Hi everyone!
My name is Ashley Wylde and welcome to my channel Ashley's wild life. This week on the gender
resources playlist I want to talk about
changing the way you identify. I would first like to point out that identifying in any way is
optional, is personal and is subject to change.
It's optional because you don't have to choose any words to describe the way that you move through the world,
unless you want to. It's personal, because nobody else gets to tell you how you identify.
And it's subject to change because we as human beings are always
changing. The things that we want and need that any given point in our lives are going to be
different from the past and the future, and so if we couldn't change the way we
identified, we would be stuck in these sort of narrow
categories and that doesn't make a lot of sense for the way that human beings evolve and develop
mentally and emotionally throughout our lives.
I have two different stories about how I changed the way I
specifically identify with regard to my gender. So the first one is that when I first came out as not being
basically a woman. The word that I used to describe my gender was gender-queer. Over time
I started to realize not that genderqueer was wrong to describe the way I felt about myself,
but that it was maybe too specific. Other
identities spoke to me a little bit as well like gender fluid or like genderless and
while all of those things were kind of a part of the way I was feeling about my gender,
I realized that what I really wanted was to be able to define my own
gender based on how I felt in any given moment, and the easiest way for me to communicate that to other people
is by identifying my gender as non-binary, because if I say I
identify as gender
non-binary, and someone says, "What does that mean to you?" my answer is not required to be the same on Monday as it is on
Friday and that freedom really allows me to feel like I'm able to grow into my gender identity without the pressure of living up to
expectations that might be placed on something that's a little more specific.
Now, I went through a similar process with how I identify my sexuality,
but interestingly it was inspired by the change in my gender identity. For most of my life
I identified as a lesbian. The most widely known
definition of lesbian is "a female identified person who is attracted to other
female identified people." Well at some point I realized, okay,
I'm not female identified and not everyone
I'm into is female identified either, and as soon as I had that realization
it was this moment where I was like the word lesbian has stopped
describing the way that my sexuality
manifests, so I went looking for a word that would feel more descriptive.
And I wound up at queer. Not everyone is comfortable with the use of the word queer,
but I am personally comfortable using it to describe my experience with sexuality.
I like it because like non-binary it's kind of of
a general sort of umbrella term. If I say I identify my
sexuality as queer and the other person says,
What does that mean to you?" what I say doesn't have to be the same every single time. Generally speaking
it means you cannot assume that I am heterosexual,
And more broadly speaking, it can mean anything, because sexuality is fluid
in the way that gender is fluid, in the way that humans are always changing and developing. I share these stories
hopefully to help you understand that you don't have to know the answer right now
And you don't have to know tomorrow and even if you think you have the answer it might change for you later. The fact that
the word lesbian stopped fitting me simply meant that I had changed into a person
that that word no longer described.
It didn't mean I had to work hard to become the
definition of what a lesbian is, it meant I was allowed to shed that word and move on and
Re-identify in a way that was more truthful and that more clearly honored me the language we use to
Identify ourselves is meant to serve us it's meant to help us
Tell others what it feels like for us to move through the world, so if your identity is not doing that then it's time
For you to reconsider that identity this stuff is not easy
And if you are even considering changing the way you identify, I am so proud of you
And I am right here behind you every step of the way.
I hope you all have a wonderful week, and I'll see you next Monday. Bye. Bye
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