When I changed my gender in 2L, I did notice that some things changed. As a man, I initially decided to make my gender male in 2L. Doing this, I thought, would actually not be that ordinary a thing to do because I chose to be a Harajuku Male, which is modeled after the guys who dress up in androgynous, gothic fashion anyway and wander around the shopping districts of Tokyo in very tight, sleek looking clothes with svelte physiques. To summarize – I didn’t look like your average male character, or so I believed, and yet there was still a significant change in the way people approached me when I changed my gender to female. Men, or course, were a little more interested in me, and came over to look at me when I was walking around, and some even asked me out on dates, but then I decided to break the bad news that I wasn’t who I seemed to be, they then proceeded to ask me if I was gay or not. I thought, “Geez, is it really that uncommon for a guy to try out what it’s like to be the other gender in 2L?” It was more interesting to look at all the dresses women have available to them and try them on when I went to various freebie stores, as well. I figured that lots of guys might get off on trying to become a woman, but I was surprised to see that no one was really into it, based on their reactions when I told them that I was a guy. Clearly, as Lauren Bans pointed out in her article on 2L, it is far from the post-race, post-gender utopia that it was believed to become, since most people were probably simply presenting slightly more idealized versions of themselves to me, rather than actually going out on a limb to try something different, like change their gender.
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