When am I trans?
Hello all. As shown by my recent important post on ponies, I am still vaguely alive. Hurrah me. Ok, so as my title might suggest: I am not entirely sure that transness exists as a particular identity mode all the time. That’s kind of an odd statement I realise, so let me unpack it a bit.
Tobi Hill-Meyer has proposed what I think is the only really plausible and useful definition of transness which presumes that trans people are as real and authentic as cis, which is: a trans person is someone whose sex/gender is not universally recognised as valid. Other definitions premised on a transition “from” one sex to another unwittingly reify cis sexes as static and homogenous sets of physical and emotional characteristics and behaviours. This premise of binary sexes is both inaccurate – point to almost any characteristic and there’s exceptions which are not considered trans – and arbitrary, repressing the diversity of human sex and gender morphologies, histories and behaviours.
That it exists in the first place is, I think, an effect of the ideological power of cis narratives to construct “truth” in its own image (and of trans relative powerlessness). There are in a cissexist and transphobic society only two real, authentic, legimate sexes; that is, men and women (and they only ever cis). Everyone else is really their assigned sex, forever and ever amen. And any time you hear the word “really,” you are hearing an ontological argument about essence and truth. Platonic essences, a story just about as old as humanity, and one that lives on despite its thorough philosophical rebuttal over the years.
For those of us who live and are correctly gendered as part of the binary at least some of the time as the other sex as the one we were assigned, we are almost entirely gendered correctly on the assumption that we are not known to be trans. To be known to be trans is in a cissexist world is to no longer be considered wholly and only the sex/gender you live as – it is an invalidation of the present in favour of an imagined, inaccurate cis origin story. For non-binaries, this occurs almost constantly, because there are few spaces where non-binaries are accepted as real, true sexes and/or genders.
Under this regime, then, it seems to me that “transness” is not something that I personally experience all of the time, or is something that any binary person necessarily experiences all the time (and there is scope for non-binary accepting spaces to broaden out this same pattern for non-binary folks, though it remains in the extreme minority right now). I experience “transness” only in the moment of transphobia – and in the psychic legacy of fear of that appearing again. And if we ask when we are “trans” in this sense, we might also ask to whom. Because I don’t identify as a trans woman, and I don’t “identify” as a woman. I simply am a woman, but in this society because of my sex assignment at birth that means I am considered trans whether I like it or not.
One thing that I think many of us do is act diffidently, implicitly accepting a subordinate symbolic position as simulations, copies of cis originals. How often do allies tack an obligatory “trans” before man or woman even when it’s not required? How often are the links from this blog – primarily written by a group of feminist-identified or friendly women – filed under GLBT but never feminism? These and a million other actions construct a cis centre and a trans margin.
I want to know: When are we real? Where are we real? For whom? Why are we not considered real, when we are not? What would we need to change materially and culturally to become considered real as we are?
What we currently have is an intellectual failure, a failure to truly include the totality of human sex and gender expression in our cultural imaginary, a failure to truly consider trans men as men, trans women as women, and non-binaries as whatever particular sex-gender they live their lives as. There would be no need for “trans” to mark our invalidation then, because we would have already been included in the definitions of “real” from the start. Because we’re not copies.
I don’t know if this helps, but disability activists use something called the Social Model of Disability, which differentiates between those things about our lives that we cannot change (and sometimes don’t want to) and disability, which is the experience of being set apart by people, institutions and the built environment. It is, after all, a social experience, rather than any functional impairment or symptom which connects people with paraplegia, blindness, Downs Syndrome, bipolar disorder, autism, MS, cerebral palsy etc..
So for example, I have chronic neurological illness which is often unpleasant in various ways, but I only feel I am disabled when I find myself set apart – so maybe it’s when I try to access a building which has no ramps or lifts, or maybe it’s just reading some partonising nonsense in the newspaper about people like me. Disability is an important identity to me, but I am only say, a disabled writer, when those experiences are influencing what I write.
This doesn’t mean I’m ever non-disabled, but in some contexts, disability becomes a moot point. In other contexts, I vanish into it completely – as a wheelchair user, I still encounter people who won’t look at or speak to me.
