Gender Identity and the Zombie Apocalypse

Gender Identity and the Zombie Apocalypse

     Before I write much, I want y’all to know that this reflection is not what you might expect. I am not a zombie expert or gender therapist. I am just a lover of zapocalypse mythos and of my transgender child. Those of you who've followed me even a little bit online know that I'm obsessed with zombies.

     The fascination started not in 2010 when "The Walking Dead" started, but four years later when I started watching it.

     I don't like jumping into any series after it has started, so I went back on Netflix and watched from the beginning. I was not instantly hooked, but curiousity kept me coming back the first season. I was curious about why so many people loved it.

     And I got hooked.

     I was talking to a friend of mine about zombies once late in 2014 (a few months after "Z Nation" premiered on SyFy). He urged me to watch it, saying that it was "better" than "The Walking Dead."  Luckily, although it wasn't on Netflix, we had On Demand channels so I could go back and watch it from the start.

     Bada-boom, banda-bing, I loved it! There is no comparison of the two shows on the whole. In my opinion, neither is the better show. Each need to be looked at in different ways. "Z Nation," as the name implies, is more about the zombies than the people. Sure, characterization is important still, but the human characters involved are actually less important than the zombies themselves (at least at first). The show looks at  how the zombie virus reacts primarily. It is fun, escapist, with more comedy than drama. Most episodes in the first season can exist independently, as stand-alone stories. [I read an article that told that this is because they were each written as movies and then editted down to hour-long TV shows, but that fact is not pertinent to this post.]

     "The Walking Dead" is more about the survivors than the zombies themselves. Zombies (why they are never called "zombies" I don't understand) play an important role in the storyline, but less so than in "Z Nation." The show is more serious and dark. It is grittier. Escapist, yes, but in a very different way. There is much less comedy and more drama.

     When it comes down to it, nether of these shows is all that realistic, I feel. I mean, even if the zapocalypse happens, it won't be exactly the way these fictions portray it.

     Or will it? They both force viewers to ask the question "What if?"

     I could (and will, in other posts), write more about my thoughts on the ZA, but the point of this post is to tie it with the former thing in the title: gender identity. And not what the identity of survivors are, which may be the first thought upon seeing the title.

     Obviously, this is most about the love I have for my transgender child.

Born as a girl, Beck has for years been into binge-watchig shows. So, after I was three seasons into "The Walking Dead," Beck caught up with me in three days. Beck loved the show and watched it by my side quite a bit after that. Together, we watched seasons 1 and 2 of "Z Nation" (mine for the second, and in some cases, third time).

     We started saying things like, "That would be a great ZA vehicle" whenever we saw a truck with a steel cage on the front. Walking through Walmart, we'd point out random things and chat about how they could be used as weapons against zees. Through all of our "What if"s and conversation, we grew closer. We vowed to be partners if there ever were a zombie apocalypse.

     A couple months ago, Beck came out to us as transgender, as feeling that she should be a he.

My wife and I support and love our son. The pronoun transition has been difficult for us. And its hard to think about having a son when for fourteen and a half years we had a daughter.

     It's worth it for his happiness, though.

     And now, the point of this post: in relation to the ZA, gender identity doesn't mean much to me. Daughter or son, I stilll have a great ZA buddy. I will love and fight along my child, in any survivalist scenario, the unlikely zombie apocalypse or anything else that comes our way.

My nickname

My name is Philip Flynt. I am (un)known online by many as Whistlinphil.

That's a lousy way to open a blog generally, I know but names are really important, and that is the main thrust of this first blog.

I chose to use this name after jokingly being called Whistling Phil by someone at my job eight years ago. He made the statement because he and I were the only people in the building many mornings and he heard me whistling Christmas carols (in late spring, of course). I whistle a lot in general, but I hum even more. I liked 'Whistlinphil' better than the alternative ('Hummer'; I don't like the urban tanks).

Since that time, I have used the nickname on multiple Websites, my email handle, and as a pseudonym for writings (I publish rambling memoirs called 'Whistlinphil Books'). Some people call me by this handle "in real life" both because they have seen the nick online and because they have heard me whistle while I work so much. Sometimes it a little tongue-in-cheek and sometimes it is more meaningful.  Almost all of the time, though, it feels good to me when someone calls me by my nickname. It is a designation. Almost like a special position. An announcement of my identity.

