مجتمع الميم

A Piece of My Body – ترانسات Transat


 

 By: Salma Alaoui

Translated by: Ivy Nasser

Edited by: Lilliane Elkady

 

 

In my Imagination, when I was born, the first thing that everyone in the delivery room laid eyes on was what’s between my thighs, it’s a piece of my body that hangs between my thighs, it’s a boy, so everyone said, and now it’s time to tell everyone the good news and it’s the ultimate good news in patriarchal societies, another male that assures the survival of patriarchy, this tiny piece of my body will determine my name, my gender, my social roles, my relationships, the allowed behavior for me, my emotions, the way I speak, the way I dress, the music I will listen to, how I ought to dance and what to dance to, and with whom

How my body should look, who I should play with, how my sexuality must be, who it’s with, and how it is, everything predetermined because of this damned piece of my body, confined to certain limits, and precise standards that I must never deviate from, Oh how I hate this piece that predetermined every aspect of my life, and built my social life inside preset boxes 

When I grew up and reached the prepubescent age, I started hearing from my peers and those older than me about sexual relationships, and how they were supposed to be: you have this piece between your thighs so you have to have sex with those with the opposite piece, that’s the norm, anyone who does otherwise is a deviant and is unacceptable socially, politically, legally, religiously, they are the systematic tools of oppression that patriarchy uses, I started learning more about this piece that everything centers around 

This piece that was and is still worshiped, I was taught that it’s the only source of sexual pleasure, and later on it will be the piece that will reap the opposite piece in order to produce more of those who will ensure the survival of this patriarchal society, and how great it would be if it produces more of those who have that same piece, as it is the preferable and favored, that is its main function that gave it this sacred status, I always hated these rules and standards, and I never understood why, till I started hating heterosexual relationships, maybe it was my hatred towards this damned piece, maybe it was my behavior that doesn’t adhere to society’s standards, as everyone started seeing me as “feminine” in my behavior, people kept repeating phrases such as “Man you are so gay” “Man Up” to me, that was how everyone spoke to me, everyone became the gender police, don’t behave like that, don’t talk like that, don’t dance like that, don’t do, don’t say… either you adhere to the rules and standards of this system or you’ll be a deviant

When I first attempted to understand what this deviance is, that was assigned to me, and attached to me, and which I was taught that I belong to. It was a new box that I was forced in, with new set rules and standards predetermined and can’t be deviated from as well, it’s another system of oppression, no different than the heteronormative system of oppression

Dear god! What is this curse that haunts me?! And pulls me out of a box to force me into another, it’s the curse of this piece between my thighs, it’s the curse of patriarchy, it’s the curse of the gender conformity system, it’s the binary system in all its aspects, in sex, gender and sexuality 

I started questioning this system, and I started reading, my horizons started to be broadened, and I started to understand these mechanisms of oppression that target all sex, sexual, and gender variance

 I have to free myself from all those boxes, I have to free myself from all this oppression, I have to free myself from the binary, the binarity of sex, sexuality, and gender, I have to free myself from all this conformity, sex conformity, sexual conformity, and gender conformity, I am neither male or female, I am neither straight or gay, I am a trans woman, transitional in my sexuality, from conformity to non-conformity, transitional from oppression to the resistance, resistance to the binary system, to conformity, to cis-normativity, to patriarchy, and to anything that helps regenerate the same old norms and the binary, resisting with my social role, my behavior, my body, my sexuality, my gender expression, and my existence and my visibility 

I chose resistance, because I no longer believe in change, the concept of change is created by systemic oppression, it’s a concept that means change from something to another, in other, clearer words, changing one system of oppression into another, one type of normativity into another, one set of standards into another, it’s a concept that overlooks the existential and daily struggles of those concerned, it perpetuates the concept of savior/victim, guardian/guarded, it creates familiar characters, it creates fictional superheroes, ones that are not concerned with this struggle, and in some occasions they may be concerned with it but they are a product of this system and its guardians, they work on its propagation and survival

 

لقراءة النص الأصلي باللغة العربية



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