I’m not sure if that is helpful at all, but I thought it might be worth explaining that here because it strikes me that trans is a similarly contextual identity…
The Goldfish
5 Aug 11 at 4:30 am
for whatever it’s worth, one place I get to be real is in my own thoughts, writing, and time to myself. “trans/cis” is a whole nomenclature and system of meaning that’s imposed from elsewhere, but when I’m thinking in reference to myself, I junk that language entirely. I reject the distinction. I’m just a man, no prefixes required or desired.
so, if I define myself, then there’s never a time when I am trans. there are only times when others assume or insist that I am. I think a little of that happens whenever a term like “trans man” is used as a category that’s assumed to include folks based on medical history, regardless of identity.
as to the question of what needs to change… I think one small step is that changes ought to be made to what people are taught when they’re first formally introduced to scientific concepts of sex, e.g., junior high biology. wouldn’t change everything but it would be a step.
MHS
5 Aug 11 at 5:56 am
I globally agree with this post, and I am always pissed when some cis people must always label trans people as “trans”, even when completely irrelevant (and sometimes outing them). At the reverse, I find it sometimes awkward when you are trans but you must take into account that you have some (partial) cis privilege which makes your gender more valid than other trans folks.
“Tobi Hill-Meyer has proposed what I think is the only really plausible and useful definition of transness which presumes that trans people are as real and authentic as cis, which is: a trans person is someone whose sex/gender is not universally recognised as valid.”
I hope this is not off topic, but this makes me wonder.
I somehow like this definition, as it seems to me to be more linked to social oppression and less to what was between our legs at birth than the more classical ones, but on the other hand, doesn’t it include some cis people too?
I mean, take (female) butches. Some butches I know (and I include myself in it) don’t see our gender recognized as valid all the time, either because of being gendered as male when you don’t want, or for some being called women when you don’t want either. Still, I don’t think it’s the same thing as seing your gender invalidated because of transness, yet I wouldn’t say the gender of a butch female who is not trans is seen as _universally_ valid.
(I am not entirely familiar with the way “binaries” and “non-binaries” is used, maybe this case count as people who are “non-binaries”, but I still think there is a difference with trans people (maybe it’s some distinction between transgender and transsexual?))
Butch Cassidyke
5 Aug 11 at 6:17 am
Well yeah. (Hey, nice to see you alive and writing!)
This issue has bothered me a long, long time; I think the whole trans/cis -thing smacks of cisarchy – it’s not like we chose to be labelled as trans by doctors, as if it was our label, freely chosen.
http://cartographies-of-my-interior.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-instability-of-trans-and-cis.html
Carto
5 Aug 11 at 8:29 am
[...] When am I trans? One thing that I think many of us do is act diffidently, implicitly accepting a subordinate symbolic position as simulations, copies of cis originals. How often do allies tack an obligatory “trans” before man or woman even when it’s not required? How often are the links from this blog – primarily written by a group of feminist-identified or friendly women – filed under GLBT but never feminism? These and a million other actions construct a cis centre and a trans margin. (tags: lgbt trans feminism) [...]
links for 2011-08-05 « Embololalia
5 Aug 11 at 11:01 am
This is a really great post. I tried to get at this from a slightly different angle when I wrote about my concern that trends in the use of “cis” as an self-identifier might be doing more to reinforce cis as normative and trans as other than to be respectful of diverse experiences. I’m not entirely certain that I have fully understood what I was trying to articulate – as someone who understands herself as cissexual but not necessarily cisgender, there’s only so far I can go in terms of really grasping what “trans”, and thereby “cis”, means. But I’ve now read quite a few posts by trans people on the complexity of trans as an identity and it makes me very leery about the ways in which cis people understand and describe our cis-ness, if we aren’t bringing the same nuanced understanding to the table and instead use it as shorthand for “real”.
Jadey
5 Aug 11 at 12:14 pm
I hope this comment adds to the discussion without overvaluing my (never-trans) perspective, but feel free to delete it if it does not.
As a person who is cis-identified and tries desperately to be an ally, a large part of trans oppression seems to involve the necessity of transition. I identify as gender-nonconforming, but as a person who is female as assigned at birth it would be deeply disingenuous for me to claim transness. My non-binary trans friends have still had to (or want to still) undergo various levels of transition, from being read as they were assigned at birth to claiming and performing as their chosen identity. This is something I, even as “someone whose sex/gender is not universally recognised as valid” will never have to do, in part because I don’t face the threat of violence if I am misgendered. That is exclusively trans space, as are the social/emotional/monetary costs of transition, and it seems oppressive (at least for me, as a cis person) not to acknowledge this.
