Misogynist Asshole, Lost Home, R&D

Before I begin, I realize that personal or subjective blogs can quickly become a livejournal or a source of therapy. I will attempt to keep “self”-marked posts as rational and “objective” (if there is such a thing) as possible. In this post, I want to explain my mindset without it being a journal. I have, through talking with other transgendered women, been told that my experiences are fairly “typical,” or, at the very least, strike a chord with them as understandable.

When I was giving my first speech to York University on transgendered issues, the subject of my internalized misogyny came up. While I was living as a man, I had a lot of misogyny, and objectified women quite a bit. I explained this to them verbatim, and made no excuses for it – I was, as I put it, a “misogynistic asshole.” I believed men were better at jobs than women, and that women were “naturally” better at being empathic and less rational. I also believed feminists were angry lesbian man-haters. Again, no excuses, I was a dick and I know it.

Upon this confession, I ended with the (para)phrase: “It might seem petty, but I hated women because they had what I could never have – that body image, seen as women, and so on.”

A girl in the class then piped up in a cheerful tone, responding to my comment. “Oh please, that's not petty. Every girl does that!”

The entire class laughed, and I did too.

--

Ultimately, from what I can see just looking back through my personal history, my misogyny sprouted from a basic sense of sour grapes. (For those unfamiliar, “sour grapes” comes from the story of the fox and the grape vine in Aesop's fables, where, after attempting to retrieve the grapes that are simply too high for the fox, the fox dismisses the grapes as probably being sour and not worth their time.)

After coming out and being effectively beaten by the psychiatric institution I was put into for Attention Deficit Disorder (a catch-all condition that can be applied to absolutely anyone who isn't on some kind of amphetamine (oh wait)), and of course with male puberty hitting me as hard as it could, I began to despise the “privilege” women had of... well, being women. I was completely aware of the sexism inherent in consumerism and economics and so on, but I still admired and therefore hated women for having what I didn't and couldn't.

When boys around me began to admire women for their “features” (breasts, butt, and so on), I noticed other things. I noticed the slender arms, the soft face, the voice, long hair, and so on. When my male sex drive developed, it was painful and disturbing to me, because I didn't want to see women as a sexual object, yet that was apparently what was expected of me. However, things began to get different: I began admiring the body shape of women as well. I found it simultaneously attractive and admired it at the same time, which was a feeling I couldn't quite understand. Again, it goes back to my old saying of “how can I be a girl if I'm attracted to girls?” I wasn't sure what was attraction and what was admiration when both my sexual orientation was towards women and my gender identity was that of a woman, even if I couldn't put it into those words.

As my body got taller, bigger, more masculine, I got more and more miserable. However, the admiration of women continued, and eventually I began to hate women by association – I saw myself as a woman, and I couldn't be one, so why should they be allowed to be women? It was essentially an attempt to direct my body dysphoria into anger and then outwards. Jealousy became my entire existence, and I revelled in it.

Out of all the transgendered girls I know, there seems to be a kind of consensus: the admiration of cisgendered women continues far into transitioning. The admiration of the female body shape from afar can cause triggering in many trans women who are just beginning transitioning, who see other women with better looks a softer features than them that they can “never have.”
----

“Transpeople nevertheless seek a new, rather than original/lost, wholeness, one that invokes this affective nostalgia for a “lost home,” the desire to actualize what should have been.”
Christopher A. Shelley, “Transpeople”

Transgendered people who begin their coming out and transition post-puberty often have a sense of phantom nostalgia of a body, an identity, and experiences that were never brought to fruition. This nostalgia can trigger many bad feelings of regret and anger, over past circumstances that prevented them from starting earlier in their lives, or simply not being recognized as their true selves (transgendered boys/girls) at the right ages.

The two main negative emotions that affect transpeople, at least from those who I have talked to, are regret and doubt. The regret of not “starting early,” even when we knew for sure that we are boys and girls. Not knowing the word “transgender,” not having access to two little pills that could have prevented “mis-sexed” trauma, and so on.

Just as a note, I will not be speaking for the experiences of transgendered boys and men. I am not a FtM trans man so I'm not going to postulate what their social, physical or emotional experiences are or were.

The biggest regret for some trans girls, is the feeling of “lost girlhood.” While we enter the re-discovery phase during our transition, we discover just how distorted our identity has become due to male socialization. It takes years before the identity that we desire coaleses. I know from my own experience, and talking to others, that even when one is “full-time,” passing, successful and known as a woman, that the rediscovery process continues on.

Stereotypically important dates, events, and experiences for cisgendered girls and women become lost artifacts of a life that “should have been” for transgendered girls. No more easily does this become apparent with things such as cosmetics, clothing, and so on, where the trans woman has never had the experiences of learning from her mother or friends on things considered so basic to feminine appearance. She is mostly alone in this, if she isn't lucky enough to have an experienced cis or trans woman help them.

