For awhile now I have posting a series of blogs about female Internet stars I admire. I have mostly musicians and when actress.  Tonight as my plan last post in that series I introduce Zoetica Ebb. 

 This is her name-de-plume  I once found her real name but I ll keep that private.   Who is she? I found her as a founder and writer at the now dead Coilhouse.  She was my first Internet crush.  A lot of people had this too and she was voted #3 woman of the web in 2009.  

Why a crush?  She is super intelligent which she shows in all her works.  She is photographer and model. A writer and blogger.  But her first love is art.  While I do not dig all of her art its interesting.  More importantly she did a kickstarter called D4RT. http://vimeo.com/27020317 It took her and thousands of dollars worth of art supplies to Boliva to teach art to young children that never had an art class. Her latest big project is the Alternative Guide to Beijing Culture http://www.alternativebeijing.com/author/zoetica-ebb/.  A fabulous internet magazine review of underground China.  Showing there is more going on behind the Great Wall.  

Her Blog http://www.biorequiem.com/about/ is a great look at art, fashion and makeup.  I so enjoy her style.  

This past weekend I went to a David Lynch theme party. There is so much to talk about with this party. First off the three host went all out. Made a fantastic party for everyone. The people that came were also great with all types. Would make Lynch very proud.

I want to add that the three hosts were great. They know I am bi-gender and were very supportive of me making my first steps out in public. They encouraged my selection of Denise the CD DEA Agent from Twin Peaks. They helped with the makeup and in the end made me feel at easy. While I was not Tiffany officially one has to only know that I am typed cased as a straight lace agent type and of course CD so I was myself…in a skirt.

Everything was going great at the start of the party except the shoes that hurt. But isnt that always the way. Than out of no where the one person I would never share my feminine side came in. Totally shocked me. But she was super cool about the whole thing.

After the party I went into my head as always and thought about the whole night. The truth is everyone was on board with me in drag. I was being me in skirt for a short period of time. I have to wait to see when I have another chance to be Tiffany. But now I know once I get the shoe problem sorted out I am me.

Over the last year I have posted a lot of pictures of me and talked a bit about the struggle as identifying myself as a bi-gender. Last night I started to think about how I would write a story from a woman perspective aka as Tiffany. I have read some feminist writing from women such as Penny Red of the UK but I have found them to be just another expression of Socialism/Communism not a distinct woman’s point of view. So what drives me when I am expressing myself as Tiffany. This got me thinking about how I behave as Tiffany.

I named myself Tiffany because I found the Tiffanys in my life to be extremely independent quirky, geeky, sexy and smart women. These are values I am attracted to in women. I try to emulate these when I interact as Tiffany. I find that I am also brash and with little impulse control. I am more assertive what Tiffany wants Tiffany gets. She can be manipulative or flirty. She is my naughty/evil side. I think this is because day to day the female side is oppressed by daily male side. It has to force its wasy out, so when she breaks through she only has a few days to get what she wants. Everything goes fast…the fast life is her life.   

In the last few months I have posted a few stories about my favourite musicians. We have Garbage’s Shirley Manson the band’s hard rocking front lady. Her powerful voice and strong lyrics are personified in her fashion and beauty. Then I talked about the intelligentsia, punk cabaret singer, Amanda Palmer, who has rebelled against the industry to create her own punkish path, with a battle cry to create and embrace our own image. From AFP I found my favourite singer which I am proud to share with you Kim Boekbinder aka the Impossible Girl.

My story of Kim is more personal than the other two who I admire from a far. I found Kim as I truly found Tiffany. When I think of feminism or being female she is one of my models. Her style is so unique and playful. She is very enlighten and talented if a little shy and geeky. Very much my real personality.  In her blond pink hair she perplexes me in all the right way. As a male I adore her with a fan crush. My female side of me sees a woman I would proudly emulate.  I would love to count her as a friend.  I believe she will outshine AFP her songs are better written. Her voice is also much easier on the ears.

We all stumble onto music by following someone else in the case of Kim it was through Meredith Yayanos and AFP. I remember first hearing Kim sing in a Youtube video with AFP doing Map of Tasmania. A short while later through Meredith I found out she had her own scene and I began to follow it.

