She/her/er, it's complicated

A story about queer identities, gender binaries body dysmorphia and how nothing's simple when defining who you are

Content note: There’s a lot going on here (cos it’s complicated).

I was having an intricate conversation in my head about the conundrum of pronouns. I always stumble when having to choose. Partly cos I can’t decide, mostly cos I’ve spent a long time trying to get to the bottom of which ones fit, only to realise none of them do.

Could have something to do with my experience. I’ve spent a lot of time with people who don’t speak English as their first language over the years. I’d hear my grandmother sometimes get he and she mixed up as a child and I live in London; one of the most diverse cities in the world - again where English isn’t the mother tongue of many. It feels easy for me to let pronouns slide. I mean, I’m not gonna correct someone doing their best to communicate (and working harder at it than me) by learning a new language.

So pronouns don’t matter. Until they do. And that’s when I’m required to choose. I’ve found myself saying “any” or “all of the above” when asked what my pronouns are lately, absolving all responsibility, shrugging the burden off. Unhelpful perhaps, but what else can you do when you don’t know? It’s the paradox of choice: variety is a good thing but can cause internal conflicts at the same time. Truth is I like “you” or “Nadia” best. I’m not trying to be difficult.

The reason I was tying myself in knots about all this recently was because I was at an LGBTQ+ festival and things hadn’t quite gone as I’d foreseen. I’d been invited to the event which describes itself as the UK’s first Wellness Festival for queer, questioning and curious women and those who are non-binary. Sounded like utopia to me as women’s spaces always do; so of course I said yes. I was down to teach a yoga class and to be interviewed about my book, The Yoga Manifesto.

Thing is, there were men there. A lot of them.

I was confused.

As soon as you put a bloke in the middle of a women-only space the whole thing falls apart. I first heard two men chatting when I was unpacking inside my (v sexy it should be said and thanks to the organsiers for the freebie) glamping tent. It was a jarring realisation so I popped out to check if it was true. Turned out they worked for one of the food vendors at the event. That’ll be okay if they stay out of the way, I thought and fair play to them, they did. I later discovered the on-site paramedic was a cis (don’t know if het and tbh that’s irrelevent) man too. Lovely bloke I met when I asked for some advice. I didn't see him leave the tent that he was stationed inside which was good of him. But all of these sightings did shave the edge off the sapphic liberation in fields filled with women I’d been looking forward to.

I started thinking about the LGQueer parts of myself and how gender had became all I could think about in a space I’d kinda gone hoping I wouldn’t have to. It’s also why pronouns had come up. I’m used to she/her and they do the job but I really don’t like them and can’t tell you why. Could be down to having to redefine myself as a woman in a patriarchal world when I don’t want to. They/them feels better but I don’t know if that’s the answer either. They’re still binaries in their own way and I’ve never got on with labels. After spending a lifetime trying to define myself as this or that (mostly cos other people needed me to) I’ve stopped. It’s taken a lot of years to get here so my ambivalence could be something to do with that too.

In terms of gender, non-binary feels most accurate but the “non” part raises the question: If I’m not this or that, what the hell am I? Guess I could go the gender fluid route; that’s getting warmer but I dunno. So I’m stuck with woman. It’s easier, how most people see me and I’m happiest in the company of women so it’ll do for now.

I love women-only spaces. They’re not hotbeds for anarchy (I’d love it if they were) nor meet-ups to plot serious damage to the world (which some parts of the internet seem to believe). In reality the world’s a tough place to live so all we’re actually doing is heading off for a reprieve. There’s a freedom in women-only spaces; a feeling of safety; of knowing you can wander into a far flung field without your phone knowing you’ll be okay. Or step out of a festie shower wrapped in only a towel and know it won’t cause any stirs. This changes when you add the presence of men. Those I saw at the festival appeared to be there to do jobs like selling food, taking care of security and other logistics and filming the activities (this is what really got to me which I’ll come to).

Despite my unhappiness about men being there, I did have a good time because I had friends there and something to do. I loved the yoga teaching part; it’s another place aside from writing where I come home to myself. Teaching is a practice. I never plan, more facilitate a space for everyone to find their own way; individually, together. We get started and as everyone breathes and moves I’m constantly gathering data, reading the room, watching what’s happening; improvising, suggesting but also doing my best to remind students of their autonomy and that ultimately it’s down to them to decide where they want to go and how deep.

I enjoyed the interview about my book too. I’ve been talking about it for the best part of a year at events around the UK, with journalists over the phone, on the radio, telly and every time it’s different. Given the LGBT+ context I was looking forward to digging into the memoir aspects of the Mani (what I affectionately call the book). In terms of practice - in its broadest sense - and most definitely the LGQueer parts of my life past and present. Because queer-i-ness has been ever-changing, is still evolving and if anything seems to become increasingly translucent and less finite as years go by.

I went to my first Pride 20 years ago but it took a while to get myself there. A hazy memory from that first time is of me sitting on a kerb in Soho’s Old Compton Street, feeling drunk and energised, excited and a little sick. I never liked drinking and it never agreed with me but booze was the key to the scene back then so I grabbed it and dove in. I came out as gay then I got a feminist lesbian girlfriend for several years so I tried to be one too. After I’d escaped that relationship which was dangerous and damaging I was gay again. Then queer and then I didn’t know. Because while I’d had relationships with women exclusively for at least 10 years, in my 30s I found myself moving into partnerships with men.

In hindsight, I sometimes wonder if the men were a mistake. What was going on there? I’m still working that out. At the time I decided I probably didn’t qualify as queer anymore even though I knew I wasn’t straight; I was def sure of that. So what the hell was I/am I now?

