I have been struggling with writing this for a while now. The fact of the matter is, I have been silenced. I have been intimidated, scared by a culture where my gender identity is judged as valid or not by those around me. I am a human being and I am female, yet I am afraid to admit perfectly normal things about myself. I am afraid that should other people find out that I do not conform to their ideal stereotypes about what a woman, or a transgender woman, ought to be I will not only be labelled a bad woman but not a woman at all. This absolutely horrifies me.
Yet at the same time, our complacency in these stereotypes, our public obedience to acting the part, our failure to speak out acts as a kind of social pornography for our young and the cisgender public. By failing to speak, we allow these stereotypes and misinformation to perpetuate and continue to control and oppress our lives. Yet to speak out against them, to tell our truth, we risk everything we transition for.
Today, in honour of the Day of Silence, I will take advantage of my pseudoanonymity and come out, as it were, about many of the ways which I am not a "good transsexual." I know that much of what I am going to write here could jeopardise the security by which I am able to present myself as female. I know that in the eyes of many, and in the eyes of most "professionals," what I am going to write could call into question the very legitimacy of my gender identity. Nonetheless, I can not stay silent.
I hope that the following might make a young transgender woman who is struggling with shame and doubt feel a little less alone:
[Too Much Information Warning]
* My gender identity was not always clear to me and my feelings expressed themselves differently at different times in my life. Sometimes my gender dysphoria expressed itself only as insecurity with my maleness. Other times I experienced a deep sense of longing. Sometimes a feeling of what "ought to have been" consumed me. During parts of my puberty my feelings were even erotic.
* My gender identity and the wrongness of the body I was born into has not always been a central part of my life or even something I thought about much, even before I transitioned.
* I delayed seeking hormones for almost a year, not because I was unsure of whether I wanted them or about my gender, but because I was unsure of whether or not the doctors would turn me away for "not being transgender enough" or "being the wrong type of transgender person." I was deathly afraid of being labelled a crossdresser. Part of me was afraid that being labelled a crossdresser by a doctor would force me to reexamine my gender identity and that I might not like what I saw.
* For several years into my transition I felt as if I had a part of my soul that I dared not examine closely. I was afraid that I was wrong about my gender and about my transition. I was afraid that if I examined my soul closely I would learn that I was really a man and that my coming out had been a mistake. It took a very serious psychological meltdown to really explore that part of my mind.
* Transition can be sensual!
* I do not hate my penis. In fact, I enjoy my penis. It is part of my body and it gives me pleasure. My penis does not cause me discomfort. The idea of surgery has always been problematic in my eyes and I do not feel that I will ever choose to have SRS. Nonetheless, I am woman.
* I enjoy sex very much. I enjoy pornography and erotic art. I enjoy and have fantasies of both being penetrated and penetrating others. I masturbate regularly.
* Sometimes the thought of myself as woman is erotic.
* Clothing is sexy, even for transgender women.
* When I came out I doubted myself very seriously. Much of this doubt had to do with my shame and confusion regarding sex and how I felt erotically in regards to my gender.
* Internally, I feel very masculine. In many ways I feel more masculine than feminine. Nonetheless, I know I am female and not male. I am butch, boi, gederqueer. I am woman.
Edit: * My choice to come out was a decision to improve my life and increase happiness. It was a decision to escape something I found to be unpleasant, a way of life I did not enjoy. I did not feel that I had to do so or that it was, at least at the time, a life-or-death decision. It was a choice and it was the right one.
Hello world!
9 months ago
16 comments:
And nothing you listed is outrageous or out of the ordinary, but cis society, the medical profession, and other trans people spend so much time imposing rules and assumptions and negations. :(
thanks for writing this (and linking at qt). it's a breath of fresh air to hear people claiming and celebrating the things that some people think make them "not trans enough".
This is refreshing compared to stuff about how someone is either male or female or else was originally male but is now female as possible through surgery, hormones, etc. or vice versa. A person shouldn't be trans enough for our cisnormative society. I love that word, cisnormative! I made it up on the spot. It's like heteronormative, but describing norms arranged around cis people rather than heterosexual people.
@Lisa Harney: Not only do I feel that it's not out of the ordinary but I feel that a lot of the things which cis society forbids of us are quite positive. Just the idea that we're not allowed to be sensual or have any kind of sexual relationship with our own body is completely outrageous.
@nixwilliams: Thank you for reading! :3
@Sadderbutwisergirl: It's a pretty cool word, I think I'll start using it. Also: *wiggles her genderqueer butt*
I love this post. Thanks for making it. :)
Like the others, I want to thank you for making this post and for stating without question that not every case is a textbook one. It's a comfort to me to hear somebody talk about this, because I consider myself transgendered (or genderqueer, or whatever the term of the week is), and yet because I don't fall into some very strict guidelines of "what being trans means", I haven't bothered to seek any advice or help regarding it.
Admittedly, I'm in the awkward position of feeling neither male nor female, which it doesn't seem that current definitions of gender dysphoria really allow for, and I'm always afraid that telling any professional this will just make them try to cram me into a hole I was not made to fit into.
What a lot of people ignore, I guess, is that although there are common threads that run through a lot of cases of gender dysphoria, people are still people and can choose to express themselves in many different ways. I think somewhere along the line, that gets lost.
This is a wonderful piece; thank you for writing it.
I think that too often we're forced (by the refusal of others to allow us rights or respect) to sell the extreme case and to pretend that there aren't more moderate ones.
