i’ve been wanting to talk with others about gender and disability but have been very uncomfortable with writing things as i’m not a gender scholar (damn you academic industrial complex!) BFP’s recent post, what is butch?, is pushing me forward and i’m hoping that this can be a place where we can talk about gender x disability x queerness x everything.
in the comment section of that post, BFP tells another person she reads me as a total femme. i don’t know if other people would be as delighted as i was but my natural reaction was the immense need to take that as a compliment— with disability being understood as such an asexual thing, no one ever affirms me even having gender. the traditional disability narrative puts me in this place of being something else: that if gender was a binary, i’d be in a third gender realm. (my friend mia has the perfect example of this, bathroom symbols that have the man, woman, and then wheelchair*). our bodies are objects that are not supposed to belong to us and by recognizing our genders, it implies that we own our bodies, think about them, take pleasure in them. maybe this is a big jump but to me, affirming our gender also recognizes our personhood: it says we are human and have a right to not have our bodies raped, abused, sterilized, experimented on, harvested, and more…
it’s only recently that i’ve been thinking about gender presentation. maybe this is because i finally have a PA who knows that part of her job is being patient in helping me try different outfits and that if i don’t like the way something looks, i should take it off. if i want to see if a fedora, vest, dress pants combo looks good, i can. if i want to stand in a dressing room and try on every piece of lingerie in the store, i can. a lot of disabled people don’t get to do that, especially with so many of us living in institutions, having unpaid caregivers, experiencing days when we are in total pain or lack energy, etc. there needs to be a word for disabled people taking part in intentional, pleasurable gender play in their own way. part of the oppression we face is being asexualized, otherized and denied gender identity so playing with gender and demanding respect for our identities is resistance and a refusal to accept that ableist narrative…
i don’t know that i’m femme, butch, etc, i just know that i like to play with roles and gender. for me, the word to describe this gender play or personal recognition of identity i’ve been having lately is cripchick. cripchicks (or gimpgirls) are fierce, strong disabled women who interact with the world on their terms. when i am cutting up a tshirt everyone is wearing so it looks good on me, that’s my way of being a cripchick. lately i get a lot of pleasure in mixing up disability with a fierce femme show so i am insistent on that tee looking good on me, even if i do it in a way that traditional femmes may not. as cripchicks, we’re dealing with issues that force us to create our own relationships with gender presentation but we do it and feel good about it.
do you know how powerful that is? for disabled women (w/ all disabilities), what does gender look like for you? am i wrong here?
*sidenote about bathrooms. i think the wheelchair accessibility/bathroom safety connection is totally powerful and love places that have a single stall gender neutral bathroom where people are safe. that’s not what i mean with the example mentioned above about third gender.
the weird thing to me, as someone w/ an invisible disability, is this (playing in a slightly different direction): the more I play up a gender, the more people read me as abled. When I wear feminine clothes, when I wear make-up, when I style my hair down, people are less likely to see me as credibly disabled. Or – it feels that way.
When my health depends on someone recognizing my disability — in the doctor’s office, Social Security, the HR person at work — I will consciously avoid “dressing up” or presenting myself how I normally prefer to — I will wear frumpier clothing, I will slump my posture, let my hair be messy. Because I am afraid if they see me with styled hair, or prettier clothes (that were no harder to wear, or may even be more comfortable) and so forth, they will conclude that I cannot “really” be disabled. And I really doubt that’s because they recognize how much energy goes into making yourself look presentable before you go out the door.
And even, why do I want to look more femme, talk with a peppier voice, wear more stylish clothes when I’m out and about? Maybe *because* I feel like that codes me “normal,” not-disabled. Maybe *because* it hides my disability. I’m never consciously thinking that. But I’d be lying if I said there’s no way that could be a factor in those decisions for me.