This is not to say that I disagree with your perspective, because obviously trans people are not fundamentally Other from cis people, gosh. But I do think the (non)-necessity of transition should be recognized as a dividing line of (under)-privilege.
mere
5 Aug 11 at 1:37 pm
@Goldfish (and others, of course), I’d highly recommend reading the book, “Nothing about us without us”. Regardless of one’s take on transness as a disability, even a social one, many of the situations and attitudes and labels are shared.
I’ve read many of Tobi’s observations and it seems many are astute and quite accurate. Queen Emily, do you have a link to the paper/statement/comment referred to in the opening of your post, please?
I’d also point out that a humanist would clearly say that the only time you are trans is when a social interaction has rules based on gender; pretty much everything else is universal.
SarasNavel
5 Aug 11 at 3:11 pm
SarasNavel, I don’t know about humanists, but I would say that I am trans even when I’m not engaging in any social interactions, because even when I’m alone with my own body, it doesn’t have the parts that my brain expects it to have, and that causes me discomfort and frustration. So I don’t have to be interacting with anybody to be trans.
Perhaps, for precision, we should ditch “trans” and just make it clear that in my paragraph above, when I say “I am trans” I mean that I have a transsexual body. That’s not always what I mean when I say “I am trans” — sometimes I do indeed mean that my gender isn’t universally recognized as valid, and that is indeed relevant only in social situations. I know “trans” is a nice short word, but it does conflate at least two distinct phenomena (a neurological one, and a sociopolitical one), and that can be confusing.
Tim Chevalier
6 Aug 11 at 2:51 pm
@Jadey and @mere: I don’t think there’s a clear, bright dividing line between trans and cis. I’m personally not overfond of the binaristic notion of trans vs. cis, and I feel that the boundary (if there is one) between the two is unstable. I mean, look at the debates within the trans community on what trans and cis means, and what different flavors of trans* there is and exactly what they mean.
The meanings change not only from person to person, but also from one context to another. Contrast, for example, legal definitions (which themselves vary from place to place) to meanings imposed by cis feminists, by academics, by middle-class vs. poor communities, by any number of intersections.
Speaking for myself, my own gender is fluid and shifting. “Transgenderqueer who orbits Planet Woman but isn’t on it, blended with geek and maybe even a bit Cylon, but sure as frak isn’t the least bit male” is perhaps the most accurate and descriptive term, but I can’t exactly use that in casual conversation! I frequently use the shorter term “transgenderqueer woman” in spaces where I can expect to have that understood, or at least respected. But most cis people and a lot of trans* people – even those who sort of get “genderqueer” – can’t get the complexities of “transgenderqueer woman”.
And, quite frankly, most trans folk that I know don’t get it either. So, I’ve really no choice but to tell most folks – even those in my church and the trans woman I’m hanging out with lately – that I’m a trans woman, because I really don’t want to get into explaining what transgenderqueer woman means to me, or justifying my gender to either cis people or binary-gendered trans folk. Yet, it’s not accurate and paints a very two-dimensional picture of me.
So, to answer Queen Emily’s question: When am I trans? Always. But what “trans” means to me is constantly shifting, and furthermore I have internalized a great deal of what cis society has imposed as the definition of trans.
G-d, I hope this comment makes some kind of sense.
GallingGalla
6 Aug 11 at 5:56 pm
BTW, Em, thank you for this post. It’s a hugely important topic, and folk’s comments have been thoughtful and thought-provoking.
GallingGalla
6 Aug 11 at 5:58 pm
Hmmm.
Personally, I lean toward describing myself as trans with a certain degree of pride and it seems like one of the few words so far that covers my life experiences.
Unlike a good number of other trans women, I strongly identified as a boy up until the onset of adulthood (17). After 17 I saw myself quite firmly as a woman. Consequently, I feel like I have experienced life on both sides of society’s sex/gender binary and that has left me with a knowledge of human experience that is rare, and because of that rarity, useful. For that reason, I cherish my experiences even though they have been incredibly painful at times. I honor my experiences and knowledge by using the only words I know so far that can encompass those experiences: trans, trans*, transsexual, and transgender.
This doesn’t change the fact that my identity and experiences as a woman are no less or more valid than that of any other woman’s.
