"Are you a boy or a girl?" Direct_ress – Alina Aliyeva
Well, I was in the water world with my granddaughter
and then a little 7 or 8-year old girl swam up to me
and said: "Why do you have such a head?"
And I answered: "That's because I cut my hair like this".
She wondered: "But why do you cut your hair,
the hair is so beautiful!"
And I said: "No, for me having this haircut is beautiful."
And then she said: "But you're a girl",
so I replied: "You know, kid, girls can be very different."
Yuma
I've often heard stories about the fact that
a person that feels uncomfortable
in gender that is inflicted by society or social media
tries to place himself to the opposite gender,
like: "If I'm not a woman, then I'm a man".
And he doesn't feel well in the opposite gender either.
Still, there's a chance to push the limits of this system
and stop putting myself down for any gender.
So then that means I am agender.
When I come to see some group of people
and introduce myself, I say: "Hello, my name's Yuma,
I am agender, talking to me, you can call me "he" or "she",
any way you want, that doesn't matter".
Then again, no one objects.
Because I'm an adult and I'm able to stand my ground.
So, I don't know.
They might say something behind my back -
I'm not aware.
And I don't want to play games
with my femininity.
Yes, I know the fact that I have a feminine body,
I was born like that,
but I feel nothing about that.
Maybe I can take the liberty of it so easily
because I'm socialized.
I've already played "a woman".
I used to wear long curly hair,
high heels and various sexy outfits;
I've just lived through it.
Have just understood that it's…
not me, I don't feel well in all of that, it's not mine.
I feel at ease when
I have no markers of "sex" or "gender".
And only then I feel good.
Because then I'm just a human, a personality.
Even if we consider that I'm a parent,
I have children and a granddaughter,
I dislike when I'm talked about as a woman.
Because I'm the parent.
And for my children
I do everything I can, all they need.
And I don't bother thinking that this is what
woman or a mother must do
and that is what a man or a father should.
I just do the real thing.
It has always been very important for me
to treat my children as individuals, as people
with their own personalities.
I even didn't use to make them eat food
that they didn't want to.
And it's all the same about my granddaughter.
As soon as she had learnt to show us what she wanted to eat
we started to ask her: "Would you like this or that?"
and she pointed with her finger at what she wanted to eat
or spitted out what she didn't like.
And that's very important, it all begins with that.
And it's all the same about gender.
I don't inflict any gender stereotypes on my children.
I want them to have maximum choice.
My eldest daughter has always liked dolls, rouches,
dresses, diadems and still likes it all now.
Rhinestones everywhere were a must-have.
And she's still playing that feminine gender…
All right then, it's her choice,
and it doesn't depend on what I think of it.
Assuming that you stay all alone on a deserted island,
how will you behave?
When no one's watching, for sure.
And will never watch. No esteem.
Then That is your gender. Just That.
To understand it you need time.
You need diverse sensual experience
to try your hand at different situations.
And, probably, then you can speak about something…
After all, it's kind of a gender journey.
When I meet people in my life
who look like me, like agender,
they usually don't sweat that gender stuff.
They often say: "Why was it invented? What's the point?"
Time will pass and we'll forget about this word.
It will not exist anymore.
That means that first it used to be binarity like men and women,
and now different variations emerge
like transgender, bigender, agender…
Not long ago Mila filled in a questionnaire
and in the column "gender" she wrote "fairy".
Pretty good gender, I think.
So we'll be expanding and expanding these variations
further until we realize that
we don't need to do it at all.
That any person has his/her/their own individuality,
unique personality, and perception of the world.
And we don't need to be put into boxes.
Not into the M box, neither into the F box nor in any other one.
Janus / read out by Alina
For me to be agendered
means to be myself in the most pure state.
Someone takes pleasure in simultaneous manifestation
of masculine and feminine features;
others enjoy (or just live like this)
the fact that in one situation they are
more masculine and in the other – more feminine…
As for me, absence is more important than presence.
I do like I do, and that's it.
What is it like to feel yourself neither a boy nor a girl?