First, I devoured Vermillion Lies; not knowing that the band, which featured her and her sister Zoe Boekbinder a great musician too, had broken up. Though Zoe is great Kim is amazing.  Her style just yelled out that she was worthy of adulation. I found her solo album The Impossible Girl. I became even more enthralled with her lyrical voice, skills with instruments and synthesizes and her loving, pop, funk style that added light heartiness to my life.

Here is a video to Rainbow and Unicorns one of the songs on the Album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OdUhk98Gkpc#!

In 2011 I backed her Kickstarter Tour. The first tour funded completely through Kickstarter. I got to sheepishly met her when she came to Portland.  With a signed CD I picked up her tour tee shirt. It is one of my favourite items of clothing I have. During this time she threw herself behind OWS writing songs for and blogging about the movement. Next in 2012 I joined Mission Control her support group for her space themed album. She weathered the super storm Sandy in NYC twittering a space adventure as her Kickstart succeed in funding her next album The Sky is Calling. The album is due out in March of 2013. I cant wait!.

When discussing androgyny we are talking about an individual who displays both genders simultaneously. Examples being the character Pat from SNL or Andrej Pejic a male androgynous model from Bosnia. A bi-gender individual changes their gender role and possibly personality completely to match the situation.

A basic level bi-gender might at a bar hangout talking sports with men acting out. Later they move over to a group of women drinking and talk hairstyles or about their boyfriend. An advanced bi-gender would change their appearance or even a create a different persona. This often confuse them with cross dressers or transgender individuals.

This creates two fallacies. First most cross-dressers dress as a fetish. Second, psychologies say the person actually desires to transition completely to the opposite gender. Over time the person will remove the shell of a forced socialized gender role that matches their physical gender eventually committing to sexually reassignment operations.

In fact the bi-gender develops their alternative gender personality for one of three reasons. One, they have spent a lot of time with the opposite gender so are socialized to certain extent into the opposite gender making their actions normal to them. The tomboy/metrosexual if you like, but only at the most basic level. Next, they may feel a lack of power in their physical gender role. This could manifestation as cross-dressing but the person isnt dressing for sexual gratification but for ego gratification. “I see myself more attractive as the opposite sex” Third, they find themselves dressing out of admiration of and need for acceptance of the opposite gender.

Regardless of the reason, they differ from the transgender because they do not want to change their primary gender fully. They are also heterosexual. Acceptance by society for them means appearing and acting as their physical gender most of the time, but if an opportunity presented itself they would happily appear/act as their secondary gender.

For example, a bi-gender guy is out with friends at a football game. One of his friends a woman knows he is a bi-gender who goes by Tiffany from time to time. Knowing all the guys are out on dates that night, and he just broke up with his girlfriend she invites Tiffany to a ladies night. Later that night she helps him get all dressed up transforming him into Tiffany for the evening. At the club all the girls know accept Tiffany and everyone have a great night out.   

I have a long history of admiring women. Earlier this year I blogged on Shirley Manson and I want to do more. So I am starting today doing a series on women. The first in the series will be Amanda Palmer punk rock star and crowd source goddess.

To start I should admit I only heard about her after the Dresden Dolls broke up. My fascination started after I read about her in Coilhouse Magazine and started exploring her music. I was hooked but not just on her music but on her. She is so much more than a rocker.

She started off as a performing artist and house party piano player. As time went on she was known for posing as living bride statue in parks to raise money and for singing odd songs at her friends parties; as she found the courage to become herself. It was this courage inspired me and helped me to begin a true exploration of Tiffany and more importantly changing my life post facial operations. She truly believes in living your life.

As a librarian I also very much approve of her marriage to Neil Gaiman. Listening to how these two artist keep their personal professional life together is amazing. They dont even live together…learning they enjoy each other more when they are together. Both though live on the Internet. You can follow their Tweets and blogs and see their love. It makes me smile.

She recently returned to her love after a few months in Australia with her new band Grand Theft Orchestra where she recorded a new album. Based on the songs I have heard, its harder than her solo album Who Shot Amanda Palmer but thats great. The sound of the band comes through!