Having said all of this, I do understand and acknowledge that cisnormative society does its damnedest to impose its own warped understandings upon our lives. Consequently, language and terminology in virtually any form will tend to drift toward being weaponized in ways that cis people readily use as tools for imposing oppression.
timberwraith
7 Aug 11 at 5:39 am
What is real?
poisongirl
7 Aug 11 at 2:44 pm
This is an interesting topic and something to think about at work today.
When am I trans? That I am still trying to figure out. Is it when I am still debating on using hormones as this discovery is rather new and I feel like a new kid in a very large school? Is it when I slip on my binder? Is it when I am self-conscious of passing around other people? It’s something to consider as one that is not always passing.
I identify as “Bard”, Bard the man, Bard the autist Bard the person. The gender schism that skews the perspectives of people is hard to cross and connect. It’s there and real and quite intimidating.
Perhaps like the word “autist” the word “trans” is a label I use in discourse but as a identity I am just “a man” just as I am just “a person with a disability” I am always a man, but I don’t think I ma always “trans” does that make sense?
Unlike a good number of other trans women, I strongly identified as a boy up until the onset of adulthood (17). After 17 I saw myself quite firmly as a woman. Consequently, I feel like I have experienced life on both sides of society’s sex/gender binary and that has left me with a knowledge of human experience that is rare, and because of that rarity, useful
That’s interesting Timber, I might have similar experience. I’ve always felt like a outsider as a child not just with having a developmental disability, but with something else that I later realize were the first inklings of being non-binary. I think one of the biggest indications was the lack of awareness of the gender schism and being confused why I had to “Sit like a lady” and why I had to wear a jumper at school? These didn’t anger me but confused me. Why couldn’t I express my gender in the way I saw fit? It was when I was aware of the divide that’s when I start following the expectations of my peers and tried to be a woman despite not being fully happy about it. It was because I was sick of socially screwing up as an autist. Not being aware of the rules of society so being a woman was my way of trying to fit in and be normal.
I wasn’t happy following a binary, but I thought this is what is socially expected of me to do.
It was only recently that I was compromising for the sake of passing as an NT. That I was never happy and I was always non-binary. I just tried to bodge myself into square hole while I was a round peg. Coming to terms that I am male has helped me to realize many of the compromised I made in my life and I am more accepting of myself now.
Nightstorm
8 Aug 11 at 7:17 am
I was talking about this the other day, that the word ‘trans’ is a diminutive of the gender binary, just like ‘woman’ must include the word ‘man’ ‘trans’ more often than not must include ‘gender’ which is most often defined as a binary. That is to say that for three gender representations, it is clear that the most assured descriptive is ‘man’, followed by ‘his’ binary pairing ‘wo-man’ who together constitute ‘gender’ for which is the basis for another binary opposition described as ‘trans’+”gender” (trans or cis). And thus if you’re not a man, you’re a woman, and if you’re neither gender (man or a woman), you’re trans – as if somehow women came to be in this world somewhat later than ‘men’ and at a later date trans people showed up and started not being binary gendered.
It is my opinion that the we need a ‘gender scale’ in a similar vain of the Kinsey scale regarding sexuality. The acknowledgement that noone can be completely cisgendered or cissexual, that we develop both biologically and sociologically as opposed to being innately gendered one way or the other. I think the fact that biological changes happen at a certain way to engender us, proves that we are not inherently prone to biologically gendered behaviour, and that not all biological changes are not the same. Similarly, physical characteristics do not pre-determine social characteristics and behaviour. That being said, it would also be important to establish that a lack of one type of gendered behaviour, did not engender a person towards an opposite gender. Ie. If my behaviour isn’t very feminine, that doesn’t make it masculine – a very common logical fallacy.
That scale would then show that all people are somewhere within a triangle of genders, where any of the three genders can form oppositions, which are not inherently absolute. That is androgyny and masculinity can form a gendered opposition, in a similarly conducive way to men and women – That would lead us to describe not 1 binary, but 3, as opposed to three genders. Men and non-gender, women and non-gender, men and women. Where trans people could form an internal gender binary between androgyny and their chosen sex, as opposed to relative exclusion from gender all together.
And in the very middle of that triangle is not equal parts of the three binaries, but rather the potential to express four trinaries…(or in terms of limitations of the pre-existing states) As we expand into a tetrahedral scale. In that way, gender becomes unlimited, a language and inclusive.
I might write this up for clarification and include diagrams.
