My Gender, My Worlds

I’ve been reading a bit of Judith Butler recently, and they’ve inspired me to reflect a little on how my gender identity and expression influence and are influenced by the various disparate worlds I am a part of. This reflection serves a few purposes: first, there are many people I love in my life who may not know much about non-binary and gender expansive identities and I hope to help them understand; second, I wish to understand more about myself and my gender through how I relate to others; and third, I hope to spark some conversation about how various worlds—mine and others’—can be more open and accepting of the beauty that is gender expansivity.

Gender

 The most difficult part of this reflection is to have some working idea of what gender is, and thereafter what it means to have a non-binary or gender expansive identity. For the purposes of this piece, I will take the definition of gender to be “the sum total of one’s actions, interactions, thoughts, and feelings with regards to current conceptions of masculinity and femininity, as processed by the individual themself.” In particular, gender can be both an internal and external experience and can evolve and change as societal conceptions of masculine and feminine change as well. Butler describes gender as “a practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint,” a doing rather than just a being. I would very much like someone to correct me and/or give me a better definition here; I am a musician and a mathematician, not a gender theorist or philosopher. The antiquated understanding of gender, still very much held today, is to restrict this definition to being male or female.

Most people whose gender identities align strongly with men or women identify thusly, but not all. The term “non-binary” serves as a catch-all to encompass gender identities that do not fall within the man-woman binary. Some people identify as “gender-fluid,” where their gender identity may change constantly; others identify as “agender,” where their identity falls outside the confines of gender entirely. I identify squarely as non-binary, though I have my misgivings of determining my identity by what I am not. (I do want to underscore that the approach to gender here is somewhat of a Western Eurocentric one. While many cultures across the globe recognize man and woman as the only two genders, others have recognized and cherished other genders; as such, the term “non-binary” may not apply to people who are not men or women in some cultures.) Because of this “negative definition,” some people have started adopting the term “gender-expansive” to refer to gender identities that are not man or woman; I like this quite a bit as the catch-all term.

I came to understand my gender identity through my interactions with other people. I’ve always been somewhat of a “social chameleon,” subtly changing my mannerisms depending on the people I’m surrounded by. This has always seemed like a cool thing to me: I tend to be able to fit into many different types of social groups. In doing so, I realized that I feel comfortable taking part in social groups made up of people of all different genders, and this made me start to question my own gender identity in turn. It didn’t feel right to me to identify as a man, but I also knew that I didn’t identify as a transgender woman either; as I learned more about non-binary identities, it felt more and more right for me to adopt such an identity, too. Since realizing that about myself and since coming out to my friends, family, and eventually the world, I have been searching desperately for ways to be true to myself. The difficulty here has been understanding what “true to myself” means, especially since I often feel like my gender identity is defined by how other people view me. (I really don’t want that to be the case—I would love to feel like my gender identity is only defined by how I feel on the inside—but at the moment it is. Partially this has to do with how I view my gender as being built up by my interactions with others; but I don’t want others to directly dictate how I view myself.) I’ve realized that I enjoy wearing makeup and traditionally feminine clothing, but I also enjoy having a beard and muscles and an equal amount of the time wearing traditionally masculine clothing.

Worlds

What has been very interesting to me as I have come to understand myself is how my understanding of my gender identity is radically different in different aspects of my life. The three high-performing “worlds” I find myself in are orchestral conducting, abstract mathematics, and powerlifting; these could not be more different in social norms and interactions.

It wasn’t true only a few years ago, but my world most accepting of gender expansiveness is academic mathematics. To be fair, I spend most of my mathematical time around students and early-career mathematicians, but I have recently felt very accepted and understood for my gender identity. This is due in part to some amazing work done by trans women in the field, and subsequently I am seeing far more trans and non-binary mathematicians feel comfortable being public with their identities. Now that I’m no longer pursuing math professionally, my engagement with the field is a bit more of a social hobby. I continue learning from and with other mathematicians; grabbing coffee and talking about math is one of my favorite pastimes. In treating math as a social hobby, I feel increasingly accepted for my non-binary identity, partially because there are more and more gender-expansive mathematicians.

