I call this a "kind-of response" because when I first read the essay Macho Men & The Femme Factor by Sabrina Pandora I was irritated beyond all belief. I had a lot of plans to write my own observational essay on why trans women and trans men don't always hang out together at the soda shop or whatever the kids are doing these days, but it never got published because I didn't want to alienate trans women just because one trans woman wrote something that seemed to entirely blame trans men for the lack of collaboration between us.
This is a revised, much more cooled-off version of what I would have written back then which I hope does not automatically pin either trans women or trans men (or in fact all genderqueer people or all traditional transsexuals or anybody) as the reason we tend to gather in cliques. The thing is, it really isn't just one group of us doing it... it's all of us.
First, what does Macho Men basically argue? Trans men avoid trans women because trans men pass better and do not want to be seen around people who don't pass. We also hate femininity. But if we didn't avoid trans women, we could learn so much about how to be men it would be ridiculous! Awesome!
Before I go into why this irritated me to begin with, which is sure to be the low-point of this blog post, I'll summarize the immense amount of truth that is carried within it. That truth is this: Trans people with passing privilege are often unkind, discriminatory, rude, patronizing, or exclusive toward trans people who don't pass as well.
That she erroneously pegs trans men as the ones who pass and trans women as the ones who don't really doesn't matter so much in that light, because the phenomenon of trans people giving social prestige to passing is very real and very problematic. Because of that, I have absolutely no doubt that there are a lot of trans men out there who avoid trans women because of passing privilege.
To illustrate where the irritation comes from, I'll tell you a personal experience story. I do panels. A lot of panels. I enjoy educating people about trans issues, although the novelty may wear off after a while. The last one I did featured four trans people, two trans men (including myself) and two trans women.
When we were to give our introductions, three of us gave relatively short introductions so that we had time for questions. One of the trans women, though, went on for literally a half an hour explaining all of the surgeries she had, how well she passes now, how she's such a leader in the trans community, she even for some reason decided that she was the one qualified to talk about trans male surgeries and hormones despite the presence of two trans men. When it was the other trans woman's turn to speak, the first would often cut her off. After the panel was over, she approached me and (again, believing herself to be the leader in the local trans community) started giving me a load of advice that I already knew.
For some reason my mind went into "God, trans women are annoying" territory for a few seconds, before I mentally smacked myself and realized that the primary determining factor here was not that she was female, but because she passes and had the monetary/class privilege to transition in right after coming out. If it were a problem with trans women, I'd have seen it in more than just a few trans women, and it's not like I haven't met other trans women. I mean, there was another trans woman right there who did not share these glaring problems. The fact that my mind stupidly decided to blame trans women, even if only for a moment, makes me empathize with Sabrina's essay blaming trans men. I can see where it would be easy to jump to that conclusion.
I'll talk more about passing privilege and why it's not just trans men => trans women in a moment, but just because, I don't know, I have the space... there are other reasons why trans men and trans women may not mix and I think it's important due to the source of this essay to explain some of them.
Passing privilege is a big part of it.
Another part of it is conversational topics. Say you see that your community has a group made for board game aficionados. You love Monopoly, and checkers, and Risk, and all sorts of other games, so you go to a meeting and find that all anybody ever wants to talk about is chess all the time. You don't really like chess, but you stay a while thinking maybe eventually people will get sick of chess and talk about something else, but it never happens. Eventually you're going to leave because the group really doesn't have anything to offer you. If I go to a group that's labeled for trans people in general, and all anybody ever talks about is trans female issues while ignoring me if I say anything with ooey male cooties, I'm not going to stay at that group for long. I don't want to try enforcing any largely MTF groups and what they talk about, the idea of trans women getting together to talk about their issues is not offensive at all, but if you want FTMs to attend and continue attending, our needs need to be met too. FTM-only groups often arise out of that sort of environment.
Another part of it is socialization and how it makes people assume various things. We should be able to be mature and admit it: Our socialization processes are usually skewed more than those of cis people and may be even more based on stereotypes due to intentional mimicry. If I go to a group in which trans women surround me erroneously thinking that because I'm a man I want constant female attention, that's really uncomfortable for me. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, those are trans women I don't hang out with. I don't want to dwell on this too much, but it's a grim reality.
Back on passing privilege, though, now that I've gotten all that off my chest. Passing privilege may look like it's FTM => MTF or MTF => FTM depending on how who you are and how you're looking at it, but the reality is that passing privilege is used by all of us against all of us. It is used by people who pass to denigrate and exclude people who don't, and it's sometimes even used by people who don't pass or don't want to pass as a way to insult people who do. Too often these contexts turn into a contest of one-upmanship, trans men go to a meeting with mostly trans men only to have their appearance roughly pulled apart over silly things like wearing a pink shirt or too much inflection in a voice. A trans woman may avoid a friend of hers who doesn't pass as well to avoid guilt by association (there is an interesting part on TransGeneration by a trans woman named "Apple" on this subject). In all groups people who pass are likely to over-talk everybody else or try to lead, regardless of everybody else's individual experience.
There's also that whole insufferable genderqueer vs. classic TS binary going on... people to often made to feel as though they aren't trans enough because they don't do this thing or that or don't have this surgery or like wearing this clothing, so they try going toward the other end just to be told they're binary-enforcers if they identify with one gender or that they're promoting gender stereotypes if they're femme, other stupid stuff like that.
This all leads to an environment in which people become so uncomfortable with each other that they wind up mixing into groups of people who are most like themselves, leading to resentment between communities. To use the same personal example again, I know I am not the only trans man who is avoiding certain groups because I suspect the trans woman above is going to be there. I avoid places that she frequents... not because she is a trans woman, but because I don't know if I can feel comfortable around her. I have to travel for an hour to get to any trans meeting from where I live... I am not going to do that if I can't feel safe when I am there.
I have one more point I'll touch on before I cease babbling on about this subject. In Macho Men the reason we as trans men should mix with trans women more is that because trans women often spent so many years trying to be men, trans men can learn how to socialize better from them. This is fine in certain social dynamics, but it's also kind of romantic as well... the fact is, trans women don't exist to help me learn how to be manly, and I don't exist to keep trans women away from leopard-print skirts.
Not to mention, a lot of us have what would be considered really quite shitty socialization into our birth genders. Trans men don't "get' women just because we were socialized as girls, nor are trans women the authority on male behavior. If you ask me how to act more like a woman, I may be able to give you some things I learned in high school Sociology but honestly? You can probably get more out of observation than you can get from asking me. I can only tell you silly little surface things. Plus, I honestly don't care of a trans woman dresses "strange."
And wouldn't that just get rude after a while, anyway? I go to support groups for solidarity and social interaction, not to be made over. That doesn't mean my lack of interaction with MTFs is not upsetting, including for myself. We do have things to teach each other and to gain from each other, but passing tips really aren't it.
