Ana, and we dove into the subject: femininity. Before meeting Joe, I had written a number of questions that interested me based on the concept (construction?) of femininity, as this is the central subject for my Ph.D. dissertation. As I was writing them, I became aware of the fact that I had always seen the world in a binomial format: male/ female; woman/man. I was ashamed and shocked by my narrow, heterosexual, linear, constricted point of view. I felt ashamed to see (and show) myself this way. After all, I had always thought of myself as an independent, intelligent, open-minded, modern woman. And I now found myself faced with the sad truth: I reproduce the conventional idiosyncrasies I inherited from my conditions and surroundings. Never, before this moment, had I realized that maybe this was a world of opportunities and I had no idea of its mysteries. I decided to share this with Joe and asked her not to be offended by my “stupid” questions. She smiled and dismissed my heterosexual bigotedness, I guess she’s used to it.

For Joe, a “woman” (as well as a “man”) is a limited, social construction that determines the actions a certain person should carry out in a determined society. For her, this has no real connection with the biological sexual difference. Sure, she acknowledges, menstruation and childbirth are proper to the female body form, but these are small facts (she confesses that maybe this is a little simplified, as she has never had a period or given birth, so maybe does not grasp the total importance of this phenomena). I myself have never had a child either, but menstruation for me is an absolute re-connection to my female body and to my femininity. As a teenager, I hated it, suffered every month its “violence” (it was true torture). As a woman, I love having my period and hope it falls on a day where I can be at home, warm, watching a movie. I hate having to be efficient, active and strong during these days, I much rather read a book and have some tea.

When she thinks of the feminine, she evokes empathy, listening, creativity, flexibility, intelligence. As to the masculine, she attaches a privileged position, anger, lake of emotions, paranoia. This left me thinking. If I ask myself the same question, I will most likely share Joe’s ideas of the feminine. But, as to the masculine, I would recall opposite ones. I would mention strength, silence, wisdom, protection. I realize that I have never felt very threatened by the masculine. Of course, I live on a permanent “alert state” when walking on the streets at night or when taking a cab alone, always regarding men, obviously. However, I guess I find this fear not directly related to masculinity but to “certain men” (I realise I am also socially conditioned when it come to the “type” of man I find threatening). In general, the masculine in my life has more often been embodied by figures I respected and admired rather than feared or resented. I guess we build our concepts of these identities, as Ana pointed out, according to how they manifested in our direct experience.

As to the drag, she uses it to have fun. She likes incarnating mythical figures, she likes scaring people and making them feel uncomfortable, being “anti-glamorous.” “What’s wrong with fear? It’s just another emotion” she says. When she’s not in drag, she likes the “tomboy” look. An attractive mélange of long blond hair, eyeliner, jeans, tall black boots, manly coat. She says she feels most at “home” with the Dragones, although the members of the community all have their differences, she feels it’s where she’s most accepted. For her the gay community can be quite judgemental and narrow-minded, this might be due to the fact that they are all men. “I’m sick of being surrounded by men!” she confesses. As for her love life, she says it’s quite hard to find love as a transgender. Normally she thinks of men as her possible companions but finds she’s mostly viewed as “the friend,” as something not very defined thus, not for a “real” relationship. This has led her to challenge her own boundaries (maybe we all have them): what the hell! Maybe she’s ready to give girls a try!