More Gender Discussion

As stated earlier, for some reason my awareness was always directed towards females in a way that was not true for my brothers. Men were "other" and while I received conditioning and socialization as a male, I also watched and learned and internalized female socialization.

Socialization that I sometimes needed Feminism to disect and process and ultimately try to change. As an adult, I found I had given myself very little agency in my life. Saying "no" was hard, particularly with men. Determining my own sexual and romantic needs and desires was (and still is) often impossible. Putting my needs before another's is still second nature.

In adulthood, my housemates were always women, mostly Lesbian women and always Feminists. We were all very politically active centering on GLBT, Women's, and Anti-Racist issues. I bring this up to offer another example of that *something* that understanding, that thing that hasn't a name yet. I GOT sexism, I saw it, I understood it, I could feel it. It was that way that boys and men acted that made me feel like I didn't belong. It was those comments they made and the way they looked at women that made me uncomfortable. It wasn't a political theory, or a social critique - it was the name of a very real part of my internal conflict.

This was in marked contrast with how I came to understand race and class issues. Comming from a place of relative privelege, I wasn't aware of how I contributed to raceism or classism. Thankfully I usually had the sense to shut up and listen when POCs would talk about Race. I accepted what they said as, at the very least, their truth. However there was a probably common period where I just really didn't "get it". I had to unlearn and examine myself in light of race and class opression.

I'm not saying I didn't have male privelege or use it. I'm also not saying that I had a childhood like a girl has a childhood. What I am saying it I saw my childhood and processed all the information I was given in a way that made "woman" the normal and "man" the other thing that wasn't safe and wasn't particularly important (except for being cute). Unlike my Raceism, which was the invisible unseen unchallenged "way things are".

My use of race and raceism isn't intended to compare opressions. Rather, I hope to show how a Trans* identity can filter social messages by using an example of social messages about race/class that were (unfortunately) more traditionally filtered and processed and challenged.

I have no idea if other Trans* people have anything like this. I am simply stating how I understand my childhood.

Discussing Gender

I want to discuss gender. I want to discuss this from a place of questioning and experience, rather than a place of opression and theory. While both theory and opression are important to the discussion of gender, too often gendered experiences are dismissed (particularly when he experience comes from a trans* person).

One thing I'd like to talk about are some of my earliest understandings. It is important to understand how children learn about the world. Children learn through instruction, but mostly it is through observation. Most children will pay close attention to adults who closely match their sex. Boy children will learn how to be a man by watching the men in their life - thus you have generational abusers who may have been instructed not to hit women, but observed men hitting women.

As far back as I can remember, my observations have always been of the women in my life. The men were simply not that important or interesting. If a book, movie or TV show didn't have a compelling female character, I was not interested. I watched and learned how to be an adult by watching my mother, grandmothers, aunts, and to a lesser extent televison (good thing mom was a pretty right-on woman, because the tv women back in the day were often pretty poor role models).

I was aware of inequality in the work my mother performed (she was a stay-at-home parent) and my father (construction). Unequal as far as how their individual contributions were regarded. I was, and have always been, very aware of sexist comments, because those comments didn't reflect ME or the women I knew - not because "mamma raised me right" (although she didn't do a bad job either).

When I say "I always knew I was a girl". I am NOT saying "I liked to play with dolls" or "I wore momma's heals when she wasn't looking." What I am saying is for SOME reason, I took all my social cues from the women around me, even when cues by males were equally available. MEN were the "other" in my life as a child before elementary school. I had a close relationship with my father until I came out (first as gay, then trans) so it isn't like we had a strained relationship, or he was absent from my life. I just didn't relate to him as a model for who I was to become as an adult.

I'd like to take and expand on this from time to time, because I think there really is SOMETHING to gender. Part of the problem with discussing Trans issues is a shared understanding of gender, but no convenient language to talk about it.

I got to Thinking

I read Questioning Transphobia regularly. I have to say Lisa Harney is one of my idols, along with RiftGirl they were the unwitting kick in the pants I needed to start this little blog (along with other groovy friends who told both of us we needed to talk less and write more).

Anyway, a recent shit storm on the F Word blog is documented and commented on QT.

http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/

This reminded me of some conversations I have had with long time Lesbian Feminist friends of mine. A few things keep comming up when talking with my friends and also talking with RadFems on the Internt that I would like to discuss.

1) You can be a "different kind of man (woman)".

