Not a comfortable form of anger.
The Cass identity model of coming out.
It's somewhat outdated, culture-specific, and doesn't apply as much to transgendered people (i.e. both transsexual and gender-variant), but it's good.
1.
If you are gender normative and first coming out, hiding that you are lesbian, gay or bi may be emotionally grating, but is generally not a logistical challenge. Just don't go places with your date, or if you do, try not to act like a couple.
If you are gender-variant (which often overlaps with queer sexualities), acting cisgendered requires you to shed your daily habits.
If you are a transitioning transsexual and coming out, hiding involves searching your closet for old clothes, or at least something baggy, binding, claiming that your deeper voice is due to a (4-months-and-worsening) chest cold, saying that your lack of facial hair is due to a really good razor, and so on. The longer you're modifying your body, the harder it gets.
2.
If you're fortunate, you may get to a point of being able to go back into the closet as your new gender. Most people do. I can understand why.
3.
Your "community of people of like sexualities" may not be trans people - rather it may mean be people who share your gender outlook. If you're transmale, straight and masculine, your "community" may not be trans events so much as going fishing with the (trans-inclusive) guys.
Your community may be some transsgendered people. Say androgynous people
4.
If you're trans and gay, your reaction against anti-trans sentiment may be directed at members of your sexual community. And your reaction against homophobia may encompass the "trans community," should it exist.
I imagine that bi women get this too.
I'm not going to put too much thought into exactly where I fall on this model, but I can see that I'm doing some of the usual coming out shit, some of which is socially awkward.
What this model tells me is that I can expect an overall course of going from not queer at all, to super-queer first-and-foremost, and then back to just queer, but that's just a one part. This seems accurate so far.
Accepts lesbian, gay definition of behavior but maintains "heterosexual" identity of self.
Actually, this is more of an "accepts dyke identitfication but resents transsexual status."
The person accepts herself or himself. "I will be okay."
I only realized in the last month that my approach to transition was one of I don't care if it kills me, I have to do this. My research and experience (filtered through my anxieties) led me to assume that being trans would result in a much shorter, marginalized life. My decision to transition was one of accepting self-destruction in exchange for self-expression. Easily the bravest thing I've every done. Now I understand that not only was my perception distorted, but this social environment is suprsisingly accepting. So I am slowly grasping that I am probably going to be fine, and this scares me because it conflicts with what I thought I got into. If I'm not going to get crushed by society, how do I know that I'm still transitioning?
This should clear up in a few months. This feels rosy.
Seeks out lesbian and gay culture (positive contact leads to more positive sense of self, negative contact leads to devaluation of the culture, stops growth). May try out variety of stereotypical roles.
(Cough) Uh... where's my flannel shirt?
exploring own shame feelings derived from heterosexism, as well as external heterosexism.
yup - see the next one
anger issues
I'm angry at all the things that forestalled coming out to at least myself. Unfortunately one of the things I'm angry at is my internalization of the gender-role models presented by the kind of second-wave feminism with which I grew up. Second wave feminism did a whole bunch of awesome shit which we now think of as common sense (click here) (or here) and which our neck of the world would be downright scary without. Unfortunately, as I was taught it, it also posits models of behaviour like "people follow sex roles because of their social environment." My conclusion from this (and many past second-waver's conclusions) was that "being trans made you a bad feminist." So clearly I wasn't trans, because I knew better.
Additionally, for years I felt hurt by not being included in feminist-driven women's events, and I didn't understand why, and I didn't get any help from feminist resources in sorting out that maybe the reason you're hurt is not just because you're trying to be a good feminist and feeling ignored, but because somewhere inside, you know you're not supposed to be male and don't know what to do, and yet these people who you trust are shoving you back into a male role, then telling you that you have no right to get upset - and you believed them.
If I wasn't trans, would I have still felt hurt by not being included in women's bike repair workshops? In not having been able to submit content to women-created radio shows? I don't know. I definitely would not have felt as hurt.
(Now, if I were to go to a women's-only whatever and got kicked out, I don't think I'd be as mad, as long as it wasn't through a group that I trusted. The reason being that I would no longer attribute their rejection to an appraisal of myself.)
Over time, hurt turns into resentment. Under stressed change, resentment turns into anger.
This is awkward because during drunken party conversations, I've been the one to explain why-feminism-is-good-for-everyone, not the one who's angry at it.
And now, anything that smacks of second-wave feminism is pissing me off. This is really awkward because my initial reaction isn't based on any kind of rational disagreement. It's awkward because sometimes I think I do have good reasons to criticize, but I can't tell how much of my resistance is from my unthinking reaction, and what is from being a gender radical.
In retrospect, i can see that conflict beginning to publicly simmer here, and boil here.This, coincidentally, was when I was started to realize that there really was something wrong with my gender. I buried myself in work and writing and shoved my doubts back into a box and didn't think about it at all. Note the pseudonym at the end of the second item.
You can see it here too. (note how the First-Nations-Only First-Nations Centre has never pissed me off, although when I was coming from a liberal standpoint, it certainly confused me)
Do some Women's Services and programs irk me because of the aforementioned internalized transphobia (even though some of said women's services are actively trans-inclusive), or is it because my genderqueer friends, butch friends, male-in-appearance-but-not-in-identity friends, and male feminist friends either don't feel comfortable using or can't access their resources, thus alienating them from feminist activism as well as the people they talk to? I'd love to engage in a constructive dialogue over this, and the SFU Women's Centre seems interested, which is super-awesome, but I am so pissed off right now that I don't think I can take the lead.
And so I'm angry at myself for not following through to help bring together two things that I strongly believe in.
Kelowna also pisses me off. Fortunately, I do not feel conflicted about this.
- Amy