i just got engaged. i'm thrilled about it; i couldn't be happier to be with this person and i'm excited to promise officially that we're going to spend the rest of our lives together. my fiance gave me a beautiful engagement ring with meanings that are so uniquely us, and i love it. i challenge you to think of a more feminizing accessory.
it's not that i'm not happy or proud to marry to my partner. it's more that my internal gender is not one to match a big shiny engagement ring all the time. no matter what the rest of me is wearing, my left ring finger screams WOMAN in all the loudest of tones. there are times when that is completely appropriate and it perfects my outward gender ensemble in a way that i just learned exists. there are also times when it feels like a giveaway, like my voice when somebody asks for the time.
the expectation when somebody receives an engagement ring is that they will wear it all the time, to signal their full-time commitment to their partner. it marks me not only as woman but as his woman, as one who belongs to someone else. the feminist in me resists, even while the femme in me revels at the designation. of course i want to be his; that doesn't mean i'm always in a situation where i need the woman part proclaimed loudly with glitter.
there is no paradox here, but it feels like one.