But some things can never be “learned,” experienced, or reclaimed. The stereotypically female things of getting together with female friends for birthdays, slumber parties, having another girl braid your hair, etc. are all lost forever in the sands of time.

The things I've listed may seem (and I've mentioned) stereotypical. They may also seem idealistic and lacking in the not-so-good things associated with being female in this patriarchal society. The sexism, rigid gender roles, objectification by men, lower pay in almost every field, educational discrimination, and so on, are all apart of this “girlhood” experience. Trans women have, throughout their lives, faced repression and mis-sexed trauma. Most are wary of over-idealizing the “female state of being,” but many pine for those experiences, good and bad, that make a person a woman socially. Having those good and bad experiences would have made them a “real woman” who could relate to every other woman on the planet.

The Doubt is a big one that is the most damaging early-on in a transition, when things are still fresh, new, and terrifying. The Doubt kicks in randomly, attempting to explain away the body dysphoria as some other “mental disorder,” with phrases like “I'm not a real girl/boy” flying around in our heads. It is a form of internalized transphobia, to be sure, but it sticks very hard. When a transgirl is waiting ever-so-patiently for anti-androgens and hormones, and her body continues forward on in its masculine development. “I'll never be cute,” “I'll never pass,” “I'll never be seen as a real woman,” “maybe if I find a girlfriend/boyfriend who will make me happy as how I am right now...” and so on, are common phrases. Each one is designed around transphobia, and the mis-sexed trauma of growing up incorrectly in every sense of the word – emotionally, physically, socially, and for some, sexually.

Both cisgendered and transgendered people (cisgendered probably moreso) focus so much on the physical aspect of transition that we forget this other side to it: the reconciliation of the Lost Life, of the experiences that can never be had, of feeling like the past was a bunch of wasted time. And this, by far, is the most difficult aspect of transitioning – learning how to let go of what you can never have, to somehow construct an identity when everyone else in your life is already on their way to being sure of who they are, and to somehow function as an adult in society despite all of it.

The "Sex Change" Dichotomy

Or, “some girls have penises, and some guys don't.”

Upon talking to a non-op TS female friend of mine (who shall remain nameless), she told me of her initial experiences in transitioning, and the pressure she faced to get Sex/Gender Reassignment Surgery (SRS/GRS). When she began, her initial intention were to get GRS within two years. But eventually, she realized that all of the pressure she was feeling internally to transition her primary sex characteristics were coming from external sources. She was not doing it for herself, but rather for the sex/gender binary of the outside world, which seemed to consumer her. In the end, she decided that GRS was not in her interests, and proceeded to be non-op after an orchidectomy (removal of testes).

This story is very similar to myself, although I was much, much less directed in it. Ever since I began my coming out process a year ago, I felt as though that “physically transitioning” was the only way I could be “complete.” Upon telling my friends, and outsiders I was willingly educating (such as my speeches), I got the same phrase repeated to me upon saying that GRS wasn't very likely for me:

“Why would you only go half-way?”

That notion of being “incomplete,” “half-finished” and so on sort of struck a chord with me. I had been an “incomplete person” for so long and the feeling of being “incomplete” even after transition struck me hard. I never wanted to be incomplete again. And so, I considered the nuclear option of GRS, to make myself “complete.”

Semi-frequently, the media will do a story on how a transsexual or transgendered person “made a mistake” and went back to living in their “original gender,” even after SRS. There are many reasons for their decision. Sometimes it can be a case of a multitude of issues manifesting themselves as gender identity issues. But, what they don't report is this constant pressure to push the transition just a little bit further in terms of physical effects almost constantly, beyond their own sense of identity or body dysphoria. Especially when you consider the transgender spectrum of gender identity, in terms of Queer or alternated self-identities that either manipulate or disregard gender. (And whether either is based on “cold, hard science” is irrelevant to me.)

There is a lot of pressure, especially from the traditional and reactionary medical fields (those who will “treat” people like us, anyhow) for a person to “completely” transition. SRS/GRS are marketed as the only real way to express transsexuality. After all, in many places, it is the only way to get an M changed to F, or an F changed to M. The wrong gender label on ID can be dangerous and an auto-outing of oneself in many situations, such as dealings with the police especially if one passes well. That's not even getting into the sexual orientation aspect of it, where the main bigheads at the APA (Dr. Kenneth Zucker and Dr. Ray Blanchard) won't even consider you “really transgendered” unless you are a MtF who is stereotypically female and interested in men and getting GRS. Non-op transgendered lesbian woman? Sorry, you're just a confused straight man. (Of course, straight MtF women are simply “homosexual male transsexuals,” according to them as well.)