… because, look: how do I dress for a job interview? Which is exactly when I am, consciously, doing everything I can to hide any marker of disability, because I’m terrified it will disadvantage me in the hiring process? Yeah – I wear skirts and tights, I put on makeup, I style my hair *perfectly* …I watch my posture and I consciously omit any mention of anything disability-related when I’m speaking…
The more strongly I wear a gender, the less strongly I wear a disability. I do think there is a direct correlation there.
In conclusion: Yes, yes, yes yes yes.
Posted by amandaw on May 25th, 2009.
And I try to be subversive with this stuff, too — when it comes to jobs, my official strategy is: hide disability until I’m hired, then come out with it and be as explicit w/ people as possible, to FORCE them to deal with disability, get used to it, not be so distant from it.
the weird thing wrt:gender is, I don’t know how I *could* be subversive in most cases. ‘Cuz I feel like I can’t escape that two-dimension spectrum, from “disabled/no gender” to “abled/gendered.” I can’t be “disabled/gendered” because people will only see one or the other, and match it to the respective end of the spectrum. that’s when I get mad at the world and go browse etsy for a while.
Posted by amandaw on May 25th, 2009.
I hadn’t really thought about the femininity thing before. I’ve long felt that I want to make a special effort when I’m out and about in order to (a) defy certain stereotypes and (b) avoid invisibility. Not to stand out, just not to disappear in the way you sometimes do in a wheelchair – you know, they either stare or you just don’t register at all? As it happens, my pain, the shape of my body (does go in and out quite a bit) and my tastes conspire to make that a rather feminine look.
I think the only context in which I have ever described myself as a “femme” is in terms of talking about privilege. Along the lines of, as a bisexual femme, I have tremendous privilege over other queer people. In this context, I suppose I mean “femme” as in “a woman who complies just enough with cultural ideas of femininity not to threaten heteronormative mores”. Something like that. But I’m not sure if that would fit with anyone else’s definition.
You’ve really got me thinking there… I think I’d like to be a “cripchick”!
Posted by The Goldfish on May 25th, 2009.
You are a scholar: You’re in school, aren’t you? Besides, as I mentioned in our Twitter convo yesterday, scholars tend to ‘other’ us in the process of writing about us. I once considered specializing in rehab counseling, but the literature totally turned me off: It was all about “these children,” “this population,” blah, blah, blah. Who better, my dear, to start this conversation than you?
Posted by Virginia S. Wood, Psy.D. on May 25th, 2009.
Ooh. What is gender, for me as a disabled woman? What a great question!
My first experience was that disability ungendered me. By the time I hit my pre-teen years, my mother had carefully explained to me that I was no longer marriageable and would therefore have to have a career. That blew my mind, because until then I hadn’t realized others saw me that way.
I still really didn’t get it though. I went all the way through high school and college having only ever dated 3 boys (one of whom has the same disability), and I told myself it was because I was too fat (at 115? who are we kidding??), not sexy enough (which I still thought I could “do”), etc. My grandmother told me “boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses,” and encouraged me not to be “too smart” because it intimidated boys. So I tried that, too. Didn’t work.
I put a lot of effort into the “right” shampoo, makeup, deodorant, clothes, etc. to no avail. I had to import my cousin from out of state for my senior prom or I would not have been able to go at all.
And I found the effort totally frustrating. I could not wear fashionable shoes. (In fact, throughout elementary school I could only wear jodphur boots! Talk about sexless.) It was impossible to get a dress to hang right, and pants were always too loose and too long on one side, with the seams pulling over toward the other side.
Last night I dreamed that a child, observing my odd gait, asked, “Why do you leanlike that?” At my mother’s urging, I walked around the house with a book on my head, to the rhythm of a metronome, to try and correct my limp. To no avail: I looked like a listing ship no matter what I did.
In college, I met my husband, who collects strays. I did not realize it at the time, but he wanted to play Red Cross nurse to this cripchick. It eventually evolved into a real relationship, and all’s well that ends well. But still. It wasn’t the cuteness of my ass that first attracted him. It was that I (he thought) needed him.