I think these types of questions are most complicated -
because if you asked a cisgender the same question,
such as: "What is it like to feel yourself a man or a woman?"
the answers would hardly be absolute and decisive.
Most people are cisgendered only because the society
rigidly staples gender identity with sex.
I've come across such answers as: "I am a man
because I have strength of mind and responsibility"
or "I am a woman because I carry out a mission
of harmonization of the world
and the relationships around me";
or, indeed, a flow of gender stereotypes like:
"I am the woman because I'm so truly soulful,
enigmatic, and emotional" or:
"I am the man because I'm so truly brutal, decisive and strong,
I'm not about hearts and flowers and baby talk"
and so on…
The trick is in the fact that if we ask:
"Can't woman be mentally strong and take responsibility
and man harmonize the world?",
the answer will be: "Of course, they can".
I remember a strange case when I was going
by car with my mother and her friend.
They began just another talk about me and my appearance
that wasn't girlish
and suddenly mother's friend said:
"If you don't change your behavior
it'll be hard for you to live your further life. it'll be hard for you to live your further life.
Do you really want to change your sex?"
At that time I didn't understand what she meant
and what the reason of changing sex was.
But then the more consciousness and information about the world
I got, the more inner questions
about gender and sex were raised.
So, I came to the simple algorithm:
if I'm not a girl, then I'm a boy.
And for some time in my childhood
I've been consciously acting "like the boy"
even more than before
and I've really wanted to become that boy also physically.
When I realized that it was hardly ever achievable,
it came down a little bit,
but I continued associating myself
with something more masculine.
But then there was a turning point –
I fell in love for the first time.
It was a girl.
To be closer to her I decided to take after her
that meant that I had to look like the girl, too.
At that time period I leaned over backwards
doing many stereotypic feminine things,
but it was just on the outside,
inside I stayed the same.
Later, my external and internal manifestations came up
with each other and got to some neutral point,
though I began to think about sex reassignment.
That happened because I didn't know that there
was another variant to be myself.
At the same time I was exploring my sexual orientation
and it was rather complicated, too.
At first, I strongly denied that I was falling in love,
then there was a phase:
"No, I'm "normal", that's just because I love only her",
and finally, after some inner struggle, I just accepted it.
But then I noticed that liked boys as well.
And one day, reading something on the internet,
I found a mention of pansexuality.
And – lo and behold – I learnt that pansexuals
also love those who don't go with male or female sex or gender.
So a new world opened up to me
that has finally given me the answers about who I am
and that it's all right about me.
At that time I felt a welcome relief
and it was the start of my self-acceptance.
That's the reason why I think that
all information about every type of people
that belong to LGBT+
must be easily accessible and open to public,
so that people won't have to spend so much time
for self-scorn and
efforts to break the pattern that the society imputes on them.
Because inner peace
is one of the keys to happiness.
I call her Yuma, not mother.
Well, "mother"…
when I talk to her, I can call her "mother".
But when I talk about her, I call her Yuma.
Well, that's because "mother" is how I treat her,
but not how the world does.
When I tell the world about her,
I convey her attitude to the world.
She calls me mostly "child" or "my children",
not "my daughters". Just like that, without gender.
Mila
When someone tells me things based on gender stereotypes,
some stupid little things,
totally ridiculous things, like…
we're sitting in class, I mean, in the auditorium,
we're having a lecture, and we need to switch on the projector,
and the teacher… the lecturer asks: "Boys, someone of you,
come up and switch on the projector, please!"…
At that time all of my feminist nature hits
the ceiling because I think:
"How can the availability of male sexual characters
help a person to push the button?"…
then I settle down, breathe out and answer:
"Well, I can do it"
and just come up und push that button with my finger.
And look - I haven't used any of my sexual characters to do it.
I have a very feminine representation.
My curls…
Needless to say, I'm addressed to as a cisgendered woman.
But when I introduce myself
I say that I'm Mila Yuma
and, well, you know, in fact I'm queer,
you can call me "she", "he",
and to play a girl is alien for me.
People usually pretend that they've understood it.
But more often, while talking further and learning more
about what I do and my position they ask:
"But what does it mean: "to be queer"? "
or "What is that "binarity"?",
"Oh, can we really do it?
