Know Thyself

There is an ancient greek aphorism credited to many different Greek scholars, including Socrates and Pythagorus (you might know him from his triangle than you all hated studying in high school). The Greeks, famous for their logic, said thing simple phrase, "γνωθι σαευτον" pronounced "gnothi seauton" means simply "know thyself." Such a simple phrase with such far reaching meanings to each person who considers it.

I do not believe in the soul, insofar as it tends to be associated with God and something beyond this world, which I do not believe. However, I do believe that each and every things in this world, animate or not, has an essence. A rock can have a personality, a clearing can have a certain feeling that it instills in you. You meet a person and you don't like them and cannot explain why, or you see someone from across the room and instantly know that they are important to you. Everyone has experienced things like this, whether in childhood (and then we dismiss those memories as childhood fantasies) or in adulthood, we all experience these things. When you feel something like that, that a rock is something more than a rock, or a meadow is speaking to you, or a person is drawn or repelled from you for no apparent reason - what you are doing is getting a small glimpse of that essence. And as with all things in this world, I do believe in dynamisticity, which is a made up word, but not a huge stretch to figure out it's meaning. It is the opposite of staticity. Everything in this world is capable of change, and essences are not exempt from that. And essence can change. Sometimes they can change slowly, sometimes rapidly, and we are not always aware of such a change even if it is drastic and sudden.

I have changed. Somewhere between when I left for Eugene and now, I have become a different person. I believe that I have always been genderqueer, always somewhere in between a man and a woman. I realized I was different than most people when I was 12, and I figured out how I was different at age 15. I figured out that I was not like the other boys, or even the other girls. At age 17, I discovered there was a name for people like me, if it was only an umbrella term - I felt it described me accurately enough to work with. At age 18 I came out to my family and friends. But nothing had changed - I was still the same person. I was still Connor Thomas Cobbledick, son of Dan and Rachel, born in Tucson, AZ.

I am no longer that person.
I became aware of that change sometime during freshman year. I don't know exactly where the name Fenix came from, who came up with it, or if it was simply an accident. But I do know that one day I went to dinner with my roommate Evan, and I was wearing clothes usually worn by women. He called me Fenix. There was no hesitation, and it wasn't a nickname. It was my name. I had never thought about it before then - Fenix is more than a different name - Fenix is a different person. But when he called me Fenix, he did more than establish a different name or identity - it made me happy. Happier than I believe it is possible to describe in words that I possess in my not insignificant vocabulary. Looking back, that was the moment that someone noticed that I was a different person before I even noticed.

Connor is a kid who grew up in Tucson, being told that there are men and women, and they are straight, gay or some combination of the two. Why it didn't occur to me that if there can be a mix of sexualities that there could also be a mix of man/woman, there is a very good explanation. To me, there was sex and sexuality - what you are, and what you like. I still believe this, but there is a third component now: gender. There is what you are, what you like, and now there is "who" you are. I do not speak for any community of people when I say these things, because I know many would be angry at me for thinking like this, but these are my beliefs, and nobody has the right to say I cannot think about myself this way, but I'll get to that later.

Defining my terms - I always make people do this, and then I define mine, to avoid people thinking I am saying something that I am not.

I am bisexual, which has evolved into an umbrella term meaning somewhere in between gay and straight, meaning that I am sexually and romantically attracted to both males and females (sex) and men and women (gender), which get defined next, because that is the order I want to do it in.

I am male. Some would say I am male-bodied, and that is a mouthful, but since I classify "male" and "female" as sex terms, and I can define things how I want for the purposes of my own discourse, you have to deal with it. When I say I am male, I mean that I have a penis and testicles, I have an adams apple, and most importantly, I have an X chromosome, and a Y chromosome, and no amount of therapy, hormones, or surgery will change that fact. I am male, and I will always be male. However, I am not a man, which brings me to my next term.

