Stop Passing Androgyny Around Like a Blunt.
The careless use of androgyny in media.
In the article where I found this image read, “Jax is an ANDROGYNOUS alt model who identifies as pangender”
Listen. We really need to start getting clear on what exactly androgyny is. And if you haven’t lived as an androgynous person, you do not get to define it. You can only experience being in its presence.
Unlike gender or sexuality. It is not up to ones declaration or interpretation. It is not a feeling or knowing defined within oneself.
I have seen and met but a handful of truly androgynous human beings in my life aside from babies and some elders.
Stop calling any chick with short hair or random pretty doods androgynous. Its just fucking wrong.
This is what Androgyny looks like.
Androgyny is not partaking in the action of gender bending. It is no revolutionary act. It is a human phenomenon, like a sixth finger.
One cannot become androgynous. It just is.
The best way to explain it, is to look at a baby. Any baby. All babies are androgynous. You could not tell which gender they are but by what colors the parents choose to dress them in.
We all started in the world androgynous. But its only a small subsection of us who remain this way as we get older. Some of us revert back to androgyny as an elder. The blending out of distinct features (bone structure) that are recognized as male or female. Again this is not about gender identity or sexuality. And it is not about what you can become with the right outfit or makeup.
And it is also about presence. Energy. Without trying most androgynous people don’t exude any particular gendered energy or they encompass them all.
Now I’m going to talk about the thing that may read a bit cooky.
We are magical beings.
We aren’t perfect but we promote magic by just daring to engage. We are queer, straight and any and everything in between. When you meet an androgynous person we, by default, are taken in as queer. Regardless, you stand there, whether progressive or not, just staring. Your mind wrestles with itself no matter your politic.
And as you wrestle your world stands still. A meditation of sorts. You quietly question your humanity; I know I have on the rare occasion of meeting another androgynous person.
We humans are drawn to beauty as we are drawn to destruction. Androgyny is beauty lost in a war of standards.
The first androgynous person I saw in my life, who will remain nameless, was a straight cis male MC that use to be on the Hip Hop scene in NYC in the 90s. The first time I saw him, I was taken a back. I didn’t find myself trying to figure our his sex or gender, I just wanted to know what kind of beauty was I observing. I wanted my mind to catch up, to get familiar. Like if you happen to see a UFO and your mind has to scramble to identify and define it or else you go mad.
Fast-forward some years, that same MC did everything in his power to rub the androgyny out. Bumping into him like a smooth 15 years later he had grew a beard, did some fucked up shit to his skin, gained a solid 100 pounds and just well, not only vanquished most of his androgyny away but wholly embraced a special brand of ugly. Like why son?
I’m sure androgyny doesn’t sit well in a straight cis male world. Sad.
Anyway, this is pretty much what I wanted to say, cause that stupid photo above was just fucking offensive to my lived experience. Please, honey, you wish.
