Meanderings on Gender Identity #1

For a past couple of months I have been struggling through the autobiography of Christine Jorgensen - the first person to have a sex change operation in the USA in 1952. I'm still only halfway through. It's not that it's badly written or weighty, it's just so damn long winded and I wish she'd just get to the interesting stuff.

Of course, it's good that the book goes right back to her childhood and the feelings of alienation she experienced even as a young child. But I don't need to know her entire ancestry and, even less, the ancestry of every person who is introduced to the tale.

I have been obsessed with androgyny and transgenderism since I was a teenager. The more I read and learn about it, the more I am able to make sense of myself and my own psychology.

Through learning about the difference between biological gender and brain gender, I have begun to view gender as a colour chart. On one end you have pink - for extreme female, on the other you have blue - for extreme male. In between you have a whole range of different shades of lilac which is where I, and most of my contemporaries, reside.

This has made sense of a lot of things - why I hate "women only" space but also despise "macho". I'm not comfortable with those that inhabit either end of the gender scale, I only feel at home with my fellow lilac residents.

This also reminds me of a situation when I was much younger. I was working with a black woman who told me that she would always feel she had more in common with a black man than a white woman. I was just a child and, worse still, going through my 80s "right on feminist" stage. I thought she was ridiculous and couldn't understand her point at all.

I talked about this recently in a conversation with Wendy. I was saying how I love gay only space and that I hate being the only gay person in the office I work in. I was also talking about how I identify primarily as being gay, and being a woman plays very little significance in how I view myself.

This also made sense of how I look on in bewilderment when people talk with excitement about going on a "girls night out" or a "lad's night out". I have tutted in disapproval until I realised that it's exactly the same as me looking forward to a "gays night out". It's mixing with those people you feel a part of, where you can be totally yourself and feel unjudged.

People talk of an integrated society where everyone is equal. If you're an intelligent human being then of course you see this is right. But I believe people will always want ghettos - people will still want to have Asian groups, Irish groups etc. It's not about prejudice, it's purely about identity - equal but different.