Is it possible to be the girl and not to wear false nails?"
I don't have any sensual experience
helping me to understand my gender completely.
I still have no opinion.
I deny binarity, because it's archaic,
there's no need of it for our society,
it's just - yes, I really like this word - humiliating.
Every time in every phrase people emphasize
that you're not just a human,
you're the human with some sexual characters.
Because of that I'm definitely genderqueer.
But I define myself more as genderfluid,
maybe as androgyne, or maybe none of them.
For me my gender journey has just begun
and I don't think it has any end point.
It lasts for life.
For the whole life you're on that gender road
and your perception, your feelings – all of that can change.
When I thought about myself as of the girl,
I tried to avoid conflicts and tried to be…
more modest, or quieter.
My attitude to that has changed.
Now, on the contrary, I express myself at most.
Don't know… I started skateboarding, running more.
Why not?
That's all the same when you're lying in your bed
and thinking: "What do I do on the face of this world?
How do I really look?
Do… people like me?" -
and some other silly things like that come to your mind…
but then they just leave,
and you stay here, you're only human,
and you start thinking about something universal.
They could say: "Walk soft and wear a dress."
But I didn't want to walk soft and wear the dress.
As if there was no way to avoid it the only alternative
was not to be a girl.
Gryph.
I felt myself comfortable,
I thought I'd feel comfortable wearing pants
and that was the reason why I associated
myself with a boy.
Because boys feel good wearing pants. That's it.
And, well, it had been happening to me for a long time…
and when at the age of thirteen
I learnt about transgenderness
I thought – hop, hey, la-la-lay – it was about me!
A sense of being more or less a boy appeared when
I was about nine.
That meant, I never played dolls,
absolutely hated pink color
and couldn't stand gossiping, whispering behind the back
and everything that was common among girls in primary
and secondary school.
I was very pushy,
I liked to play soldiers, fight, climb garages and so on.
When I made this transition,
I did it subconsciously.
I just thought that it would be more convenient for me.
Because I wanted people to perceive me
in this certain way, not in any other way.
I have autism, Asperger's Syndrome.
The fact is that there has been discovered that autistic people
are predisposed to transgenderness.
And there was research that showed
that 2 of 100 non-autistic people were transgendered,
while among autistic people the result was 24 of 100.
After the research the conclusion was that autistic people –
in order to make themselves feel more comfortable -
tend to - copy the patterns of others' behavior;
it means that if a girl sees that
girls are not treated well in society, she says,
all right, girls aren't treated well but boys are treated better,
so for now I'll be the boy.
But I decided for myself that
I don't want my nature to control me,
I want only me to control myself and my actions.
But I understood that first,
I'd got so deep into transgenderness,
and second, I'd already gone too far from feminine patterns
and didn't want to ge back to them.
But I don't want to get back to masculine patterns either,
because this is also a standard,
a particular view of a person.
So, I'd like to break this stereotypic point of view by
means of being myself
and sharing this information with others.
Probably, one day I just realized
that "boy" or "girl" are so long-standing social constructs
that when I see a person as the girl or as the boy
I start developing some clichés about them
that may not be true.
So I thought that if I want to avoid such things
when it comes to other people,
I should start with myself.
That means that when I pushed off the limits of belonging
to a definite sex or gender for myself,
I did the same for the others.
I don't perceive anyone through the prism
of "boy/girl" stereotypes,
I do it within the meaning of "person".
Initially, I don't like things that refer
to femininity or masculinity.
For example, I dislike when someone pays for me in the café,
holds the door for me or… don't know…
when I raise a hand at class and the teacher goes:
"Yes, dear girl, don't know your name,
that's your turn to answer."
There are some groups of people where I feel better when
I use pronouns in masculine gender.
At that time some people can define my discomfort,
for example, asking: "Why do you use masculine pronouns?
You look like a girl, what's wrong with you?"
It's also rather annoying when people take note
of what I'm wearing.
Furthermore, they often make remarks like:
"Oh, you look so feminine!" or
"Yak, you've dressed like a boy, again!"
