I haven't had much in the line of "news" here lately (or much of anything, for that matter), but my latest news is this: I finally got to see that damned Taboo: Changing Gender episode that aired a little while ago but which I didn't see yet.
And it wasn't terrible, as transgender-related documentary shows go, but it was definitely a mixed bag. Here are my feelings about it.
The people featured most prominently include a transgender MTF/FTM couple named Ashley and Tony, Balian Buschbaum (FTM German pole vaulting champion), and Chris Tina Bruce (nonbinary AMAB woman who identifies as a "hybrid"). I remember they had a clip of Loren Cameron, too, that was from a different episode (Taboo has at least three episodes that have some sort of transgender or gender variant story).
I'm going to start with the bad parts because... well, I like the show Taboo and I'd rather leave this writing feeling OK about watching it. I don't know. Anyway, here we go:
First, there is a really heavy emphasis on surgery, as with most documentaries. Both of the trans men have had bottom surgery, and while this is much more common than I think most FTMs (at least newer ones) recognize, it still paints a very genital-centered portrait of transgender life. Ashley and Tony's story is hinged on helping each other get through hormones and surgery. Then there's Balian, gushing over his new penis. All love to Balian, but really?
Now, it's not like this isn't an important part of transgender lives, but it's such a documentary trope at this point that putting most of your effort into talking about surgery and genitals is just a let-down.
Then there is the focus on appearance. In particular, Balian's section involved a talking head that was talking about so-called "genetically gifted" transgender men whose transitions give them "great beauty." The first thing I thought about after seeing this was that loathsome "Obesity Research Institute" and the commercials proclaiming that body fat is "unattractive." Normative statements being presented by experts and "experts."
The worse part is that seriously, this is most of what I can remember about the episode. Talking about surgery and looks. Which is I guess what most cis people are looking for, but can't a guy hope there will be at least one popular portrayal that isn't like that?
Finally, and this is pretty much a universal concern that deals with the several shows dealing with transgenderism on Taboo, not enough racial diversity. People of color who would qualify as transgender or gender variant are usually selected from non-Western cultures for the exotic appeal... so yeah, we get hijras and kathoeys and what-not, but we forget that there are trans people of color here, too.
Still, a pretty standard transgender documentary, but there was one thing about it I liked a lot, which was the inclusion of a nonbinary person from a Western culture... most of the time it's like they seek out third gender or alternative gender categories from other cultures, again, for the exotic appeal, but sort of imply that in the West you're going to stick to male or female. It also interests me that this person is AMAB (assigned male at birth), but I guess that could be a cultural bias on my part: Maybe because I am FTM or maybe because there is more tolerance of AFAB androgyny, most genderqueer/nonbinary people I meet are AFAB, and often to the exclusion of AMAB nonbinary persons. Then again, though, I haven't seen AFAB nonbinary persons in a large, cis-targeted documentary series, either.
I actually just really liked Chris Tina Bruce's section altogether because she does break some of the established tropes of cis-targeted documentary filmmaking... she isn't gung-ho about surgery, she isn't trying to be a stereotype, and she at least seems to be very happy with who she is.
If I were to give a grade to this, I'd say it's better than a lot of cis-targeted transgender films out there, but it still plays in to a lot of the "standards."
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
"I know trans people don't want to hear it, but..."
I deleted somebody from one of my online social networks recently. I didn't want to delete this guy. Generally speaking I actually like him quite a bit. However, there is only so much cisplaining I am willing to let trigger me before you go in my block bin. Whatever the case, I would like to explain exactly what was so offputting, because it's damn relevant.
It's because one of the most obnoxious things to ever come out of a cis person's mouth is any statement beginning with this: "I know trans people don't want to hear it, but..." The last straw was this statement followed by a couple paragraphs explaining that FTMs are different from cis men and MTFs are different from cis women... putting us in four distinct gender categories.
So there are really two annoyances at play: First, actually having the gall to say something about trans people that you know is considered offensive by many of us ("I know you don't want to hear it, but...") and having that controversial opinion be that trans people and cis people are in separate gender categories. Although actually, I'm going to deal with them backwards.
So what's so bad about considering trans men and cis men, or trans women and cis women, to be two distinct genders?
This is, as far as I can tell, based on something about us that actually is true: Trans people are different from cis people. We are likely to express gender a little differently. We are likely to act differently. We do this because trans people and cis people are trained differently, we grow up in a different environment most of the time, and unlike most cis people we have to deal with constant doubt of our gender identity by other people. It's partially because of that doubt that many trans men learn to be men from other trans men rather than cis men, so we pass around some cultural quirks.
That said, I honestly don't really think it's a huge deal when somebody, say, prefers to date trans men over cis men, or vice versa. I think some people need to strongly consider why they feel that way, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it, and that's a subject for a different time maybe.
However, trans men and cis men are not two distinct genders. We are all men. Same goes for trans women... yes, trans women may act or relate to people differently from cis women, but they are no less women than cis women are. Rigidly sticking trans men in a different category than cis men, or trans women in a different category from cis women, is not only incorrect, it is offensive.
But what of those differences? If I can acknowledge that there are common (but not universal) behavioral, emotional, and cultural differences between trans people and cis people, why can I not just accept that I am a different gender than a cis man is, or whatever it is you are trying to get me to acknowledge?
Because the same thing can be said for every subculture. We all express gender differently both as individuals and as cultural groups.
Holiness Christian women and Feminist Pagan women express gender differently, and both express gender differently from Muslim women. Butches and femmes, whether male or female, also express their gender differently. White men express their gender differently from Asian men, Black men, Native American men, and other men of color. Goth men have different gender standards than preppy men. Race, ethnicity, subculture, income level, career, religion, sexual orientation, political beliefs, upbringing, and many other factors shape the way somebody expresses their gender.
But that doesn't put them in different gender categories. It just means they are men and women who express those two genders differently. But they are still men and women*.
You know what? I think that this sort of thing is, deep down, what most people think they mean when they make gender barriers between cis and trans people... because it's kind of obvious that we do express gender differently for the reasons I stated above. The problem is that those differences should not matter in the way people make them matter... which is the constant assertion that we must be placed in separate boxes. If you are going to place trans men in a different box than cis men, you may as well place Pagan men in a different box than Christian men, too. Which, when it comes to the quality of one's maleness, is absolutely ridiculous.
But you know, presenting this while knowing trans people in general don't like that distinction, well, that just takes the cake.
I don't really understand why people can say things like "I know [insert minority here] doesn't like to hear it, but..." and think that they are allies to that community. But I'm going to talk about it just because it bugged me just that much.
In the case above, it was like the pinnacle of cisplaining. "Cisplaining" is a way of describing a cisgender person dismissively telling us why an issue we find important either is false or really not as big a deal as we make it. It comes from "mansplaining," which is when men go to some convoluted length to explain to women why their issues aren't important. And cis people reading this, take note: If you know we are going to find something offensive, you know that it goes against the way we view ourselves, and you know the subject is something that people have constantly used to deny us our gender identities, then really, really consider why the fuck it is you think you should be saying it and no, having a trans friend or the fact that you like fucking us do not make it better. Something I've noticed, not just among cisgender people but among basically every oppressor party, is the idea that we as the majority have some special insight into what minority groups are doing or viewing wrong that they cannot understand. And then we treat these things like dark truths about the universe that people stubbornly refuse to hear rather than the largely-privilege-skewed opinions that they are.
And you know what? You're probably going to have opinions about us that we as a general rule don't like. But before you go on a crusade to tell us why we're so wrong about it, really consider why it is you feel that way, and more importantly, really understand why it is we feel that way.
* I am leaving out non-binary people because, since they usually do consider themselves a different category or a merger of categories, they aren't really relevant to what I'm saying here.
It's because one of the most obnoxious things to ever come out of a cis person's mouth is any statement beginning with this: "I know trans people don't want to hear it, but..." The last straw was this statement followed by a couple paragraphs explaining that FTMs are different from cis men and MTFs are different from cis women... putting us in four distinct gender categories.
So there are really two annoyances at play: First, actually having the gall to say something about trans people that you know is considered offensive by many of us ("I know you don't want to hear it, but...") and having that controversial opinion be that trans people and cis people are in separate gender categories. Although actually, I'm going to deal with them backwards.
So what's so bad about considering trans men and cis men, or trans women and cis women, to be two distinct genders?
This is, as far as I can tell, based on something about us that actually is true: Trans people are different from cis people. We are likely to express gender a little differently. We are likely to act differently. We do this because trans people and cis people are trained differently, we grow up in a different environment most of the time, and unlike most cis people we have to deal with constant doubt of our gender identity by other people. It's partially because of that doubt that many trans men learn to be men from other trans men rather than cis men, so we pass around some cultural quirks.
That said, I honestly don't really think it's a huge deal when somebody, say, prefers to date trans men over cis men, or vice versa. I think some people need to strongly consider why they feel that way, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it, and that's a subject for a different time maybe.
However, trans men and cis men are not two distinct genders. We are all men. Same goes for trans women... yes, trans women may act or relate to people differently from cis women, but they are no less women than cis women are. Rigidly sticking trans men in a different category than cis men, or trans women in a different category from cis women, is not only incorrect, it is offensive.
But what of those differences? If I can acknowledge that there are common (but not universal) behavioral, emotional, and cultural differences between trans people and cis people, why can I not just accept that I am a different gender than a cis man is, or whatever it is you are trying to get me to acknowledge?
Because the same thing can be said for every subculture. We all express gender differently both as individuals and as cultural groups.
Holiness Christian women and Feminist Pagan women express gender differently, and both express gender differently from Muslim women. Butches and femmes, whether male or female, also express their gender differently. White men express their gender differently from Asian men, Black men, Native American men, and other men of color. Goth men have different gender standards than preppy men. Race, ethnicity, subculture, income level, career, religion, sexual orientation, political beliefs, upbringing, and many other factors shape the way somebody expresses their gender.
But that doesn't put them in different gender categories. It just means they are men and women who express those two genders differently. But they are still men and women*.
You know what? I think that this sort of thing is, deep down, what most people think they mean when they make gender barriers between cis and trans people... because it's kind of obvious that we do express gender differently for the reasons I stated above. The problem is that those differences should not matter in the way people make them matter... which is the constant assertion that we must be placed in separate boxes. If you are going to place trans men in a different box than cis men, you may as well place Pagan men in a different box than Christian men, too. Which, when it comes to the quality of one's maleness, is absolutely ridiculous.
But you know, presenting this while knowing trans people in general don't like that distinction, well, that just takes the cake.
I don't really understand why people can say things like "I know [insert minority here] doesn't like to hear it, but..." and think that they are allies to that community. But I'm going to talk about it just because it bugged me just that much.
In the case above, it was like the pinnacle of cisplaining. "Cisplaining" is a way of describing a cisgender person dismissively telling us why an issue we find important either is false or really not as big a deal as we make it. It comes from "mansplaining," which is when men go to some convoluted length to explain to women why their issues aren't important. And cis people reading this, take note: If you know we are going to find something offensive, you know that it goes against the way we view ourselves, and you know the subject is something that people have constantly used to deny us our gender identities, then really, really consider why the fuck it is you think you should be saying it and no, having a trans friend or the fact that you like fucking us do not make it better. Something I've noticed, not just among cisgender people but among basically every oppressor party, is the idea that we as the majority have some special insight into what minority groups are doing or viewing wrong that they cannot understand. And then we treat these things like dark truths about the universe that people stubbornly refuse to hear rather than the largely-privilege-skewed opinions that they are.
And you know what? You're probably going to have opinions about us that we as a general rule don't like. But before you go on a crusade to tell us why we're so wrong about it, really consider why it is you feel that way, and more importantly, really understand why it is we feel that way.
* I am leaving out non-binary people because, since they usually do consider themselves a different category or a merger of categories, they aren't really relevant to what I'm saying here.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
All I'm Saying About Transgender Day of Remembrance
I no longer talk about Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) in my blog, except in passing. I do not "celebrate" it. I do not actively participate in it. I very nearly ignore its existence, a decision that I made sometime over a year ago. Similarly, this year somehow it morphed into "Transgender Awareness Week," which I am also forgoing. I do feel it's important for me to write this, and perhaps reference it each year or something, to explain why I display what probably looks like extreme apathy.
Here is the reason, in a nutshell: I have become grotesquely aware of how badly trans men have been appropriating this observance, both from the outside and, unfortunately, as a trans man who has recognized his prior bad behavior, and there has been a lot of it.
