I'm Here, I'm Genderqueer, Get Used to It: How the Rules of Gender and Perfectionism Shaped Me and Screwed Me

I've thought about writing this post so many times. Then I paused to wonder why I even wanted to. I don't owe anyone anything, really. My reality won't change other people's, not by much. But my mom once told me that even if no one loves my songs as much as she does, it's still worth it to keep writing. And she's right. So I'm writing this. Just in case it resonates with anyone else. But Chirst knows it wasn't pure self-reflection that got me here. There were so many people I looked to along the way. Change is a group effort sometimes. 

The thing is, it's not change, not to me. For people who can't think my thoughts and feel my feelings, it looks a lot like change. "You've changed". That's quite funny to me, because I feel like I've spent my life trying to change: Trying to change into the right kind of singer, the right kind of partner, the right kind of woman. So I'm not changing anymore, I refuse. I want to be. Sometimes that's just what change is. It's someone finally being. 

 Singing was always something that brought me joy. I've written extensively on my time trying to make it as an opera singer and trying to fit into that mould; how it wasn't satisfying, how I felt stifled at times, how it lacked self-expression and creation. Now that I write my own music and sing my own songs, I feel so much better. It felt like returning home to the teenager who wanted to write what she felt and this was the only way they knew how. 

Well, gender is a lot like being an opera singer. 

In opera, there are rules. You're a soprano or a mezzo; you're a spinto or a soubrette; you're successful or you're not. I was always told during my education that I had to fit into a category. I was too young to sing contralto repertoire even though it fit my range. I was tall and thin, therefore people expected me to sing pants roles (when a woman dresses up as a young man...lol), one of my teachers swore she could tell when I had been singing pop on the side and that it was affecting my classical sound. Can't have one foot in one box and one in the other. That's the opera world, largely. 

In gender, there are rules. If you're a woman, you have long hair, you wear dresses, you wear makeup, maybe high heels. Hairless. You're expected to make a home, make babies, make love. You're expected to be demure, to smile, to whisper, to care. You have to be loving and emotional but not too emotional, and definitely not when someone else isn't in the mood to talk about it right now. 

If you're a man, you have short hair, wear trousers, wear sneakers, boots, definitely no makeup. Hairy but not too hairy. You have to provide, you have to pay, you have to punch. You're expected to be big, to toughen up, to be loud, to lead. You have to be stoic, unless you want intimacy, then you can have sex, even if someone else isn't in the mood. 

Not all these things will resonate with you. And that's fine. That's good! We all have a different idea of what gender is because different societies create their own gender norms. The above is what I, a Canadian woman who was assigned female at birth, noticed and endured growing up. And I want to throw it all out the fucking window. 

Growing up with rules is important. Knowing what's safe, knowing your limits, knowing there should be limits, learning your boundaries, learning other people's boundaries, learning respect. But none of those rules has anything to do with gender. I don't think that learning women wear makeup and men don't is imperative to a kid's survival. I don't think it kept me safe to learn that women shaved their leg hair and men didn't. What did keep me safe was learning things like look both ways before you cross the street, or don't eat food with mold on it. Somehow we've tied ourselves into the knot of gender norms=rules=safety in society, when if we just ditched the whole lot we'd have less to be frightened over. 

You might say, well Erica, those rules have to do with sex, not gender. Ok, but what is gender? Can you define it? Because until a few months ago I was hard pressed to define it myself. Sex is about reproductive organs. Gender is about how you express yourself, and how other people perceive you. I don't express myself through my reproductive organs. They're just there doing a job, like my heart that pumps blood, or my lungs that fill with air. But over many years socieities have developped traditions--rules--surrounding people's sex at birth. That's what creates gender norms. 

Now, there's nothing wrong with someone who is afab wanting to wear dresses and makeup and have babies. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, maybe some of these gender norms came about because so many women did want those things. Who knows. But the problem with instilling an overarching rule on half the population means that there is no room for self-expression. It no longer means that gender is how you express yourself and now only means that gender is how people perceive you. 

I was a very tall girl, and I grew up into a tall woman. I have big bones, broad shoulders and a permanent scowl unless I'm particularly moved to smile. All those things combined meant that I was never enough, and all I had to do was be born. I was taller than all the boys in school. I had feet so big that regular shoes didn't fit--still have a hard time finding shoes that fit. But eventually I got tits. That meant I had a way to fit in. 

I spent a lot of my time dressing in a way that would distract from what I perceived as 'manly' physical attributes. I wore makeup, I had long hair for basically my whole life, I wore shirts with cleavage. I tried to get guys to like me--guys who I didn't necessarily like cuz I never stopped to think whether that was important--and I did it in a way that meant they weren't learning about me, I was learning about them. I was looking for bits in me that they would like and amplifying them. It meant I was hardly ever loved by partners, and it meant that I never had a partner who got to know the real me. 

I tried to get the opera world to like me too. I sang music I didn't like, I sang music that didn't feel right. I auditioned for people I hated. I even dyed my hair blond so that I looked less angry walking into the audition room --and yeah, that actually fucking worked. 

Essentially, I have tried my whole life to be perfect. The perfect singer, the perfect partner, the perfect woman. 

The trouble is, perfection doesn’t exist. And if it does, it’s in the eye of the beholder. Because what is perfection if it isn’t beauty? 

It’s rules. 

During lockdown I had no one to impress but my husband and me. I had no one else to perceive me either. And a lot of the layers gender norms coated me with over the years started to peel away. I didn't need to wear makeup because I wasn't leaving the house. I didn't need to straighten my hair, or wear an uncomfortable bra and I didn't need to wear anything on my feet but sneakers. I wore jeans and t-shirts and sweaters and was perfectly comfortable and content (in that respect. Obviously it was lockdown so I was depressed as hell). 