This assumes I didn't actually TRY that - for YEARS.. and YEARS.

2) "I wasn't comfortable being a 'girl' growing up, but through soul-searching and really processing my feelings and society's demands on women I was able to be comfortable as a butch lesbian who loves her female body."

This one REALLY stinks. It stinks to the highest heaven. It centers a Trans* person's life on the cis-gendered person's experience of comming to terms with their own non-conforming gender expression. It further claims that what's good enough for them is good enough for me. It assumes, again, that I didn't Try that for YEARS..and YEARS.

3) "In MY world there would be no gender, so no need to transition. Everyone could dress and act the way they pleased."

Awesome.. I wanna live there too. Except.. well, I would still be transitioning. See it isn't about clothes, or hair, or shaving, or makeup. I did all that yummy goodness as a BIG OLE SISSY boy. The thing is - I UNDERSTOOD myself, from as early as I can remember, as being a girl. There is nothing more to say because there isn't language to express it. The affectations of "feminity" are just that - props to be used or discarded at my whim. The UNDERSTANDING is not the same as a desire to put on mum's shoes.

4) "There is so much pressure to transition. It's like if you don't feel enough like a guy or a gal you should transition."

My assumption from this is the pressure is comming from within the Trans* community. I haven't seen it. Quite the opposite actually. When I was first seriously questioning transition every Trans*woman I met was quick to point out that being a Drag Queen, or a Cross Dresser, or a sissy guy was valid and perfectly OK.

If the pressure is supposed to be somming from society - WHAT??!! Let me say without hesitation - me being seen as a shy sissified gay boy was so much easier than being seen as Trans. Night and day - seriously.

Also, the underlying theme here is that transitioning is somehow easier than being non-conforming to one's birth sex. That Trans* folks are taking the path of least resistance. Again I'll say from where I sit, it was a hell of alot easier to be a fey man than a tranny.

Dirty Pool

http://dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.com/2008/07/mtf-mtws-and-their-perpetual-male.html

dirt is at it again:

Something that needs far more serious attention is the Mt"w"'s perpetual need to shove their "cocks" in womens spaces. And it makes absolutely no difference to them (Mt"w"s) whether that cock is a healthy functioning cock or a largely, or should I say tiny non functioning cock mutilated by the ME.

I'm curious how the assessment of various body parts to determining legitimacy for womanhood would be taken by dirt if the woman in question was cis? "She ain't no real chick, her tits are too small."

This is an issue that regardless of when the ME realizes its harmful "treatment" of trannyism, will not go away. This is an issue of male privilege plain and simple. Whether men suffering from a major mental disorder or the average Joe in the street, 30+ years after feminism and men STILL rightfully believe they should have access to every space on the planet, and under current patriarchal regimes they do!

Firstly, operating on the assumption that GID is a purely mental/emotional "disorder" I don't see any qualifications (aside from opinion and having a huge hate-on for trannies) for an informed critique of the treatment of GD/GID. I don't want to get into the whole biological aspect of this, but we all know that many things that were considered purely psychological "disorders" have been found to have physical causes.


But strictly speaking of the trannyism male privileged realm, these men disordered though they may be do not, will not and cannot relinquish the male privilege with which they were ALL born and raised! And really who can blame them even if this was something (which it is not btw) they could logically choose to disown?

People of color don't actually suffer from racism, I know this because white people told me so. How the hell can she make any sort of statement as to the way transitioned women experience power dynamics? I know, by erasing and denying the lived experiences of transwomen. If Transwomen benefited from male privilege then why are so many of us unemployed or under employed? Why are so many of us attacked and killed? Why are so many of us limited in the resources we may need as a result of being poor and physically assaulted? It would be nice to get some of the perks that comes with male privilege.

There are two issues that go hand in glove here; one being disorder males using their male privielge to insert themselves into women only spaces, they other more important issue being the women conditioned to allow it! It is the glove here that will remain the problem long after trannyism has been dismantled and no longer exists!

Women understanding, or trying to understand the position of Trans*women are somehow not smart enough to get past "conditioning"? What an elitist load of crap. It should be noted that this was in response to someone ASKING about a woman-born-woman policy of a website, and the site admin taking suggestions about the issue. If curiosity is the same as "males using their male privilege to insert.." then I guess mayby life DOES being with "hey ya wanna?"

Which is why women today need to wake up, assert their unique female strengths and womanhood and protect what is inherently theirs while there is still time and woman spaces left to protect!

