refusing to be a man...

Do you want to know why I effortlessly utilise the feminine pronoun for individuals, despite whatever accoutrements/genitals they come with (pun intended)?

It has to do with being a man. About the power that being a man brings with it and indeed about the agony of it all. Because being a man is a difficult existence (and I don’t mean to oppose this against being a woman, for surely, that is a more difficult existence and being a hijra is perhaps the most difficult of them all).

In fact, the attempt at being a man or the effort to remain one is a deeply hurtful and resentful thing. Each attempt or effort determines how you shall behave, whom you shall love, how you shall function in society, what is expected of you, what you must consider your duty, how you must express your emotions etc. All of which endlessly bind, or imprison, individuals into ways of thinking and living that undermine their true ‘value’ as beings whether male or female.

To resolve this, it requires that one cease to be or (as John Stoltenberg requires) refuse to be a man, as defined in society. This is what I achieve through the feminine pronoun.

Because of the two ways to refuse to be a man, not ‘acting’ like a man is one. The other, of course, is not calling a ‘man’ ‘a man’.