That's "Sir" Dyke to You!
Posted by ulla on Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Under: dykestyle
I get called sir by cabin crew and petrol pump attendants and business contacts and, well just lots of people. It happens to me face to face and on the phone too. As a young kid I was mistaken for a boy a few times and was highly delighted - my Famous Five hero was always George. I'm sure I've said it before, but there was one memorable time when I was 23 and a guy shook my hand and congratulated me on being brave enough and man enough to wear a skirt. I've never been particularly uncomfortable with it and let's be honest, if it had ever been an issue, I could have "feminised" or something. I've tried that out though - wearing skirts and make-up and so forth - it's just not me though, I feel as if I am in drag.
Over the past two decades I've shifted identities through confused to lesbian to androgynous to boi and then, now, to a rather comfortable and flexible and cheerfully positive label of "butch." I defined that in my last column, so I won't bore you with the details again. The amusing thing is, I am not consistently assumed to be male at all and most of my friends claim not to understand why I am ever called sir at all. So, sometimes it's "sir," sometimes it's "ma'am," sometimes it's "sir ... uh ... ma'am" and sometimes it's "ma'am ... uh ... sir." What I am, probably, is "genderqueer." In many people's eyes, whether they ever identify it or not, what I am is a complete genderfuck. I usually tell people that I am a woman - but on my own terms and by my own definition, not society's.
This morning a new client (and no, I am not a rentqueer) called me "boet" and "captain" on the phone several times before our appointment and I thought well now, this is going to be interesting. As it turned out, his confusion was brief and so was his glance at my chest area. I have been called man and boy and bro and bru and bra and brotherman and fairly recently, mhlegazi, which is Xhosa for sir. My own reaction, honed after many years, tends to be unblinking and calm. Either people's perceptions shift, or they don't, but I don't correct them when they assign me a quick dose of masculinity, I just watch to see whether or not they change their opinion on it.
It all boils down to labels yet again, doesn't it? People in general like to have things in nice neat categories so that they can react accordingly and the great and gruesome mechanisms of society can proceed inexorable and unchallenged. And although labels are essential (if you don't use them, you won't get the right drink in pubs, for instance) - the current ones applied to gender are in serious need of a shake-up. The human race blithely accepts the binary gender system, mostly, even though the idea of more genders is as old as the hills (the Navajo berdache etc). I can pass as male or female, so can almost anybody - and yet society continues with the grand assumptions of gender and labels it's toilets accordingly. Another story I tell too often, is that I was once told, by a straight guy in the ladies loo of a gay club in Manchester, England, to "Get out! This is the women's toilets!" I'm not usually heterophobic, but I asked him whether he was heterosexual and when he answered in the affirmative, I told him to fuck off out of the gay club.
Call me sir if you want, I don't mind it at all. In fact, I don't object to much except lady or girl or miss. It's a pity that gender-neutral pronouns seem to have ended up a bit like Esperanto i.e. efficient and useful, but only used by the subculture.
Words: Ulla Kelly
Photo: GLK
Over the past two decades I've shifted identities through confused to lesbian to androgynous to boi and then, now, to a rather comfortable and flexible and cheerfully positive label of "butch." I defined that in my last column, so I won't bore you with the details again. The amusing thing is, I am not consistently assumed to be male at all and most of my friends claim not to understand why I am ever called sir at all. So, sometimes it's "sir," sometimes it's "ma'am," sometimes it's "sir ... uh ... ma'am" and sometimes it's "ma'am ... uh ... sir." What I am, probably, is "genderqueer." In many people's eyes, whether they ever identify it or not, what I am is a complete genderfuck. I usually tell people that I am a woman - but on my own terms and by my own definition, not society's.
This morning a new client (and no, I am not a rentqueer) called me "boet" and "captain" on the phone several times before our appointment and I thought well now, this is going to be interesting. As it turned out, his confusion was brief and so was his glance at my chest area. I have been called man and boy and bro and bru and bra and brotherman and fairly recently, mhlegazi, which is Xhosa for sir. My own reaction, honed after many years, tends to be unblinking and calm. Either people's perceptions shift, or they don't, but I don't correct them when they assign me a quick dose of masculinity, I just watch to see whether or not they change their opinion on it.
It all boils down to labels yet again, doesn't it? People in general like to have things in nice neat categories so that they can react accordingly and the great and gruesome mechanisms of society can proceed inexorable and unchallenged. And although labels are essential (if you don't use them, you won't get the right drink in pubs, for instance) - the current ones applied to gender are in serious need of a shake-up. The human race blithely accepts the binary gender system, mostly, even though the idea of more genders is as old as the hills (the Navajo berdache etc). I can pass as male or female, so can almost anybody - and yet society continues with the grand assumptions of gender and labels it's toilets accordingly. Another story I tell too often, is that I was once told, by a straight guy in the ladies loo of a gay club in Manchester, England, to "Get out! This is the women's toilets!" I'm not usually heterophobic, but I asked him whether he was heterosexual and when he answered in the affirmative, I told him to fuck off out of the gay club.
Call me sir if you want, I don't mind it at all. In fact, I don't object to much except lady or girl or miss. It's a pity that gender-neutral pronouns seem to have ended up a bit like Esperanto i.e. efficient and useful, but only used by the subculture.
Words: Ulla Kelly
Photo: GLK
In : dykestyle
Tags: butch sir man boy boi lesbian dyke mhlegazi mister genderqueer genderfuck heterophobia berdache labels
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