Some things that are really
bothering me about transness and queerness that I
am going to try to put into words and see if I
can make any sense of them. There's something
about this idea that I have now seen that in an
"ideal world", trans as an identifier/category
wouldn't exist because we would just be the
gender we transition into... And like, I feel
like that ties the unique experiences of
transness to the oppression of the way gender is
treated in society (plus like, it entirely
ignores nonbinary trans people. I am deeply perturbed
by like, the idea that transness as a category is
predicated on the oppression inherent in the
cisheteropatriarchy and that transness would not
"exist" in an "ideal world"
because if transness was seen as a part of the
natural variations of humanity, it would simply
go unacknowledged because the only reason it's
acknowledged is because we're seen as separate
from cis men and women (going with a binary
framing here because the initial idea doesn't
acknowledge nonbinary genders, imo.)? Wow, fuck
that was a run-on sentence. But yeah, anyway I
just... I cannot quite put into words why that
makes me feel so deeply upset and uncomfortable.
For whatever
reason, my brain has tied this idea to two other
avenues of thought/discussion that I've run into
that bother me:
1) That I
was "always" a boy and had simply been
"misled" by society into believing that
I was a girl.
2) That we must ensure that trans youth
have access to HRT because then they'll "pass"
better and no one will realize they're trans.
Is it
because the ideas are assimilationist? The idea
that if oppression didn't exist trans wouldn't
even be acknowledged because it would be "no
different" than just being a man or a woman
(even though, inherently, being a man born with a
uterus means you will have had different
experiences than a cis man and vice versa). That
we were all really our "true"
gender from the moment we were born and therefore,
it's wrong to mistreat us because we "can't
help it" and that visibly trans bodies are
the problem and not a society that treats "abnormal"
bodies horrendously???
I think that
may well be the crux of the thing. That feels
like the thread binding these three thoughts
together in my mind. That they all posit a world
wherein the things that make me different/"abnormal"
someday will not exist or that they shouldn't
exist. That my traits, as a man born with a
uterus and a vagina, shouldn't be acknowledged
and that I am No Different from Any Cis Man --
which is hella assimilationist and entirely goes
against the queer mindset -- I am different
and not only is that okay and valid, it is good
and beautiful and fuck you if you think
I should hide that. That my existence, as a man
who once was a girl, was not actually my
existence and that gender is an immutable
category of the soul rather than body (so
it still falls into gender/sex as an immmutable
category/binary just relying on a metaphysical or
psychological definition rather than a "biological"
one -- that one does not "change gender"
but rather, always has been and always will be
one thing.)... And that my existence, as a man
with a vagina and breasts -- who wants only to
have smaller breasts and enjoys having a
curvy body and feels comfortable in it, should be
prevented and that bodies like mine should
not exist.
That in an
ideal world, I wouldn't be the way that I am. I
would be seen as "just a man" no
modifiers, that I would have "always"
been a man and that my body would be
indistinguishable at a glance from a cis man's.
That once again, in an ideal world, I
would not exist.
Which
explains why the third idea feels so similar to
anti-fatness: that rather than fix a society
where fat people are treated like shit and not
accomodated, we should prevent children
from becoming fat so that they won't be bullied.
The individual solution to a systemic
problem... That an ideal society, rather than
accepting the variability of humanity and
accomodating all body shapes and sizes, would
contain only bodies that fit into a certain box.
That an ideal world contains only ideal bodies.
That each individual has the body that
is deemed Correct instead of society coming to
understand that there is no such thing as
the "correct" body.
Okay. I
think I figured it out. I think that's what it is.
It's a frustration of people trying to erase me
and the ways that I am "different" from
what is "expected".
And like, I
know with the second one, it is likely people
misunderstanding what I am trying to say, but the
effect is the same -- and I think it's probably a
lot like how people raised Christian absolutely
absorb Christian ways of viewing and interacting
with the world and that even when they become
Atheists or Pagans or convert to other religions,
they frequently maintain those ways of
interfacing with the world around them... Like
how there are wiccans who will still look at the
world with the saint/sinner dichotomy and the
idea that there is some sort of eternal
punishment for wrong-doing/reward for moral
behavior but translate it into "white magic"
and "black magic" and three-fold rule.
People have absorbed the idea that gender is immutable.
That you are born as specific
gender and that is what you are -- but
instead of applying it to the body like
mainstream cisheteropatriarchy, they apply it to
something that is intangible... Which allows them
to 'accept' trans people changing their bodies
because their body "doesn't match" what
they really were all along... It's not
tackling or dismantling the original mindset that
gender/sex is immutable and unchangeable, no
matter what. It's just moving the goalposts by
which that is judged away from "these are
your genitals, this is your gender, this has
always been and will always be your gender"
to "this is what you feel, this is your
gender, this has always been and will always be
your gender".
If I'm to be
generous with the third, the people saying it
likely don't realize this is a possible
interpretation and that they're seeing the body/mind
incongruence of gender issues as being the only
source of issues for trans youth and that if
we got rid of the barriers then all trans youth
would be able to "fully" transition and
then wouldn't be "clockable" as trans
and thus, wouldn't face transphobia...But this is
an incredibly individualized look at it (i.e., we
can stop interpersonal transphobia by making sure
that trans people look "correct" for
their gender) that ignores that there are trans
individuals who would have no interest in
being "indistinguishable" from cis
people and would actually do nothing to
address interpersonal transphobia levied at those
individuals. Pushing for all trans people to have
perfectly cis passing bodies doesn't actually
help all trans people and certainly
wouldn't actually destroy systemic transphobia
because it focuses on making sure that trans
bodies aren't identifiable.
The first
one... I don't...I'm not sure how to actually
deconstruct it because I cannot understand how,
in an ideal world, transness "wouldn't exist"
at all. As if somehow, in an ideal world with no
transphobia, people would all intuit from birth
what the Right Gender is for them, that they
wouldn't have any shared experiences with being
born into the body of a man with a vagina as
opposed to a man with a penis, that there would
be no one who realizes at a Later Age that they
are trans and that transness would be binary and
that there would be no one who lies betwixt or
beyond man and woman.
Or they just...
have a very medicalist view of being trans and
don't actually understand that no, cost and
safety aren't the only reasons a trans man might
choose to keep his vagina and not have a dick.
Here I am, trying to figure out all this shit and
in reality, they've mostly interacted with
transmeds, it would seem.
Still, I
guess it's worth it for helping me figure out why
those other two things make me so deeply
uncomfortable and upset.
|