Not long ago there was such a case.
I was talking to my old friend that I hadn't seen for a long time.
And he remembered me by the time when I used to call myself
a different name and with different pronouns
and to represent myself as transgender.
So he saw me for the first time in, I think, six months,
I was wearing a skirt and my lips were painted, and…
his reaction was really awful.
He said something like:
"Oh! You've finally come to your senses!"
It was so disgusting that I was about to shout:
"No, I haven't! No way, don't ever think of it!"
When these thoughts are expressed by me
I find them destructive in some way.
For example, if I paint my lips, I do a girlish thing.
But stop! Boys can paint their lips, too.
So now I think that I'll do it like a boy.
And I paint my lips like the boy.
I've moved aside the boundaries of "masculine-feminine"
and "good-bad" oppositions.
For instance, if I meet a transgendered man
that has just transitioned I can say:
"You look very good for a person that has just transitioned.
That's great!"
To my mind, it's incorrect to mention
person's femininity or non- femininity,
masculinity or non- masculinity
if that person doesn't want you to.
I even don't know whether the person wants it or not.
If, for example, I told the transgender something like:
"Oh, you look like a cool man",
he could answer: "Damn, I don't want to look like a man,
I don't need it!"
That's why, I think, yes, there's something
in my mind that is constantly clicking and switching me over.
Reon
I fit into my own vision of what a person is.
And maybe of what the good person is!
If I can say so.
But...
I'd rather not wonder if I fit
into any single person's or the whole
world's views of being a boy or a girl.
Well then, I only want to change my passport:
to make my last name not gender-specific
and to change my first name to a new one,
though, it's not new for me, I'm using it now.
I've been to my native city
to file an application for changing documents.
I thought if I'd come to civil authorities' office
and specify the reason for changing my name
they would easily make out all the documents because…
the name Reon is rather obscure, it's not gender-oriented.
But it all was a failure.
They even didn't allow me to fill in the form,
saying that my application would be rejected anyway
and that they'd called to the Ministry of Justice
and got the answer that it was a male name.
My father says it is a child's game, and soon it will pass.
He pays no attention,
but sometimes he does call me
by the name that I prefer, I mean, Reon.
My mother, on the contrary, still calls me Anya
and… oh my! ...
is still asking me when I start growing my hair.
"I want you to grow long wavy hair",- she says, -
"and wear something… more feminine, too,
and you'll look so beautiful with all of that!"
On the one hand, she thinks that having confidence
and humor is great.
On the other hand, she…
well… thinks that I'm noisy.
My father, actually, also thinks so telling:
"Why are you laughing so loudly?"
Why, really? Because I feel happy,
so let's rejoice together!
My mother just sees from her own part.
I can't make her understand
that it's her own image of me, not mine,
and because of that she doesn't notice what's going on
and what kind of person I am now.
Concentrated on that image of me in future,
she's waiting for the day
when I'll be wearing a skirt,
long hair and date with a nice boy.
Instead of saying that I want to feel like a woman today
I can say that I have a mood to wear some cute blouse,
for example, with lace.
Anyways, all that clothes can't define sex
or gender of the person wearing them…
and any of these performative things like make-up,
walk or gestures can't do it either.
For instance, I often notice that I talk by the moves of my hands
and that my gestures can be womanlike or…
yes, feminine…
but I don't wear make-up.
These are just my distinctive features.
Having a female body doesn't make me woman,
it makes me just me.
Denis
Sometimes it's really great to nurture my ego.
To my mind, most people offer a seat and open a door
for someone not for other people's sake
but for the sake of their ego.
Just to show that you're a MAN, etc.
From that perspective I think it's not right.
If you do it because you see that a person
is tired and needs a seat, it's great
but offering the seat to woman just because you're man
is ridiculous and means that you do in only for yourself.
I represent myself as agender
but actually I'm somewhere
between agender and gender fluid.
When you identify with male gender
you're often required…
to complete some certain tasks… or…
to behave in a certain way.
I remember that my mum is often telling me:
"You have to eat much to be strong,
because you're a man".