I dress sort of intersex now, and that actually began largely–despite what my earlier post on this subject may claim–because pants hide my disability better. I noticed a long time ago that I don’t get nearly as many stupid questions and comments from TABs when I’m wearing pants. Best of all, nobody volunteers to pray for me when I’m in pants.
I am still aware that I feel a lot sexier than I apparently look to others.
Posted by Sutton on May 25th, 2009.
I need to come back to this and think about it in more detail, but my disability gets referred to as extreme male-brainedness (cause apparently you have to be male to be analytical, duh); related to this, my written communication style is such that people online who haven’t seen a picture of me will assume that I am male. This has driven me to visually enact my gender in a more feminine way than I otherwise would – long flowy skirts when the weather’s warm, blouses with frills, etc. – though never to the extent of wearing something uncomfortable or of getting involved in a long beauty routine (which I personally would find boring). This is my way of showing people that yes, a woman can think the way I do and speak the way I do; the more femme I look, the more surprised people are at some of the things I say. I like the idea of showing that you don’t have to choose between a slate of masculine traits or a slate of feminine traits. OTOH I worry that I am using a very traditional set of visual markers to indicate femaleness.
The other day, I ended up wandering around town in just my black slacks and a sleeveless shell. That felt more along the lines of what I’m looking for in terms of visual presentation, but I’m having a tough time putting into words the reasons why.
Posted by ekswitaj on May 25th, 2009.
Well cripchick, you always make me think. As adulthood nears for my daughter I am balancing my fears (people taking advantage) against enforced sexlessness for her (there is at least one agency in town that if you move in to one of their group homes you have to agree that you will never date or marry–or anything else… EVER…) It is weighty stuff, and scary in some ways, but it must be addressed if she is to be a whole woman–and she is (whatever her definition of that turns out to be.)
I admire your ownership of your own skin!
Posted by terri on May 25th, 2009.
wow yall— there is so much here to wade through! different experiences, different perspectives, the commonality of our lives, etc. going to mull everything over before responding but just wanted to say thank you for taking time to share your experiences, you all are amazing and i learn so much from you. can’t wait to continue delving into this w/ you.
Posted by cripchick on May 25th, 2009.
ooooh must read:
wheelchair dancer’s new post: “butch/femme—crip”
http://cripwheels.blogspot.com/2009/05/butchfemmecrip.html
Posted by cripchick on May 25th, 2009.
dear cripchick,
love love love this piece. could you please post it to raven’s eye?
Posted by maia on May 25th, 2009.
There’s a lot I want to respond to, but I’m about to head to bed so I will start with this:
It occurs to me as I read this post that for me, a queer woman with a disability, the way I interact with gender is divided. There’s the intersection of my gender and disability and then there’s the intersection of my gender and my queerness. I’m only now just starting to deal with holding all of those intersections in the same hand. And then there’s the issue of the way gender is treated within both of those communities and also by those outside of those communities (as in there’s the way my queer/disabled peers view gender and the way those not queer or crip identified view gender). I think some of the issues intersect – lack of control over body, etc. but I also think there’s a lot of disconnect around gender in both communities.
If pressed, I would probably describe my physical presentation as femme (I am in love with skirts, heels and make-up), but my personality is incredibly butch (I learned to field dress an elk when I was in high school, I work on my car and love to watch blood bounce of the ice in hockey games). However, as I write those things, I have to wonder who decided what was butch and femme. Why are heels considered femme (read: more feminine) and field dressing an elk considered butch (masculine). In the queer community I’m always torn by the butch/femme divide, because it seems to rely so heavily on traditional gender roles, which are nothing more than social constructs. At the same time, however, they are somewhat subversive because they are queering how gender is typically presented.
Posted by charmed on May 25th, 2009.
It’s also been my experience that there are many spaces in the queer community where I am a read as a sexual being (making some to question whether I am queer by default, which I can assure you, I am not). I don’t know if it’s because I feel more open in queer spaces, thus I can be read as a sexual being or if it’s just a manifestation of the queer community and queer spaces in general. And I’m not entirely sure how much of my being read as a sexual being has to do with my gender identity and how that identity is expressed. Ah…I have to go to bed before I write a novel, but I will be ruminating on this subject :).
Posted by charmed on May 25th, 2009.
This is such an interesting question, and a complicated one too because of how enmeshed gender and sexuality tends to be in our culture. I’m a feminine queer woman with a hidden physical disability. In fact, for me my gender expression plays a central role in disguising my disability – the malformation is hidden under my hair.
My gender expression absolutely gives others (generally) the impression that I am straight and non-disabled. This privileges me in a variety of ways, and also gives me the opportunity to observe how things change when people know I have a disability. When I come out as disabled, it’s routine for people to comment (after a slight physical recoiling) that I do not look “sick”. Often people will particularly point out aspects of my gender presentation – high heels or makeup. Frequently once people know about my disability there is a shift from treating me as an adult gendered and sexual being to something more like a pre-sexual child.
I’m personally grateful for the experience of being de-gendered and de-sexualized because in a way it has allowed me more freedom to play with gender and sexuality. I also tend to think of gender and sexuality in less binary terms as a result of my experiences around disability.
Yeah, you’re not wrong.
Posted by mrgodsoe on May 26th, 2009.
fyi, this blog is still running thru my head and making me think :) thanks so much stacey!
Posted by Aaminah on May 28th, 2009.
correction… meant to say “this post”, not “this blog”, but it’s true to say your whole blog rocks my world. :)
Posted by Aaminah on May 28th, 2009.
[...] cripchick, “ON GENDER AND DISABILITY“. in the comment section of that post, BFP tells another person she reads me as a total [...]
Posted by 3 posts/comment threads on butch/femme & disability - read ‘em. — Hoyden About Town on May 29th, 2009.
Hi again. I wrote my own rambling post in response to this and Wheelchair Dancer’s here.
Posted by The Goldfish on May 29th, 2009.
Hey there. This is Leslie of “Cripping Femme”.
I’m loving this thread. I identify strongly but not simply as femme. I live femme as a genderqueer identity, and understand my femme to be inseparable from my dis/ability. The values that I place upon visibility (being and choosing to be marked, whether by scars or fierce fashion), difference, performance– all of these are rooted in both queer history and crip culture. These days, I most often describe myself as femmecrip– or taking a cue from the fabulous Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasihna– as cripshark.
Do you know that line in the Femme Shark manifesto: “Femme sharks don’t eat our own; femme sharks love to eat though”? I’ve been thinking a lot about different kinds of hungers–as Leah recently reminded me, how hungry I am when I’m too exhausted/hurting to haul ass to the store–what hunger teaches about sustenance–the hunger that is the interplay between pain and desire. I haven’t quite found the words for how these thoughts frame/shape my cripfemme identity, but I’m working toward some articulation. . .
In spaces which require me to “choose” one identity, crip beats femme every time. In butch-femme spaces, I meet that choice over and over: femmes competing for butch or transmasculine attention via ableist standards of beauty/grace/etc. But lately, I’ve been heartened by time in explicitly femme community– an appreciation of the ways that I construct my beauty every day, which I’ve never experienced with other non-dis/abled (normate) friends.
Ugh, am I making any sense?
Posted by Leslie Freeman on May 29th, 2009.
leslie, can you tell us more about femme shark manifesto?? : )
also folks might be interested in this announcement:
Femme angels, cripsharks, radically feminine members of this queercrip
nation, allies:
Most of you are familiar with the “Cripping Femme” series on Bevin
Branlandingham’s fabulous FemmeCast: The Queer Fat Femme Podcast Guide
to Life. You may also remember that “Cripping Femme” began, not as a
series of individual pieces by dis/abled femme artists, but as a sort
of femmetage of voices from queer dis/ability community. Recently, in
conversation with other “Cripping Femme” contributors, a new idea has
emerged, which will both compliment the “Cripping Femme” segments on
FemmeCast, and express the original, collective vision of “Cripping
Femme”.
