Ticking Boxes

The thing I can not stand about society these days is the whole "ticking boxes" aspect of life. It's as if you have to fit into a questionnaire to fit in. You have to be left or right handed. You are born male or female and that's your gender. You have to be gay, bisexual, lesbian or straight. You can't be in between and that I really can't put up with. Why do people have to be labeled? What is the need? "Hello I'm a blonde, right handed, heterosexual female!" "Hi, you know what? I don't really care."

In my opinion I honestly think in a couple of years gender and sexuality is going to be no big deal. Just because you are born with certain features I don't think you should have to be branded as a certain gender, I know it may sound crazy because it goes against everything biologically correct but that's just how I feel.

I think if you are born "female" and feel "female" then great. If you are born "male" and feel "male" then great. But if you're not it shouldn't be the huge affair it is these days. I just don't think gender should be such a huge label, people shouldn't have to fit into these "male" and "female" boxes. I put the words in inverted commas because to be perfectly honest I am not very fond of them. People should be who they are and not who society thinks they should be, people should just be people. If this was the case it wouldn't matter who you fell in love with because people are people and love is love.

I was filling out a questionnaire the other week and it came to a section on sexuality, I was going to tick a box rather than kicking up a fuss but the woman whom I was filling it in for turns to me and says "Please don't fill that part in, personally I hate it. Why should people have to fit into boxes?" so I know I'm not the only one who feels like this!

Another think that annoys me is male and female sections in clothes shops. I love fashion but that doesn't limit me to the female section in any way, sometimes a male T-shirt or jacket will catch my eye and I won't think twice about buying it. But honestly sometimes the looks I get are shocking, you can always tell what they are thinking "Oh look at her buying male clothing with her short hair, how gay!" STEREOTYPES. I HATE THEM. If I like an item of male clothing that's my choice and has nothing to do with you. Why can male and female clothing just be mixed so people can make their own minds up about what "sex" it is for.

People should not need to be embarrassed about what clothes they wear. People should not be discriminated against for their sexuality. People should be happy in their own skin.

Now, enough ranting for one day I think! On a more positive note I'd like to point out how the gender boundaries in modeling are being blurred quite considerably, possibly a step towards the future I would like!  

Look at Andrej Pejic, a twenty two year old Bosnian male model who, not to put it bluntly but, looks like a woman. At the age of nineteen Pejic was in the Marc by Marc Jacobs advertising campaign, he was part of a movement to try and blur the gender lines in modeling.

Picture from the Telegraph

And then there's Lea T, a beautiful Brazilian transgender model  born in 1981. In March 2012 Lea T went under surgery to change her gender. In an interview with the New York Times Lea said  "When you are a transsexual, you look for your future, and you can't see it, I thought this would be a nice message for another tranny: 'Look, we can be the same as other girls and boys.' It's small, but it makes you feel like you have a little chance. Maybe a transsexual will open a magazine and think: 'That's cool. We can be whatever we want.' That's why I did the Givenchy campaign."
 


So for me this acceptance of Transgender Models seems like a step in the right direction!

Although quite old I found this article very interesting. http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8214923/Fashion-blurs-gender-boundaries.html