My ex-girlfriend was often wondering:
"How can you be tolerant to gays, you're a man!";
and when I felt sad
I felt sad and started to cry
she didn't understand it.
Now I am agender
but I'm rather secretive,
so very few people know about it,
only my closest friends,
some people at work and that's all.
The rest of people think that I'm man
and even my friends that are aware often treat me as the man
saying something like
"oh, that's because you're a man".
I frown at them
and they are just slow in understanding
of what has happened.
But I don't mean it hurts me,
I'm just not comfortable with the fact that people knowing me
for quite a long time still see me as the man
and my actions as those of a male.
Stop it! First of all,
we shall accept that I'm not the man anymore and second,
I behave this way because I am me,
not because I'm the man or someone else.
That is one of the reasons of my secretiveness.
I'd suppose that when a biological woman
identifies as agender
the society may relatively accept it just
taking it for some youthful protest.
The situation with a biological man
can be more dangerous.
Damn, I've said so because when six months ago
I used to dye my hair blue
the number of abusive words like "fag" and aggressive
actions towards me was over the top.
And that was just because of a hair color!
As a rule, I ask people to talk about me using "him/her".
But "her" is used by the only person – my partner.
I'm really glad to hear that,
not only because I'm well with calling me "her"
but mainly because I realize that my partner treats me
like the personality not specifying my biological gender.
Some days I look at the mirror and find that
I dislike my face because it's too masculine,
it has too coarse features, my beard is growing so quickly
and I'm too lazy to shave it often.
When my gender moves to some feminine side
I get annoyed by my "too male" body.
It seems rather strange to me,
so I cheer myself up thinking of a new day
when everything will get to the new point.
But, well, no one is safe
from this abundance of the heart, it may happen.
Sasha
It is some change of self-consciousness,
the impossibility to call myself a woman anymore,
to see myself as the woman.
Sometimes I realize that when a person
introduces himself he says, for example:
"Hi, I'm… John"
and I say: "Hello, I'm…
well… that doesn't matter".
As I couldn't use my previous gender-specific name
I had to make up another one.
I created a new account at the social media
and the first gender-neutral name
that came to my mind was Sasha Krik.
I thought it would be only my nickname
but my friends started saying: "Oh, you're Sasha now!
Alright, we'll call you Sasha."
And I thought: "Hmm, let it be Sasha."
Then I changed my passport and other documents
for my new name
so now I have the gender-neutral name in passport.
Often I'm treated like a girl
that talks about herself as of a boy.
I feel strong gender dysphoria, mainly social.
That's why I strongly disapprove of positioning myself
as woman in society, right now.
I ask to call me "him" just not to be called "her".
"It" seems rather strange to me.
I thought about "them" but it's also…
too difficult for understanding by myself
and of course would be for people.
So I use "him" not because it's connected with
male gender identity, actually it's not male,
it's just not female.
It's rather hard to explain.
This feeling appears during social connections.
Of course, when I get up, make coffee
I don't think: "Yees, I'm non-binary transgender."
I just drink my coffee and smoke my cigarette, that's all…
When I meet people from my inner circle that treat me
according to my gender identity I imagine
(because I don't believe it may really happen)
that if there was post-gender society where everyone
could have his own gender or no gender at all
(which is practically the same)
I wouldn't have any problems.
There would be just me, my personality.
In my ideal, I want people to think of me
without any gender boundaries,
so they could get to know me as me,
not as who they think I am.
Phoenix
At kindergarten I used to go to a boys' toilet
and tried to pee standing.
And nursery teachers took me out of there
and tried to mentor me somehow.
But I was really sure that if I peed standing
I would have the thing that boys have.
By that time I realized that nothing
would grow in there and that
I wasn't allowed to go to the boys' toilet.
And that… I didn't really know who I was.
Not the boy, but not the girl either.
And then nursery teachers made my parents
promise that next time I would go to kindergarten
wearing dresses or skirts because without them they
couldn't distinguish me from boys
and I kept going to the boys' toilet or dressing-room
and they couldn't find me quickly among boys.
So, in order to see me well or make me identify myself
with girls they took that promise.