Allyneeds
10 Aug 11 at 5:16 pm
Ok here is a diagram.. I hope you can read it ok (wear your glasses).
http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpqqktYyey1qaavzno1_1280.png?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1313114644&Signature=%2F1e5neyT1VdQQwUg12FPJGCPzUw%3D
Allyneeds
10 Aug 11 at 7:05 pm
“And if we ask when we are “trans” in this sense, we might also ask to whom. Because I don’t identify as a trans woman, and I don’t “identify” as a woman. I simply am a woman, but in this society because of my sex assignment at birth that means I am considered trans whether I like it or not.”
I like this so so much. It really resonates for me. I feel there’s a part of me that is only trans when it intersects with cis-ness (which ends up being a lot of the time). There’s another part of me that – and I don’t know that ‘identify’ is a good word here – but there is a part of me that holds on very dearly to ‘trans,’ whatever that might mean. It’s certainly not the cis idea of trans, so much so perhaps there is a better word for it.
I am glad you’re writing.
gudbuytjane
10 Aug 11 at 9:18 pm
@Allyneeds: Problem is, your approach assumes that there’s only one component to one’s gender. As I noted above, I am trans AND genderqueer AND somewhere near but not exactly womyn[*] AND autist AND multiple[**], all at the same time. There’s no one systematic that anyone can come up with that adequately describes the totality of trans experience. So rather that trying to wedge all trans people to some location on a flat diagram, how about just letting us state our genders and out identities as befits each of us, and respecting that? (And, TBH, your diagram has more than a whiff of cissexist gender-studies odor to it.)
* Inspired by the blogger anarchafemme, and radfems not withstanding, I’ve a need to reclaim that spelling, as I am in no way a “*-man” and don’t want to be associated with maleness, not even in the sense of being defined as not-man. So, @allyneeds, this is one point that I agree with you about.
** That is, I’ve a multiplicity of identities. Pathologizing psychs would say I “have” dissociative identity disorder.
GallingGalla
10 Aug 11 at 9:44 pm
I also really like this quote:
I experience “transness” only in the moment of transphobia – and in the psychic legacy of fear of that appearing again. And if we ask when we are “trans” in this sense, we might also ask to whom. Because I don’t identify as a trans woman, and I don’t “identify” as a woman. I simply am a woman, but in this society because of my sex assignment at birth that means I am considered trans whether I like it or not.
The definition I typically use goes something like this:
Doctors typically describe a newborn as being “male” or “female” on the basis of a set of assumptions. A trans person is a person for whom this descriptor was inaccurate.
I like my definition because it enables me to better articulate the experience of responding to transphobia that is not directed at me. For example, when people assume that I am cis, but express transphobic ideas, that affects me on a personal level because I know myself to be trans (or have a trans medical history or whatever).
However, I see the value in presenting other definitions for the reasons stated in the OP. In particular, when cis people refer to trans people as “trans” when it’s not really necessary, it seems sorta like they’re saying “look – I’m even including *those* people,” when of course we should be included by default.
Sidenote -
Allyneeds, I am “innately gendered one way or the other.” Sorry if that doesn’t fit your model. As you say, I am certainly not “inherently prone to biologically gendered behavior,” but my behavior has nothing to do with my innate identity.
Sara
11 Aug 11 at 12:00 pm
@Sara – I didn’t say you couldn’t be innately gendered one way or another, I just said we need to oppose that being a broader way to define gender en masse, since gender flexibility isn’t really represented and still by default (wrongly) classified as a mental illness. There is a distinct disadvantage towards CAMAB and CAFAB people – at various stages in their life because they need to change their lives and their bodies – it’s not about how we feel (innate or otherwise) it’s about how other people feel about us, which often comprise superficial and baseless assumptions that are far too controlling.
@GallingGalla I disagree that it focuses on one component of a person’s gender. It allows anyone to exist as any gender representation, including genderfluid – it is primarily about gender and so it wouldn’t include autistic spectrums, or other non-specific criteria such as multiplicities etc. but re: genderqueer, it does say that relative to a cis-binary, there has to be something innately non-gendering, or deconstructive about the binarism in order for freedom of gender expression within and beyond the female/male binary. I was not trying to describe the totality of the trans experience, but rather make progress on inadequate resources which result in transphobic behaviour. It isn’t primarily for transgender people either, but for all people who might question their gender and find that there is room to grow, one way or the other.