The purpose of this note is to invite you to co-create a Cripping
Femme zine, featuring new work alongside pieces included in Femmecast!
Confirmed contributors include Dominika Bednarska, Jennifer Clare
Burke, Qwo-Li Driskill, Alana Kumbier, Sassafras Lowrey, Leah Lakshmi
Piepzna-Samarasihna, and Margaret Price.
Here’s what we’re still looking for: Poems, bits of memoir and
fiction, cartoons, sketches, manifestas, rants, ART! Individual pieces
which, together, will (begin to )represent eclectic, intersectional
identities of femmes with dis/abilities. Pieces which, together, will
emphasize crip cultures as well as dis/ability communities, and will
counter the perception of “dis/abled femme” as majority white,
female-bodied, woman-identified, visibly impaired. Perhaps. . . a
Cripshark Manifesto? A twenty-page, chapbook-sized zine.
Guidelines are common sense and flexible. Visual art submissions are
encouraged. Contributors retain all rights to their words and images.
Please send submissions, suggestions, and feedback to me at efemmera@yahoo.com
If you are unable to submit via email but would like to participate in
the project, you may also contact me for mailing information.
Materials should be received by August 21, 2009.
Looking forward to hearing from you– and making something amazing together!
With love, respect, and super-nontoxic glitter–
Leslie Freeman
HOT, huh??
Posted by cripchick on May 29th, 2009.
Really interesting post and great comments. So much to say, but I’m short of time, so I;ll just tel you, you are so beautiful in that photo.
Posted by itchynarwahl on May 29th, 2009.
Hi all–
The Femme Shark Manifesto is available in several places, but, since we’re on a bit of a theme here, I thought I’d link to the full text via Cripping Femme contributor Sassafras Lowrey’s blog @ The Femme Show:
http://www.thefemmeshow.com/blog/2008/07/25/femme-shark-manifesto/
I’ll add that Leah is a founder of Mangos With Chili, the QPOC performance tour/cabaret.
xo
Posted by Leslie Freeman on May 29th, 2009.
Oh, just a quickie note: Femme shark is an anti-racist femmes-of-color-centric identity, as is and, in my reading, must be cripshark. Most often, I describe myself as femmecrip and a cripshark ally.
Posted by Leslie Freeman on May 29th, 2009.
OMG, that link might be the best thing I ever read. :)
Posted by DaisyDeadhead on May 29th, 2009.
I am thinking a lot about these issues lately. I’m not sure my situation “counts” as a disability, exactly, but the mastectomies – and my choice not to wear prosthetics – do affect my gender presentation. And so, I’ve gone from being very femme, with lots of curly hair and large breasts, to being a lot more butch, with VERY short hair and a completely flat chest. My wardrobe has followed suit, mostly, because otherwise I think I would just look I was trying to pass and failing. Not passing is one thing, but being read as trying to pass and not passing is something else. I find myself rethinking my gender identity quite a bit as a result of all of this.
Posted by plain(s)feminist on June 1st, 2009.
Aigh, you are awesome.
Posted by Lisa on June 2nd, 2009.
[...] actually going to affect me quite negatively, or whether it’s looking for new hair-stuff, or whether it’s trying on clothes so I can look the way *I* want to — because that little voice in the back of my head starts [...]
Posted by three rivers fog » What you can’t see on June 2nd, 2009.
I agree that having a PA, or a partner or caregiver to help chose fashion is a luxury. For me, as I change sizes based on heat, and loss of weight, my choices are more limited than before but I will always remember and I always check in every wheelchair race if they have bothered to split men and women (the “There are no genders in wheelchairs” comment from a race organizer).