At home my parents and me; yes, I was three at that time;
agreed on the fact that I'd wear dresses only at kindergarten,
at home or anywhere else I could wear everything I want.
First, it was at kindergarten, then – at school till graduation.
They never broke their promise and never said
"Put on the dress because you're girl
and we need to go out somewhere."
I can currently identify myself as bigender.
It means that some male and female features
of character coexist in me,
I mean, those that are considered to be "male" or "female".
As for my body, I obviously treat it as the female one,
as for my mind – for me it's some kind of a "male" type.
But generally I treat myself as a whole not dividing
myself into a male and a female part.
I'm just me.
In lesbian relationships where both partners
identify as girls there are no gender roles, I suppose.
But when one of the partners positions him/herself
not woman or man,
some gender role division may exist.
At least, I'd like to have it.
I've always acted more as "man".
Now I'm in such type of relationships
where we don't have gender role division.
In bed, of course, I do nothing of the kind.
I'm talking more about the household.
It's rational that I cook if I have time for it,
and if I have time to clean the flat – I do it either.
I'm more interested in occupations
that are conventionally thought to be "male".
Well, nowadays both men and women usually drive,
but if we have to dismantle or assemble the engine…
Most car mechanics in car repair shops are men.
There was a time in my life when I used
to work in a car repair shop.
I'm really interested in all of this:
electrical engineering, furniture assembly, etc.…
My first profession is land surveyor,
and it's rather a hard job for a woman.
Probably…I needed to know if I had a right to do it or not.
Not when someone allows me but when I allow myself.
Can I do it being a woman?
I'm still woman though,
just a little bit different from other women.
So, can I do this way or not?
Can I get over a fence?
Can I go a short way through that breach on the fence or not?
Well, in most cases I say to myself:
it'll be more rational to pass through the breach
or to get over the fence – it will be just faster!
I feel like searching for myself.
Lately I think I don't exist, I am just a mass of something.
A heap of various personalities.
On the other hand, I'm something like a blank sheet of paper.
Because I often thought that people
are constantly playing roles, either social or some other.
Loki
And I've always liked just to play some roles,
and I've always been absolutely aware of that.
That is one of the reasons why I can't answer
the question about who I am.
But really I don't fit into any gender standards
because these are just roles and I can change them.
Actually, I like to do it but I've always preferred male roles.
Role playing can be different.
It can be put crudely like when a partner in bed
puts on a costume of a nurse or someone else.
In that case both of you actuall y stay the same,
you're the sexual partners that are just dressed differently
and try to play different part.
But if you get into the role,
you imagine that you are that person because
you need it not to spice up your sexual life
but to live your part and play your heart out.
I wanted to make pair costumes with another person,
my friend that now is actively cosplaying.
There is an artist in Russia that has a nickname Fobs.
She works in a Moscow comics studio.
Besides, she makes fan-art
for some of the famous literary works.
For several years she has been drawing these fan art pictures
of Tolkien characters of The Silmarillion.
These are godlike creatures - Melkor and Sauron.
Melkor is an embodied evil genius and all-over negative being,
analogic to Christian Lucifer,
and Sauron is his apprentice whom Melkor had kidnapped,
seduced and tempted over to his side
from Sauron's brothers and sisters who stayed kind.
My character is Sauron
because I love this archetype of a strong being that
loves order; a creator.
Because authentically in Tolkien's books
he is a blacksmith, a goldsmith.
In Fobs's fan art these two are so attractive mainly
because Sauron's gender can't be identified,
so any girl or boy can play that part.
A couple of years ago I noticed all
of this total injustice towards women
and that was the reason why so many people with
assigned female gender wanted to try a male role.
The main trouble is not in gender itself,
but in culture.
Everyone's always saying that the main woman's purpose
is to give birth to children, as many as possible!
For the development of personality
it doesn't really matter because it can't be cloned,
it is unique.
So a woman's role is that of the person
staying at home, a housekeeper,
someone making fireside comfort.
That is kind of glass ceiling,
and girls hit against it very early.
They are always said:
"You know, you can't go to the neighborhood
and find out what's going on there because you're a girl
and girls are often grabbed and raped.