One day in April 2022 as we were leaving the house to go house hunting, I put on a dress. It was a dress I had loved and worn all the time the summer before, just as things were starting to open up. I had cut my hair into a bob that summer too, and was feeling really confident in how I looked. But the thing is, I was being perceived quite a lot over that summer. My theatre company was doing a play and I was out all the time for rehearsals or seeing a show or performing. 

That day in April was the first time that I felt emotionally uncomfortable in an article of clothing. And it is a comfortable dress. It’s flowy and fits like a glove. But I felt like it was itchy, like it didn’t belong to me, like I’d stolen it and was about to be found out. It was so distracting. I haven’t worn it since. 

Over the next few months another thing happened. I entered into the Our Flag Means Death fandom, which is filled with queer people, like me. The queer sexuality thing I was already comfortable with. But the genderqueer thing was just beginning. All of sudden my tiktok and twitter feeds were flooded with people who looked different. They spoke openly about gender in a way I’d never even thought I needed to hear–even when a person really close to me told me they were non binary months earlier, I still didn’t think I was anything other than what I’d always been. It was like swimming in the ocean when all I’d known was a bathtub. And there were no rules. 

No rules. 

You could have long hair or not, be hairy or not, be emotional or not, be tough or not–none of it fucking mattered. It was about self-expression, not other-perception. I can't tell you how useful it is to talk to people who are going through the same things you are. To be listened to and immediately understood. It's like a therapy all on its own. It's like a sharing of information in order to keep the tribe safe. 

This summer I was hit with a massive, massive realisation. I’d been talking with my therapist about perfectionism, and how it’s influenced my work and my relationships… basically how it’s one of these things that permeates your whole life. It’s a pair of tinted lenses permanently strapped to your eyes (and no, the tint is not rosy). You want things to be a certain way–to be perfect, whether it’s society’s idea of perfect, or the one you’ve carved out for yourself over the years (or a third worse thing--both!). And when something doesn’t conform to those rules, you can snap like a twig. 

My whole life I’ve had this feeling inside me. It’s kind of like when people talk about soulmates–they can feel that their soulmate is out there, just waiting to find them. More than hope, it feels like certainty, knowledge. But it wasn’t about soulmates, it was about my career. I have always felt like I was heading towards greatness and if I just did this thing or that thing then I’d eventually get there. I felt it all through my opera education and career, I felt it all through acting school. I felt it when I was writing my albums and planning my music videos. It was like a faith I was so secure in that no other belief could sway me. 

This summer I realised what that feeling was. 

It was perfectionism. 

It was rules. 

Overnight, the feeling was basically gone. As soon as I put my finger on it, that feeling dropped away from me like a bathrobe on the way into a shower. And with it went the pressure. The pressure to fit in, the pressure to be good, to be successful, to be relevant, to be immortalised, to be the perfect singer, the perfect partner, the perfect woman. 

A few weeks later I cut my hair off. 

You see, I had started seeing myself in a different way–or maybe it was noticing new things. When I walked by store fronts, I would look at myself in the windows and shudder. My face was starting to age. I no longer wore the perfect outfit or makeup or hairstyle so the real me wasn’t just poking through, they were on full display. I wasn’t taking selfies or adding a filter, or pouting my lips. I was just me, walking down the street. I was wearing clothes that were comfortable–finally–but my face looked unfamiliar. 

Something was telling me to cut my hair and eventually I listened. But I resisted–oh I resisted so hard. I was terrified–terrified–that if I cut my hair off I’d be unattractive, that I’d lose my place in society, that once out of that box I couldn't go back in. And then where would I go? 

I thought of my late grandmother who wore her hair short and always wore trousers. She was brusk and direct and defiant. I always viewed her as something I didn’t want to become. I hated thinking I had her nose or eyes or looked anything like her because that meant growing into an old masculine woman–clearly the worst thing in the world for a young woman trying desperately to be perceived as young, small, feminine. 

That’s why I cried in the hairdresser’s chair, and that’s why I cried when my husband didn’t like my hairstyle. But I did it anyway, because I needed to know. I needed to know. 

I got used to it in a matter of weeks. There was something so freeing about not having to look a certain way. My hair was one less thing I had to try and apply rules to. It’s not always easy because gender norms are still alive in my head, but it’s a weight off my shoulders–literally. 

You might think that the clothes and the hair are just physical representations of gender. And yes they are, but they’re wrapped up in it as tightly as anything else. I think chunks of my personality already defy gender norms so in a way this is just a further external representation of how I feel inside. 

And I think that baseline, we all crave human connection and validation. Adhering to norms means we're more likely to reach that, and on the surface it seems like the lesast complicated choice. But if I'm pretending to be someone I'm not, then that's not real connection. 

I still struggle with perfectionism, probably always will. But I can no longer continue to present for other people. I can no longer exist in order to be perceived. If I cannot express myself then what am I? I didn't exist for aeons as specks of dust eventually shifting and coagulating into this singular person and personality who has never existed before and never will again just to stuff that singular personality into a mason jar. Fuck that. 

So yeah, I’m Erica, Doll Normal, genderqueer, genderfluid, she/they. For now anyway. Still figuring all this shit out. But I tell ya, it’s a lot easier to do and happens way faster without rules.

PS if you're uncertain about someone's gender or pronouns, just ask! We like talking about this stuff! And if you make a mistake, that's fine!