Allyneeds
12 Aug 11 at 4:37 am
And about the doctors who feel the need to change your body? (It was assumed that doctors assign birth male and female) But that isn’t always so. And in some cases gender can be overshadowed, as in the case of some disabilities when the disability idea neuters to the point that sexual questions from 19-21 year olds are labeled ‘inappropriate’ (or mothers take their daughter to court to sterile her and force her to stop having sex – as a Canadian Supreme Court case a few years ago).
This is why I find ‘cis’ assumptive, as I know many ‘cis’ who experience transphobia with such frequency along with those who form a silent ‘other’ within the ‘cis’ label. The ‘cis’ label seems one in which not wanting to be an Other, the faces, the features, the everyone else is an Other, eliminating the diversity of a million stories with three letters.
The use of ‘Trans’ in so many settings, including but also excluding actively makes the usage in writing difficult as for some ‘Trans’ is personal identity and to not include it is to silence them, while for others to include it is to out them (see latest newspaper for this example). While doctors and relatives seem to determine how to use the term depending on the decade and how ‘hip’ they see themselves, or simply confuse it with assuming the person referred to is gay.
While the on-line debate one day be clear for North America or some parts of North America, no common usage is likely to emerge anytime soon. It is the soft linquistics and usage which make both of the words inadequate for me. Cuba’s news usage for example, due to a particular clinic’s emphasis on trying to get gay men to transition means ‘gay marriage’ – at least this week. Though reading the Havana paper is a linquistic giant wave surfing.
Interesting post. Thank you for writing it.
Elizabeth McClung
16 Aug 11 at 9:32 am
I had a question about this passage:
“Tobi Hill-Meyer has proposed what I think is the only really plausible and useful definition of transness which presumes that trans people are as real and authentic as cis, which is: a trans person is someone whose sex/gender is not universally recognised as valid.”
It’s a very useful definition. Could you point out the original source for this?
Life In Neon
19 Aug 11 at 5:44 am
I’m going to be snooty to make a point. This doesn’t mean I disagree with the post or am trying to slam Queen Emily. In fact I agree with almost the entire post and will say more on that at the end.
“truly consider trans men as men, trans women as women, and non-binaries as whatever particular sex-gender they live their lives as.”
When am I real? I’m real when I can be a non-binary person and not “a non-binary” or “a non-binary something-or-other.” Men and women are types of people. We don’t call them man-persons and woman-persons b/c the person part is assumed. When you drop the trans and just say man or woman, it’s clear the real meaning of that signifier is that men and women count as people while trans men and trans women don’t quite. So for me I am real when I am labelled as a person and not a noun-i-fied adjective.
—
I have been saying for a while now that I am only trans insofar as I am seen to be transing. My sex/gender crap is exactly that: sex/gender crap. I shamed myself for a long time for not seeming able to “claim” trans when talking about my sex/gender crap. I finally decided to stop making myself feel bad for not being able to identify with trans enough to willingly use it when talking about myself, b/c it’s not myself. Trans is something others put on me.
E
26 Aug 11 at 12:51 pm
I’d say something a bit similar – I ‘am’ trans, but really, most of the time it’s not something that I think about at all. Most people get my gender correct in terms of my presentation and desires, and much of the time I’m just way too busy (grad school, art practice, work) to even think about it – so I don’t.
But every so often I run into someone who refuses to allow me to be myself, who feels it urgently necessary to force their unrealistic stereotypes onto me, and at times who projects violence – these people slam me with their fucked up idea’s about what (not who) I am.
I won’t say cis~people, cos I’ve had trans people do it too.
So yeah, the fact that ‘I am trans’ doesn’t (or only rarely does it) make me feel trans – I’m just normal – my other roles like artist, photographer, etc take up much more of my thought processes. I don’t feel trans, cos I don’t think about it – no more than I feel my age, skin colour, etc – it’s generally invisible from my perspective.
When I ‘feel trans’ – that is to say, when I wind up thinking consciously and hard about it, is usually because another person has chosen to foreground it.
I mainly only ‘feel’ trans when I’m made to feel trans.
Em
27 Aug 11 at 2:21 pm
Em– you’ve described exactly what it’s like for me too. I’m really glad you’ve expressed this so clearly and strongly.