As a cis-gendered lesbian, I see this in the way the gay rights movement uses "not a choice" as a battering ram, to the utter exclusion of people for whom it is a choice, for some given value of "choice."
And my community still has much more visible/popularized diversity than yours, so again, good for you for helping to show the cases which aren't the extremes, but which still deserve rights and respect.
This post is fantastic. I'm an outsider to the trans world, so it really helped give me perspective and understand the complex nature of the trans identity!
Come visit me.
http://ivyandhaley.blogspot.com
Ivy
There are NO text books humans which is fantastic!
Many of the things you mention have been thought by me and other trans folk, its just that we don't talk about them.
Some of the reasons we don't talk about them is that some of the thoughts work against the medical model of how we 'need to be' in order to get treatment, hopefully this will changed someday.
Thankyou for your honesty, it is much appreciated.
billy
thank you for writing this. it is really good to read these thoughts which are so close to my own experience.
i do believe that i will get surgery sooner or later (because i really want to be penetrated vaginally), but i've got the go-ahead by my therapist, the financing is solved, i've just got more interesting things to do than to lie around in hospital and recovering for weeks and months.
and i'm damn sure that after i get around to having surgery i will start using strap-ons and dildos to fuck my lovers (if they enjoy that, of course), because it's fun.
i'm a woman, because that's what i am. but don't expect me to follow any rules about how a woman should be.
@Ria:
I don't really know what to say other than how happy I am that you found my writing helpful. It made my day, I'll try to make more posts like this one in the future.
I feel one of the most important things to remember when you're questioning whether or not you're transgender is the fact that you're questioning whether or not you are transgender. I know it seems rather silly on the surface but you have to remember that most people don't question their gender and that for most people it's just taken for granted. Something that needs to be really thought about and explored and shared with people you can trust.
I'd just like to talk about being male and female and about genderqueer. Genderqueer is not the same as transgender, genderqueer is about having a gender identity which is different, or just more complex, than just male or female. I am genderqueer and it sounds like you could be too.
Anyway, it's time to start cranking on a sequel.
Oh wow! I'm really blown away by all the comments! Thank you everyone!
@Travis: welcome :3
@Molly: Ah, the question of choice! I remember how how the idea of my own choice to transition, rather the feelings I had relating to my transition that made me feel that my transition was voluntary, shook my confidence that my gender identity was real at all.
... and I can't believe I didn't add that in my original post. To the editing function!
@Ivy and Haley: Thanks for the link and you're welcome!
@Billy: I know what you mean about how we think them but never speak about them. I was nervous writing this piece at all, firstly because I was worried about having it used against me personally, and secondly because I was afraid that it would be used against trans people in general as "proof" that we're all "really men." In the end I decided that the harm that's being done to trans people because of silence is far beyond any damage that could be done to myself or to our community through honesty.
@Miss Diss: A perfectly valid reason to have surgery! Again, so many gender police saying that eroticism is a "bad reason" to get a vagina. I suppose you're only allowed to enjoy it if you Just Happen(tm) to have it lying around.
Thank you so much for this fantastic, courageous, and honest post. If you'd be amenable, I'd like to quote some of your words in a paper I'm writing about the need to separate legal gender identity from surgical transition. The paper will not be published at this time, but there is a possibility I might submit it for publication in the future. Please let me know whether you are comfortable being quoted. (I will cite your online identity only and note the url of your blog.)
Thank you so much for writing this. You summed up exactly how I feel about my gender identity in reverse (as I'm biologically female) and I've always had so much confusion as to what my "real" gender is, and reading this helped me see that I'm not alone in how I feel about my gender. I also read all of your other blog posts, and I have to say that you're an excellent writer and a truly inspiring person.
While I recognize that smaller communities are required within larger ones in order to lobby for, and support, those who are marginalized; however, it sickens me that it is necessary. Nearly thirty years ago I participated in a medical course which left me with one absolute. In the human body there are few absolutes. There are obvious mechanical actions and reactions; but, every person is just a little bit different from the one sitting beside them, or across from them.
I wonder how much self-questioning would take place if we all simply understood this simplest of truths.
Is this (self-questioning) a reaction to society? Obviously, if surgical changes are to take place, one needs to give serious consideration to the end goal, and whether or not that is really their goal; however, that any person or profession, set themselves above another, simply because supposed/imagined/safe biblical norms are not the makeup of the person in question is simply wrong. After all, the Bible is only biblical to those who subscribe to its' total authenticity, both in interpretation and perspective of the writers, the translators and the end users.
Even though I know I exist outside of the community, I feel as though I am, or at least should be, a strong part of the society. I have a role to play in terms of advocacy and support. My daughter, through her own journey of self-awareness, has been left feeling unworthy of what, in our society, is a right afforded to all. It doesn't matter what that is, only that no one should ever be made to feel that way.
Love the blog.
I've felt similarly. Trans guys tend to say that I'm too feminine to be a guy. One of my past sexual partners said I would hate T because I'm more gender queer than a guy. I've been putting off transition for 3 years because I don't know if T will really truly help me feel more comfortable in my skin.
While in therapy all I could think about was if my actions made me a man or not. I often thought that I was too feminine to be a guy. I'm still not on T, and I left therapy because I felt like it was going nowhere.
I've never felt like I fit in with trans men, and I've always felt judged in trans communities. I'm just glad I'm not alone with this.
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