关于性别认同和取向的探索,以及对 ABO 的想法/On gender & sexuality identification, and Omegaverse

想写这个题目很久了,然而一直在探索过程中,写得太早未免误人误己。
我的故事里没有鲜花红毯,也没有感人的出柜经历(事实上我还没对家人出柜),但它值得一讲。
警告:非常尴尬以及翻译腔的中文

Have been thinking about this topic for a while, but also have been exploring the whole time and writing it up too early may cause misleading messages.
There is no red carpet of flowers in my story, and there is no touching coming out experience (in fact I have not come out to my family yet), but it is worth telling.
Warning: very awkward and unnatural Chinese

性别认同 /Gender identification

我是生物学女性。我从小有性别焦虑。
我目前的性别认同是非二元性别—泛性别。
我曾经相信性别是个光谱,现在已经不信了,原因是光谱只有两个极点,本质上是细化了的二元性别。而组成「性别性格」的变量成百上千,不能用一条光谱概括。
我现在觉得,性别是人格的一部分,或者说,性别就是人格。我们说十人十色,也就是每个人都有自己独特的人格,那么,每个人也该拥有自己独特的性别,而不是被框在一个无比狭隘的量尺里。

I am a biological woman. I have gender anxiety since I was a child.
Currently I identify as non-binary – pangender.
I used to believe that gender is a spectrum, but not anymore, because spectrum has only two poles, which is essentially a refined representation of binary gender framework. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of variables that make up someone’s “gender character”, which cannot be summarized by one singular spectrum.
Now I feel like gender is part of personality, or perhaps gender IS personality. If we acknowledge that everyone is one of a kind (Junin Toiro in Japanese), which is everyone has their own unique personality, then we also should acknowledge that everyone deserves their own unique gender, instead of being restricted in a very narrow scale.

确认自己的性别焦虑其实是一个很漫长的过程。第一次在网上查的时候是其实是为了隔壁班的一位跟我倾诉的朋友。那时它还被称为性别认同障碍,这个名字令人不安,它很可能是一种病,我想。当时我并没有把自己和这些症状联系在一起。
而且当时国内没有这样的公众人物;当然那时候还有谷歌。现在我们连谷歌也没有了,跨性别人群从中国人的视野里消失了,仿佛根本不存在一样。
晚一些的时候,我爱上了一个女孩子。她是典型的假小子,短头发大嗓门,干架,打篮球,跟男生勾肩搭背,我却意识到自己不是被她阳刚的那一面所吸引。联想起自己小时候跟她几乎一模一样的行为举止,我开始怀疑自己心里是不是个男的。
证据有很多:我讨厌穿裙子,我讨厌粉色,我对洋娃娃一类的「女孩子的游戏」不感兴趣,我喜欢捣鼓电脑,等等。然而,这些都不是真实的性别气质,而只是对性别的刻板印象。
近日在豆瓣上看到这么一句话:(大意)

Confirming oneself’s gender anxiety can be quite a long process. The first time I searched it online was actually for a friend from another class who poured it out to me. At that time, it was known as the gender identity disorder, which was a really disturbing name. The name probably indicated it being a disease, I thought. I did not associate myself with those symptoms.
And there existed no such public figures in China at that time, but there existed Google, of course. Now that we don’t even have Google anymore, the transgender people have disappeared from the vision of the Chinese public, as if we did not exist at all.
Later, I fell in love with a girl. She is a very typical tomboy, with short hair, loud voice, fights people and plays basketball, and gangs up with boys, but I realized that I was not attracted to the masculine side of her. Recalling that my own behaviour in childhood was almost exactly the same as hers, I then began to wonder if I was a man in my heart.
The evidence was plenty: I hated wearing skirts, I hated colour pink, I was not interested in “girlish games” like playing with dolls, I liked to mess around with computers, so on and so forth. However, those are no real gender temperament, but merely gender stereotypes.
Recently I saw this question on Douban: (not the exact same words)

你到底是真的有性别焦虑,还是只是受不了社会上既定的性别刻板印象和性别角色然后想换一换?

Do you really have gender anxiety, or is it that you just cannot bear the established gender stereotypes and roles anymore and claimed it for a change?

这问题很粗鲁、很冒犯人,因为我无意当一个跨性别警察,告诉你怎样算跨性别怎样不算——能决定你是谁的当然只有你自己。但其实也无比真实,因为成为跨性别者和作为一个跨性别者有责任地活着,是完全不同的两个概念。

This is very rude and offensive a question, since I never intend to be a transgender police and tell you what is and what isn’t “true transgender” – of course you yourself is the only person who can decide that. However, it is also so incomparably real, because being a transgender and living responsibly as a transgender are two completely different concepts.