One of our major sins is consistently inflating the amount of risk the average trans man encounters. When I was actively involved in TDOR, I was definitely guilty of this, doing things like picking five men and five women from the master TDOR list to honor, and I see other trans men continue to do this to "equalize" the list. It greatly misrepresents the issue. Anti-transgender murders are significantly (understatement) weighted toward low-income transgender women of color, especially sex workers. The date is actually in remembrance of a specific trans woman of color who was murdered. If you strip this element away from the observance, you are appropriating it and not honoring it.
And you know what? As far as I've experienced, and I know others have made the same observation, trans men are really bad at observing TDOR. We don't often notice the intersectionality of trans status with gender, race, income, or sex worker status... we just boil everything down to "trans people" and assume we are at the same risk level of any other trans person because we can point to some high-profile hate incidents, or at least that we are at a high enough risk to call attention to ourselves. This is a lie we tell ourselves to facilitate our own victim mentality.
I am a trans man. Yes, I sometimes fear for my safety because of it. Yes, I have witnessed and experienced hate speech and bias incidents. I reject the absolutist comments by some trans people, usually women, that trans men never experience this-or-that type of discrimination*. And yes, trans men have the potential to be murdered for being trans men, it's happened before and will probably happen again.
But I have since recognized and more importantly chosen to acknowledge that Transgender Day of Remembrance is not about me. Trans men just don't have that high of a murder rate. I refuse to participate in observance of this day because I have yet to have the opportunity to be involved in an observance that wasn't run by trans men or cis people to the exclusion of the people that this issue actually affects on a daily basis, and I am no longer so arrogant that I believe that I am enlightened enough to honor them properly.
Furthermore, the increasing evolution of TDOR from a solemn day of remembrance to anything from a cis-people-oriented educational experience to a fucking dance party is driving me up the wall. And here's where we get to "Transgender Awareness Week," which is I think a way people are trying to expand TDOR to include issues other than just murder, which again usually includes things like cis-people-oriented educational experiences, parties, and drag shows.
You guys, this is like taking World AIDS Day and then extending it for a week to talk about crabs. TDOR is a very specific observance meant to call attention to a very specific and very damaging problem... and by deciding to cram everything trans into a week in November dilutes that very specific and very important problem, which is the murder of trans people and the abysmal way it is handled by the press and the law.
And if all this isn't taken into account, I do not feel it is appropriate for me to engage in it.
* I mention this because there are trans men who will point to the times that these things do happen to justify their involvement.
Here is the reason, in a nutshell: I have become grotesquely aware of how badly trans men have been appropriating this observance, both from the outside and, unfortunately, as a trans man who has recognized his prior bad behavior, and there has been a lot of it.
One of our major sins is consistently inflating the amount of risk the average trans man encounters. When I was actively involved in TDOR, I was definitely guilty of this, doing things like picking five men and five women from the master TDOR list to honor, and I see other trans men continue to do this to "equalize" the list. It greatly misrepresents the issue. Anti-transgender murders are significantly (understatement) weighted toward low-income transgender women of color, especially sex workers. The date is actually in remembrance of a specific trans woman of color who was murdered. If you strip this element away from the observance, you are appropriating it and not honoring it.
And you know what? As far as I've experienced, and I know others have made the same observation, trans men are really bad at observing TDOR. We don't often notice the intersectionality of trans status with gender, race, income, or sex worker status... we just boil everything down to "trans people" and assume we are at the same risk level of any other trans person because we can point to some high-profile hate incidents, or at least that we are at a high enough risk to call attention to ourselves. This is a lie we tell ourselves to facilitate our own victim mentality.
I am a trans man. Yes, I sometimes fear for my safety because of it. Yes, I have witnessed and experienced hate speech and bias incidents. I reject the absolutist comments by some trans people, usually women, that trans men never experience this-or-that type of discrimination*. And yes, trans men have the potential to be murdered for being trans men, it's happened before and will probably happen again.
But I have since recognized and more importantly chosen to acknowledge that Transgender Day of Remembrance is not about me. Trans men just don't have that high of a murder rate. I refuse to participate in observance of this day because I have yet to have the opportunity to be involved in an observance that wasn't run by trans men or cis people to the exclusion of the people that this issue actually affects on a daily basis, and I am no longer so arrogant that I believe that I am enlightened enough to honor them properly.
Furthermore, the increasing evolution of TDOR from a solemn day of remembrance to anything from a cis-people-oriented educational experience to a fucking dance party is driving me up the wall. And here's where we get to "Transgender Awareness Week," which is I think a way people are trying to expand TDOR to include issues other than just murder, which again usually includes things like cis-people-oriented educational experiences, parties, and drag shows.
You guys, this is like taking World AIDS Day and then extending it for a week to talk about crabs. TDOR is a very specific observance meant to call attention to a very specific and very damaging problem... and by deciding to cram everything trans into a week in November dilutes that very specific and very important problem, which is the murder of trans people and the abysmal way it is handled by the press and the law.
And if all this isn't taken into account, I do not feel it is appropriate for me to engage in it.
* I mention this because there are trans men who will point to the times that these things do happen to justify their involvement.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Break Free From Name Dogma
My name was once my nickname... way back when I was still a girl, my parents decided that "Jackson" was a cute nickname for "Jackie."
I hated it. Loathed it. I would not let them call me it.
Then, twenty years later, it was my legal name.
It wasn't like I didn't try finding a name that "sang" to me. Like most trans men, I "tried on" several names. I started with "Galvin" back when I wanted a hot, unique name. Then I set toward trying to find one for which "Jack" would not be a terrible nickname, because that was what people were predominantly calling me. I didn't feel like "John" was a good idea, I tried "Jacques" and "Jacob" and even "Jacob-Jacques" when I couldn't pick between those two.
When I finally decided to legally change my name, it was in a panic. I was going to be graduating in a couple of weeks and I didn't want them to call my female name. So I printed out the documents, thought about it for less than a minute, put "Jackson" because I figured my parents wouldn't have a problem calling me that, and it's been my name ever since.
Honestly? Best decision I ever made as far as my name goes.
I tell you this because it's like every ten minutes a trans man writes a post on a forum freaking out because he can't find a name that "suits him." It's like there's an expectation that any name of yours is going to have to be something that makes your heart skip a beat every time you hear it.
Guys, that almost never happens. And you don't need it to. Your name should be something you're comfortable with, ideally it should be something you don't hate but there are lots of people who hate their names, if you're worried about passing it should be something that projects "male," but it's not really worth the stress.
You know what my main bit of advice here, is? Having your name be "legal" could very easily solve your problem. I am not the only one who settled down with the name issue only because my name was legal and I couldn't change it anymore without throwing a bunch of money away. Why do you think most people don't change their names, even when they don't think they're awesome? Because we don't need names that are stunning, we need names that make us content.
I hated it. Loathed it. I would not let them call me it.
Then, twenty years later, it was my legal name.
It wasn't like I didn't try finding a name that "sang" to me. Like most trans men, I "tried on" several names. I started with "Galvin" back when I wanted a hot, unique name. Then I set toward trying to find one for which "Jack" would not be a terrible nickname, because that was what people were predominantly calling me. I didn't feel like "John" was a good idea, I tried "Jacques" and "Jacob" and even "Jacob-Jacques" when I couldn't pick between those two.
When I finally decided to legally change my name, it was in a panic. I was going to be graduating in a couple of weeks and I didn't want them to call my female name. So I printed out the documents, thought about it for less than a minute, put "Jackson" because I figured my parents wouldn't have a problem calling me that, and it's been my name ever since.
Honestly? Best decision I ever made as far as my name goes.
I tell you this because it's like every ten minutes a trans man writes a post on a forum freaking out because he can't find a name that "suits him." It's like there's an expectation that any name of yours is going to have to be something that makes your heart skip a beat every time you hear it.
Guys, that almost never happens. And you don't need it to. Your name should be something you're comfortable with, ideally it should be something you don't hate but there are lots of people who hate their names, if you're worried about passing it should be something that projects "male," but it's not really worth the stress.
You know what my main bit of advice here, is? Having your name be "legal" could very easily solve your problem. I am not the only one who settled down with the name issue only because my name was legal and I couldn't change it anymore without throwing a bunch of money away. Why do you think most people don't change their names, even when they don't think they're awesome? Because we don't need names that are stunning, we need names that make us content.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Ten percent of my blood is hanging out in a cooler with some lady's plasma somewhere.
Well, maybe not anymore.
So I have a health update for you. I'm going on seven months on testosterone, and my last blood panel was a little (tugs collar) unsatisfactory. Before I started my hemoglobin was already getting a little high for a female (15.4), gradually it went up to about 17.2 which is not great. So my doctor told me to start donating blood every six weeks.
Due to the whole biological sex technicality I am really not considered a large HIV risk, my tattoo is several years old, and my blood is perfectly good, so I went to a blood center to donate. In the chit-chat during the interview I casually mentioned that my doctor suggested that I donate blood due to my hemoglobin. Which caused the interviewer to go get somebody else to come in and interrogate me over why my hemoglobin was high. I said it was injectable testosterone, which is not something that is on the list of inappropriate medication. They manufactured all of this into "we can't take your blood because it's a therapeutic draw and we need a prescription."
I asked my doctor for a prescription, she told me they were "giving me the runaround" and that there is no reason it should have to be considered a therapeutic draw. She said to go somewhere else and just not say anything, because it's not pertinent to donating anyway. I go somewhere else, and mysteriously the computer doesn't like it when they try entering my personal information into it, but they send me to their own interview room anyway. I'm in there and she's just about to take my blood pressure and pulse... these run a little high, so I was worried it would be too high and I'd have to drive home yet again. As I'm trying to calm myself down a bit a guy walks in and asks if I have a twin sister named "Jacqueline" who lives at the same address at me.
Fucking hell, I forgot I'd tried to donate through this place before. So that's why the computer wouldn't let them enter me.
But I'm not a liar, so I tell him that's my former name. My heart starts thudding and now I'm really worried, both because I think they're going to go "transsexual! No!" and because I knew my blood pressure had to be ridiculous. He walks away and the person taking my vitals says she doesn't blame me for changing my name (bless her heart, she was a calming individual). I wound up with a blood pressure of like 179/98 and a pulse near 200 but not quite there yet. So I just barely squeaked past. Also my hemoglobin was at 18.5.
(Man, I'd be so freaked out about that if I didn't know it was because of the shock of hearing my old name brought up by somebody I don't know!)
Finally I'm in the chair, everybody has calmed down and it's clear they aren't having any little round-table moments about whether or not my blood was legit like at the other place. I sat next to this woman who was donating plasma and platelets and aside from the usual discomfort associated with needles (which, let's face it, I'm used to by now) everything went fine. Until it was done. Then I misinterpreted the instructions and wound up spurting blood everywhere, resulting in a mad rush for disinfectant and bandages. But I learned my lesson and will be back in eight weeks.
So I have a health update for you. I'm going on seven months on testosterone, and my last blood panel was a little (tugs collar) unsatisfactory. Before I started my hemoglobin was already getting a little high for a female (15.4), gradually it went up to about 17.2 which is not great. So my doctor told me to start donating blood every six weeks.
Due to the whole biological sex technicality I am really not considered a large HIV risk, my tattoo is several years old, and my blood is perfectly good, so I went to a blood center to donate. In the chit-chat during the interview I casually mentioned that my doctor suggested that I donate blood due to my hemoglobin. Which caused the interviewer to go get somebody else to come in and interrogate me over why my hemoglobin was high. I said it was injectable testosterone, which is not something that is on the list of inappropriate medication. They manufactured all of this into "we can't take your blood because it's a therapeutic draw and we need a prescription."
I asked my doctor for a prescription, she told me they were "giving me the runaround" and that there is no reason it should have to be considered a therapeutic draw. She said to go somewhere else and just not say anything, because it's not pertinent to donating anyway. I go somewhere else, and mysteriously the computer doesn't like it when they try entering my personal information into it, but they send me to their own interview room anyway. I'm in there and she's just about to take my blood pressure and pulse... these run a little high, so I was worried it would be too high and I'd have to drive home yet again. As I'm trying to calm myself down a bit a guy walks in and asks if I have a twin sister named "Jacqueline" who lives at the same address at me.
Fucking hell, I forgot I'd tried to donate through this place before. So that's why the computer wouldn't let them enter me.
