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.

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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.”
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“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.