With transgender and queer theory, we separate gender identity and biological sex almost all the time. The basis of Queer theory, which admittedly many transgendered people cannot identify with, is that gender is a social construct, and that gender should not be linked to physical sex; so too should “gender” be recognized as inauthentic and worked around as much as possible. Of course, this doesn't work in the case of transgendered people who identify with the binary. But, the main tenet of queer theory, that mental gender and physical sex are not intrinsically linked, is an important aspect of transgendered identity.

Of course, this doesn't mean that there aren't transpeople who refuse to identify as trans, and only as men/women.

In order to understand this sex/gender dichotomy, you must go back to the day you were born, named, and had an “M/F” (or I) placed on your birth certificate. If you were biologically female and had female anatomy, you are placed in the female gender role, and from that day on you continue your life as a female, with the entirety of the world treating you like a “little baby girl,” “little girl,” “preteen girl,” “teenage girl,” “young woman,” and so on. Every stage of you is defined socially based on your physical sex. And so, when your entire life is based on that sex-gender identification, and you choose to reject it, the outside social world cannot reconcile that. Nearly every person in the world has been raised through this sex-gender system: thus, you have women who identify as a woman because of their reproductive system, and of course male culture which is focused almost exclusively on the implied power of the phallus/penis.

This is not to disregard the identities of cisgendered people as illegitimate. Surely if their gender identity did not fit them, then they would not embrace it so readily. But it applies to both trans and cis people: sex-gender identification and socialization affects everyone, and many people define themselves as man/woman based on their anatomy. It is a carefully constructed social role, which many people fit into very well. “I have a penis/vagina, obviously I am a man/woman, and should behave in a masculine/feminine way.” Society then prescribes masculinity/femininity to people ad nauseum, and it quickly becomes a mould for every person on the planet.

This goes back to my original point, that trans people usually have a hard time overcoming this dichotomy. If a young trans girl is treated like a boy because of her penis, she begins to think, “Oh, I guess I'm a boy, then.” It becomes internalized quite quickly, that to “be a girl,” you must have that female reproductive system. Same goes for a young trans boy, who is delegitimized and objectified by male culture as a sex object useful only for his looks and reproductive organs.

I personally rejected this dichotomy after much personal self-discovery. I would be lying if I didn't say a little part of me didn't continue to desire GRS because it would make me a “real” girl, all very much tied to external sources beyond my personal identity. Again, I feel no body dysphoria personally that makes me desire GRS, but the constant assertion that without GRS I'm “half way,” “incomplete,” “not really a transsexual,” “just a straight man who likes to crossdress,” etc., all becomes internalized. With the female form so played-up in society, it becomes idolized to extreme amounts by both cisgendered and transgendered women.

To put it very crudely, there is the idolization of the “empty crotch.”
----

Even growing up, I have never really hated my penis, not even during this transition. It's just a sexual organ to me, nothing more and nothing less. It became confusing to me because of the above-mentioned dichotomy, that I did not desire a female reproductive system yet still saw myself as a woman.

And so I end with that phrase that I mentioned at the beginning: “Some girls have penises, and some guys don't.”

Special Status, and Cisgendered Privilege

The book “Transpeople” by Christopher A. Shelly, published by the University of Toronto Press, has been a facinating read. I've been going through the book both sequentially page by page, and also flipping to random sections that fit my current fancy.

One of my friends, Ellie, considers herself a radical feminist. What she has noticed very poignantly in radical feminist circles is a kind of militant transphobia towards transgendered people and gender-non-conformists. The self-proclaimed “women-born-women” (or “womyn-born-womyn” as they attempt to get rid of the patriarchal and admittedly sexist language of including “men/man” in “women/woman”) attempt to discredit and delegitimize both transgendered women and transgendered men as “not women/actually men.”

I have, of course, mentioned the most infamous of the “feminist” transphobes, Janice Raymond. She wrote the book “The Transsexual Empire,” where she described transgendered women as “Male-to-Constructed-Females” and “transgendered men,” claiming that they were no better than “rapists” who wanted to use male privilege to “invade the female space.” We are, apparently, “spies for the patriarchy.” (My words.)

It strikes me as particularly odd. Even though MtF women have experienced male privilege, upon transitioning almost all of that privilege is deemed forfeit. With transgendered presenation being so extremely public, from hair, to the voice, to the clothes, to the given name and pronouns, to the particular locations of body fat and muscle on a trans persons' body, if one does not “pass” then how do radical cultural feminists expect FtM men and MtF women to retain any sort of “male privilege” without being victims of male schadenfreude? Do transphobic radical cultural feminists truly believe that MtF women who are full time and non-passing really move in and out of male circles at will without any repercussions to their reputation, status or social network? Moreover, do they deny that transpeople face the same gender-determined violence based on their perceived gender role, and are the victims of gender-based discrimination and hate crimes that women are?