Do it With a RockStar

Speaking of which, she just blew the doors wide open on crowd source funding, for her new album, collecting $1,000,000+ from nearly 25,000 people who are now patrons of the art. We Are the Media as she would say. The army that will change the way art is done. She wasn’t just funded, no she developed and mastered this model of funding through 3 years of connecting with not her fans but her friends. Hours and hours of twittering, ninja gigs and showing genuine interest in people have turn fans into friends who will gladly fund her to be part of her art. This is what anyone who works in social media needs to know. iIs not just about sharing information its about connecting and earning trust and becoming friends.

This blog being about me learning about how to be woman or expressing my feminine side I should talk about what I have learned about her. First, regardless if I am being Tiffany or Tim I have to say she has inspired me to be me. To be creative to take risk to love myself to understand the power of obsession. This is so powerful. She and Neil inspires a sense of love in world that is so fast people are disconnected physically but not emotionally. Their creative passion is amazing and I want to get my own. I have found new music to listen too and I dig her punk style. I would so wear her outfits as casual wear….punk is punk.

Congrads AFP you rock We are the Media  

So I havent posted in awhile. Most of the reason is I am living in a situation that dosnt allow me to dress freely so I have been practicing self control.. Another reason is I have been chasing two girls. The girls have recently come to a dead and Tiffany is smiling back at me. Unfortunately I have to settle for some nail polish on toes and sleeping in my pjs. I do plan to do more though once I work out a schedule that is safe with roommate.

Now I have been thinking a lot about my situation. I have discovered a term “Bi-gender” This a person who’s soul expresses both the female and male side. Neither side is dominate so they have both male and female behaviors. This is not to say they are androgynous that is neither, bi-gender is both. This term though is not recognized by doctors (I think I explained this before)

A few days ago I was chatting with transexual friend of mine. She is so expressive as a female it amazes me. Her body language just makes me think female. I told her this and we talked about me and how I am not sure if I could or wanted to go that far. She told me I was just messed up in my head and to look at this site by her psychologist (http://www.docbushong.com/) I read his article http://www.docbushong.com/pubs/what_is_gender.asp

At the start he covers the issue of being a different gender than your physical body. He says that the gender identity is built at a young age, I ll agree with this part because I know I was dressed as girl till I was four or so. I also remember latter looking in a JC Penny catalog looking women’s and girl’s cloths thinking how pretty they looked. I have thought about how different my life would be, if I had told my mom how I thought and she bought me a dress.

Dr Bushong says I didnt do this because I wanted to be normal and proceeded to make a male image of myself to fit in. For years the man might cross dress and then purge as they move to fit in again. At some time the female becomes strong enough and breaks out. With proper counseling from Doctors, the wall of the male breaks down, and the female identity comes out and transition really starts.

I agree with some of this but there is another take on identity I agree with more. This difference maybe the bi-gender difference. Joseph Campbell the famous comparative mythologist uses a modified Freudian approach. Here everyone has two sides or identities. The first is the day to day year by year selfs. The second is a shadow identity. The shadow Identity is created by our relationship with the opposite sex parent. This shadow is positive if if is a good relationship or negative if its not a good one. In my case it wasn’t a strong relationship and I developed a co-dependency. But it also developed my female side.  Campbell explains that the shadow identity appears from time to time and dominates the individual.

In the case if bi-genders its the female time. After a time the shadow identity subsides and we go about our lives. Combining these two ideas I believe that bi-genders second self is not strong enough to dominate and make a transition. If forced the person becomes unhappy as the original self tries to come back.  This causes even more trouble for the person as they cannot go back, especially after operations. This may explain the half uncomfortable smiles, negative attitudes towards life and why there is such a high number of suicides with post op transgenders. Their female identity was never strong enough to anchor the person.

I know deep in my heart that my female identity is not strong enough to anchorTiffany. I can see me wanting to transition back to male. This does not take away the importance of Tiffany in my life or the joy I experience when I am her. My lack of enthusiasm for transitioning also dosnt dimension the life of those who do. I wish them the best in life and I hope I can be friends with them and not treated as a lesser being because I do not transition.