This topic is I think much broader than fashion, since disability brings out every dirty little secret and usually brings a friend or two – I know diseases do. So, adrenal problem, or thyroid problem or steroid, now you have a nice mustache, and may have no feasible way to get rid of it. If you are like me and um, ‘unwell’ your skin does not rejuvinate and is translucent….along with all the hairs that are left, oh joy! Your goiter brings out the adams apple, your breasts start to shrink or grow, or head south for reasons due to elastisticy, your hair falls out, grows back, falls out again, looks different, your ability to masturbate can be different than those of other women, your labia starts to grow together due to autoimmune diseases, you are more prone to UTI’s – indeed your Vagina is probably up there with baby pictures in your doctors mind so oft is it up in the air. Some doctors want to take you off birth control now. Too bad doc, I was sort of hoping to make money as a devo prostitute!
Okay, all of that aside, my gender identity is consistent, whether my hair is in tatters, whether I have tubes coming out of me. Even days I can go outside I get dressed up in a push up bra and lip service or morbid threads top and some dagger earrings because….this is who I am, and whether I am seen or not does not change that. If it is all washed away in a flood, or I am taken to hospital for extended stay, I will still be me. I saw myself in the mirror, my hair in a ponytail low to avoid it getting caught when I passed out, my top tied tight (to avoid shit if my system when crazy and I vomited and shit myself), and some sort of temporary pastel thing due to the heat and I went, “Ahhh, I look like an earth goddess, this is not the lesbian I am!” Use a marker to put a few skulls on my ear lobes.
haha, this is a wild and funny topic, and one that seems to have caught people’s attention. When I boxed, I was a femme, when I race, I am a femme, when I am legs up in the stirrups I am an object and when I can’t leave the house or the bed I am a ‘dear’ – alas. I need to scare my care workers more. Hmmm, what to do?
Posted by Elizabeth McClung on June 5th, 2009.
My disabilities are less visible than the fact that I am trans and chub. I once found solace in queer femme identity but I have been alienated to (literally) the point of tears by the amount of appropriation, tokenism, and exotification of trans people, experiences, and bodies in [cissexual] femme discourse, including the podcast linked above, the Femme Sharks, etc. Now, I have no idea where I fit beyond “queer woman.” I mostly pass as cissexual and sometimes as straight, sometimes not. But lately, I’ve also been giving the finger to passing, in a sense. I wear big v-necks and unpadded bras, I let my belly and my small boobs and my moderate shoulders show for what they are, and all I know is that it’s really validating when people who are attracted to me seem to Get It.
Posted by Sophia K on June 8th, 2009.
Also, I have to quote a friend here because I think it’s apt -”I wish my femininity were so taken for granted by the world that I could start worrying about how to fuck with it.” I’m concerned with interrogating the need to assert one’s femininity or masculinity as “subversive” or “queered.”
Posted by Sophia K on June 8th, 2009.
I love this post! Thank you! I was just trying to come up with some explanation of why/how I’ve swung more to the butchy side when using a wheelchair and femmier when not and I was unable to explain. This is super helpful. Still thinking and eventually I’ll post & link back.
Posted by Liz on June 20th, 2009.
Hi, I can’t understand how to add your site in my rss reader. Can you Help me, please :)
Posted by ElenaLisvato on August 4th, 2009.
[...] thing. It’s as though gender and disability never interact. Not only does this contribute to the notion of PWD being never gendered and never sexual, but it’s a neat little crystalisation of the [...]
Posted by Feminism that doesn’t advance women is no feminism at all. « Zero at the Bone on October 5th, 2009.
[...] cripchick’s on gender and disability: our bodies are objects that are not supposed to belong to us and by recognizing our genders, it [...]
Posted by FWD/Forward » Gender presentation, disability and intersections on October 17th, 2009.