I just want to know if this is the constructionist dirt posting or the essentialist dirt posting this,. She does love to contradict herself and be intellectually dishonest in her arguments.

Turning a Critical Eye to "The Community"

I'm not sure how this happens, but it does in every marginalized group of people. A group will compare itself to the majority culture and, in an attempt to gain acceptance, try to comply with the affectations of that culture.

I was with a good friend of mine, a natal woman who is back and sports some lovely long dreadlocks. We were waiting for the bus with a couple of other African-American women who were giving my friend ye olde "stink eye". One turned to the other and said "At least I can pass for white". My friend turned around and sad "Until you open that ghetto-ass mouth". I was ready for a throw-down (without Bobby Flay), but no fisti-cuffs resulted.

This got me thinking about some conversations I have been having in various online forums, and some I have been avoiding all together. The invisible, whispered, apparent divisions within the M2F Trans community. At the top you have the gals who have had SRS, or are just about to do so. Then you have a stratification of women who move up or down based on their either their surgical status, or INTENDED surgical status. The lowly "non-op" gal is at the bottom, regardless of her reasons, and piled high with assumptions by the gal who were able to shell out the cash for the switcheroo.

Then you have, like our snotty gals at the bus stop, the women who can "pass for woman". Knowing as I do that nobody passes ALL the time, the ones who can reasonably pass MOST of the time are the prize. Both for the guys who date us, and for our community. Passing is important for personal peace of mind and safety. We rioTgirls are in two different places regarding "passing" and our experiences vary GREATLY based on this fact. Particularly regarding our interactions within the Trans Community (including guys/gals who date within the community).

My issue isn't SRS, or Passing, or the women who do either or both. My issue is the establishment of authority to determine authenticity based on either criteria. Rather than embrace the full spectrum of gender variant people, the SRS crowd want to make THEIR goal everyone's. The reality is, body modification MUST be done with an end to anxiety as a goal - the goal NEEDS to be self-comfort and nothing more. If SRS is what makes someone feel complete, ROCK OUT!! Save that cash and book your hospital stay. If it isn't, then you shouldn't be made to feel like a fetishist, or a cross dresser, or a whore - unless you adopt those descriptors for yourself.

**This is where I personal opinion comes in, and it is just that OPINION***
Passing, is IMO more important than a vagina. The face gives more clues to gender than a bulge in the skirt. On the other hand, obsessing over "passability" is the surest way NOT to pass - you will NEVER pass as well as you want to. It's part of the beauty myth that there is an ideal body/face/personality - don't buy into it beyond your own comfort levels. If you use personal comfort as your guide, rather than measurements of your skull vs. those of an average woman's skull as your guide, your quest for passability will be comforting rather than anxious.

Unlike my friend, I'd never tell a "passing woman" that her actions betray her history. I'd also like to come to a point within our community where surgical status, how contoured our forehead is, or any other artificial qualifications are non-issues. Heck, I'd like to see the day where a guy with a beard to his knees can claim a Trans*identity and feel no compulsion to modify is body to find acceptance within the Trans community. Acceptance within the greater community will likely take much longer...

Trans Misogyny

Poking around the Interweb lately I came upon a question about Trans-Misogyny and if women, even Feminist women could be trans-misogynist. Now, I'm not in Academia, I'm just a grrrl trying to make it in the big bad wrrrld. I do have my own understanding of this topic though.

Trans-Misogyny is the particular way misogyny is applied to Trans*folk. The easiest example is the double-bind trans*women are in with respect to how we present ourselves. A T-gal who wears makeup, skirts, lace, has long painted nails, and a hair-do is "trying to hard". A T-gal who has short hair, little or no makeup, a button-down shirt "may as well have remained a man". It's a take off of the Beauty Myth and "male gaze" that Feminists are familiar with - but used to discount our identity as women. The "perfect middle ground" doesn't exist for us we are either "making a mockery of womon" or we are not trying hard enough.

It also plays out in how we act. It a T-gal is demure, and soft-spoken, and likes to cook and garden, and take on a traditional woman's role in a relationship, she is reinforcing the gender binary. If a TG is loud, vocal in expressing herself, stands up for what she believes she is using her "male privilege" or has "male energy".

It isn't so much that Trans-Misogyny is worse or easier than anything. It is a term used to show how the tools of oppression are used specifically to keep transwomen in their places.