With these powerful and direct words, I digress into my sociological theory.

Growing up as a very “gender queer” child who simply “could not” be a girl but did not see “him”self as a boy, I noticed the special status applied to boys and girls at an early age. I saw it quickly like a club, as opposed to anything that had any sort of responsibilities or oppression associated with it. Boys were for sports and being all manly, girls were for being pretty. This is a simplistic view, but as someone who didn't value competitive sports or being pretty, I quickly saw how these two “differences” were then played off each other in the social scene. Both girls and boys at such a young age became quickly infatuated with the patriarchal gender binary, as it quickly became a simple and easy mould to identify with.

Feminism, as far as my understanding goes, wished to equalize men and women and erase the borders between them. Thus, it also found a solid footing in the queer movement. But with the rise of individualism in the last thirty years, starting especially in the late-70's/early-80's, there was a change. Simultaneous group-identification and individualist drive took hold of society.

I will not attempt to paint all cultural feminists with the same brush, but this is my interpretation. Transphobic radical cultural feminists, from what I've read, have adopted this “special status” but in a very specific way. Mainly, they have begun embracing biological determinism and the sex/gender dichotomy as a source of strength. “Men are rapists” is a kind of sexism which feminism used to decry. How is “men are rapists” functionally different than “women are emotional/underdeveloped men”? Both are biologically determined stereotypes and generalizations aimed at extracting some kind of power or privilege over the “bad” gender. Much like how there were “proper women” and “improper women/unwomen” when the second wave first hit, so too have they created a “proper woman” and “improper woman/man” - a transgendered woman, despite her extremely transgressive behaviour and inherently queer nature, is placed on the same level as women who adopt patriarchy and men (who all apparently “rapists”).

This same biological determinism is what is currently used to oppress women even to this day and elevate the status of men. Yet radical cultural feminists see no cognitive dissonance on adopting this biological determinism and applying it to transgendered women, transgendered men, queer identified men and women, and so on.

This special status as “real women” empowers them to oppress other gender minorities. Suddenly, they are the privileged ones, and those who do not conform to the biologically deterministic philosophy of gender are unaccepted outcasts of “the movement.” Much like how women who wore pants in the 50's and 60's were seen as “unwomanly,” so too are transgendered women who weren't “born women,” a natural roll of the dice that ended up not in their favour, marginalized and ostracized from female spaces, independent of their sexual anatomy, sexual orientation, personalities, intentions, or “true nature.” This demonization of men, and, by “association,” transgendered women only seeks to perpetuate the stereotype of “feminists are all lesbian man-haters.”

Not all men are rapists. Transgendered women are NOT men and receive no male privilege. They live in an oppressive cis-privileged society. Much like how there is the dichotomy between the rights and status of men and women, there is the dichotomy of rights and status between cisgendered and transgendered people. Those who cannot see this aren't just simply “not looking hard enough,” they haven't even opened their eyes.

One

On April 15th, 2008, I came out to my ex-partner and essentially destroyed that relationship. Over the last year I have gone from being afraid I "looked too gay" to giving speeches on transgendered issues to classes as a transgendered woman.

I'd be lying if I said I was even half way there. But things are going well.

A big thanks to my new friends and my family. I couldn't have gotten this far without you.

Repetition and Narrative

I'm sorry for the tardiness on posts to this blog. Life happened and I was forced to prioritize other stuff. But this semester is over, so I think things will be easier from here on out.

I've recently started reading a book. It is “Transpeople” by Christopher A. Shelly. You can pick it up at your local Indigo for about $25. It is written by a cisgendered man, but he constantly strives to attempt to let the transgendered people he interviews write the narrative.

Too often, the narrative of transgendered people is destroyed in favour of the cisgendered perspective. For instance, the movie “Girl Inside” (which I admit have not seen, but have talked with many people about) was marketed as a documentary about a Male-to-Female transsexual “becoming a girl.” The surgery was the #1 thing hyped throughout the documentary. The self-discovery, the years of therapy, the oppression placed on her by society, her immediate surroundings, her friends and family, and the years of social networking apparently go unmentioned. Oh no, being a transgendered woman is all about the surgery. After all, how can you be a girl if you have a penis?

This kind of cis-washing happens in Psychology quite often. Gender Identity Disorder was written and is enforced by cisgendered people. It is no longer about the story of the transgendered person, their perspectives or their trauma, but how the cisgendered psychologists view their “condition” and “disorder” and how they can be “cured” (either through reparative therapy or transitioning to their desired gender).

