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.