Hypatia
28 Aug 11 at 9:14 pm
I’m really struggling with this. I FEEL trans. Everywhere I go I hear the whispers and less frequently, the shouts that label me as a tranny, a “boy-girl”, a faggot, and a real man. Even among so called allies and supportive friends, a distinction is always made between me and “real” women. It comes from everywhere, i hear it everyday, there is no where that i can exist as a woman. I feel like I’m a woman in a vague personal sense, but i dont feel like i am part of this thing called womanhood (or even personhood, or blackness) — i feel entirely alone.
Even in spaces where the correct language is used and we speak of anti-oppression, i feel like on a deep, core level the people I am working with could not possibly truly see me as a woman. i can’t verify it, but it seems like it must be true of any cis person raised in such a cis-sexist world.
Whenever I am not alone, i feel trans. to the world i am trans and that affects how i feel about myself and has started to affect the way i view others.
in the past this situation made me hate myself. i was obsessed with “passing” and becoming the perfect woman. i never complained, i felt like i didnt have a right to. i felt like cis-women “owned” womanhood, that i didnt have a birth-right to it, and would interpret cis-sexism as the result of me doing something wrong.
but now i am just angry. i resent the fact that i have to make an appeal to power to just be accepted as myself. i really need help. some advice, something, i don’t know if i can deal with this for the rest of my life. how do i deal with not-passing? how do i deal with being a freak?
Scary Kara
2 Sep 11 at 1:09 pm
[...] When am I trans? by Queen Emily at Questioning Transphobia: I want to know: When are we real? Where are we real? For whom? Why are we not considered real, when we are not? What would we need to change materially and culturally to become considered real as we are? [...]
Linksplosion! Four Aussies and a Canadian edition « Zero at the Bone
3 Sep 11 at 2:47 pm
[...] Emily at Questioning Transphobia asks “When am I trans?” and when trans people are [...]
Down Under Feminists’ Carnival XL: bigger, better, more punnage « Ideologically Impure
3 Sep 11 at 5:39 pm
Hi, I just want to apologize for a previous post I made. I had just been outted at trans in my apartment complex, which lead to me being verbally assaulted and threatened. I was scared and very upset. Since then I’ve recovered and (with the help of this site) have began to feel proud and empowered. I’m sorry for bringing my personal baggage to this really quite amazing blog and will never let that happen again. I don’t believe I, or any other transwomen are freaks.I feel horrible for even suggesting that. It’s just how i was made to feel that day.
Again, I’m incredbly sorry. Feel free to delete that post and this one.
-Kara
Scary Kara
9 Sep 11 at 10:15 pm
Now that I’ve displayed myself in my weakest hour, worked through it, and subsequently apologized, I can truly address the issue at hand!
I posted a status update to Facebook earlier that relates my relationship to my trans identity. It reads:
“quick note: i am not a trans-woman, transwoman, or trans woman — i am trans/woman, trans and woman. to me, trans is a political identity that denotes an element of my history, it is not a gender identity.
that is how i’m going to type it from now on and that is what is means.
–Kara, tranny and woman”
I DO feel trans, but I feel my transness as something distinct from my womanhood. I am a woman and when I experience sexism, I feel like a woman. I am a person of color and when I experience racism, I feel like a person of color. The same thing applies to my trans identity for I am also transgendered (a gender-neutral term that is separate from my personal female “gender identity” and has its own brand of associated oppressions) and when I experience cis-sexism, I feel transgendered. Because transness is so RELATED to gender, the two concepts get conflated, but it is important to view the oppressions and thus the total experiences of gender and of transgender as distinct.
No one “feels” ANY part of their identity (most of the time) until they encounter oppression, the same goes for transgender oppression
-Kara :)
Scary Kara
10 Sep 11 at 5:39 am
I encourage all trans folk to identify with and honor their transness, but sadly this is impossible for some, as it would put them at great risk.
Since I exist primarily in a middle-class, academic environment, I can safely live openly as a trans/woman. I use the privilege my class affords me to work towards creating an environment in which trans folk, regardless of their ability to “pass”, can live lives free of prejudice as full members of their true gender!
-Kara
Scary Kara
10 Sep 11 at 5:49 am
Sorry for posting back-to-back, but I want to make sure that I make clear one more point. Though transness and gender are distinct identities, they do intersect to form trans-misogyny which has its own set of oppressions, unique to trans/women. So yes, trans/woman is a part of my identity, but it doesn’t affect my gender any more than being a woman of color does — I view both situations in the same way.
I’ll give someone else a chance to talk now :) :)
Scary Kara
10 Sep 11 at 5:55 am