My body is a complicated net of tissues and enzymes anchoring my spirit in this world. I don't pretend to understand why or how this works. I do know that my body's shapes, its lengths and folds, are determined by many different patterns. Some of these patterns are imperceptible, like DNA; some are conscious patterns that I can exercise or not.

Some of these patterns, transcribed in flesh, are broadly understood to transmit primary and secondary signals of the phenomena known as "gender": my breasts, the shape of my hips and ass and waist, my hands, my lips, my voice, my cunt. I radiate gender via these cell clusters, unconsciously, daily. My body in its raw state sends some signals about gender without me having to do anything. Other signals of gender I send more knowingly or consciously, like how I cut my hair, what clothes I choose, what accessories, or when I choose to wink or pout. Still other signals of gender are deeply ingrained signals, behaviors I learned so long ago that that I have forgotten where they come from. Flirting is an example of this; I sometimes flirt by sheer reflex. I know it is perceived as a feminine manipulation, but I'm not intentionally being manipulative. I know I must claim these learned behaviors as gender signals, as much as I claim the other unconscious and conscious signals I send.

All these emanations are produced by my body and of my body and are thus representative of myself. And yet, the self that claims the space being represented is androgynous, or even more accurately, is genderless. Androgyny is a portmanteau word of the root words for man and woman, but the me that knows itself does not know gender as two binary polar options that are combined.

This self knows a far more complicated story, represented in several dimensions, and in time as well as in space. My body cannot help but be representative of me, for it IS me.