But I'm not a liar, so I tell him that's my former name. My heart starts thudding and now I'm really worried, both because I think they're going to go "transsexual! No!" and because I knew my blood pressure had to be ridiculous. He walks away and the person taking my vitals says she doesn't blame me for changing my name (bless her heart, she was a calming individual). I wound up with a blood pressure of like 179/98 and a pulse near 200 but not quite there yet. So I just barely squeaked past. Also my hemoglobin was at 18.5.
(Man, I'd be so freaked out about that if I didn't know it was because of the shock of hearing my old name brought up by somebody I don't know!)
Finally I'm in the chair, everybody has calmed down and it's clear they aren't having any little round-table moments about whether or not my blood was legit like at the other place. I sat next to this woman who was donating plasma and platelets and aside from the usual discomfort associated with needles (which, let's face it, I'm used to by now) everything went fine. Until it was done. Then I misinterpreted the instructions and wound up spurting blood everywhere, resulting in a mad rush for disinfectant and bandages. But I learned my lesson and will be back in eight weeks.
Laci Green and Trans YouTube Bullying
So let's just say, I'm disappointed right now.
Before I talk about the issue at hand, let me make a few things clear. There is a reason neither my YouTube videos nor my blog allow comments. It isn't because I'm afraid of feedback; I get feeback through a lot of other means (either through crossposts on trans-friendly websites, through trackbacks, through friends who aren't afraid to criticize, etc.) and that's because I've been bullied on the Internet both by transphobes for being trans and by trans people for not being the kind of trans person they want me to be. I have tried multiple times to allow them, but in the long run it's nothing more than a trigger for me.
This is not uncommon as far as trans people go, and in many ways I get off extremely light. People get death threats, rude questions that are actually more transphobic statements disguised as questions than actual questions, misgendered, and in many cases have had pictures of themselves and screenshots of their videos posted on blogs and other websites to be mocked, "dissected," and outed. I have seen people who are so afraid of this that they don't even go to trans-friendly websites anymore because they're afraid these people are going to find them.
How much is this talked about in the wider community? The answer is not very often. Cyber-bullying efforts are often degendered and desexualized to protect them from right-wing homo- and transphobes who only think bullying is wrong as long as it's done to somebody in their target demographic. But the dumbly obvious fact is, trans-people get bullied a lot on YouTube.
So Laci Green... she is ducking out of the YouTube limelight over threats and harassment based on the fact that she said the word "tranny" as well as several other things she has said about religion and other hot-button subjects. Now, I could talk for a long time about the type of people the hecklers probably are... there's a subset of the social justice community in which members are either totally unaware of the way they use privilege within that context, or they have labeled themselves as being so unprivileged that they give themselves permission to be as rude as they can possibly be to anybody who commits even the slightest infraction against what they believe. In a trans context they tend to be newbies or people who are stuck in a rut... can't pass, can't get hormones yet... so they're in that "radical sexy" period. Yes, I went through that period too, and it didn't occur to me that I was acting ridiculous until long after. But honestly that's all I want to say about that subject for now. "Harassing Laci Green is bad." All reasonable people believe this.
Here is where I am disappointed. It's not only with the fact that there are people doing this, but the fact that the ensuing shitstorm has basically proven a fact about cissexism: People care more when things like this happen to cis people than when they happen to trans people. Lots of trans people get harassed off of YouTube. It's not a story until it happens to a cis person, especially if it can be in some way blamed on trans people.
This isn't a cut on John Green (the guy who brought this up and is the reason it's famous right now), who I feel has tackled transgender issues pretty well in the past (one of the first videos I saw of his was ranting about how peoples' criticisms of Chris Crocker were unfairly based in his gender presentation rather than his attitude), but I have a feeling if this had been another case of a trans person harassed off of YouTube--which, again, happens fairly frequently--it just wouldn't have blown up the way it has.
And regardless of the wrongness of the actions taken against Laci, it's still cis privilege in action.
Before I talk about the issue at hand, let me make a few things clear. There is a reason neither my YouTube videos nor my blog allow comments. It isn't because I'm afraid of feedback; I get feeback through a lot of other means (either through crossposts on trans-friendly websites, through trackbacks, through friends who aren't afraid to criticize, etc.) and that's because I've been bullied on the Internet both by transphobes for being trans and by trans people for not being the kind of trans person they want me to be. I have tried multiple times to allow them, but in the long run it's nothing more than a trigger for me.
This is not uncommon as far as trans people go, and in many ways I get off extremely light. People get death threats, rude questions that are actually more transphobic statements disguised as questions than actual questions, misgendered, and in many cases have had pictures of themselves and screenshots of their videos posted on blogs and other websites to be mocked, "dissected," and outed. I have seen people who are so afraid of this that they don't even go to trans-friendly websites anymore because they're afraid these people are going to find them.
How much is this talked about in the wider community? The answer is not very often. Cyber-bullying efforts are often degendered and desexualized to protect them from right-wing homo- and transphobes who only think bullying is wrong as long as it's done to somebody in their target demographic. But the dumbly obvious fact is, trans-people get bullied a lot on YouTube.
So Laci Green... she is ducking out of the YouTube limelight over threats and harassment based on the fact that she said the word "tranny" as well as several other things she has said about religion and other hot-button subjects. Now, I could talk for a long time about the type of people the hecklers probably are... there's a subset of the social justice community in which members are either totally unaware of the way they use privilege within that context, or they have labeled themselves as being so unprivileged that they give themselves permission to be as rude as they can possibly be to anybody who commits even the slightest infraction against what they believe. In a trans context they tend to be newbies or people who are stuck in a rut... can't pass, can't get hormones yet... so they're in that "radical sexy" period. Yes, I went through that period too, and it didn't occur to me that I was acting ridiculous until long after. But honestly that's all I want to say about that subject for now. "Harassing Laci Green is bad." All reasonable people believe this.
Here is where I am disappointed. It's not only with the fact that there are people doing this, but the fact that the ensuing shitstorm has basically proven a fact about cissexism: People care more when things like this happen to cis people than when they happen to trans people. Lots of trans people get harassed off of YouTube. It's not a story until it happens to a cis person, especially if it can be in some way blamed on trans people.
This isn't a cut on John Green (the guy who brought this up and is the reason it's famous right now), who I feel has tackled transgender issues pretty well in the past (one of the first videos I saw of his was ranting about how peoples' criticisms of Chris Crocker were unfairly based in his gender presentation rather than his attitude), but I have a feeling if this had been another case of a trans person harassed off of YouTube--which, again, happens fairly frequently--it just wouldn't have blown up the way it has.
And regardless of the wrongness of the actions taken against Laci, it's still cis privilege in action.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Trans Men vs. Trans Men Making Me Pull My Hair Out
Oh dear God... one of these again... can I blame the hormones? Naw, I think not.
Maybe my hairline isn't receding. Maybe I'm just pulling my hair out because it's like every time I go check up on my online trans community I am barraged by a bunch of shit that's either triggering, oppressive, or flat out obnoxious. Stuff that makes me want to yank pixels out of my computer screen just to stop seeing it (although that would be inefficient and in the long run expensive).
So there are a few things I would love to never hear again, although I'm sure I will:
"Man, why are you so up-tight about the pronoun issue? I mean, it's not their fault if you don't pass. Just roll with it. Gender isn't a big thing, anyway."
This has in recent memory come from genderqueers and people who like fucking with cis peoples' heads as well as post-transitional trans men who have it in their heads that everybody should just be patient and wait for the world to meet them. Oh, and cis people like to say it, too, especially as a variant of "Well, why do you have to be a man or a woman?" when they are clearly either one or the other.
As somebody who does pass and who really only has to deal with the pronoun issue from his parents, this still makes my eye tick. Pronouns are really important when your identity doesn't--can't--match seamlessly with your presentation. It's not just an annoyance, it is really fucking depressing. When a non-binary person (at least the kind who holds the "pronouns don't matter" viewpoint) gets misgendered, they might consider it funny or even a success. When a cis person or well-transitioned trans person gets misgendered, they have the privilege of thinking it's a bizarre fluke. To a binary trans, non-passing or not-always-passing person incorrect pronouns are a confirmation that reminds you of everything you want and don't have.
It's easy for me to look at trans guys who freak out about being called "she" and think about them as childish or impatient, but it's not my place--or anybody else's--to judge them in such a manner, especially considering I haven't had that problem aside from relatives in over six months.
"Testosterone isn't expensive. Just get another job and stop buying frivolous shit."
As a low-income person this attitude really, really cuts me for a variety of reasons.
I lived as male for nine years before I got testosterone. And to get it I had to spend a lot of money that could have gone to food or paying for school. Three months of therapy (because I couldn't get accepted by any informed consent programs and I had no health insurance) including having to drive an hour each way every week was no small sacrifice for me, and I still had to borrow money from my parents. When I started therapy my father argued with me over it calling me "impatient." Yes. After nine years.
When I was at the tail end of my therapy, my therapist informed me that not only would I have to have four more sessions after I started T, she was dropping her sliding scale and raising her price. The amount I had to pay went magically from $60 a session to $115 a session.
I luckily found an endocrinologist that took my health insurance. Each blood panel would have been roughly $350... without the hospital visit. There's always a chance my insurance will reject one of those blood panels if they figure out why they're being drawn.
The testosterone itself? No, that's not expensive. I spend around $60 for a 10mL vial and needles now. That's nothing. But getting it was extremely difficult and for my income level it is a huge financial hit. Was it worth it? Of course it was. Testosterone was the best decision of my life.
But seeing people tell other trans guys that this isn't expensive and that everybody can do it easily if they just "get two jobs" is fucking insulting. People shouldn't have to work two jobs to get their basic needs met.
"Bottom surgery is just disgusting! Have you ever even seen it?! It doesn't even work!"
There is something which, while it is a phenomenon that goes back much further than Chaz Bono coming out, I like to call the "Chaz Bono Effect."
Basically trans guys, usually pre-T or relatively early on T, talk about how terrible FTM bottom surgery is. Then they are on T for a while, or out for a while, and "suddenly" want it. Or at least strongly consider it.
Happened to me, too. Granted, I wasn't particularly vocal about it... but lots of people are. There is a lot of trash-talking of bottom-op among FTMs that leads to a really unrealistic view of what bottom-op actually is.
First off, phalloplasties aren't the only option. Second, they're better than people think they are. And third, your priorities likely will change once you get on T or have been on it for a while. There are plenty of trans guys who were in the "I will NEVER have bottom-op!" crowd who were on T for a few months, had top-op, and now want bottom-op.
But it's really not about you. Yeah, I feel silly for hating on bottom-op when now I'm strongly considering metoidioplasty as a future option for me, but that's not a big deal. The problem is that more of us have bottom-op than people seem to think. Non-op trans guys really get it in their heads that there are like four trans guys in the world who have had bottom-op and the rest of us haven't. That's not even close to true, and when you talk about how horrible it is you are making a mockery of them whether you intended to or not.
"We HAVE to STOP the RAD FEMS!"
I'm so sick of the topic of radical feminists coming up.
Let's be real for a minute here. Radical feminists can be vicious, transphobic assholes (although not all of them are transphobic, for the record). But they're also a dying movement with very little actual power. When people create legislation to limit transgender freedoms, they are not doing it because they read "The Transsexual Empire." Consider that feminism in general--something that all rational people should subscribe to whether in that name or not--has an undeserved nasty reputation anyway. If you say you support something for feminist reasons, there are thousands of people who will whine about how horrible feminism is. "Feminist" is even used as a slur to demean women who actually speak about their own rights. Consider the hate and vitriol spewed at Anita Sarkeesian for doing something as radical as stating the fucking obvious fact that there is sexism in video games. And "radical feminist" has even poorer connotations.
So I'm a paleo eater. Wait, this is actually relevant. Paleo eaters do not as a general rule get along with vegans (well, maybe as individuals, but not as a community). We have eating styles that are polar opposites of each other. And paleo eaters spend a hell of a lot of time debunking veganism and complaining about veganism without really recognizing that vegans are like less than a percent of the population and our time would be better spent working against, say, the Standard American Diet. Conversely, vegans love rambling on and on about paleo eaters without realizing that we are a similarly small slice of the population.
The point is that we have no real reason to spend so much energy complaining about radical feminists. We'd be much better off encouraging full inclusion in more mainstream feminist pursuits (especially of trans women women of color, low-income women, etc.). If we talk about transphobic feminists at all, it should be to remind mainstream feminists that transphobia is no more a "feminist belief" than racism or homophobia (both of which have been aggressively defended in "feminist" literature).
