Last Friday's sermon left quite an impression on me. While our Friday sermons here had almost been about the superiority of Islam and such, the sermon last Friday was thankfully quite different, and a lot more bearable. The imam of that day was talking about issues of gender, gender identity, gender dysphoria, genderqueer, genderfluid, etc. and how Islam deals with it. Well, it just so happens that this is something I was thinking of writing about. One of the reasons why I was a little reluctant to talk about it was because, as a male and have always insisted on being identified with "he" and "him", it's probably difficult for me to write about it without coming out as sounding like sexist, which is never my intention, really. =/ I only want to speak-up my opinions; nothing more.

Just to get it out of my way, the truth is that I've been fighting against my subconscious misogyny for many years now, a trauma from my childhood when I was once bullied by a bunch of girls who took advantage of the fact that they're girls which prevented me from being able to fight back. To this day, whenever I see a "No Men Allowed" sign like in those ladies' parking space in the mall my parents and I frequently visit, I had to hide my internal rage and resist the urge to tear that sign down.

Right, back to the topic. Nowadays, gender identity has gotten rather complex these days. It seems that we're no longer just "male" or "female" anymore. Now, there's a plethora of "third genders" with different names for each -- Facebook has like over 71 gender options as we speak -- or a complete lack of gender. "Non-binary" are the keywords here.

Most of these people would even go as far as insisting on being referred to as "they" and "them". I admit, I hate it because of the way it clashes with English grammar, making it confusing for me: we're talking about one person using singular grammar construction, then as soon as we use the word "they", suddenly the rest of the sentence becomes plural, even though we're still talking about one person! >_< My big solution would be to keep treating "they" and "them" as singular: eg. "They is a worker", "They likes to eat apples", etc.. It's awkward, but that is how I deal with it. The fact that English lacks true gender-neutral nouns is also to be blamed.

I only heard about transgenderism around the year 2002. It was a huge eye-opener for me, and it forever changed the way I view genders in general. I had thought that being born with a penis would make you a boy. But then this new knowledge, about male-to-female transsexuals, and the unaccepting society they live in, gave me a new perspective regarding gender identity. It's a fascinating thing to learn about.

I don't want to question whichever gender identity people want to be associated with. Sometimes, gender dysphoria is not the reason... I know a few people who are male in real life and have always identified themselves as males in real life, but online, they prefer to be referred as "she" and "her" for the sake of anonymity. Or females in real life who would rather be referred as "they" and "them", etc.. Sometimes, we do it for the sake of an extra layer of anonymity. Out of respect, I'll refer to such people with their preferred gender identity.

Still, I'll have to admit, gender identity has gotten so complex these days. Maybe too complex, but that's just me. I just felt that we have way too many genders now. O_o;; I prefer "he" or "she", but "they" is fine, or some other non-binary pronoun you prefer.

Well, that's just my personal opinion. Again, no sexism is intended in this journal entry. Let me know your opinions as well.