It is for these reasons that transgendered people constantly have to perfect their narratives. I myself have to perfect my narratives to present a sense of validity, a sense of exception, a sense of “normality”, and most importantly, I have to project comfort to others.

I begin by saying I am my own person, and I “see myself as a girl.” Then I have to give a timeline, to show how long I have been “living” with this “condition” - which was the age of nine or ten. Then, I have to establish that I passed as your “average guy” quite well, had girlfriends, a goatee, and so on, to show that, yes, I tried to be a “normal male.” I then have to describe the kind of trauma I experienced conforming to that gender role. And so on, and so on.

Do you see a pattern here? I am forced to prove myself, to validate myself for their benefit. I cannot simply be a woman, I must validate my identity through whatever means necessary. I must teach them about transgendered issues every single time. I cannot divulge any sense of personality, only “objective” truth, backed up by the opinions of cisgendered psychologists under the medical model.

Thus my entire history, my entire way of being, becomes “properly” framed for the benefit of my cisgendered acquaintances. Without certain conditions being met, I may not, in fact, be “legitimately transgendered”, and my entire personality may be a facade. According to them, at least. That becomes internalized quite quickly by most transgendered people. It becomes a social imperative to show the cisgendered oppressors that yes, I am normal, I have a valid condition according to the medical community, I am disabled or different or special and to be taken seriously I must show this. I cannot simply be or exist or live; I must, through my very existence, be a socio-political entity, the token tranny whose “trans identity” precedes her.

I am not saying that being politically active, or a transgendered representative, or an activist, or any of those things is “wrong.” I am not advocating passing and being accepted carte blanche is the only way of being, totally acceptable, or perpetrating oppression. But the method in which almost every transgendered person organizes their history, is so very specific to the assumptions raised by cisgendered people. I myself would really enjoy being allowed to speak in front of people using this method. But a part of me resents the fact that I have to have such a structured organization of my entire identity to simply be taken seriously or as a legitimate person.

And that's not even to say if they'll see me as a woman, a man, or an “other” (transgendered person who is neither). That depends on how well you do or do not “pass” as the desired gender, and whether or not people can read you.

My narrative has become so structured that sometimes it makes me feel depressed. All I've ever wanted to be was a cute girl who hugged people was just taken for granted as a cute girl. Why must I politicize myself to be taken seriously as a woman? Why is it that a few more millimetres of hand girth, or an extra centimetre of jaw size, or a couple of inches on height, or a few hertz lower in voice pitch should force me to have to structure my identity in such a way that it almost becomes alien to me?

It isn't as though I'm talking directly to the reactionary psychologists or social right wing. I am also talking to the LGB community, the social left-wing who is tolerant but uninformed, and anyone who is accepting but has no real grasp on transgendered issues. Cisgendered people cannot fathom having such a basic personality trait such as gender “go wrong”, and thus pick up the popular perceptions or stereotypes of this particular class of people. This again forces the methodology – that transgendered people must structure themselves for everyone, regardless of social leaning.

And so, if you meet a transgendered person who is very structured and organized in regards to their identity, or a transsexual who wishes to never, ever be read by another person as being biologically male or female so they wont have to explain themselves or deal with people accusing them of being “liars”, perhaps now you will understand why.

LGB vs T

(Keyword for today: cisgender – a persons physical body and mental identity matching up, “not transgendered”)

A lot of rhetoric gets thrown around by the left-wing liberals of this continent (being North America) about the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender” movement. (There are of course other letters to this particular alphabet, such as Intersexed (insultingly and classically called “hermaphrodites”), Genderqueer (those who identify as neither gender, or both), 2-Spirit (a differing Native American description of what we call “transgender”), Queer (not conforming to social expectations of man/woman), and so on. But on the whole, every piece of literature out there has to deal with “LGBT Communities,” “LGBT Rights,” “LGBT Pride,” and so on, yet nobody really stops to think, “what does gender have to do with sexuality?” (Similarly, what does Intersexuality have to do with sexual orientation as well?)

It's a common misconception from everyone across the political spectrum to assume that “transgender” is somehow a form of sexual deviancy. After all, many transsexual individuals move towards getting Sex Reassignment Surgery, so obviously transgender/transsexualism is a form of sexuality. I mean hell, “sexual” is right there in the word “transsexual.”

But it is a completely false assumption to label transgendered people as sexually deviant. I myself am a transgendered woman, yet I do not hate my reproductive system and see myself as a lesbian woman.

Gender vs Sexuality

A woman can love a man, another woman, both, or all genders. (straight, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual) A man can love another man, a woman, both, or all genders. (again: straight, gay, bisexual, pansexual). How is it different when it concerns a transgendered woman or a transgendered man? Can a transgendered man or woman not see themselves as gay/lesbian, bisexual, or pansexual?