But the rad fems themselves... seriously? They aren't worth it.
"But so-and-so posted my picture/posted my words/said mean things about me!" I get it, she's an asshole. Welcome to the Internet. I'm sorry you had a screenshot taken from a public YouTube account and posted somewhere which is literally only read by trans people who seemingly want to be offended and like eight man-hating lesbians. Stop triggering yourself by visiting and don't concern yourself with it.
But yeah, that's it for now. Oh, believe me, there are plenty of other things I could complain about... but my blood pressure is bad enough.
Maybe my hairline isn't receding. Maybe I'm just pulling my hair out because it's like every time I go check up on my online trans community I am barraged by a bunch of shit that's either triggering, oppressive, or flat out obnoxious. Stuff that makes me want to yank pixels out of my computer screen just to stop seeing it (although that would be inefficient and in the long run expensive).
So there are a few things I would love to never hear again, although I'm sure I will:
"Man, why are you so up-tight about the pronoun issue? I mean, it's not their fault if you don't pass. Just roll with it. Gender isn't a big thing, anyway."
This has in recent memory come from genderqueers and people who like fucking with cis peoples' heads as well as post-transitional trans men who have it in their heads that everybody should just be patient and wait for the world to meet them. Oh, and cis people like to say it, too, especially as a variant of "Well, why do you have to be a man or a woman?" when they are clearly either one or the other.
As somebody who does pass and who really only has to deal with the pronoun issue from his parents, this still makes my eye tick. Pronouns are really important when your identity doesn't--can't--match seamlessly with your presentation. It's not just an annoyance, it is really fucking depressing. When a non-binary person (at least the kind who holds the "pronouns don't matter" viewpoint) gets misgendered, they might consider it funny or even a success. When a cis person or well-transitioned trans person gets misgendered, they have the privilege of thinking it's a bizarre fluke. To a binary trans, non-passing or not-always-passing person incorrect pronouns are a confirmation that reminds you of everything you want and don't have.
It's easy for me to look at trans guys who freak out about being called "she" and think about them as childish or impatient, but it's not my place--or anybody else's--to judge them in such a manner, especially considering I haven't had that problem aside from relatives in over six months.
"Testosterone isn't expensive. Just get another job and stop buying frivolous shit."
As a low-income person this attitude really, really cuts me for a variety of reasons.
I lived as male for nine years before I got testosterone. And to get it I had to spend a lot of money that could have gone to food or paying for school. Three months of therapy (because I couldn't get accepted by any informed consent programs and I had no health insurance) including having to drive an hour each way every week was no small sacrifice for me, and I still had to borrow money from my parents. When I started therapy my father argued with me over it calling me "impatient." Yes. After nine years.
When I was at the tail end of my therapy, my therapist informed me that not only would I have to have four more sessions after I started T, she was dropping her sliding scale and raising her price. The amount I had to pay went magically from $60 a session to $115 a session.
I luckily found an endocrinologist that took my health insurance. Each blood panel would have been roughly $350... without the hospital visit. There's always a chance my insurance will reject one of those blood panels if they figure out why they're being drawn.
The testosterone itself? No, that's not expensive. I spend around $60 for a 10mL vial and needles now. That's nothing. But getting it was extremely difficult and for my income level it is a huge financial hit. Was it worth it? Of course it was. Testosterone was the best decision of my life.
But seeing people tell other trans guys that this isn't expensive and that everybody can do it easily if they just "get two jobs" is fucking insulting. People shouldn't have to work two jobs to get their basic needs met.
"Bottom surgery is just disgusting! Have you ever even seen it?! It doesn't even work!"
There is something which, while it is a phenomenon that goes back much further than Chaz Bono coming out, I like to call the "Chaz Bono Effect."
Basically trans guys, usually pre-T or relatively early on T, talk about how terrible FTM bottom surgery is. Then they are on T for a while, or out for a while, and "suddenly" want it. Or at least strongly consider it.
Happened to me, too. Granted, I wasn't particularly vocal about it... but lots of people are. There is a lot of trash-talking of bottom-op among FTMs that leads to a really unrealistic view of what bottom-op actually is.
First off, phalloplasties aren't the only option. Second, they're better than people think they are. And third, your priorities likely will change once you get on T or have been on it for a while. There are plenty of trans guys who were in the "I will NEVER have bottom-op!" crowd who were on T for a few months, had top-op, and now want bottom-op.
But it's really not about you. Yeah, I feel silly for hating on bottom-op when now I'm strongly considering metoidioplasty as a future option for me, but that's not a big deal. The problem is that more of us have bottom-op than people seem to think. Non-op trans guys really get it in their heads that there are like four trans guys in the world who have had bottom-op and the rest of us haven't. That's not even close to true, and when you talk about how horrible it is you are making a mockery of them whether you intended to or not.
"We HAVE to STOP the RAD FEMS!"
I'm so sick of the topic of radical feminists coming up.
Let's be real for a minute here. Radical feminists can be vicious, transphobic assholes (although not all of them are transphobic, for the record). But they're also a dying movement with very little actual power. When people create legislation to limit transgender freedoms, they are not doing it because they read "The Transsexual Empire." Consider that feminism in general--something that all rational people should subscribe to whether in that name or not--has an undeserved nasty reputation anyway. If you say you support something for feminist reasons, there are thousands of people who will whine about how horrible feminism is. "Feminist" is even used as a slur to demean women who actually speak about their own rights. Consider the hate and vitriol spewed at Anita Sarkeesian for doing something as radical as stating the fucking obvious fact that there is sexism in video games. And "radical feminist" has even poorer connotations.
So I'm a paleo eater. Wait, this is actually relevant. Paleo eaters do not as a general rule get along with vegans (well, maybe as individuals, but not as a community). We have eating styles that are polar opposites of each other. And paleo eaters spend a hell of a lot of time debunking veganism and complaining about veganism without really recognizing that vegans are like less than a percent of the population and our time would be better spent working against, say, the Standard American Diet. Conversely, vegans love rambling on and on about paleo eaters without realizing that we are a similarly small slice of the population.
The point is that we have no real reason to spend so much energy complaining about radical feminists. We'd be much better off encouraging full inclusion in more mainstream feminist pursuits (especially of trans women women of color, low-income women, etc.). If we talk about transphobic feminists at all, it should be to remind mainstream feminists that transphobia is no more a "feminist belief" than racism or homophobia (both of which have been aggressively defended in "feminist" literature).
But the rad fems themselves... seriously? They aren't worth it.
"But so-and-so posted my picture/posted my words/said mean things about me!" I get it, she's an asshole. Welcome to the Internet. I'm sorry you had a screenshot taken from a public YouTube account and posted somewhere which is literally only read by trans people who seemingly want to be offended and like eight man-hating lesbians. Stop triggering yourself by visiting and don't concern yourself with it.
But yeah, that's it for now. Oh, believe me, there are plenty of other things I could complain about... but my blood pressure is bad enough.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
An Open Letter to Pride Event Organizers, Presenters, and Vendors on Inclusion
I just finished a weekend of Pridefest Milwaukee (or rather a Friday and a Saturday). And I had a lot of fun... met people in person I'd only known on the Internet, saw a lot of cool performers, ate food I shouldn't be eating... Pridefest has always been fun for me. It even had a polyamory-inclusive event and a furry events... although I'll go into those later in this letter.
It was sorely lacking in transgender and bisexual inclusiveness, as it always has been. A friend of mine brought this up on Facebook, where they said that they had of course included the T... by citing a drag show. Because of this, and because I know there are plenty of organizers who think things exactly like this, I'd like to mention a few things that hopefully will help you create a more inclusive atmosphere in the future.
Some of these problems are not the fault of the actual organizers, so this is directed at not only them but at presenters, vendors, and perhaps even attendees.
1. Know that transgender people and other gender variant people DO attend pride events.
In Milwaukee it would have been hard to throw a coin and not hit a trans person at some points. And I'm not even including exclusive drag performers (people who only do performance drag but are not transgender or transsexual), who may or may not be considered transgender or gender variant depending on how you look at it. We were everywhere. There were trans guys running around with their surgery scars showing, trans women trading advice, and when you got to the smaller drag shows (which were more catered to transgender people than other events) there were loads of us.
There always are. The last year I went dressed in this ridiculous scouting outfit in an effort to mark myself as trans (back when I still had some visibility, sigh) and there were trans women, trans men, and genderqueers stopping me to talk. We are not an insignificant part of the Pride base.
2. Drag events do not count as transgender inclusiveness, and pretending they do is actually really offensive.
Yes, drag performers are included in a number of definitions of "transgender." I neither support nor discourage this, it is what it is. I also personally enjoy drag shows. But realize that transgender people have for decades been equated--not just associated, but equated--with drag performers. But there is a big distinction. An exclusive drag performer can turn off that gender performance. A drag queen, for example, does not generally need to worry about the same things a trans woman does. A drag king does not need to deal with the same issues as a trans man. So when you equate "trans inclusiveness" with "two hour long drag show," what you wind up doing--albeit unintentionally--is downplay those of us who are dealing with living transgender and replacing us with people who do it for art. It's like having a straight guy who has gay sex for money at an event and saying it's gay inclusiveness.
That's not to say that drag performers don't encounter trouble (just as any minority does), and there are drag performers who are also transsexual (I've found this is especially true for drag kings), but keep in mind "transgender" does not mean "drag."
3. When it comes to entertainers, there are plenty of transgender performers out there who are not drag performers.
Pride events are often entertainment events, and as such there is going to be different programming than, say, an educational event or a conference where one would expect a lot of very specific programming. But that's not an excuse to not be inclusive.
There are plenty of transgender performers who are not drag queens and kings. There are comedians like Ian Harvie, spoken word artists like Kit Yan and Julia Serano, musical artists like Bell Nuntita, Kim Petras, Katastrophe, Joshua Klipp, and Alex Davis. Again, that's not to say you can't also have drag performers, but balance it out a bit.
4. Events that should be inclusive should be inclusive.
At Milwaukee Pride this year there was this history exhibit which had posters. The posters had events in LGBT history... or rather LG history... and markers to add your own events.
There were a lot of omissions and mistakes in it. One of the most egregious? It referred to Stonewall as an event between police and "angry gays and lesbians," completely stripping out the massive influence of trans women and gender-noncomforming people (a friend of mine has posted screenshots). There was very little mention of not only trans people, but also bisexuals and women were not well represented, either.
Tucked in the corner there was a student-created exhibit which had the stories of Lou Sullivan and Sylvia Rivera, but it was being headed by somebody with little knowledge of trans issues (I know this because she tried to explain to me what gay trans men were).
People who went to the exhibit added a lot of historical points that the original creators forgot... and they're going to forget some things... but there was no way we should have needed to add damned near everything.
Make an effort to make events like that inclusive. Remember that Google exists. Don't give me that "transgender people didn't impact gay history" bullshit. Gays and lesbians were separate movements for a portion of their history, too.
This includes not only historical events, but also stuff like safer sex events and health events and film events. These really need transgender-specific information and content. I should not go to a kiosk that has eight films at an LGBT event in which none of them feature a serious transgender character or creator.
5. Vendors! Be aware that we exist!
Trans people aren't known for our disposable income (which is why some groups cut us off of their list when they're trying to get companies to love queer people), but keep in mind that like most people when we go to an event that has vendors we're not just going to ignore them most of the time.
There were maybe twenty vendor tables at Pridefest... three of them had transgender-inclusive merchandise, and not very much of it at that. One table was run by three nice gentleman who had lots of books, videos, and magnets for LGB people... and four buttons, hidden off in the corner, geared toward trans people (I did in fact buy one). There was another stand that had some bracelets, keychains, and pendants with transgender flags on them, and a paint-tattoo stand had one transgender design. The rest of them had... nothing.
There were leather flags and bear flags everywhere... no transgender flags. There was gay fiction and lesbian fiction and "general queer" fiction... and no trans fiction. There were more purchases geared toward furries than trans people, and while I love the furries, there is something really bizarre about accommodating them more than people who are actually in your acronym.
Also be aware that we notice. While I was walking through there--and I did so several times--I ran into many trans people who commented on the lack of inclusion.
6. If you have an area for organizations, invite trans groups if none initially sign up.
There were no transgender-centered groups that showed up this year. I'm not sure why, as there has usually been at least one, but keep in mind that trans people really do need resources. If none sign up, invite some to at least try getting some information out there. If nothing else, put out some information for local groups.
7. Don't confine transgender and gender-variant stuff--and in fact any other "obscure" stuff--to youth concerns.
There's this bizarre thing going on--and it was totally obvious at Pridefest this year--where people assume that trans and gender variant people stop existing when we turn twenty four. There was an event this year about gender-variant children... and that's absolutely wonderful, but why was it the only serious transgender or gender variant event? There was a hell of a lot of inclusiveness in the youth area compared to elsewhere... there was a nod to "alternative" relationships like polyamory, there were bisexual and transgender flags flying, there was even a furry workshop where people could make ears and a tail. But there was barely even a nod to these things elsewhere, implying that these are things we are going to grow out of when we finally transform into normal gays and lesbians.
8. Why do I even need to bring this up? Can you have at least one gender neutral restroom? And can you please encourage non-binary language?
I don't habitually use gender-neutral restrooms anymore. I am a trans man, at the point in transition where I pass 100% as if I were a cis male, so I use men's restrooms. I consider bothering over restrooms to be a bit of a cliché. Picking a restroom has never been top priority for me.
But there are plenty of trans and gender variant people who aren't in my position. There are trans men and trans women who don't pass well yet and aren't comfortable drawing attention to themselves by walking into a men's or women's room. There are people who identify as neither man nor woman. People who are dressing in drag and have to make awkward decisions. And people with disabilities who show up with caregivers of the opposite sex (there were quite a few of those this year). There were probably six restrooms there... all of which were single-sex.
Surveys should also be inclusive, if you happen to be running a stand that uses them. I took a survey as somebody who quit smoking that was pretty good in this regard (with four options for gender and then a write-in), but others made you choose "male" or "female." Now, for me and many other transsexuals this isn't a big personal deal for the same reason restrooms aren't... I just circle "male..." but there are people for whom this just won't work.
When presenting avoid phrases like "ladies and gentleman," or worse, just one of those. I know there are plenty of gay guys and drag queens who think it's cute to refer to everyone as "girls" and "ladies," but it's obnoxious and for some of us it's triggering. "Ladies and gentleman" is a canned phrase, anyway.
9. LISTEN!
Even if organizers of events don't always do things perfectly (and none of us do, it's not like I'm Mr. Inclusive myself), actually listening and responding to concerns can really change my opinion of a person or an event.
It was sorely lacking in transgender and bisexual inclusiveness, as it always has been. A friend of mine brought this up on Facebook, where they said that they had of course included the T... by citing a drag show. Because of this, and because I know there are plenty of organizers who think things exactly like this, I'd like to mention a few things that hopefully will help you create a more inclusive atmosphere in the future.
Some of these problems are not the fault of the actual organizers, so this is directed at not only them but at presenters, vendors, and perhaps even attendees.
1. Know that transgender people and other gender variant people DO attend pride events.
In Milwaukee it would have been hard to throw a coin and not hit a trans person at some points. And I'm not even including exclusive drag performers (people who only do performance drag but are not transgender or transsexual), who may or may not be considered transgender or gender variant depending on how you look at it. We were everywhere. There were trans guys running around with their surgery scars showing, trans women trading advice, and when you got to the smaller drag shows (which were more catered to transgender people than other events) there were loads of us.
There always are. The last year I went dressed in this ridiculous scouting outfit in an effort to mark myself as trans (back when I still had some visibility, sigh) and there were trans women, trans men, and genderqueers stopping me to talk. We are not an insignificant part of the Pride base.
2. Drag events do not count as transgender inclusiveness, and pretending they do is actually really offensive.
Yes, drag performers are included in a number of definitions of "transgender." I neither support nor discourage this, it is what it is. I also personally enjoy drag shows. But realize that transgender people have for decades been equated--not just associated, but equated--with drag performers. But there is a big distinction. An exclusive drag performer can turn off that gender performance. A drag queen, for example, does not generally need to worry about the same things a trans woman does. A drag king does not need to deal with the same issues as a trans man. So when you equate "trans inclusiveness" with "two hour long drag show," what you wind up doing--albeit unintentionally--is downplay those of us who are dealing with living transgender and replacing us with people who do it for art. It's like having a straight guy who has gay sex for money at an event and saying it's gay inclusiveness.
That's not to say that drag performers don't encounter trouble (just as any minority does), and there are drag performers who are also transsexual (I've found this is especially true for drag kings), but keep in mind "transgender" does not mean "drag."
3. When it comes to entertainers, there are plenty of transgender performers out there who are not drag performers.
Pride events are often entertainment events, and as such there is going to be different programming than, say, an educational event or a conference where one would expect a lot of very specific programming. But that's not an excuse to not be inclusive.
There are plenty of transgender performers who are not drag queens and kings. There are comedians like Ian Harvie, spoken word artists like Kit Yan and Julia Serano, musical artists like Bell Nuntita, Kim Petras, Katastrophe, Joshua Klipp, and Alex Davis. Again, that's not to say you can't also have drag performers, but balance it out a bit.
4. Events that should be inclusive should be inclusive.
At Milwaukee Pride this year there was this history exhibit which had posters. The posters had events in LGBT history... or rather LG history... and markers to add your own events.
There were a lot of omissions and mistakes in it. One of the most egregious? It referred to Stonewall as an event between police and "angry gays and lesbians," completely stripping out the massive influence of trans women and gender-noncomforming people (a friend of mine has posted screenshots). There was very little mention of not only trans people, but also bisexuals and women were not well represented, either.
Tucked in the corner there was a student-created exhibit which had the stories of Lou Sullivan and Sylvia Rivera, but it was being headed by somebody with little knowledge of trans issues (I know this because she tried to explain to me what gay trans men were).
People who went to the exhibit added a lot of historical points that the original creators forgot... and they're going to forget some things... but there was no way we should have needed to add damned near everything.
Make an effort to make events like that inclusive. Remember that Google exists. Don't give me that "transgender people didn't impact gay history" bullshit. Gays and lesbians were separate movements for a portion of their history, too.
This includes not only historical events, but also stuff like safer sex events and health events and film events. These really need transgender-specific information and content. I should not go to a kiosk that has eight films at an LGBT event in which none of them feature a serious transgender character or creator.
5. Vendors! Be aware that we exist!
Trans people aren't known for our disposable income (which is why some groups cut us off of their list when they're trying to get companies to love queer people), but keep in mind that like most people when we go to an event that has vendors we're not just going to ignore them most of the time.
There were maybe twenty vendor tables at Pridefest... three of them had transgender-inclusive merchandise, and not very much of it at that. One table was run by three nice gentleman who had lots of books, videos, and magnets for LGB people... and four buttons, hidden off in the corner, geared toward trans people (I did in fact buy one). There was another stand that had some bracelets, keychains, and pendants with transgender flags on them, and a paint-tattoo stand had one transgender design. The rest of them had... nothing.
There were leather flags and bear flags everywhere... no transgender flags. There was gay fiction and lesbian fiction and "general queer" fiction... and no trans fiction. There were more purchases geared toward furries than trans people, and while I love the furries, there is something really bizarre about accommodating them more than people who are actually in your acronym.
Also be aware that we notice. While I was walking through there--and I did so several times--I ran into many trans people who commented on the lack of inclusion.
6. If you have an area for organizations, invite trans groups if none initially sign up.
There were no transgender-centered groups that showed up this year. I'm not sure why, as there has usually been at least one, but keep in mind that trans people really do need resources. If none sign up, invite some to at least try getting some information out there. If nothing else, put out some information for local groups.
7. Don't confine transgender and gender-variant stuff--and in fact any other "obscure" stuff--to youth concerns.
There's this bizarre thing going on--and it was totally obvious at Pridefest this year--where people assume that trans and gender variant people stop existing when we turn twenty four. There was an event this year about gender-variant children... and that's absolutely wonderful, but why was it the only serious transgender or gender variant event? There was a hell of a lot of inclusiveness in the youth area compared to elsewhere... there was a nod to "alternative" relationships like polyamory, there were bisexual and transgender flags flying, there was even a furry workshop where people could make ears and a tail. But there was barely even a nod to these things elsewhere, implying that these are things we are going to grow out of when we finally transform into normal gays and lesbians.
8. Why do I even need to bring this up? Can you have at least one gender neutral restroom? And can you please encourage non-binary language?
I don't habitually use gender-neutral restrooms anymore. I am a trans man, at the point in transition where I pass 100% as if I were a cis male, so I use men's restrooms. I consider bothering over restrooms to be a bit of a cliché. Picking a restroom has never been top priority for me.
But there are plenty of trans and gender variant people who aren't in my position. There are trans men and trans women who don't pass well yet and aren't comfortable drawing attention to themselves by walking into a men's or women's room. There are people who identify as neither man nor woman. People who are dressing in drag and have to make awkward decisions. And people with disabilities who show up with caregivers of the opposite sex (there were quite a few of those this year). There were probably six restrooms there... all of which were single-sex.
Surveys should also be inclusive, if you happen to be running a stand that uses them. I took a survey as somebody who quit smoking that was pretty good in this regard (with four options for gender and then a write-in), but others made you choose "male" or "female." Now, for me and many other transsexuals this isn't a big personal deal for the same reason restrooms aren't... I just circle "male..." but there are people for whom this just won't work.
When presenting avoid phrases like "ladies and gentleman," or worse, just one of those. I know there are plenty of gay guys and drag queens who think it's cute to refer to everyone as "girls" and "ladies," but it's obnoxious and for some of us it's triggering. "Ladies and gentleman" is a canned phrase, anyway.
9. LISTEN!
Even if organizers of events don't always do things perfectly (and none of us do, it's not like I'm Mr. Inclusive myself), actually listening and responding to concerns can really change my opinion of a person or an event.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
So-you-wanna be a bearded lady, huh?
This is something that's been nagging at me for a really long time, and I think it's important here--a space which is mostly meant for trans men but also for some varieties of non-trans-men who Google-through to particular pages. And yes, it's a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend kind of story, but the fact is there are lots of people--trans men and otherwise--who don't understand that you can't always pick and choose what testosterone does to you.
This friend-of-a-friend case involves a cis woman who loves the idea of being a bearded lady. I'm not sure what the whole story is, here, except that she was looking for illicit sources of testosterone so that she could attain this appearance.
It's not the goal I have a problem with. Why should I care if a woman wants a beard? I wish society stopped making women who do have facial hair so damned uncomfortable with it (same thing with the obligation to shave places that most women do have hair). If testosterone achieved what she wanted it to, the need to write this essay would not exist.
But it doesn't.
Personally, at five months on T I have a little facial hair, enough to help me pass and thin out my face a little. Not a whole hell of a lot, though. And most guys I know don't have nearly the amount I do at this time. Some have to be on a full dose of T for years before it comes.
However, at five months my hairline is receding a little, my face shape changed, my musculature changed, and most importantly, even without visual context my voice is male-sounding enough that I have only been misheard as female once in the last four months.
You can't just say "I'm going to grow a beard and nothing else." If they could make custom batches of T for different effects, there aren't that many guys who would go for "the works." We'd do what any normal guy would do and try to prevent going bald and getting acne. Which reminds me: I'm not saying that if you are on testosterone or really plan to go on it you can't try to mold the effects of it. Shaping your body through exercise and diet, trying to avoid losing hair by using Rogaine or Propecia, getting rid of acne by using antibiotics or topical medications, these are all ways people try dealing with the effects of T they don't want. Everybody, not just trans men.
But there are several things you can't pick and choose, and the ones you can you can only pick and choose sometimes. Rogaine doesn't work for everybody. Not everybody can maintain a workout regimen that will get them where they want to be. Voice training to get your voice back into a female range doesn't always work. And these could all be things you need to deal with before you get the effects you do want.
"Well, I can just stop when I get to the point I want to be at." Yes, you can do that. Many people have: Trans men who change their minds or have health problems, trans men who don't want to go bald, female-bodied genderqueer people who want some masculinization... but be aware that you can't pick when these changes are going to happen, and some of them may go right back to your pre-T levels when you get off of T, and if your ovaries have shut down already you could go through a lot of emotional pain while they start back up again.
My point here is that you need to really know what you're getting into, because you might not be getting what you want.
This friend-of-a-friend case involves a cis woman who loves the idea of being a bearded lady. I'm not sure what the whole story is, here, except that she was looking for illicit sources of testosterone so that she could attain this appearance.
It's not the goal I have a problem with. Why should I care if a woman wants a beard? I wish society stopped making women who do have facial hair so damned uncomfortable with it (same thing with the obligation to shave places that most women do have hair). If testosterone achieved what she wanted it to, the need to write this essay would not exist.
But it doesn't.
Personally, at five months on T I have a little facial hair, enough to help me pass and thin out my face a little. Not a whole hell of a lot, though. And most guys I know don't have nearly the amount I do at this time. Some have to be on a full dose of T for years before it comes.
However, at five months my hairline is receding a little, my face shape changed, my musculature changed, and most importantly, even without visual context my voice is male-sounding enough that I have only been misheard as female once in the last four months.
You can't just say "I'm going to grow a beard and nothing else." If they could make custom batches of T for different effects, there aren't that many guys who would go for "the works." We'd do what any normal guy would do and try to prevent going bald and getting acne. Which reminds me: I'm not saying that if you are on testosterone or really plan to go on it you can't try to mold the effects of it. Shaping your body through exercise and diet, trying to avoid losing hair by using Rogaine or Propecia, getting rid of acne by using antibiotics or topical medications, these are all ways people try dealing with the effects of T they don't want. Everybody, not just trans men.
But there are several things you can't pick and choose, and the ones you can you can only pick and choose sometimes. Rogaine doesn't work for everybody. Not everybody can maintain a workout regimen that will get them where they want to be. Voice training to get your voice back into a female range doesn't always work. And these could all be things you need to deal with before you get the effects you do want.
"Well, I can just stop when I get to the point I want to be at." Yes, you can do that. Many people have: Trans men who change their minds or have health problems, trans men who don't want to go bald, female-bodied genderqueer people who want some masculinization... but be aware that you can't pick when these changes are going to happen, and some of them may go right back to your pre-T levels when you get off of T, and if your ovaries have shut down already you could go through a lot of emotional pain while they start back up again.
My point here is that you need to really know what you're getting into, because you might not be getting what you want.
Friday, May 25, 2012
22 weeks on T... and, well, it's been a while.
OK, I haven't been gone nearly as long as some defunct bloggers, but it's been almost a month so I decided to check in a bit.
It should be mentioned that I have real reasons for ducking out of the FTM online community periodically. Most of them revolve around stress, largely trying to maintain my 4.0 GPA without murdering somebody in the process and trying to get another job. And, well, at least I did preserve my GPA and I did get another job. The semester is over now, meaning I may or may not write more; it all depends on how many hours I decide to take on from my first job.
So anyway, it's 22 weeks and one day on testosterone. Thursday used to be "shot day" for me and, well, I switched it to Friday because I switched to Strohecker's Pharmacy and the delivery time made the change necessary. Shot 23 was today, and I feel fantastic! Most of the time, anyway. The twin demons of dysphoria and regular old body image still get to me because, and I probably mentioned this before, I don't feel like I look or sound different. Usually this is bearable because if I watch my old videos or look at old pictures I know that I do look different.
Plus, it's generally not that common a feeling for me because I'm largely stealth now. Well, not entirely... there's a bit of baggage that comes with being "stealth" that I don't really carry. Plenty of people know that I am transsexual and I don't hide it (just yesterday, for example, I disclosed it for a background check). But since that's a subject that rarely comes up ("Hey, Jack, I was just wondering if you were transsexual?" Yeah, no.), I don't disclose most places, and therefore most of the new people I meet have no clue.
Similarly, people who I met before I started physically transitioning seem to have forgotten in their own weird way. I don't know.
But yeah, that's more a life update than anything. Maybe I'll write something useful later. For now, just know that I'm alive and well.
It should be mentioned that I have real reasons for ducking out of the FTM online community periodically. Most of them revolve around stress, largely trying to maintain my 4.0 GPA without murdering somebody in the process and trying to get another job. And, well, at least I did preserve my GPA and I did get another job. The semester is over now, meaning I may or may not write more; it all depends on how many hours I decide to take on from my first job.
So anyway, it's 22 weeks and one day on testosterone. Thursday used to be "shot day" for me and, well, I switched it to Friday because I switched to Strohecker's Pharmacy and the delivery time made the change necessary. Shot 23 was today, and I feel fantastic! Most of the time, anyway. The twin demons of dysphoria and regular old body image still get to me because, and I probably mentioned this before, I don't feel like I look or sound different. Usually this is bearable because if I watch my old videos or look at old pictures I know that I do look different.
Plus, it's generally not that common a feeling for me because I'm largely stealth now. Well, not entirely... there's a bit of baggage that comes with being "stealth" that I don't really carry. Plenty of people know that I am transsexual and I don't hide it (just yesterday, for example, I disclosed it for a background check). But since that's a subject that rarely comes up ("Hey, Jack, I was just wondering if you were transsexual?" Yeah, no.), I don't disclose most places, and therefore most of the new people I meet have no clue.
Similarly, people who I met before I started physically transitioning seem to have forgotten in their own weird way. I don't know.
But yeah, that's more a life update than anything. Maybe I'll write something useful later. For now, just know that I'm alive and well.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Things My Teachers Have Said
I've been in school a long time (considering after high school I decided to be a masochist and go for three undergraduate degrees). So when the subject of teachers bullying students came up, I wasn't very surprised. I've heard my teachers, instructors, and professors say things that I interpreted as anywhere from sketchy to outright hostile. The worst part is that I'm pretty sure most of 'em didn't interpret what they were saying as such. But since I'm in one of those kinds of moods, I figured I'd post them and why they aren't appropriate.
They're not all LGBT, either... although most are.
They're not all LGBT, either... although most are.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Dysphoria Is Not About Attractiveness
So my hairline started receding.
To which everybody says "Aw, well, I guess you take the good with the bad, right?"
Story time. It's a sad story, so if you don't like sad stories, don't read this paragraph. My hairline has been a stealth source of dysphoria for me. I don't really mind things downstairs, I can ignore my chest at least for now, my voice has never been terrible... but that hairline. It annoys me, because it has always shaped my face in such a feminine manner. I'd be looking in the mirror wondering what else I can do and that hairline would stick out. A couple times I actually yanked hair out because I was that anxious and dysphoric. That's not a story I tell very many people, because not messing with your hairline is one of those things I always tell trans men to avoid... because it's too easy to screw up and it looks weird if you want it to grow back.
Over something most men are self-conscious about anyway? My word, what's going on?
Gender dysphoria isn't about attractiveness. Well, sometimes there's a component to it. But generally speaking, it's not about how you look so much as what how you look reminds you of. And when I saw that hairline, it didn't matter that it would have been the envy of many cis men, it reminded me that I was biologically female, and so it bothered me.
When cis people, non-dysphoric people and people-who-think-they-aren't-but-really-are talk about the way dysphoric trans people describe ourselves, there's this downplaying aspect that's usually present. A cis woman hears a trans woman lament that her body is the wrong shape and the response is "Oh, I totally know, I have [this this and this problem]," a cis man doesn't understand why a trans man has a problem with his hairline because he'd love that hairline. And there's the "I don't know why you complain, you look great" attitude displayed by people who don't see what the dysphoric person sees in themselves.
These are meant to be encouraging statements, and most of us realize that, but they have they inevitably push the stereotype that being dysphoric and in fact being trans is about attaining a specific standard of attractiveness rather than a deep and largely innate discomfort with one's physical gender.
To use the classic transphobic example, a woman is so upset with how difficult it is for her to conform to sexist standards of beauty... she weighs too much, her nose is too big, her chest is too small, some other thing... so she transitions because she feels maybe she could attain a male standard easier. This is not reality... a few people report it, but it's not an average situation and people who consider transition for this reason are usually weeded out. I know you don't really feel that way, but it's the same mentality. "When a trans person doesn't like their appearance, it's because of stereotypes regarding physical attractiveness."
No, it's not. It's not some flush of butch women who believe butch isn't sexy, it's not a bunch of fat women who believe fat men have it easier, and it's not about wanting to look like Brad Pitt so we can seduce women. It's about what we're reminded of.
To use an unauthorized example, there was a trans man who had a mastectomy that left a little breast tissue on accident. It was this benign lump on an otherwise gorgeous chest that nobody would know existed if it weren't for this guy lamenting about how much it bothered him. But rather than support that this was a dysphoric response, people were insisting it wasn't a big deal because it wasn't visible.
And that's not the point. He knows damned well he's hot. It's not about how he looks, it's about the tissue there reminding him every time he felt it that there used to be breasts there.
For a lot of us this is never going to entirely go away. We may alleviate it with hormone therapy and surgery, and we may be extremely happy with the results, but dysphoria isn't about attractiveness, so there's always that risk that it's going to continue.
And maybe you won't understand it. People who don't experience it maybe can't understand it. Just know, though, that it might not be what you assume it is.
To which everybody says "Aw, well, I guess you take the good with the bad, right?"
Story time. It's a sad story, so if you don't like sad stories, don't read this paragraph. My hairline has been a stealth source of dysphoria for me. I don't really mind things downstairs, I can ignore my chest at least for now, my voice has never been terrible... but that hairline. It annoys me, because it has always shaped my face in such a feminine manner. I'd be looking in the mirror wondering what else I can do and that hairline would stick out. A couple times I actually yanked hair out because I was that anxious and dysphoric. That's not a story I tell very many people, because not messing with your hairline is one of those things I always tell trans men to avoid... because it's too easy to screw up and it looks weird if you want it to grow back.
Over something most men are self-conscious about anyway? My word, what's going on?
Gender dysphoria isn't about attractiveness. Well, sometimes there's a component to it. But generally speaking, it's not about how you look so much as what how you look reminds you of. And when I saw that hairline, it didn't matter that it would have been the envy of many cis men, it reminded me that I was biologically female, and so it bothered me.
When cis people, non-dysphoric people and people-who-think-they-aren't-but-really-are talk about the way dysphoric trans people describe ourselves, there's this downplaying aspect that's usually present. A cis woman hears a trans woman lament that her body is the wrong shape and the response is "Oh, I totally know, I have [this this and this problem]," a cis man doesn't understand why a trans man has a problem with his hairline because he'd love that hairline. And there's the "I don't know why you complain, you look great" attitude displayed by people who don't see what the dysphoric person sees in themselves.
These are meant to be encouraging statements, and most of us realize that, but they have they inevitably push the stereotype that being dysphoric and in fact being trans is about attaining a specific standard of attractiveness rather than a deep and largely innate discomfort with one's physical gender.
To use the classic transphobic example, a woman is so upset with how difficult it is for her to conform to sexist standards of beauty... she weighs too much, her nose is too big, her chest is too small, some other thing... so she transitions because she feels maybe she could attain a male standard easier. This is not reality... a few people report it, but it's not an average situation and people who consider transition for this reason are usually weeded out. I know you don't really feel that way, but it's the same mentality. "When a trans person doesn't like their appearance, it's because of stereotypes regarding physical attractiveness."
No, it's not. It's not some flush of butch women who believe butch isn't sexy, it's not a bunch of fat women who believe fat men have it easier, and it's not about wanting to look like Brad Pitt so we can seduce women. It's about what we're reminded of.
To use an unauthorized example, there was a trans man who had a mastectomy that left a little breast tissue on accident. It was this benign lump on an otherwise gorgeous chest that nobody would know existed if it weren't for this guy lamenting about how much it bothered him. But rather than support that this was a dysphoric response, people were insisting it wasn't a big deal because it wasn't visible.
And that's not the point. He knows damned well he's hot. It's not about how he looks, it's about the tissue there reminding him every time he felt it that there used to be breasts there.
For a lot of us this is never going to entirely go away. We may alleviate it with hormone therapy and surgery, and we may be extremely happy with the results, but dysphoria isn't about attractiveness, so there's always that risk that it's going to continue.
And maybe you won't understand it. People who don't experience it maybe can't understand it. Just know, though, that it might not be what you assume it is.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Advice I Wish I'd Listened To, Being A Trans Person Online
So I just spent about a half hour putting various pages through Google's website removal tool. This is the last step in a long and grueling process which I'd like to share with you, especially the younger "yous" out there who are just beginning to transition. Especially those of you who think you will NEVER be upset to learn that a Google search tells all your potential employers that you are a "radical anarchist transman" because for some reason you think you are always going to be that way.
I started using my real name because Autumn Sandeen uses her real name. There was a controversy a few years ago in which she had positioned the use of her real name as a noble sacrifice that made her more genuine than anyone else, and I was running a marginally popular Twitter account (300+ followers) and an associated blog. Somewhere in the fishbowl that was being an on-campus-living college student and not really having a concept of the consequences of my actions yet, I decided this was an awesome idea and flipped my entire online persona to my real name.
This went on for a while, and there were no problems. No transphobic assholes knocking at my door with pistols, no hate mail, no egregious lost job opportunities that I'm aware of, and in fact the only stalker incident I had was with a German penpal who moved to America on a whim and decided to track me down (I still have no idea how he did that considering we wrote each other a total of twice). Now it's been so long I barely remember those personas that I used to identify with. And in that time, my real name's Internet presence is no longer in my control.
Don't connect your real name to everything.
And you know what? I know that a lot of you just flat out aren't going to fucking listen to me. You're going to say to yourself things like "I'm out and proud to be trans and I don't care who knows!" or "I am going to be an anarchist FOREVER because I read one publication from the CrimethInc Ex-Worker's Collective and feel like I'm a part of something" or "It doesn't matter that I said here that I support an animal rights terrorist organization because there's no way I'm going to get sick on veganism and wind up sobbing as I bite into an egg sandwich" and similar I-see-the-future-because-I'm-22-years-old-and-know-anything comments.
You know what? Most of us think that way. I thought things when I was younger that I am really embarrassed by now, and I think things now which I'll be embarrassed by when I'm 35, and it's totally cool to talk about that stuff on the Internet. That's one of the best things about the Internet.
Don't connect your real name to it. "But I'm going to be..." No. Just think about it. Think about these things.
Don't be ashamed by who you are... but keep in mind that maybe you won't want everybody to know later. So control it now, because you will not have that ability in the future.
I started using my real name because Autumn Sandeen uses her real name. There was a controversy a few years ago in which she had positioned the use of her real name as a noble sacrifice that made her more genuine than anyone else, and I was running a marginally popular Twitter account (300+ followers) and an associated blog. Somewhere in the fishbowl that was being an on-campus-living college student and not really having a concept of the consequences of my actions yet, I decided this was an awesome idea and flipped my entire online persona to my real name.
This went on for a while, and there were no problems. No transphobic assholes knocking at my door with pistols, no hate mail, no egregious lost job opportunities that I'm aware of, and in fact the only stalker incident I had was with a German penpal who moved to America on a whim and decided to track me down (I still have no idea how he did that considering we wrote each other a total of twice). Now it's been so long I barely remember those personas that I used to identify with. And in that time, my real name's Internet presence is no longer in my control.
Don't connect your real name to everything.
And you know what? I know that a lot of you just flat out aren't going to fucking listen to me. You're going to say to yourself things like "I'm out and proud to be trans and I don't care who knows!" or "I am going to be an anarchist FOREVER because I read one publication from the CrimethInc Ex-Worker's Collective and feel like I'm a part of something" or "It doesn't matter that I said here that I support an animal rights terrorist organization because there's no way I'm going to get sick on veganism and wind up sobbing as I bite into an egg sandwich" and similar I-see-the-future-because-I'm-22-years-old-and-know-anything comments.
You know what? Most of us think that way. I thought things when I was younger that I am really embarrassed by now, and I think things now which I'll be embarrassed by when I'm 35, and it's totally cool to talk about that stuff on the Internet. That's one of the best things about the Internet.
Don't connect your real name to it. "But I'm going to be..." No. Just think about it. Think about these things.
- You can't just delete stuff from the Internet. Google and other search engines cache this shit, the WayBackMachine shows websites I built in nineteen-fucking-ninety-nine, and there are bullshit "services" like MyTwitterDirectory and WhitePages which crawl the Internet looking for your information to get clicks.
The first thing you get from me in a Google search is WhitePages which identifies me as a radical queer, vegan, anarchist activist. It links to a Twitter page I no longer maintain, and which I actually destroyed by entirely deleting it. The Twitter account no longer says anything about me, but WhitePages still does. I contacted WhitePages multiple times and they did nothing... I just noticed today that it no longer has my Twitter on there, but that had nothing to do with me pestering them, it had to do with a site layout change. None of these websites give two shits whether you want your information on them. And once your information is gone, you still have to ask Google to get rid of the cached version, because plunking your name in there still results in a hit.
In addition, if people really like your material, they may copy it with credit. Which feels fantastic at the time, until you realize five years later that there are now dozens of copies of an article you wrote cross-posted on the Internet with your name plastered all over them. And you have to go to every single one of them and ask the person maintaining it to pull your information down. Plenty of people will do this if they like you... but there are also graveyards upon graveyards of websites that are no longer maintained that you have to worry about. And you still have to ask Google to get rid of the cache.
- You do not know what your transition is going to look like when you first decide to do it. When I first started transition, I expected to be an androgynous being who didn't want bottom surgery and wasn't even sure about hormones. How many young trans guys are out there blasting bottom surgery because they heard some ridiculous stereotype about it, when they aren't even on testosterone yet? Getting on T has an almost magical ability to make some trans guys want bottom surgery.
One of those things is this: You do not know now if you will want to be stealth in the future. I can tell you that right now I don't really want to be stealth in most of my life. I am at school, and that's it. In many ways I can't prevent that (in addition my court records stating the obvious, my parents seem to out me with gusto).
But I can, for the most part, control who I talk to in person. I can at the very least hide shit on Facebook, although it's certainly not perfect and they love changing shit on you. Once you get Google-bombed as a trans person, that ability is severely limited.
It may not bother you now, but in the future you may tire of being seen as the guy with a vagina (even if you don't have one anymore) and just want to be a man for once. You may not like that viewpoint now, but please understand that it may be like this for you in the future.
- You are going to, someday, want to get a job. Well, most of you will, anyway. And if you're an idealist you'll probably eventually learn that the nonprofit sector isn't always a wonderful place to work if you aren't the CEO, and living out of trash cans is also not particularly fun, so you'll probably try to get a job working for cash money at some point in your life.
And employers regularly will check your online presence. They may even do shady shit like hiring people to snoop on your Facebook account. Maybe you won't be penalized for being trans, and plenty of us do find jobs as trans people and transition on the job... but keep in mind, this isn't just about being trans, it's about the attitudes you may have as a young trans person that you might not have in the future.
- You don't know what your politics are going to be in the future. So in related news, I just learned that one of my favorite people, Berlin Reed (The Ethical Butcher) is a trans man. why didn't I know that? I don't know. But whatever the case, the reason I know this now is because he has (had?) a "vegan" tattoo. I was a vegan for three years and definitely thought about things like PETA bunny tattoos before I settled on my Patron God instead (which is still gonna be funny if I ever convert to Christianity).
It's kind of like getting a tattoo with your lover's name on it. Of course you think you'll be together forever. But, you know, it happens. You'll probably break up with your current politics, even if only through the details. And there are plenty of people out there who get ragged on in bars because they're drinking a beer when they have one of those ridiculous straight edge tattoos.
Think of what you put on the Internet as a tattoo. It's a good way of thinking about it, actually, because it's always going to be there in some way, shape or form. If you delete it, WayBackMachine has it, Google's cache has it, and content farmers probably have it. Do you want "I am a trans man" tattooed on the Internet? Maybe, but at least get it tattooed somewhere people aren't going to see it unless you show them... by using an alias and not your real name.
Don't be ashamed by who you are... but keep in mind that maybe you won't want everybody to know later. So control it now, because you will not have that ability in the future.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Starting to grow a beard... like so many high school boys...
I'm starting to grow a beard. Alright, maybe not quite enough for me to call it that, and it's true that I had facial hair to begin with, but there's so much more of it. In most lighting it actually shows up as facial hair, too, whereas it used to be you had to actually be looking for it. It's also starting to fill in between the two distinct patches, and it's spreading along the jaw and connecting with the neck hair I usually shave off. Grows out blonde, and then in a week or so it thickens up. Really neat to watch, actually.
My motivation level tapered off a little. The amount of time I spend exercising is... well, rather small. But my eating habits are still relatively well-checked and my grades are still up. Also, I'm down to 226 pounds (I'd gotten up to 240 in January). I've found myself to be slightly more impulsive, which is probably a side effect of the whole motivation thing. This is a mixed bag... it's coaxing me into doing things I should have started doing long ago, but it also means I do some things without thinking about them.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
My Girl Scout Cookie Story
Then I remembered today was cookie booth day. I had wanted to go to the cookie booth because I didn't buy any cookies from individual girls. So I'm like, yeah, milk can wait, but I'm not going to give up my one chance to totally ruin my diet for a while, especially considering there's a "massive" cookie boycott by the bigoted-by-design American Heritage Girls (or rather their parents), so I monster-trucked my way out of the driveway.
I told a girl who asked me if I wanted cookies that I'd be back when I was done shopping, so I go and I get my milk and come back. I think about it for a minute before saying "You know, I'll just take one of each."
To which the leaders/volunteers looked at me funny like "Whut? One of each whut?"
"One of each kind?" To which they looked at me as if I'd just bought ten cases of cookies, "Really?"
"Uh, yeah."
So one of the leaders scrambles with a bag looking all excited, the other starts doing math on a calculator to tell me what I owe. I gave them a twenty and told them to keep the rest. Which wasn't a lot but everybody was very excited about it.
(I'm getting the impression they didn't sell a lot of boxes today)
One of the leaders tells me I can keep them in the freezer, and I say I know because I used to be a Girl Scout. In reality I was thinking "Freeze them? You, sir, underestimate my ability to be fat."
As I left, I overheard one of the girls saying "Boys can be Girl Scouts?!" To which the leader replied, "I guess so."
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Being called "trans" is really condescending.
I got into an argument I really shouldn't have. I trick myself every time in to thinking I'm doing it "for people who happen to stumble on it," but that couldn't be further from the truth. The reality was that I was angry because somebody was being a thinly-veiled transphobe.
I used the phrase "cis people" and the person told me to stop "being patronizing to 'cis' people." Which, due to the scare quotes used around "cis" but never "trans," told me this was one of those people who gets offended when trans people use "cis" as an adjective for them. Also ironic, considering they started two threads today specifically to provoke trans people. But I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about people who take offense to being called 'cis."
They all give similar reasons. Transphobic feminists might complain that it "takes away women's right to determine their identification," because trans people clearly want cis women to call themselves cis women all of the time, and never just women (FYI, I'm being sarcastic, that's not true). Other people might complain that they "never" hear trans people use "cis" in a way which is not patronizing.
The latter I can agree with to a point: Sometimes some trans people do use cis as a pseudo-insult. But there are a few things cis people need to realize about that:
I used the phrase "cis people" and the person told me to stop "being patronizing to 'cis' people." Which, due to the scare quotes used around "cis" but never "trans," told me this was one of those people who gets offended when trans people use "cis" as an adjective for them. Also ironic, considering they started two threads today specifically to provoke trans people. But I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about people who take offense to being called 'cis."
They all give similar reasons. Transphobic feminists might complain that it "takes away women's right to determine their identification," because trans people clearly want cis women to call themselves cis women all of the time, and never just women (FYI, I'm being sarcastic, that's not true). Other people might complain that they "never" hear trans people use "cis" in a way which is not patronizing.
The latter I can agree with to a point: Sometimes some trans people do use cis as a pseudo-insult. But there are a few things cis people need to realize about that:
- Cis people are privileged over trans people. Because of that, we do not have the power to create useful anti-cis slurs. Same reason nobody reasonably thinks saying "cracker" is usefully oppressing whites or "man-whore" is usefully oppressing men.
- "Cis" is the opposite of "trans" and was chosen because it is etymologically fair. The language people who object to "cis" use to describe themselves in the same context is almost always designed to "other" trans people in favor of cementing themselves as the "real" men or, more commonly, "real" women.
- Despite comments to the contrary, this has happened before. "Straight," for example, originated as slang used by gay people.
- Some uses of cis are meant to be snide and obnoxious... but most of the time, the only real offense is that a trans person has hit a nerve regarding a cis person's privilege. Basically, we have pointed out that the linguistic dynamic of "women versus trans women" or "men versus trans men" is wrong.
- When you think about it, calling people "trans" is incredibly condescending, too, when you actually think about it.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The Birthday Card My Parents Gave Me
It's my birthday on Tuesday, so all my family members were getting me cards and stuff. This was my favorite, which is from my parents:
LOL!
Awww, sweet, they refer to me as their son finally! The best part is when you get to the inside, though, when you realize why Mom picked this card:
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Trans Names Remind Me Of Craft Names
So, in the Pagan/Wiccan/Witch community we have this thing called "craft names" or "magic names." I don't use one, really, I just go by good old Jackson, but to a lot of people this is a really important issue. They'll go through a different name every month, thinking it is 100% the most "them" name they have ever seen, and then a few weeks later they realize it's just not "them" anymore.
It's the same issue with trans people. I see people go through name after name and really stress out about every little thing from what the cultural history of the name is to how creatively they can spell it, often winding up with something that rhymes with "Aidan." You know, like Brayden, Kaden, Shayden, Jayden, Treyden, etc.
(I know it's a trans male cliché but you absolutely know it to be true. It's a part of our culture we just have to deal with.)
Oh, believe me, I did the same thing. I was Jack, Jacques, Jacob, and even tried having a hyphenated first name before I stuck with Jackson. And when I did pick it, it was seriously as I was filling out the legal name change form. "Oh God, what do I put here. You know what? My parents call me 'Jackson.' Alright, going with it." That was three years ago and I haven't had any of the stress I had when I was still skipping from name to name.
Is it absolutely 100% positively "me" all the time? Does it raise my blood pressure out of excitement whenever I see it on a legal document or hear it spoken? Do I feel as though there is no other name that could possibly be any better than mine?
Absolutely not.
In fact, sometimes I get annoyed by my name. When I stuck that name on my name change form, I also changed my middle name to "Andrew," meaning it's "Andrew Jackson" backwards, and he is among my top ten least favorite American presidents.
In the long run, though, that's not the point.
The point is that we are talking about names, something most people don't get to choose anyway. You're not going to find something that 100% fits you 100% of the time because you are not a name, you are a person.
Find a name... and then chill out. If it takes you ten years, that's fine, but just remember that all of the doubts you have are probably going to be there all the time no matter what name you pick. In fact, there are even guys who take a bunch of names they like, put them in a hat, and pull one out.
And it'll grow on you. Seriously. The reason most people feel like their names are "them" is that names are a mundane thing that we learn from infancy. You just have to learn it when you're conscious enough to feel awkward about it, otherwise it's the same thing, and you'll totally be fine.
It's the same issue with trans people. I see people go through name after name and really stress out about every little thing from what the cultural history of the name is to how creatively they can spell it, often winding up with something that rhymes with "Aidan." You know, like Brayden, Kaden, Shayden, Jayden, Treyden, etc.
(I know it's a trans male cliché but you absolutely know it to be true. It's a part of our culture we just have to deal with.)
Oh, believe me, I did the same thing. I was Jack, Jacques, Jacob, and even tried having a hyphenated first name before I stuck with Jackson. And when I did pick it, it was seriously as I was filling out the legal name change form. "Oh God, what do I put here. You know what? My parents call me 'Jackson.' Alright, going with it." That was three years ago and I haven't had any of the stress I had when I was still skipping from name to name.
Is it absolutely 100% positively "me" all the time? Does it raise my blood pressure out of excitement whenever I see it on a legal document or hear it spoken? Do I feel as though there is no other name that could possibly be any better than mine?
Absolutely not.
In fact, sometimes I get annoyed by my name. When I stuck that name on my name change form, I also changed my middle name to "Andrew," meaning it's "Andrew Jackson" backwards, and he is among my top ten least favorite American presidents.
In the long run, though, that's not the point.
The point is that we are talking about names, something most people don't get to choose anyway. You're not going to find something that 100% fits you 100% of the time because you are not a name, you are a person.
Find a name... and then chill out. If it takes you ten years, that's fine, but just remember that all of the doubts you have are probably going to be there all the time no matter what name you pick. In fact, there are even guys who take a bunch of names they like, put them in a hat, and pull one out.
And it'll grow on you. Seriously. The reason most people feel like their names are "them" is that names are a mundane thing that we learn from infancy. You just have to learn it when you're conscious enough to feel awkward about it, otherwise it's the same thing, and you'll totally be fine.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Yesterday's Shot #9, Awkard Facebook, and Phone Therapy
Changes are slow, as is to be expected. I have longer vellous hair on my face, especially on the chin around where I already had patches of terminal hair, although it's still vellous for now. I shaved it off, we'll see how long before it looks like real hair.
I've found that I'm usually very motivated and excited the day I get my shot, with a climax the hour after. That goes on for about half the week when I revert to a normal motivation level (which is still higher than it was pre-T). Part of it is I think the rush from actually giving the shot and the relief when it's over. I do it, and it's fine, but I always get nervous first.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Why I Am Not A Cheerleader For Informed Consent
Something that's been buzzing around my head since I learned about it a few years ago is the idea of "informed consent." This is a model of getting hormones (and other related medical care) in which rather than going to therapy for a certain amount of time to make sure hormones are what the client needs, clients sign waivers stating that they are aware of the consequences of hormones, what they can and can't do, and that they are of a sound mind to make such a decision.
It's not that I think informed consent is a bad thing--on the contrary, I tried very hard to find somebody who would give me T without a letter before I buckled down and went to a therapist--it's that the discourse surrounding it is based on what I would call "friendly myths" about trans people.
So there are a lot of reasons I really don't promote informed consent. Admittedly, it is bent toward American trans men, although this whole blog is:
But that doesn't mean it needs to be promoted everywhere the subject comes up. It's not the best thing for everybody.
It's not that I think informed consent is a bad thing--on the contrary, I tried very hard to find somebody who would give me T without a letter before I buckled down and went to a therapist--it's that the discourse surrounding it is based on what I would call "friendly myths" about trans people.
So there are a lot of reasons I really don't promote informed consent. Admittedly, it is bent toward American trans men, although this whole blog is:
- It's brought up a lot to people who have not been out for a very long time at all.This is based on that "friendly myth" that if people say they are trans, they are. That doesn't mean you shouldn't treat them as if they aren't or even as if they might not be, just keep in mind that not everybody you meet on the Internet or in a support group is actually trans. I know there are going to be people boiling in their boots when I say this, but there are people who decide they want to transition because it's the "in" thing to do or because they have unresolved internalized homophobia.
Those people will usually dissolve that desire to have hormones once they try living as male for a while and realize it's just not them. That's fine, but if they've already jumped the gun and started using hormones to masculinize themselves, this is a big problem for both them and the community. The rate of detransition for trans people who have gotten medical care is rather low. It's pivotal that we keep it that way, because that's a rough process to have to go through. - The low level of contact encourages people to lie.
The above of course can be easily solved by just saying "You aren't eligible for informed consent unless you've lived in-role for a set period of time," right? In fact, the standards of care even state that you shouldn't need therapy if you have already been living as male for a long period of time. Where's the problem?
There isn't one... if people are telling the truth. The entire reason I'm thinking about this today is because a guy was cheerleading for informed consent while outright admitting that he'd gone into the doctor's office, played a role, and lied about how long he had been out. Informed consent, which is usually only available to people who have been out for quite a while, encourages this kind of behavior.
Therapy can encourage lying, too, but therapists are trained to spot that sort of thing. Plus, if you have three months of therapy you know that you've been dealing with this at least that three months.
- Therapy gives you more benefits than most people think it does.
Admittedly? In some ways this is a regional thing. Here in Wisconsin a therapist can give you a letter that will get your driver's license changed to male (and your lived name if that hasn't been changed yet) before you are even given a diagnosis. A lot of people aren't aware of that, but a good therapist will be.
And if you haven't come out yet--at work, at school, to family, to friends--or if you haven't been living as male full-time, or if you have hang-ups with restrooms and things like that, a therapist can give you help that an endocrinologist might not be able to. - It's not an option that's available to everybody.
This isn't a cut on informed consent in general. Again, there are benefits for a lot of people. You don't have to pay for therapy, there's a better chance you won't wind up being diagnosed with a mental illness, it's faster, it puts power in the hands of trans people, etc. But it's also not available to everybody.
The closest place I could find to where I live that did informed consent was two and a half hours away, and because I lived that far away and didn't have good enough insurance they rejected me. I asked other trans men, I asked my doctor, I asked a lot of people... and I could not find somebody who would do this for me despite having lived as male for six years at the time.
Can you find them around here? Probably. But it's a royal pain in the ass, so many doctors don't want to be known as people who will give hormones to trans people without therapy and keep their activities hushed. And there are some states that barely have doctors who will do it with therapy let alone without. - The problems with therapy can be alleviated by better education regarding transition standards and better access to health care.
Yeah, informed consent is cheaper, especially for people without health insurance. But we're talking about a health care need, here. Why is therapy made into the issue and not the right of trans people for proper health care? Or all people, for that matter? It's a similar story to people who hand out those contrived Xeroxed pamphlets to women explaining how to be their own gynecologists by shoving specula into themselves and doing guesswork with a mirror rather than championing the right of women to get that health care from a professional. It's the wrong fight.
Yeah, informed consent gets rid of the need for therapy a person might not need. But if therapists and doctors actually listened to a copy of the HBSOC that isn't ancient, they would know that this isn't a standard anymore anyway. Again, it's the wrong fight.
But that doesn't mean it needs to be promoted everywhere the subject comes up. It's not the best thing for everybody.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Wax Face And Other Stories
 |
| Giving myself my shot, beginning of week 2. |
Well, here it goes.
I had shot number four last Thursday. It was as painless as the shots on the first day. Even the more painful shots aren't that bad, though... shots two and three stung, but they were definitely do-able. Getting through the skin is not so much of a challenge yet, and it only starts hurting once the needle is maybe 3/4 of an inch in, and not very bad.
So, changes. Have there been some? Well, the answer is "yes." It's been three weeks and five days and my body is clearly at war for my ovaries. My skin, especially, bounces in condition like a small rubber ball, except this rubber ball exists specifically because it doesn't know whether to trust the T or the E.
So on day two or three I got what I like to call wax face. It looks kind of like this:
Speaking of which, I have that too. It isn't so much on the face... I get a zit here and there anyway. It's on my chest and shoulders. I've been using a body wash for it and it's gone down, but it's still there to a degree that so far is not bothersome.
My voice is changing just a little. It's mostly noticeable when I try hitting higher registers, like if I'm babytalking the dog or something I'll squeak. Otherwise it's slightly deeper and raspier, but not in a way that's noticeable if you don't have a real frame of reference (like, if you listen to a video of me talking from pre-T versus one now). That, like the face, bounces up and down quite a bit.
So that's that for now.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Buy Girl Scout Cookies With Authority
Normally I try to avoid putting stuff that isn't really related to trans men directly on this blog (mostly because I'm aware the other stories I put here tend to be biased in ways I'm not comfortable with), but... well...
Buy Girl Scout cookies this year. If you don't have other reasons for not doing so, anyway.
It's a good program. And it's actually girl-centered rather than cis-girl-centered. It's inclusive. It's not the Boy Scouts. Also I worked for them for a long time.
I'm not particularly worried about them, to be honest... the fact is, when that group disbanded to form a different group, they joined the same organization that was created because the Girl Scouts made mention of "God" in the promise optional. So they were assholes to begin with.
Just saying, buy Girl Scout cookies.
Buy Girl Scout cookies this year. If you don't have other reasons for not doing so, anyway.
It's a good program. And it's actually girl-centered rather than cis-girl-centered. It's inclusive. It's not the Boy Scouts. Also I worked for them for a long time.
I'm not particularly worried about them, to be honest... the fact is, when that group disbanded to form a different group, they joined the same organization that was created because the Girl Scouts made mention of "God" in the promise optional. So they were assholes to begin with.
Just saying, buy Girl Scout cookies.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
I'm not being self-depreciating, I'm just saying I'm not more legit.
"You're not like her, though." No, seriously, wait until you hear this. "I knew her back before she got into all this transguy stuff... she still acts like the same lesbian she always has been, I mean just look at her. You, you're legit."
What prompted this, and keep in mind this was a long time ago, was the fact that I requested people stop referring to Zachary, probably the first other trans man I ever met in person who I knew was a trans man, as a lesbian and using female pronouns.
Allow me to mention a few things before I continue. First off, the woman on the far left in this picture from eleven years ago is me:
That is how people knew me for years. A baggy-clothed butch girl with a pseudo-mullet.
What prompted this, and keep in mind this was a long time ago, was the fact that I requested people stop referring to Zachary, probably the first other trans man I ever met in person who I knew was a trans man, as a lesbian and using female pronouns.
Allow me to mention a few things before I continue. First off, the woman on the far left in this picture from eleven years ago is me:
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