http://bitchmagazine.org/tag/gender-identity The taxonomy view with a depth of 0. en http://bitchmagazine.org/post/coming-out-and-out-and-out <p>Lately I've been thinking about the process of coming out and identities/shifting, and how for so many of us it's an ongoing/lifetime process. In part because we as individuals change, and/or in part because our environment changes, and/or in part because our identities can't be read on the outside, and/or because some of us feel the most comfortable in those in-between spaces yet sometimes feel compelled to &quot;pick a side&quot; (so to speak/referencing here the dualism so prevalent in mainstream Western culture), because the struggle to have our identities validated (or even finding language to define ourselves and our experiences) simply becomes too much work. But then when we &quot;pick that side,&quot; we might eventually feel the weight of that boxed-in identity start to hurt, so we begin the process of coming out again... Or geez, to put it most simply, because things just change... </p> <p><a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/coming-out-and-out-and-out">read more</a></p> http://bitchmagazine.org/post/coming-out-and-out-and-out#comments Bitch on Wheels butch coming out gender identity genderqueer listen and love it masculinity midwest podcasts queer sexuality trans identity transgender transsexual Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:36:55 -0400 Debbie Rasmussen 486 at http://bitchmagazine.org http://bitchmagazine.org/post/if-a-femme-falls-in-the-forest <p>This past weekend, we at Bitch were honored to be a community partner in Portland's <a href="http://queerdocfest.org/about.html" target="_blank">Queer Documentary Film Festival</a><a href="http://queerdocfest.org/about.html" target="_blank">'s</a> screening of <a href="http://www.altcinema.com/ftf.html" target="_blank">FtF: From Female to Femme</a>. QDOC is the only festival in the United States (and apparently one of two worldwide) devoted to queer documentaries, and FtF: From Female to Femme is – to my knowledge – the first feature length documentary that explores the experiences and identities of femme as a queer identity. This lack of femme analysis is a little alarming, considering the breadth and depth of analyses focused on butch, FtM, and other masculine(/queer) identities. But then again, as books like Julia Serano's <a href="http://www.juliaserano.com/whippinggirl.html" target="_blank">Whipping Girl: A Transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity</a> illustrate, femme identities and femininity in general continue to be misunderstood and maligned (and in some senses, masculinity so fetishized), so it also makes sense. </p> <p><a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/if-a-femme-falls-in-the-forest">read more</a></p> http://bitchmagazine.org/post/if-a-femme-falls-in-the-forest#comments Bitch on Wheels documentary events femme film gender identity movies queer sexuality Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:02:27 -0400 Debbie Rasmussen 449 at http://bitchmagazine.org