Boxes

I'd been sitting at the reception desk for 4-hours. It was my second year at Portland Community College. It was fall, gray, the rain was coming down at a slant and puddles were forming in the grassy area outside. My jeans were soaked up past my ankles from dragging under my feet all day. A student approached the desk with an application in hand and a braced-face. I brainlessly looked over the application, scanning with a pen in hand, for empty or unchecked boxes.
"Ah!" I said without even looking up, "You forgot to mark your sex." I started for the male box when the person across the counter stopped me.
"Yeah, I meant to do that."
"Shit." I may have said either in my head or out loud. "I'm sorry. I should have known better."

Yeah I should have. I worked in the Women's Resource Center my entire time in the institution and had been called out by my peers on assuming gender, orientation, blah, blah, blah, and the list goes on. I should have known. But I went for it automatically, brainlessly. I put someone into a box they didn't want to be in. But the brain, any one's brain, automatically categorizes everything in order to make sense of the world. Every time someone crosses my path, I categorize. "White, male, upper-class, educated, large-frame, Republican (even if my categories are completely incorrect). Every time I cross another's path, categorized. White, femme, straight, middle-class, uneducated, naive. I try to be conscious of this, recognize it and not be assumptive, but how do we navigate this world otherwise.
We box ourselves in. Throughout my life, I can find the turning points of my identity. I was straight, I was queer, I was lesbian, and at one point I identified as second-gen, very admittedly. But during all phases, I always questioned the concreteness of identity. I slept with a woman when I was "straight". I dreamed of men when I was lesbian. I never really settled on the identity queer (although it's the most open identity available to me) and when I identified as second-gen, my mother was no longer a lesbian. None of those boxes feel secure to me and yes, I've considered the bi-sexual box as well but can't seem to bring myself to hang onto it. Even more confusing is where I stand today. Single, after dating women for five years, I still feel my appearance is too femme to be identified by other ladies as available (and safe, since dating a straight looking girl is dangerous). Maybe I'm too kicked-back and tom-boyish to date men (it takes a special man anyway).
Today, I may not identify as I did yesterday. My one chosen box is woman. No, I am not going to drop the 'man' portion out of woman either. I appreciate that part of my identity is adapted from the root word man. Don't get me wrong, I am a feminist of my own designation. I understand the issue with "history" and I understand the argument against 'woman', I just don't care. Also, I am agnostic. Another box I like to hang onto. But even in stating that I am agnostic indicates my uncertainty in a whole different department of my designated identity.
I get it. Boxes are secure and safe for some folks but boxes don't entirely fit me. I had this argument with my former partner. When I told her I identified more with queer than lesbian, she seemed a little unnerved. "But your in a monogamous relationship with a lesbian."
I said, "Then I am in a lesbian relationship but that doesn't mean I am lesbian."
"Well yeah, it kind of does."
"I guess." Internally I was saying 'for now', which isn't to say that the I didn't believe the relationship would last just that I didn't know what the future would hold and that is the nature of my problem with boxes. How long do they last?
For me, a box means your in it for good, i just can't allow myself to be put in some boxes forever. Even now, my former partner wouldn't be certain of the 'female' box she once put herself in, which would also put her 'lesbian' box in jeopardy. I know plenty of lesbians that sleep with men and still identify as lesbian and I guess that's the reality of identity. It's yours. No one else can designate your identity for you. Sure, they can categorize you as you pass them on the street. Even you close family and friends have boxes for you, and you them. The reality is, we don't ever have to stay in the box or follow the rules of living in the box. In fact, I commend fucking with all the assumed characteristics of boxes, chosen or not.

I often use the story of the application when discussing issues of gender and identity because it was a pivotal moment in my growth and thankfully, the person on the other end of the counter was generous and brave enough to seize the moment and call me out.
I left it blank but after the student left my desk, I walked over to the lead administrator and asked her, "Is it o.k. if they leave their sex blank?"
She looked at me softly and said, "They don't have to denote their race, sex, or age."
Of course, I thought to myself, nodded and headed back to my desk.