First and foremost I am a white male. The white phallus has dominated western (and possibly world) history, taking what it needs and dictating what all others receive. Despite having many different shades of blood in me, including Native American and Irish (which, 70 years ago, was considered non-white), I will always exist as a white male and enjoy the unfair privileges allotted to them, because I have no Native Americans in my immediate family, and I do not carry the otherness of the Irish Catholic, coming from a predominately Methodist family.
My bisexuality offers a more than one level of otherness, however. I am obviously excluded by the heterosexual majority, considered unnatural. Even within the LGBT community, however, there is a sense of the other. Many gays and lesbians side with straights, claiming that bisexuality is only a phase that one goes through on the path towards one's "True" sexuality. We are the proverbial fence-sitters, which is an unfortunate analogy, because in actuality, the term bisexual must encompass an entire field of grey area between the black and white fences of heterosexual and homosexual. Thus, I am discriminated against within a minority.
As a feminist, I strive towards equality of the phallus and the vagina, the markings of physicality which cause the discrimination of gender, another arbitrary marker. I seek to null gender as anything but a biological concept. This causes me to stand out, however, because I am the white phallus, the penultimate oppressor, the definitive threat to the feminist cause. Often I find I stand out in a positive light, however, my presence more appreciated simply because I am a male feminist, a rarity.
My modifications of my physical appearance (dyeing my hair, painting my nails, wearing makeup, even my lower back tattoo) feminize me in the sight of other males of any color. The direct result of the feminizing of the male is to label him homosexual, there is no alternative. To feminize myself is the utmost betrayal of the masculine world, and thus I am shunned by the heterosexist culture to the realm of the homosexual male, a world in modern times that exists below the world of the female. I am a threat to the heterosexual standing of the masculine, one that must be rejected. However, in the world of the female, I am no longer a threat because of this. As a presumed homosexual, a feminized male, I become more equal to the female, no longer a sexual threat, or possibly even an exotic challenge.
It's difficult to recognize myself in the light of this world, but it is the simple day-to-day existence to which I pay no attention.
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