I am genderqueer. There are men in this world, and there are women, and as with any sharp division, there are going to be people in the middle. Gender is a very difficult term to define, and so is "man" or "woman." Gender is what gets associated with gender roles, or gender bias or all of the other things. I say all of these are nonsense - gender roles are defined by our society, and so is gender bias, they have not always existed, and they do not exist today in the same forms in all societies. If I am going to define something, it is going to be in terms of what I believe to be human nature, not the particular evolution of one society. Gender is an insight into essence. Gender is not what you do, it is not what role you fulfill, it is not "what you think like" and it is NOT what body you want to have.
I have a penis and testicles, and I have no plans on changing this fact. They do quite well for me. I get testosterone which makes training to climb a rope with only my hands a LOT easier than if I didn't have it. Sex is fun, and my organs allow me to have sex a way I enjoy and am comfortable with. I have no plans to change my body - my body is my body, and it is male, and that is OK.

I realize I didn't define man or woman, and that is really because I can't. But unlike sexuality and sex, it does not need to be defined. You need to understand my sexuality, because you need to know who I am attracted to - that has real world consequences. The same is true of sex - the hormones and anatomy that makes me up is medically relevant, as well as intimately relevant. But my gender is not - you do not need to understand it in the same way that you understand the others. You just need to know that my gender is not the thing you thought it was.

So when I say I am not the person I was, I mean it. Connor was confused, confused about who he was, confused about how he was to exist in society. Connor was afraid, afraid of the way people thought about him, afraid of the way he thought about himself. Connor was stuck trying to define himself.
I am not that person. I am not confused - I know who I am, even if I cannot explain it, I know how I am to exist in society, I will be me, I will continue to make art, and I will continue to be patient with other's who try to define me. I am not afraid - I have come to terms with anyone who does not accept me, or those that refuse to attempt to understand me do not have a place in my life, and I know who I am, I am me: body and mind. I am not stuck - I have defined myself as myself - tautological, incomplete, unconvincing, and completely and irreversibly true. I am my body and my mind, and I am my name.

I was deciding what I wanted to do for the next year, what goals I set for myself. More clearly, how I wanted my life to be different at the end of the year. Some people call these new year's resolutions. I call them new year's resolutions, and I do my best to fulfill them. Most of them usually consist of "be a better person" or "be kind to others" or "express yourself more." You know, really vague ones that while have good intent, are difficult to objectively evaluate, which makes them really easy to cheat on.

I have a different new year's resolution. By the end of this calendar year, I will be Fenix by name. I do not want to change it legally yet (but I am not ruling it out), but I am respectfully requesting that those in my life, in social situations (family, friends, coworkers, students, etc.) call me by that name. I realize that many of you have spent the past 20 years identifying me as Connor, and I know this will be difficult for you. This is why I am not saying "CALL ME FENIX NOW!" It takes time. You have a full year to wrap your mind around it. You have a full year to see that I am not that person any more, and just like the day of my birth, I did not select my name. My name was given to me by those who know me best. When I was in the womb, it was my mother and father. When I transformed from the person I was to the person I am, it was my friends that helped me though that transition. It was them who came up with this name.

I have already gotten used to it. I respond to Fenix, and I have started to respond to Connor less and less (someone called that name the other day, and I did not hear it - they called Fenix and I looked up). I have spent the last year unknowingly looking for the name to match the person I was becoming. I am not changing pronouns, because I am not a woman, and "she, her, her's" would not match me, and I honestly cannot stand the "ze, zeir, zem" pronouns. I think that one day, our language will adopt a set of third pronouns, but it is not this day. For this day, I am "he, him, his" so long as you all recognize that for me personally, these are for simplicities sake. Pronouns are a stand in for a name, and I am Fenix, a male, but not a man. These pronouns work for sex, but not gender, but since a set of pronouns do not exist for gender as of yet, then we will have to work with what we've got.

I love you all, and I sincerely hope that you can love me as I am, with my changed essence, and my changed name. I will be patient to the best of my ability, but I do request that you do your best as well.

And as always with the more controversial of my posts, feel free to call or e-mail or comment with a question, and I will be more than willing to answer it. There is no question too mundane, clarification too obvious, or idea too inane.

~Fenix Thomas Cobbledick