时至今日,我已经可以毫不犹豫地说,我两者都有。然而十几岁时的我,思想没发育完全,精神也还脆弱,每日为对付应试教育、青春期和父母疲于奔命,根本没办法想清楚一切,深陷自我怀疑与否定的泥沼。所幸反思与修正自我认识对每个人而言都是持续一生的旅程,而我一直在努力跟自己达成越来越好的平衡。我不再讨厌穿裙子,不再讨厌粉色,仍然对女孩子的游戏不感兴趣,仍然热爱电脑。我不是女性,也不是男性,有时扮演女性,有时扮演男性,有时扮演其他。我是我自己的性别。

Now, finally, I can say without hesitation that both situations apply to me. But in my teens, with underdeveloped thoughts and fragile spirit, dealing with exam-oriented education, adolescence and parents everyday were already too much for me. I just couldn’t figure out everything, and fell deeply into self-doubt and self-negation. Fortunately, reflection and revision of self-concept is a journey of lifetime for everyone, and I have been trying to achieve a better balance with myself. I no longer hate skirts or pink, still not interested in girls’ games, still in love with computers. I am neither a woman nor a man, sometimes acting as a woman and sometimes as a man, and sometimes as something else. I am my own gender.

浪漫取向与性取向/Romantic & sexual orientation

可能非异性恋的社会接受度终究是比跨性别要大,我喜欢过男孩也喜欢过女孩,然后就干脆地接受了自己不是个异性恋的事实。从那时起,我便认同这个观点:爱情跟性别无关。
跟前女友在一起一年后,我曾试着隐讳地跟父亲提起过,但他是这么说的:(大意)生育后代是女性的历史责任,不生育或/与同性恋是反社会、反人类的。他是一名社会学教授。
我从来没有跟母亲或其他任何亲属进行过任何明示或暗示自己的性别认同/浪漫取向/性取向的谈话。

Perhaps, after all, the social acceptance of non-heterosexual is greater than transgender. I have liked both boys and girls, and then just accepted that I were not heterosexual. Since then, it has been my belief that love has nothing to do with gender.
After being with my ex-girlfriend for a year, I tried to vaguely mention it with my father, before he said (not the exact same words) that reproduction is a historical responsibility of females, and that not reproducing or/and homosexuality is antisocial and anti-humanistic. He is a sociology professor.
I have never had any conversation, frank or vague, with my mother or any other relatives about my gender identity or my romantic/sexual orientation.

人类的心理和生理过于奇妙,浪漫取向和性取向有可能不相符和。我属于泛性浪漫倾向,然而,在性取向方面,我逐渐意识到他人的身体对我只有非常微弱的性吸引,而且,讽刺地,我并不享受与生理女性的性行为。
近日听说一本叫《世田谷シンクロニシティ(世田谷共时性)》的漫画,刚开始看。男主角是一位浪漫取向为女、性取向为男的大学生。由于题材和作者都非常小众,推荐帖和亚马逊的评论大多是比较正面的,但也有少数评论者表示完全无法理解主人公的想法和行为。

Human psychology and physiology are so bizarre that romantic orientation and sexual orientation may not coincide. I am panromantic, however, in terms of sexual orientation, it took me some time to realize that others’ body is only very weakly sexually attractive to me. Moreover, ironically, I do not enjoy sexual intercourse with biological women.
Recently a manga titled Setagaya Synchronicity popped up to me. Just started reading. The male lead is a college student who is heteromantic but homosexual. Since both the subject matter and the author are not hugely popular, the recommendation post and Amazon reviews are mostly positive, but still, a few reviewers wrote that they completely don’t understand the character’s thoughts and behaviour.

我越来越努力抑制自己的自怜情绪,因为总有更加小众、更加不被接受的人群。如果我沉浸于自怜和自我满足而不做任何事、不发出任何声音,那么那些被沉默和被消失的人们就又少了一个重新被看见的机会。
无论你是谁,无论你属于多么罕见的少数群体,每一个人都是真实的人类,都拥有同等的尊严和人权,都需要关怀和免于被歧视。

I am working harder everyday to curb my self-pity, because there are always less mainstream and less accepted people. If I immerse myself in self-pity and self-satisfaction without doing anything or speaking for anyone, then those who are silenced and disappeared will have one less chance of being seen again.
No matter who you are, no matter how minor the minority you belong to, every person is a real human being, with equal dignity and human rights, entitled to be cared for and to be free from discrimination.