It’s probably unsurprising that the hypermasculine world of powerlifting feels a bit odd to me. I like lifting because I like the challenge, the measurable progress, and the exhilaration (and adrenaline rush!) of pushing through a super heavy lift. When I lift, I’m generally quite quiet and focused on technique. I wear baggy sweatshirts and I rarely listen to music or try to pump myself up. But go to the weight rooms of most gyms (university gyms particularly) and you’ll see very few people like me. There’s a toxically hyper-masculine aura that pervades: (mostly) young men in tight tank tops flexing and checking themselves out in the mirror, grunting loudly while slamming weights, blasting music through their headphones; one gets the sense of people desperately trying to fit into a culture forced upon them through media while also trying to one-up each other. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming people for working out and wanting to better themselves; there’s just an air to things that is influenced by toxic expectations for masculinity. What becomes difficult with my presence at the gym is that due to my build and relative strength, I am seen as just another buff man there. I get a lot of “hey bro, can you spot me?” and “nice lift man” and fist bumps and the “bro nod” (if you know, you know). While I totally understand why, having been part of this world for nearly 6 years, it is invalidating and makes me question my presentation. Should I go to the gym in a sports bra and yoga pants? That would confuse people for sure…but it doesn’t feel genuine. A transgender powerlifter named Janae Marie Kroc has been an inspiration to me. Before she came out as trans, she was a world record holding powerlifter; since she came out, she’s been an advocate for trans and non-binary lifters. She inspires me to remember that bodies and gender identity can be totally separate—I can be “buff” and still be absolutely valid as a non-binary person.

This leaves the world I am most deeply involved in, that of orchestral conducting—this is the world in which my gender identity feels the most complicated, and indeed what inspired me to write this post. In many other genres of music, personal identity is brought to the forefront. Performers are able to (and maybe even expected to) showcase those aspects of themselves that are unique, special, and beautiful. Conducting is rarely the same: a commonly-held philosophy is that the conductor is just a conduit for the composer, to get what’s on the page through to the musicians who actually make sound, and thus to the audience. While by necessity individual perspectives will influence this…conduction, we rarely discuss how to actively bring individual identities into our performance. As such, there is an antiquated ritual around classical music performance, from the dress to the concert hall etiquette to the walking on stage and bowing. This makes me think a lot about how I am performing my gender in this situation. In particular, I think a lot about how my attire reflects who I am. I would love to wear a glamorous ballgown on the podium, but that’s just not what a conductor should wear (part of the job is not to be distracting). Many women on the podium wear suits tailored to them, which often look beautifully feminine while staying professional and true to the tradition. I wish I could wear a suit in a feminine way but knowing my body type, that just isn’t possible. So instead, I search for my own unique style and presentation, balancing what I think will convince other people to see and accept and appreciate my identity while also staying true to the professionalism of the field; I haven’t found it yet.

But perhaps the most difficult aspect of feeling like my gender is appreciated and accepted in conducting is in rehearsal. It is a stereotypically masculine thing to be in front of a large group and command attention, being the only one to talk for hours, shaping your interpretation of the music with a tight grip on the reins. I know many women who have talked about wanting people to see them just as conductors on the podium, rather than “women conductors”; my situation is different: I want people to see me as all of me, Reuben the conductor who is non-binary and also many other things. I don’t want people to look past a major part of my identity, but at the same time I don’t want to be so forceful about it that I become known only for that.

In the end, I am still coming to terms with how my gender identity shows itself in the various worlds I inhabit. Since I believe that gender is always evolving, so too will my presentation evolve, but I know that right now I don’t always feel seen for who I am. To my fellow gender-expansive mathematicians, lifters, and conductors: I see you for who you are. You do not need to conform to any stereotypes of gender presentation to be valid, seen, and loved. These worlds may need more time to be fully accepting, but if we are unabashedly ourselves, they will have no choice but to open their arms and hearts to us.