From a use of simple logic you can see how identity differs from sexual orientation. The presentation of a cisgendered gay man vs. a cisgendered straight man does not differ all that much. The presentation of a cisgendered gay man vs. a transgendered straight woman (assuming both are “men”, which is entirely incorrect) is completely different; because the transgendered woman sees herself as a woman. Because she is a woman. So how does she fit into the sexual orientation “community” when she is straight and loves men? What does her identity (transgender) have to do with lesbian, gay, or bisexual?

The “Community” and “Allies”

It is important to remember that the reason why transgendered people got themselves added to LGB was because they were (and are) seen as allies. Transgendered people were seen as sexual deviants, as were lesbians, gays and bisexuals, and so with similar forms of oppression from the psychiatric and social mainstream it became an easy match.

But what I've personally seen through my experience moving through “LGBT” spaces is that while LGB have essentially had an “easier” time overcoming oppression through a solidified human rights movement, transgendered people still remain ghettoized within that “community”, seen and not heard.

A transman I know reels at the mention of the “C-word,” as he calls it. He sees it as a copout of recognizing the differences within a particular minority group for the sake of solidarity, and I personally agree.

Some gay men see transgendered women as confused gay men, independent of their actual sexual orientation. Many lesbian women, one of the more famous ones being Janice Raymond, see transgendered women as “men” who are attempting to “invade the female space”, like “rapists.” More uncommonly, transgendered men are seen as “gender traitors.”

Are these popular opinions? I would disagree and say they are fringe at best. But they still represent a very vocal voice of the LGB “community.”

In another bout of opinion, one thing that strikes me hard is a telling sign of the “community” being apathetic towards transgendered people is what happened when homosexuality was delisted in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual, the “big book of psychology.” It was delisted, and transsexuality added in its place as “gender identity disorder.” Yet nobody fought back against that. Transgendered people have now gone through years of reparative therapy at the hands of Dr. Kenneth Zucker and Dr. Ray Blanchard, who believe that transgendered people can be “cured” of their transgendered tendencies. They also see male-to-female transsexuals as homosexual men, independent of things like... if they were lesbian transsexuals. Or happy after transitioning. Challenging gender roles is strictly verboten.

T vs T

Within the “transgender “community””, there is, of course, infighting. What constitutes “a transgendered person”? Are those people who are not diagnosed with “Gender Identity Disorder” under the medical model “legitimate”? Are transgendered people not on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) “really” transgendered or just “hardcore” cross dressers? How do we reconcile seeing gender as a social construct while conforming to the opposite genders habits in an attempt to fit in with a cisgendered, “biologically determined” society?

Some go back even further and claim that those who do not undergo Sex Reassignment Surgery are somehow less legitimate in their identities than those who do. Some claim that they are a “type 6: true transsexual” and wave it like a flag. Some see themselves as the other gender, yet present androgynously, bringing the ire of people who conform to the gender stereotypes down upon them.

Solidarity within the T minority is almost non-existent except as the institution level in many places, which is usually under the medical model.

In my opinion, the reason I see for this is that we, as transgendered people, are culturally oppressed at every turn. We thus have to construct a brick-wall identity. When some transgendered people perceive a “challenge” to their identity as trans by someone else, they take it personally. It quickly escalates to mortal combat at each side gets more and more personal. It's a defensive mechanism, from a society that constantly assaults their identity with one-word insults like “fake”, “shemale”, “tranny”, and so on. Thus a constant validation of identity becomes nigh-necessary for any type of emotional survival. And so, trans turns on trans.

Separatists, or “Radical Transgenderism”

Transphobia differs from homophobia in a lot of ways, mostly that it is more pervasive and tied to emotion. Sexual orientation, as former Prime Minister Trudeau put it, exists in the bedroom.

Gender identity exists in the public realm. The clothes, the mannerisms, the name, the designation on your identification, the pronoun on your mail, the pronouns. It exists when someone greets you as “Sir” as a transgirl or “Ma'am” as a transguy. It exists when you're picked out of a crowd because you're a slightly shorter, more effeminate guy, or a taller girl with broad shoulders and a deeper voice. It exists when someone says “you're REALLY a man” or “you're REALLY a woman”, claims that your identity is fake, and so on.

My own view of the situation is that there needs to be solidarity in the transgendered minority insofar as transgendered rights and representation in the wider culture goes – but this cannot be done while we exist attached and defenceless to the sexual orientation minority. There are of course extreme differences regarding different forms of oppression within the transgendered minority, such as race, class, ableism, religion, heterosexism (beyond transphobia) in general, and so on.