Several months ago, my 'bosses' at both of my jobs (the one where I earn a paycheck and the one where I volunteer) called me out on my smiling in one week. I tended not to smile much. People thought I was grumpy and not open. They thought me close-minded and that I didn't listen. Smiling more would boost the confidence of people around me. Smiling would help me. "Instead of 'Whistlinphil' you should be called 'Smiling Phil,'" I was told by the head of the program I work for at my church. He was kind of joking, but I took it to heart.

And taking jokes as serious statements is something I do, laboring under the belief that there is some truth (or at least real opinion) behind most jokes that are made. I started a 'Smilinphil' email account. I fully planned on using it to.

Something stopped me, though, from fully accepting the nickname, though. That thing was the truth that 'Whistlinphil' has BECOME my identity. What I wrote a couple short paragraphs above is true: names are identities, special positions, and designations. They put you in your place. They establish who you are and what you are about.

Back in the day (which is just an expression meaning here 'a long time ago in a far away land'), surnames had more meaning than they have here in America now. Names signified what you did for a living. 'Smiths' worked with metal; 'Flynts' worked with rocks ('flint stones').

Who am I?/Where do I belong?

Growing up, I never felt completely that I fit in with the other boys. In sixth grade, I "lost" my best friend to football. I still saw him at school and Boy Scouts, but we no longer hung out or had sleepovers. He had practices and games. He had a different set of friends.
I used the labels "jock" and "nerd" because I felt more studious. I felt like a bit of an unpopular loser. I didn't fit that role very well. I was definitely not 100% nerd. 
Who was I? Where did I belong?
I often ask myself that. When I was a senior in high school, all that time ago, I asked myself that for a speech I gave at a retreat.

The retreat was for other teenagers to help with esteem and belonging.

My answers then were a lot different than they would be now -- over twenty years later -- but they would point to one central truth: we are more than what we are on the surface.

Sure, I’m a father and husband, but that is what everyone sees. I am much more than that.

When I was younger, the lines were more distinct between stereotypic groups.

An example of what I mean are how nerds and jocks used to be polar opposites. In high school, I was nerdy and a total outsider when it came to anything popular and the ones who played football (the “jocks”) were the ones in the “in crowd.”

The cliquish lines were not blurred the way they are now. Or so I thought.

There was one guy in my high school class (I call him ‘Jim’ for this illustration) who was really smart and played football.Freshman and sophomore year, he bullied me around. He called me names and ostracized me from conversation. Typical “jock” behavior, I felt.

Junior year, in an honors biology class (that I wasn’t smart enough to get into), students dared Jim to eat a piece of the perch they were dissecting in class. I don’t know if he barbecued it over a bunson burner or what chemical it was preserved in, but I heard that he ate some. He was smart and stupid at the same time.

And senior year, he apologized to me for being so rude to me the first two years of high school.

I was blown away that a “jock” would care about more than the game he played. I was wrong about how sport-centered “jocks” were, and about that category at all.

I’d thought that since I was a “loser,” that I wasn’t part of the problem. But I was. In opposing stereotypes so strongly, I reinforced  them.

[As a side note, Jim was also a student-leader in the retreat program I was involved with.]

I discovered at age eighteen that stereotypes could be (and often are) wrong. They were so ingrained in me, though, that I believed stereotypes for years to come (at least to some degree).

Sure, we cannot help but do some amount of pre-judging as humans (after all, we do make first impressions), but sticking to those prejudices is wrong. Holding to prejudices leads to forming stereotypes. Stereotypes are the foundations for labels. And labelled things get put into boxes.

People (unlike groceries) don’t fit in regular sized and shaped boxes. Each person has unique packaging.

The question that I started this post out with is continually valid. Who I am determines my packaging. It cannot be a rigid box, though, because I grow and change. And I am more than one person at a time. That may sound odd, but it’s true.

I am a dad AND a husband AND and employee AND a… well, a lot of things. All those things are labels, though. They are ways to name myself. Ways to separate me from others. With all those types though, there is overlap. Jim was a jock AND a nerd. A dumb smart person. We fit in multiple categories all the time.

I am a Writer. For years, I believed that was a destination and not an identity. I thought that I was just what I did for a paycheck.  I thought that self-publishing was “just a hobby.” Though I don’t earn a living at writing, I still “qualify.” I thought I had to make money at it for it to be who I am. But I was wrong. I am a Writer because it’s who I am. I embrace that identity now. As such, this is why I’m writing a blog.  

We need to find out who we are and embrace those things that make us unique.