虚构作品中的性别与性取向/Gender and sexuality in fictional works

据我所知,影响最大的虚构性别系统有三种,ABO、Dom/Sub、哨兵向导。其中,主流文化也会用 alpha、beta、omega 来形容性格,D/S 在现实生活中有原型(BDSM),只有哨向是完全虚构的(出自电视剧哨兵,)。
我觉得 D/S 是正常性欲的一种小众的表达方式;近期才接触少量哨向作品,暂时不好说什么;但关于 ABO,我有话要说。

As far as I know, there are three major fictional gender systems (at least in works written in Chinese): Alpha/Beta/Omega (Omegaverse), D/s, and Sentinel AU. Among these, the mainstream culture also uses the words Alpha, Beta, and Omega to describe personalities; D/s has its prototype in real life (BDSM); only Sentinel is completely fictional (from the TV series The Sentinel).
I believe D/s is an alternative expression of normal sex drive. I only started to read about Sentinel recently and can’t say anything specific at the moment. However, with regard to Omegaverse, I do have something to say.

我欣赏许多使用 ABO 设定的作品,其中一些甚至借用 ABO 系统严肃地讨论了性别角色的合理性。然而,作为一个磕磕绊绊的性少数,我发现这个系统本身有问题:它使跨性别和非异性恋几乎成为不可能,尤其是对 Omega 们而言。
在 ABO 世界里,男性和女性的区分几乎可以忽略不记(有些作品干脆予以省略),ABO 系统是主要的性别系统。然而,这一系统并没有形成对男女性别系统的突破,而只是换了一个名字来对其进行重申和进一步强调——更极端的性别刻板印象、性别角色固化,以及性别不平等。Alpha 是勇猛和领导力的代名词,Beta 大多一辈子平平无奇,连生育率都比其他性别低,跟工蚁没有两样,而 Omega 则是 Alpha 之间所竞争的奖杯。尤其是「发情期」、「信息素」和「标记」的设定,让 Omega 丧失了一切主体性,彻底沦为欲望客体和生育机器。听起来挺耳熟的,不是吗?
通过一点历史挖掘,我意识到 ABO 系统的创立跟我一直以为的(谁给我灌输这种思想的?微博)性别平权目的没有任何关联,而是纯粹源自一个幻想两位虚拟男性角色之间的拟态传统男女关系框架(原文:prude/bitch)的点梗。所以,ABO 系统的核心根本不是反传统性别系统,而是对其彻底的服从和顶礼膜拜,以至于想要把本该相对平等的同性间的浪漫关系也囊括进传统的男/女性角色区分,从而创造出来的。

I appreciate many of the works under the A/B/O setting, some of which do use it to seriously discuss the rationale behind gender roles. However, as a stumble gender minority, I found the system itself problematic: it makes transgender and non-heterosexuality almost impossible, especially for Omegas.
In the A/B/O world, the distinction between female and male is almost negligible (some works simply omit it) and A/B/O becomes the main gender system. However, this system is no breakthrough from the f/m system, but only reaffirming and further emphasizing it with a different name – more extreme gender stereotypes, more solidified gender roles, and greater gender inequality. Alpha is synonymous with bravery and leadership. Betas are mostly unremarkable for all their lives, and even with lower fertility rate than other genders, exactly the same as worker ants. And Omega is the trophy for which Alphas compete with each other. In particular, the settings of estrus, pheromone and marking have caused Omegas to lose all their subjectivity, and become merely objects of lust and reproduction machines. Sounds familiar, no?
Through a little bit historical digging, I realized that the creation of the A/B/O trope has nothing to do with any gender equality goal that I thought it would be (who gave me this idea? Weibo), but purely from a prompt of two male characters mimicking a traditional f/m relationship (original text: prude/bitch). Therefore, the core of the A/B/O system is not against the traditional gender system, rather, it was created out of a thorough obedience and worship of it, so much so that it even enveloped the romantic relationship between the same sex, which is supposed to be relatively equal, into the traditional gender roles.

总有人诟病像我这样对(娱乐性)网络小说及其设定进行严肃评论的人,然而正如其他任何严肃文学作品一样,这些作品同样取材、脱胎于现实,那么评论它们就对现实世界有积极意义。
对作品本身的享受和批评是可以分开的,毕竟人们总得找出活下去的方式。我仍然不会因为 ABO 设定而拒绝某篇作品,甚至有那么几篇对我的世界观产生了很大影响。如果所有这些作品/设定是把你和这个世界联系在一起的最后一根绳索,那么,我们是同路人。

The criticism never stops of people like me who seriously comment on (recreational) web novels and their settings. However, just like any other serious literary works, since these works also draw from reality, commenting on them has a positive significance to the real world.
Enjoying and criticising can be separated, after all, people have to find a way through life. I will never reject a work simply for its adopting the Omegaverse setting, and even a few of them have made a huge impact on my world view. If all these works/settings are among the last strings that connect you to the world, then we are on the same side.

参考链接/Reference