Perpetrating the LGBT misnomer does nothing but harm transgendered people, by sexualizing their identities much to the glee of the reactionary medical community and social right wing; allowing them to say we're “like homosexuals, but worse.”

Identities need to be separated from sexuality. T needs to be separated from LGB. Transgendered, transsexual, intersexed, genderqueer, two-spirit and androgynous (TTIG2SA) individuals from all walks of life need to rise up to form their own “community”, and say “we are our own persons, and we are not defined by our sexuality.”

Some may disagree and say that it would “split” the community and force allies away from us. I say it is crucial to our survival as a distinct class of people who face different forms of oppression and barriers. With a homogenized (no pun intended) voice with the sexual orientation minority, our message and purpose is lost. We need a distinct voice if we are to be recognized as a distinct class of people, independent of any other minority.

LGBP for sexual orientation minorities.

TTIG2SA for gender identity minorities.

My Iron Mask

As my first word in this blog beyond my introduction, I’d like to invite anyone reading this blog with beyond a passing interest in transgenderism to take a look at Families In Transition, a resource guide developed by the Central Toronto Youth Services (CTYS) in an attempt to help people become informed about transgendered issues relating to people they’d know. It also doubles as a guide for anyone interested in information relating to transgendered issues.

http://www.ctys.org/about_CTYS/FamiliesInTransition.htm

When I was younger I knew I was a girl. By younger, I mean around the ages of ten or eleven; I’m not too sure. It came in waves, until finally setting in and causing a great deal of anxiety, depression and angst. What caused this was a sense of “body dysphoria”, where I was unhappy about my appearance. But I was unhappy not because I was fat, or too short, or any of that. I was unhappy because I wasn’t cute, like the “other girls.” It became increasingly painful, to the point I attempted to crush that identity in any way I could.

But my personal history aside, I’d like to talk about the assumptions that prevented me from pursuing my transgendered identity throughout my adolescent and teenage years.

Keep in mind that all points I make are under the assumption that transgenderism is a natural part of humanity and in no way a “disorder” as the psychiatric industry so condescendingly puts it.

1. “Not Normal” vs social expectations

The number one thing that got to me was the educational institution of my school system and the psychiatric industry. So much emphasis was placed on me as a kid who was “different” to conform and be complacent. I knew I was different from an early age, and saw any attempt to curb my “abnormal” tendencies as an attack on my fledging identity. And so I acted up and resisted authority.

This quickly brought the psychiatric industry down on me. The schools no longer wished to deal with me so they moved me to “special care.” The rule of the child psychologists and psychiatrists was one thing: teach me the rules, teach me the norms, and curb anything that could hurt conformity. And so I was taught repeatedly that anything that isn’t “socially acceptable” isn’t tolerated. Eventually I internalized this “normality” and decided that I was somehow broken.

“I'm not a freak, I'm normal. I'm not a behavioural kid, I'm normal. I'm not a girl with a penis, I'm normal.”

2. I’m not a girl.

According to much of society then and now, I am a boy. My mother was proud of her boy, I was always broken up into groups with the other boys, boys don’t wear girls clothing or act like girls. Society so strictly emphasized the gender dichotomy of boy/girl at such an early age. It is almost half of the entire child socialization process: girls play with Barbies and dolls, and boys play with trucks and army tanks (not so stereotypically in actual practice, but…) So when a transgendered child has BOY BOY BOY or GIRL GIRL GIRL driven into their heads, they begin to wonder if they’re the ones who are broken, and it isn’t societies’ fault for having such rigid views. The current system of gender socialization essentially expects transgendered children to become full-fledged sociologists by the age of nine just so they can understand who they are and where they want to go.

3. “Transgendered people are all emotionally broken prostitutes.”

This one is one I have had difficulty discussing in the past because it is such a controversial, and sometimes deeply personal topic. I am in no way advocating that transgendered people who engage in street work are “emotionally damaged” (whatever that means in this context), nor am I saying that sex work should be stigmatized, or that a transgendered person is any less legitimate in their status as an oppressed minority because of their identity and personal choices. I also understand that many transpeople go this way because society and their social situation leaves them no choice and forces them between a rock and a hard place. I do not believe sex work is “wrong, freakish and disgusting.” Many people do, and this entry is about mainstream oppression's view, not those such as myself who at least attempt in some way to be anti-oppressive.

But none the less, this is a common misconception that is popularized through much of the mass media. Shows like Jerry Springer parade transgendered people around and engage in healthy schadenfreude at their expense, all for the purpose of allowing people go point, laugh, and say “ha ha, look at that freak.” On the opposite side, sex work is also the first thing that is presented in much of the literature out there for transgendered people, especially that which relates to health care. Entire sections of “trans health” manuals, usually near the front, consist entirely on information on sex work.