Labels.

They.

Cause.

Problems.

Queer is what I return to. I like its gender non-specificity and that its reclamation is a political act. It’s also the scene I came though in the early noughties that resonated most. This was a community that met in parks, people’s houses and DIY squat gatherings. We found our place inside spaces outside of the mainstream that I’d got fed up with (cos the music was awful and the cruise-y pick-up vibe had grown tedious). Queers back then were fiercely political. I liked that. The community in London (which is my main experience) included men, women, trans, gender fluid and anyone in between. You didn’t even have to say what you were - I didn’t anyway. I liked that too. It was a welcoming space that was about being together and making things happen. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that? And so I became queer.

As I talked on stage at the festival I found myself thinking out loud about both these abstract ideas around my identity and those around concrete aspects such as my physical body. How these thinkings have changed, regressed at times and changed again. Because nothing stays the same and never has for me. I’m not body positive or neutral and know I’ll never be. Positivity seems too out-of-reach and neutrality just doesn’t make sense. I’m a highly emotional being. I know what I like and what I don’t, but I’ve always got an opinion.

A question in the interview came up around my practice and how it might have helped find acceptance around my sexuality. I wasn’t sure if it had, but it made me think about my relationship with gender and how turbulent having a female body has been. I thought about the first yoga class my mum took me to when I was 16 and in bad emotional shape. A time way before I was gay or queer or ended up with a booze problem but was already elbow deep in a hatred of the changing body I lived in. It wasn’t long before food became a problem for - and I’m ashamed to admit this - decades. Still not fully free of it. Some of us never are. I’ve moved up and down the spectrum of illness and wellness at different points of my life. And still got no real idea why. Only that yes, as a teenager it had felt like a battle between perceived fat and thin (and this is what Cognitive Behavioural Therapists appeared to confirm), but was possibly also unease about a child’s body growing into a woman. Weird maybe, but also mind blown right? Who would have thought body dysmorphia and eating disorders could be rooted for some of us in a dis-ease with gender. This is what you start learning in long-term psychotherapy ; ).

It wasn’t until I walked off stage at the festival and was alone again that I registered that the person who had been filming me was a bloke. I’m used to pictures being taken at events. It’s part of the deal and I’m fine with it. We’d all given our consent to photos and filming by attending the festival anyway. But I’d spent a lot of time talking openly about deeply personal things assuming I’d been addressing an audience of mostly LGBTQ+ women. The male gaze had been an intrusion in that space and I hadn’t even noticed. I felt uncomfortable. Then annoyed. I’d gone to the festival to get away from all of that man-woman power imbalance stuff. I’d expected a temporary escape from the outside world and to be in a women-only space, not just a women-centred one; there’s a difference.

Hours later as I lay in a field overlooking the estuary I drifted back to my first yoga class. My mind moved through lines on pages of the Mani where I wrote about it and I reflected. I’d been awkward and unhappy at the start attempting all of those strange shapes. I felt even more alienated from my body at first, but somewhere along the line; in that one-hour zero-frills community gym class; something shifted. Alienation transformed into embodiment and I realised in that moment lying in that field that the embodiment I’d felt had been an amorphous kind of genderless-ness. That’s what given the discomfort I’d had with my body at the time and for much of my life since, must have compelled me to go back.

That gender-less thing is still what happens when I step on my mat decades later and and it’s the place I go in strength-training classes I’ve been doing since the start of this year. I don’t like competition and am not fussed with personal bests but I love doing body-ing things and I’m happiest when I feel strong. Every time I’m pushing and pulling, chucking and lifting heavy stuff at the trans-inclusive, women-only gym I go to; when my muscles shake cos I’m giving it all of everything to complete one more rep - all gender disappears. I’m not she/her or anything; just hot flesh, bones and a whole heap of effort. That primal feel-like-an-animal thing I become that doesn’t have to fit into he/she/feminine/masc/whatever, is where I feel most me.

The night before I headed home from the festival my friends and I were sitting on a bench watching the idyllic scene of women enjoying themselves before us. It wasn’t long before I spotted the camera man again. We watched him move closer until the lens was pointing directly at us. A phallus in our faces. We asked him to stop. “Er no, I was filming the scenery” was his defensive response. Massive wind up. I felt a wave of rage rising cos I just didn’t buy it. But I took a deep breath and waited for him to move away. He didn’t. Don’t say anything I told myself. I mean I really didn’t have to BUT “I think we all know you weren’t mate” dropped out of my mouth. I’d been uncomfortable throughout the entire festival and now I was angry. And I was angry that I was angry when all I’d wanted was to swan around with confidence and purpose, carefree and full of peace all weekend.

Btw, I don’t have an issue with mixed-gender spaces. Course not. We live in a multi-gendered world, and I’m used to it. But I also know a lot about its challenges. Cos when the world sees you as a woman (whatever you might feel about yourself) it’s par for the course that you end up with shit to deal with that cis het men don’t. That’s the patriarchy for you. Inescapable. It’s also what makes you think sod this as you pack your bags and head to a women-only space for a bit.

Lastly, it’s important to say that the organisers and volunteers of the festival who I dealt with were all lovely and I understand that the cis het bloke presence was probably an oversight. The experience also gave me lots to think and probably learn about myself. But if I’d been told men would be there I’d have been prepared or quite possibly wouldn’t have gone. It was an obvious opportunity to have paid more women to work at the event too which in a world riddled with inequalities and at a festival aimed at women feels like a missed trick.