Reflect II

I was speaking with a friend of mine while preparing to take her portrait. She was asking me exactly what my project was about. I've found that people that aren't directly involved with lgbtq issues or the gender queer at all aren't familiar with the term.

I explained to her loosely what I was trying to do. I'm rewriting my abstract tonight. By starting it out with a comment on heteronormativity, I lose a lot of people. I tend to forget that not everyone is as queer as me and interested in such issues. It just slipped my mind. In a way this is good for my project though. The point is to educate about the other ways of identifying besides the pink and blue of how women and men are supposed to appear/act.

I titled my project "Gender-Queer" thinking it was a very clever way to catch attention and play off of words. While my project does circle around the idea of gender-queers and what it means, Im trying to communicate with a broader audience. I've decided to rename my project "Gender Query", sticking with what I wanted to do in the beginning but compromising to bring in a larger audience. My project is exactly that... Questioning.

I am not turning this into a big "gay" project. My classmates were able to show me the variety of understanding I can get with audiences in general. One of the girls who participated in my survey said she was offended by the term gender-queer. I'm not trying to glorify gender-queers....I am merely trying to show that there are other types of people that don't fit into the gender roles set for men and women.

"Being bisexual or homosexual is no more odd than heterosexual. People have been bumping twin uglies since creation. Why does society feel that physical sex, gender roles, and gender identity should all align in order to be 'normal?'"

**so after reading that I knew I had a lot of work to do if I wanted my project to be successful. This project is not about being gay or straight. Its about gender identity--whether embraced consciously or subconsciously. There are many straight women that dress in men's clothing because its more comfortable....Tom boys.. I would say thats gender-queer. Outside of the norm. Her argument was interesting but she missed my point.

I hate labels. I know that Im stamping a huge label on my project. Im doing that to spark interest. I'm doing it to prove a point.