Again, there should not be such an extreme stigma on sex work, yet there is. When a prospective transgendered person looks at this situation – where both the antagonizers and supporters essentially reinforce the notion of “sex work is the only job for a transgendered person” - it becomes next to impossible for someone to see themselves in that position, and often scares them out of pursuing that identity.

Add onto that “the internet's” obsession with non-op transgendered men and women (girls who have penises and boys who don't) as a form of “shock comedy”, where the only function transgendered people perform is the ability to be “freakish”, it again becomes another reinforcement of “transgenderism is wrong, freakish, and disgusting.”

4. “How am I a girl if I like girls?”

The number one thing that got to me was my attraction to other girls. I have always been attracted to women, and I have never considered men for sexual partnership. The stereotype of transgendered women is that transgendered women transition and have a sex change so they can be straight women. And so, myself as a transgendered girl growing up, as someone who didn't particularly hate my genitals and was attracted to other girls, I simply thought I was “messed up” in some sort of way. Penises are for boys, vaginas are for girls. You can't be a girl with a penis. Obviously that's shortsighted and wrong, but it is the way I thought of it. Girls like guys, guys like girls, obviously I am a guy, QED.

5. “I wore a mask, and my face grew to fit it.” (-George Orwell, 'Shooting an Elephant')

When you live in society as a gender and everyone respects you for that gender, it becomes difficult to simply throw that away and say that the glove that fits really doesn't even when all of society tells you it does. When you're socialized as that gender, treated as that gender, and essentially shoehorned into that gender role in every way from sport to school subjects to social meetings to the way you dress, it is next to impossible to throw away that constructed identity until you land at some sort of emotional ground zero where you have nothing left except the rest of your life. For me, it was being unemployed, recently dumped by my ex-girlfriend, with no friends or acquaintances, out of school without a diploma, steeped in depression and with a motorbike I wouldn't be able to afford in a few months when I realized the only thing I could do was attempt to start from nothing and see what would happen. As soon as I laid the ground work to get back into school, I realized that my body dysphoria hadn't gone away despite my success – and finally it clicked that I was, in fact, a girl, and it wasn't simply a “phase” I was going through.

Causes and results obviously vary, but that is my experience.

And so this is mostly my own subjective opinion, and I'm not sure what exactly someone will learn from this, but I hope it sheds just a little bit of light on where I'm coming from. Again, I do not represent even a quarter of transgendered people and their experiences. If you have anything to add or dispute, please leave a comment and kindly tell me where I went wrong.

--Alice

Introduction

Hello, my name is Alice and I'm starting this blog in order to look at and examine the sociological reaction to transgendered or other non-gender-conformist groups in society. This includes the assumptions, the phobias, the human rights movement, the counter-rights movement, religion and even the dissenting and consenting voices within the transgendered/transsexual, gay/lesbian/bisexual/pansexual, and feminist communities. Hopefully through these intellectual indulgences we can come to a better understanding on how to fight oppression of any kind towards transgendered, non-gender-conformist or queer groups.

I will begin by saying I am a biased individual. I have grown up through much of my life with white straight healthy male privilege, in a society dominated by patriarchy. I am a male-to-female transgendered woman. I do not represent the views of female-to-male transgendered men, non-white people, people with mental or physical disabilities, people from lower socioeconomic classes, people who are homeless, and cisgendered men or women. I also do not identify as transsexual or in need of sex reassignment surgery. My experience of being "full-time" is also limited, but this blog will hopefully help me put my experiences into theory without getting too personal about them.

Through my life I was never physically stronger than my opponents. I also had next to no privilege in the social system beyond the fact I was considered a caucasian male. The education system didn't know what to do with me as an emotional child who simply did not listen to authority. With power stripped from me and placed into the hands of my parents, who largely followed the words of the experts, I was powerless. And so, I learned to use language, to trap them with their own words. Which is why at age 20 I can use big words and write relatively coherent essays while my classmates still struggle through them. (Not that I'm elitist or anything.)

I live in Canada, which by all accounts is one of the better, more privileged places to live in the world for a transgendered woman. It has a universal health care system which helps fund the Sherbourne Health Centre, one of the "meccas" for transgendered health services. Despite the existence of CAMH and Dr. Kenneth Zucker, both of which have been marred in controversy over transgendered and homosexual issues, resources are both readily available and free to most transpeople.

I'm hoping that through this blog, both cisgendered and transgendered people can understand our differences and our similarities, and come to the same conclusion: that all groups that consist of people are equal, and that oppression between oppressed minorities is silly and counter-productive.

And so, here we are! I hope this blog works out. I plan on updating twice weekly, with blog posts on Tuesdays and Saturdays.