Transgender Lack of Awareness Week
This is Transgender Awareness Week, Nov 13-Nov 19, culminating in the Day of Remembrance. Transgender is nowadays defined as follows (courtesy of Wikipedia): "A transgender person is someone whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth." By that definition, I'm transgender.
There's a good chance you know all that, or I probably wouldn't be popping up on your feed, but let's pretend you didn't, and the above paragraph was a learning experience for you. Are you glad on my behalf, that my peculiar and marginalized identity is now being recognized and celebrated and authenticated instead of shoved into the shadows?
I wish I felt that way.
I am still lurking in the shadows, not because I want to be, but because the transgender umbrella is covering me -- not so much protecting me as blocking me from being seen. The awareness that the Awareness Week celebrates doesn't include me or people like me, while at the same time the definition, which does, makes it easier to dismiss us with a faux-inclusive wave of the hand: "and them too".
In the public imagination and in the shared social comprehension of what being transgender is all about, transitioning occupies the central space. That's the act of presenting to the world with the cues and signals that would position one as a member of the gender not typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth, and living as such, using the pronouns that go with that gender and having other people do so as well, as part of being accepted as a normative person of that gender.
When we ask "Wait, what about the rest of us?", a large percent of the people who constitute our social world will quickly say, "Hey, you are valid as a member of your gender with or without a medical transition. Lots of trans people go with a hormonal transition only, and many don't even do that. So, hey, you're totally included! What's inside your underwear is nobody's business but your own, lots of trans men have a vagina and lots of trans women own a penis, no big deal."
But just as being transgender isn't defined as modifying one's body, neither is transitioning. With or without any sort of medical process, there is still the pervasive assumption that a transgender person is one who presents to the world as, and wishes to be viewed as, a member of the gender not typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
So now that we've cleared that up, we ask again "So, what about the rest of us?". And a smaller chorus of the enlightened and socially aware say, "Hey, there aren't just two genders. There are dozens, maybe thousands. You could be trans and identify as nonbinary, as genderfluid, or bigender. Not everybody falls into either male or female and we recognize that. What, have you been hiding under a rock somewhere, you didn't notice the whole thing about 'they' being some people's pronoun?"
That's still a problem though. That still combines "gender identify differing from what's typically associated with sex assigned at birth" with "pushing away from the sex assigned at birth". Rejecting that sex. Not wanting to be perceived as that sex. Hey, if being male doesn't force me to be a member of the gender typically associated with it, why do I need to reject that sex? So, once more, with feeling: what about the rest of us?
People who were assigned a sex at birth and who agree with that assignment. But whose gender identity is other than the gender typically associated with it. People who don't wish to disguise or distance themselves from the sex they were assigned at birth but who want to proclaim their atypical gender.
The transgender umbrella defines us as included in "transgender" but nobody talks about it this way. We aren't transitioners. We're doing something different.
If you're going to cover us, give us some coverage, instead of covering us up by claiming you've already included us.
Real-world fallout: in several socially-aware communities that are strongly accepting of transgender issues and rights, I've been contemptuously dismissed. "You're not trans, since you're perfectly fine with being male, so stop being a special snowflake!" And in several political and social communities for LGBTQIA+ people to join together, I've been silenced or ignored: "He's said a lot of things that are at odds with our queer values today". Loose translation in both cases: "You're not doing it right". In other words, the same attitude that transgender people in general have gotten from the mainstream.
I could definitely use an increase in awareness here.
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
I have started querying my third book, Within the Box, and I'm still seeking advance readers for reviews and feedback. It is set in a psychiatric/rehab facility and is focused on self-determination and identity. Chronologically, it fits between the events in GenderQueer and those described in Guy in Women's Studies; unlike the other two, it is narrowly focused on events in a one-month timeframe and is more of a suspense thriller, although like the other two is also a nonfiction memoir. Contact me if you're interested.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
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This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. I was going to start echoing it on Substack as well but we're not off to a good start. Anyway, please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
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Index of all Blog Posts
There's a good chance you know all that, or I probably wouldn't be popping up on your feed, but let's pretend you didn't, and the above paragraph was a learning experience for you. Are you glad on my behalf, that my peculiar and marginalized identity is now being recognized and celebrated and authenticated instead of shoved into the shadows?
I wish I felt that way.
I am still lurking in the shadows, not because I want to be, but because the transgender umbrella is covering me -- not so much protecting me as blocking me from being seen. The awareness that the Awareness Week celebrates doesn't include me or people like me, while at the same time the definition, which does, makes it easier to dismiss us with a faux-inclusive wave of the hand: "and them too".
In the public imagination and in the shared social comprehension of what being transgender is all about, transitioning occupies the central space. That's the act of presenting to the world with the cues and signals that would position one as a member of the gender not typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth, and living as such, using the pronouns that go with that gender and having other people do so as well, as part of being accepted as a normative person of that gender.
When we ask "Wait, what about the rest of us?", a large percent of the people who constitute our social world will quickly say, "Hey, you are valid as a member of your gender with or without a medical transition. Lots of trans people go with a hormonal transition only, and many don't even do that. So, hey, you're totally included! What's inside your underwear is nobody's business but your own, lots of trans men have a vagina and lots of trans women own a penis, no big deal."
But just as being transgender isn't defined as modifying one's body, neither is transitioning. With or without any sort of medical process, there is still the pervasive assumption that a transgender person is one who presents to the world as, and wishes to be viewed as, a member of the gender not typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
So now that we've cleared that up, we ask again "So, what about the rest of us?". And a smaller chorus of the enlightened and socially aware say, "Hey, there aren't just two genders. There are dozens, maybe thousands. You could be trans and identify as nonbinary, as genderfluid, or bigender. Not everybody falls into either male or female and we recognize that. What, have you been hiding under a rock somewhere, you didn't notice the whole thing about 'they' being some people's pronoun?"
That's still a problem though. That still combines "gender identify differing from what's typically associated with sex assigned at birth" with "pushing away from the sex assigned at birth". Rejecting that sex. Not wanting to be perceived as that sex. Hey, if being male doesn't force me to be a member of the gender typically associated with it, why do I need to reject that sex? So, once more, with feeling: what about the rest of us?
People who were assigned a sex at birth and who agree with that assignment. But whose gender identity is other than the gender typically associated with it. People who don't wish to disguise or distance themselves from the sex they were assigned at birth but who want to proclaim their atypical gender.
The transgender umbrella defines us as included in "transgender" but nobody talks about it this way. We aren't transitioners. We're doing something different.
If you're going to cover us, give us some coverage, instead of covering us up by claiming you've already included us.
Real-world fallout: in several socially-aware communities that are strongly accepting of transgender issues and rights, I've been contemptuously dismissed. "You're not trans, since you're perfectly fine with being male, so stop being a special snowflake!" And in several political and social communities for LGBTQIA+ people to join together, I've been silenced or ignored: "He's said a lot of things that are at odds with our queer values today". Loose translation in both cases: "You're not doing it right". In other words, the same attitude that transgender people in general have gotten from the mainstream.
I could definitely use an increase in awareness here.
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
I have started querying my third book, Within the Box, and I'm still seeking advance readers for reviews and feedback. It is set in a psychiatric/rehab facility and is focused on self-determination and identity. Chronologically, it fits between the events in GenderQueer and those described in Guy in Women's Studies; unlike the other two, it is narrowly focused on events in a one-month timeframe and is more of a suspense thriller, although like the other two is also a nonfiction memoir. Contact me if you're interested.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. I was going to start echoing it on Substack as well but we're not off to a good start. Anyway, please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts