let's have a nice, long chat about what it means to be transgendered
So, I was watching the repeat of Jon Stewart this morning, smoking a bowl, still huddled in the blankets, and he had a guest on hocking a new show on Oprah's network. The clip was from last night's show, wherein a FTM's body was being critiqued for accuracy and quality by a Normal Joe gym jockey while the FTM worked out with a barbell.
"I mean, look at those legs, those shoulders, and the abs, either way, just incredible."
And, of course, the interview focused mostly on transition.
Not to sound like a Negative Nancy, but here's my problem with all this: Unlike the fight for gay rights, the theme of which is the right to be oneself, the cause for transgendered awareness focuses on the opposite, the right to be excused elaborate chicanery - against oneself as well as the rest of the world.
And I'm not talking about drag queens. Fun is fun, and kink is kink. I'm not placing judgment on those who have transitioned or implying they were wrong to do so. I've seen plenty of people come out of it happier than ever, new lease on life, strutting like God handed them a shiny new asshole. But here's the thing - if you were born female and raised female, you lost the chance to truly be socialized male, and therefore, without that shared perception with the rest of the male population, you will never be male.
It took me about twenty-five years to accept this. However, my unique perception of the world as a transgendered person comes with its own set of benchmarks. Mourning in earnest when I realized, at about four, that my voice would never change and would always be high like some Sally's, and reacting by forcing my voice lower. (Likewise, being pleased at twenty-nine that through the magic of pack-a-day smoking and projection, I've finally dropped to a tenor.) Picking a flower for a little girl down the street on my way to her house and announcing at her door that her date was here - seems like run-of-the-mill coming of age shit, but with more to lose than a shy boy, I was obligated to laugh as soon as I'd said it, forced to hide behind humor, not just then but often, already, at six years old. And I still am. The truth is, I'm not as absurdly amusing as most people think. In reality, most of the shit I say isn't absurd at all, it just sounds that way coming out of this downy-soft face.
And that is what desperately needs to be okay. So that people don't have to carve up their genitalia, send themselves through puberty again, and disrupt all their relationships just to feel accepted in this world. Bind their tits or spend thousands so they can pretend they had it normal with a clerk at the sandwich shop...
And I understand the desire. I fucking experience that desire. Don't laugh, but when I was twelve, I cried at The Crow, not at the emotional content, but because I'd never grow up to look like that. As it is, I've been wearing the same baggy shirts and BDUs for ten years to kill as much of the femininity out of my persona as possible - just to make life easier. The girls in the basement ask me, "You're so skinny now, why don't you wear some tight pants and show off?" And I hedge, but if I didn't, this would be my honest answer: I don't want guys checking out my ass, and tight pants make me feel like a faggot. I love gay men, I just don't want to feel like one, even while I'm sucking my boyfriend's dick, but it's hard not to when all the men call you sweetheart. Now, those of you who've met me, imagine my lips moving - do you see how ridiculous that sounds coming out of my mouth? See why I have to hedge?
And I'm one of the lucky ones. I got out of the South. Most of my friends know what I am and take me at face-value. It's odd the people that get it immediately and the people who don't - Ed, for example, outsider himself, always railing about the plight of the mentally ill, still insists at every opportunity that I am a "lady," no matter how many dirty kitchen conversations we've had over the years or how many whiskey bottles we've passed back and forth or how many times I've actually tried, which I don't normally do, to explain my perspective. Tony, on the other hand, quite possibly the straightest man on the planet with the healthiest upbringing of maybe anyone I've ever met, with no explanation from me, understands completely. At the Met a few months ago, we ran into one of my regulars from the cafe that I'm particularly attached to, and he said this wonderful thing:
"If I had a daughter, I'd want her to be like S." I was still reeling from that alone, one of the nicest things anyone's ever said about me, when Tony said, grinning:
"If I had a daughter, and she was like S, I'd consider her a son."
My friend from the cafe was confused, but that was more than okay.
As a teenager, I couldn't have passed. Boys clothes made me look like some kind of rolly-polly lesbian, but I wore them anyway, it was the best I could do. Now, the curves are gone, I'm as straight as Shane from the ribs down, and I could probably pass if I wanted to. I could strap in the girls under some industrial binding device produced by the military and wear boots with thick soles and stuff a sock down my trousers, but I'd have to sacrifice other aspects of my persona to facilitate the charade. I'd have to cut my hair - and it's not moussed or blow-dried or styled or anything, it's just long, pink, caveman dreads that would only peg me as a weirdo if I had a dick, but without one, you gotta compensate, you have to eliminate anything that could be construed as feminine to achieve the effect. I couldn't wear funny socks anymore - shit as stupid as that would have to go - in fact, without the benefit of hormones and the stubble and other accessories that come with it, I'd have to tone down everything I do if my intention were merely to pass, and in order to be successful, they would have to be.
This is what it is to be transgendered: You find ways to adapt to the awkwardness of social interaction, the gap between what you are and what they see, but the dysphoria never goes away, and the silence on the topic is what causes people to go to such great lengths to fit under one biological gender class or another. I can't be the only person in the world aware of being transgendered and unashamed but unsatisfied by the solutions offered by society. But that's the image I get from the media, and that isn't helping us at all.
"I mean, look at those legs, those shoulders, and the abs, either way, just incredible."
And, of course, the interview focused mostly on transition.
Not to sound like a Negative Nancy, but here's my problem with all this: Unlike the fight for gay rights, the theme of which is the right to be oneself, the cause for transgendered awareness focuses on the opposite, the right to be excused elaborate chicanery - against oneself as well as the rest of the world.
And I'm not talking about drag queens. Fun is fun, and kink is kink. I'm not placing judgment on those who have transitioned or implying they were wrong to do so. I've seen plenty of people come out of it happier than ever, new lease on life, strutting like God handed them a shiny new asshole. But here's the thing - if you were born female and raised female, you lost the chance to truly be socialized male, and therefore, without that shared perception with the rest of the male population, you will never be male.
It took me about twenty-five years to accept this. However, my unique perception of the world as a transgendered person comes with its own set of benchmarks. Mourning in earnest when I realized, at about four, that my voice would never change and would always be high like some Sally's, and reacting by forcing my voice lower. (Likewise, being pleased at twenty-nine that through the magic of pack-a-day smoking and projection, I've finally dropped to a tenor.) Picking a flower for a little girl down the street on my way to her house and announcing at her door that her date was here - seems like run-of-the-mill coming of age shit, but with more to lose than a shy boy, I was obligated to laugh as soon as I'd said it, forced to hide behind humor, not just then but often, already, at six years old. And I still am. The truth is, I'm not as absurdly amusing as most people think. In reality, most of the shit I say isn't absurd at all, it just sounds that way coming out of this downy-soft face.
And that is what desperately needs to be okay. So that people don't have to carve up their genitalia, send themselves through puberty again, and disrupt all their relationships just to feel accepted in this world. Bind their tits or spend thousands so they can pretend they had it normal with a clerk at the sandwich shop...
And I understand the desire. I fucking experience that desire. Don't laugh, but when I was twelve, I cried at The Crow, not at the emotional content, but because I'd never grow up to look like that. As it is, I've been wearing the same baggy shirts and BDUs for ten years to kill as much of the femininity out of my persona as possible - just to make life easier. The girls in the basement ask me, "You're so skinny now, why don't you wear some tight pants and show off?" And I hedge, but if I didn't, this would be my honest answer: I don't want guys checking out my ass, and tight pants make me feel like a faggot. I love gay men, I just don't want to feel like one, even while I'm sucking my boyfriend's dick, but it's hard not to when all the men call you sweetheart. Now, those of you who've met me, imagine my lips moving - do you see how ridiculous that sounds coming out of my mouth? See why I have to hedge?
And I'm one of the lucky ones. I got out of the South. Most of my friends know what I am and take me at face-value. It's odd the people that get it immediately and the people who don't - Ed, for example, outsider himself, always railing about the plight of the mentally ill, still insists at every opportunity that I am a "lady," no matter how many dirty kitchen conversations we've had over the years or how many whiskey bottles we've passed back and forth or how many times I've actually tried, which I don't normally do, to explain my perspective. Tony, on the other hand, quite possibly the straightest man on the planet with the healthiest upbringing of maybe anyone I've ever met, with no explanation from me, understands completely. At the Met a few months ago, we ran into one of my regulars from the cafe that I'm particularly attached to, and he said this wonderful thing:
"If I had a daughter, I'd want her to be like S." I was still reeling from that alone, one of the nicest things anyone's ever said about me, when Tony said, grinning:
"If I had a daughter, and she was like S, I'd consider her a son."
My friend from the cafe was confused, but that was more than okay.
As a teenager, I couldn't have passed. Boys clothes made me look like some kind of rolly-polly lesbian, but I wore them anyway, it was the best I could do. Now, the curves are gone, I'm as straight as Shane from the ribs down, and I could probably pass if I wanted to. I could strap in the girls under some industrial binding device produced by the military and wear boots with thick soles and stuff a sock down my trousers, but I'd have to sacrifice other aspects of my persona to facilitate the charade. I'd have to cut my hair - and it's not moussed or blow-dried or styled or anything, it's just long, pink, caveman dreads that would only peg me as a weirdo if I had a dick, but without one, you gotta compensate, you have to eliminate anything that could be construed as feminine to achieve the effect. I couldn't wear funny socks anymore - shit as stupid as that would have to go - in fact, without the benefit of hormones and the stubble and other accessories that come with it, I'd have to tone down everything I do if my intention were merely to pass, and in order to be successful, they would have to be.
This is what it is to be transgendered: You find ways to adapt to the awkwardness of social interaction, the gap between what you are and what they see, but the dysphoria never goes away, and the silence on the topic is what causes people to go to such great lengths to fit under one biological gender class or another. I can't be the only person in the world aware of being transgendered and unashamed but unsatisfied by the solutions offered by society. But that's the image I get from the media, and that isn't helping us at all.