(no subject)

[kradeelav]

(copy/pasted from tumblr)

I haven't really seen it mentioned much but the intersection of disability-as-a-gender-presentation (especially in regard to character design) is fascinating.

this got started between me watching a few cool trans videos of 'how-to pass re: gaits and clothing' and some post on here recently about flock cameras not recognizing irregular gaits (between a medical walker, a 2cm foot lift in one foot, and a hunchback, looks like i'm prepared for cyberpunk dystopia :p )

but the video was talking about how on average, men walk with their shoulders first and women with their hips - in the walker for me, it's mostly with shoulders first, but then sometimes i'll slightly alternate positions if i'm tired or running vs walking and it's an odd 'motionless from the front/back' style because most of my weight is on the elbow armrests.

in hindsight my whole childhood was full of those little moments.

the only "girl" allowed to wear pants in middle/high school in a very religious school because of disability. remarkably masc mannerisms because most people didn't know wtf to make out of me (with the rest of the visual oddities) and let that be there as a default instead of punishing the lack of femme mannerisims. makeup? the only time i ever let anyone put it on was for highschool homecoming (and i still wore pants). generally excused from more 'traditionally feminine' clean up/kitchen chores because range of motion genuinely made it impossible - instead, left alone on the computer because i was damn good at it and that became the 'how to give back to the household, ie fixing electronics'.

etc.  don't think it's off-topic to say that i get constantly dinged as a guy irl (i don't mind; cue that word instead of misgendered).

but i say character design also because this is the kind of thing animators and artists have to think about along with trans folk (solidarity). deconstructing/reconstructing Gender Presentation from first principles to either make sense of the world especially if it's an usual meatbag, or to go towards a new presentation that we want to be.

#i don't really have any... regrets? i'm pretty comfortable as is. but it's useful to see the discrepancies in hindsight.#i think the most annoying this ever was irl was trying to to find the professional wardrobe that didn't look like lipstick on a pig.#(leather jacket was the answer as it tends to be for many things :p)

Comments

[mamuzzy]

*rewinding memories back right about how my posture was always criticized of being unfeminine. Is a transguy.* WHAT DID YOU JUST UNLOCK HERE!!!! Wow. O__O Also it makes me think about how disability can make you gender nonconforming because you can no longer follow the expected gender expectations not even if you want to.

Thanks for sharing.

(also leather jacket IMPROVES EVERYTHING. Leather jacket is awesome.)

[miscellanium]

interesting, the first cis guy i was with wanted to tell me how to walk in a more "masculine" way and he told me to pay attention to my hips so i'd have more of a swagger. this was a closeted military guy so i don't know what was going on there, and ultimately i didn't listen to him but it's interesting to think back on. how all these things intersect could be a post or essay of its own - one that's already been written by more articulate people than myself, i'm sure.

[kradeelav]

yeah sounds like the kind of opinions where he was dealing with his own set of issues not reflective of you, but as you said, interesting to think about just in how these perceptions can overlap. useful creatively, if one wants to go stealth somewhere, etc.