The Gender Binary Makes Me Stress Eat Cocoa Puffs

I yelled at a teacher today. 

I've never yelled at a teacher before.

I'm a goody two shoes most of the time, a fact none of my friends would really dispute. But, in English class we have been talking about "Gender, Sex, and Sexuality" and some of our illustrations of the Kinsey scale and other models of gender/sexuality gradients were left on the board today when another teacher came in. He's an American, but he has been in Hungary for a number of years. His viewpoint has not benefited from travel. He is narrow minded, and what is worse, he forces his opinions on students who have no way of knowing not all Americans see the world the way he does. 

He tried to tell us being trans is a choice. 

It is one thing for a teacher to give lessons with a bias. We've all been taught by someone whose political views are obvious from the way they phrase their lessons. It is another thing entirely to pursue incendiary topics that could polarize the learning environment and back questioning kids into emotional corners. 

As I have been taught, or rather shown by example through the years, educators are responsible for providing a safe place to learn. The classroom is a place to accept knew knowledge, to explore new ideas and one's own beliefs, and this introspection cannot occur if you yell at your students that they are wrong. 

Here is a list of terms and definitions for those of you reading whom are not familiar with the LGBTQ community. No matter what sexuality or gender you identify as, it is important to know that people don't just wake up and arbitrarily decide "what" they are. Coming out as anything isn't something you do for giggles. My teacher, upon me explaining this, said 'Well, I think I'm Mrs. ----- today.' He was obviously joking, trying to make a point. But, a part of me--and I would say a small part of me but that would be a lie--considered addressing him as Mrs. ----- for the rest of year. For a short time I'm sure he would accept it, not wanting to give me the satisfaction of a reaction. But, after months, or even the rest of the school year, of being addressed with his wrong pronouns he would probably become distressed. This is understandable! This is also my point. Denying trans individuals their desired pronouns in favor of what you want to call them is disrespectful, discouraging, and overall dangerous to their mental well-being. It is difficult enough to transition and/or be comfortable in your body with the gender-binary in place without jerks coming around and invalidating your life choices. 

Whether you agree with a person's identification or not is not their problem. It's something you need to deal with on your own. No one confronts you on the street about why your eyes are brown, or why you color your hair when "God-didn't-mean-for-you-to-have-highlights" or why you are 5'8" instead of 5'10". No one questions you about this because these are normal parts of you. All of these things are expressions of yourself that you either couldn't change even if you wanted to, or have changed and everyone has accepted. A trans person's identity is not something they "picked" willy nilly, or without consideration. It's a fundamental, natural, part of them; a constant that they shouldn't have to justify. After all, cis-gendered individuals do not have to "prove" that their gender matches the sex they were born as. 

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Sorry if this isn't the most well written post. I've been having enough trouble separating grammar and languages without coming down from an adrenaline rush (sidenote: I forgot that your muscles hurt after adrenaline. I feel like I just did an ab workout.) If anyone has any corrections, like wrong terms or clarifications that would be helpful, please mention them because I don't have a lot of experience being a trans person as I am cis-gendered! 

Also, shout-out to all my classmates who dealt with a halfway She-Hulk Brigi today and weren't mad that I pursued the topic! Sorry you had to deal with that, but I can't say I'm sorry I lead the class astray. Szeretlek! 

Cheesy Three-Monthaversary Post

It's hard to believe I've been away for three months. Cliche opening I know, but true all the same. Since I don't know where the time went, it makes sense that I don't quite know how to describe it, right? Never the less, I will try, through anecdotes and sentences I hope are grammatically correct but I don't know anymore, to do justice to the past three months. 

• Hungarians, typically, are thrilled that any foreigner is trying to learn Hungarian--it's rather difficult and Hungary is a small country. This surprise and happiness at our admittedly pathetic attempts usually yields one of two outcomes. If the other person is one we'll never see again, like a cashier or seat partner on the train, they squee over you for a minute and fawn over how good your Hungarian is, which totally makes your day. If it's someone you see repeatedly, like a classmate or Rotarian, they are pleased you made an effort and fail to mention that you're pronouncing a word wrong, thus giving it a different meaning. (Eg. my friend saying "no grace" instead of "no problem" for two months, me saying "I like" instead of "I think", and me saying "pumpkin" instead of "Thursday" up until like three days ago)
• Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, highschool. I've already graduated and done my time, but I just love it so much I had to come back :D 
• Okay, this isn't entirely true and we all know it. Being in highschool for another year while my former classmates pursue higher education is kind of a bummer sometimes, not gonna lie. But, I do study and participate like I should--to the annoyance of my teachers I'm sure--and my doodles are getting quite advanced. It helps that I love my classmates too, and the  cafeteria food here is far superior to what we have in America.
• #hungaryisthebestplacetogetfat. It's true, and it's a distinct possibility. Anyone who follows my Instagram knows my love of food and selfies knows no bounds, though I haven't posted food photos in a while. The diet here is primarily rice/potatoes and meat, with soup thrown in pretty often and of course, white bread. I'm never one to deny comfort food, but I do miss the color green being present on my plate. Still, at least I'm not vegetarian! (Shout out to my tough veggie loving friends who get fried cheese slabs and an assortment of fried vegetables at every Rotary meeting.) My host mom is also a super good cook, as all my friends can attest, and makes home made pogacsa. So, I think it's safe to say that my tummy is pretty happy over here. 
• I haven't really posted about the great volleyball saga that is my life yet, but I do play here. It's a little odd for me because I've been setting for a very, very long time and I do a lot of passing and hitting here. Even when I do get back to my comfy space next to the net, the changes don't stop. Sets here are higher, which is more challenging because you have less control over the location of the ball relative to the net. (sidenote: it also doesn't help that I've been trained forever that quicker is better, and short 'n' sweet is the way to go) Also, I may or may not have knocked some people over in my pursuit of the ball because I'm a little bit of an aggressive player...But! Despite these differences I love being on the team here and it's cool being able to say I've played abroad. 
• Shout out to Jim Dietz for teaching me and talking volleyball with me. I didn't understand anything starting out two months ago, but since he taught me how this stuff works and I know basically every variation of every drill ever from his practices, I got by. It's hard to nerd out about it without you here, but I think we make it work. 
• Last but not least, travel! So far I've been to Vienna, Romania, and of course Budapest. I loved all three. Being in Vienna and seeing/speaking German was so comforting to me, though I did confuse a French girl. (She was confused because she thought I was American. But I speak something other than English. So I can't be American, apparently. As a country, we really need to get on that. It sucks surprising people because they assume we're incompetent/lazy about foreign language, among other things.)  I'm going to do a post about Vienna soon and post some of my friend's amazing photographs--she has a nice camera, and it just overall really talented. 

That's all I can think of for my three month round-up. Of course there are lots of stories and accidents and embarrassing habits I've left out (like how my classmates and I have started replacing words with onomatopoeia because everyone speaks their languages half-way) but I have to save something to tell everyone for when I come home, and I honestly don't know how to put some of my experiences into words (insert onomatopoeia-speak).

Thanks everyone for everything! I'll try to post more often and be more succinct, it's just a little difficult because I don't always know what language I'm speaking, as silly as that sounds.  

 Puszi!