The reason is that girls are only sexual objects."
One day during all that "socializing" I realized that
I felt disgusting thinking of myself as of woman,
it seemed to me that I was a weak helpless creature…
or the object that goes into the street where
everyone stares at her and wants to use her.
No one cares about her personality.
I've never wanted, never identified myself
or thought about myself as of woman.
As for man, I've just decided…
not to persuade anyone that I'm man.
Those who see my personality, respect it
and communicate with my sense, my intelligence,
they don't emphasize my biological sex.
I don't want to do harm to my physical body,
don't want, well, to start taking hormones
or do gender reassignment surgery.
At some moment I've found that don't need or want any.
That's my body – and it's not guilty
and owes nothing to anyone.
It mustn't change just for some conventional gender norms.
Asya
One day I went home from studies
and I wore a jumpsuit, a hat and keds.
There was some couple, a boy and a girl,
walking behind my back, actually very young beings.
And were talking so conservatively
wondering what sex "this creature" had.
I was about to turn back and ask
what kind of my sex really interested them,
biological one or gender.
I thought if I said that it would crash their brains.
Actually, it gives you a sense of success in making the society
understand what you feel.
When you feel comfortable in your clothes
and in your mind you accept yourself
because you can't do it any other way.
In addition, when I talk or correspond
with people I pay no attention
to the gender I use for defining myself,
so they often react negatively when I write
"he did" instead of "she did".
They think that something's going wrong
but for me there's no problem here
here because I write and speak anyway I want.
I say that I'm a poet, not a poetess,
from my point of view it is not remarkable,
I just see the poet as someone impersonal,
non-gendered, for me it's the name of some essence.
Sometimes I think that art itself saves my life.
I used to write poems from a male character's perspective.
They contained not only thoughts and speculation;
often they were addressed to woman.
At first I was confused but some time
passed and I accepted myself mainly
because of my creative work.
In a choir we wear kind of uniform.
Girls are required to wear white blouses and blue skirts.
Actually, they used to.
But for now blue dresses are individually sewn for girls.
So I've decided not to wear dress, no way.
The fact is that I perform in a boy's outfit,
trousers and shirt.
There was a funny moment when we had a concert at
a university conference and some woman that was a social worker
liked how I looked.
So she offered: "Let's bye pants for all the rest of the choir".
It went nowhere but I felt nicely.
Sometimes, walking down the streets,
I notice that people are too deep into themselves,
in a negative way.
They're walking … don't know…
heavily… head down, looking at their feet,
and they feel upset.
I often think people can't accept themselves so they look
in a certain way and make up certain
superstructures over themselves.
On the contrary, people that I'm drawn to,
energize everyone around.
When you look at them you smile
because they are who they are,
they show the world their perception of reality having
no fear of misunderstanding or any negative
reaction from others.
Such type of person just smiles and
if he sees no smile in response,
he knows it doesn't mean that it never emerges
in souls of the passers-by.
"Are you a boy or a girl?"
Direct_ress – Alina Aliyeva
Direct_ress of photography, Film edit_ress – Alina Aliyeva
Music edit_ress – Alina Aliyeva
Sound mastering – Aliq Shevil (WS soundsystem)
Art director of the credits – Denis Badov
English subtitles by – Marina Jazzy Dmitriyeva
Conceptually inspired by QIT Initiative
Music used in the film: Open Sea Morning - Puddle Infinity
Coma White - Kirill Kovalchuk, Denis Badov (cover Marilyn Manson)
Awakening - Silent Partner Big Screen - Silent Partner
The Place Inside - Silent Partner
Night Polar Bus Stop - Denis Badov
Nevada City - Huma-Huma So Far Away - Riot
Minyo San Kyoku - Doug Maxwell, Zac Zinger
Time Stops - Silent Partner
For more infomation >> VERB + INFINITIVE or GERUND? LEARN ENGLISH VERB PATTERNS & GET 35 ENGLISH PHRASES (FREE AUDIO!) - Duration: 6:16. 
For more infomation >> Dot or Period - Duration: 3:38. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét