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.

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.

1. 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.
   
2. 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.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.

I'm not getting knocks on my door from angry protesters, I'm not getting death threats, but I do get my privacy invaded.  I get talked about at work.  I get people who have crushes on me Googling me.  And I do wind up having to scrub the Internet looking for my own name every month to get rid of stuff that has been out of date for years.

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'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.

Trans People Are Not Up For LGBT Debate

You  know, I don't want to spend a hell of a lot of time on this because it's just going to frustrate me, but reading the asinine comments in the Advocate about how "Work It" is totally not offensive to trans people because the characters aren't trans people has really gotten to me.

I just want to say that I'm sick of LGB groups acting as if trans people are or should be a subject of debate.

I'm sick of the fact that the Advocate seems not to moderate comments to get rid of cissexist minimizing about how trans people shouldn't be offended by things that are offensive.

I'm sick of the fact that there are lesbian blogs in which it is considered perfectly OK to write nasty hate bile about trans people where it would be considered absolutely appalling to write similar critiques about sexual orientation.

I'm sick of the fact that even Bilerico's Bil Browning seemed to kick and scream in 2009 before he'd take a transphobic article off of his website because it happened to be written by a gay civil rights leader.

I'm sick of the fact that I've had to sit through LGBT meetings where people turn down all ideas for trans inclusion because they aren't "marketable."

I'm sick of the fact that the HRC has actually given people poorly written surveys in order to "prove" their membership doesn't consider our freedoms important and to justify not fighting for trans people equally.

In short, I'm just getting really fucking sick of the fact that it's not just an issue of ignoring us and keeping us invisible,  I'm sick of being a topic of debate.  I am not your topic of debate any more than you should be mine.

Really guy? Really?

Sometimes there's stuff out there that's so well-meaning but which still makes my head hurt:

I added the mars symbol to point out that this is a guy because I don't post real names.  Usually.

Clearly this is supposed to tell me that you cannot be either bisexual, transgender, or Pagan, and since my cissexism sense is rapidly tingling I assume you mean that you aren't trans because OMFGLOL no straight woman wants a trans guy, right?  Or a trans woman, for that matter, because it clearly has never happened that a straight woman married a trans woman who didn't know she was a trans woman yet and just happened to still love her enough to say.  Crazy world, say I.

Honestly, I think this kind of thing in some ways this kind of thing annoys me more than any bullshit Keith Ablow could pull out of his ass, simply because people in general are so ill-informed that they think this sort of thing is supportive.  And he's really trying to be, don't get me wrong, but seriously, straight allies, don't do this.

Dear Cis People...

"I like, don't have any problem with trans people, it's like, their choice and all..."

Why is it that cissexual LGB people often feel the need to announce they don't feel entirely male or female when they clearly do feel like the one connected with their birth sex?  Why is it they feel the need to announce that trans people, many of whom have a legitimate medical diagnosis confirming it, are making a "choice" and then turn around and complain when some anti-family bigot says it's a "choice" that they're gay or lesbian?  Seriously, cis people, can you just stop saying stuff like this?

So you're not a dysphoric transsexual. Want a cookie?

We're going to make this I guess an etiquette article as well as a viewpoints article because although it's clearly a viewpoint essay it's also based on etiquette.  And that etiquette lesson has to do with an open disregard for other trans people regarding identity and dysphoria.  Recently it reared its head in a discussion of non-dysphoric trans men.  It started with an honest question and then devolved rapidly into mocking dysphoric trans people.

There were a couple myths thrown around in this discussion I'd like to address, as well as a sort of etiquette warning.

1. Dysphoria isn't what everyone seems to think it is.
2. Dysphoria isn't a failing on the part of dysphoric people.
3. It is not cool to mock dysphoria if you don't have it.

Which I will explain after the jump.

Medical Misgendering

I was thinking about top surgery doctors lately, and the two names that were given to me in my program were Dr. Brownstein in San Francisco and Dr. Steinwald by Chicago.  I am looking around at other doctors too to find the right cross between price and results (of course, I have time to save money for this, so more weight on the "results") but as I was looking I did notice something unsettling I'd like to bring to your attention.

It concerns the FTM mastectomy results on Dr. Steinwald's page.

For example:

21 year-old female seeking gender reassignment/top surgery; presented with a youthful/fuller B-cup bra size and aesthetics, which made her an excellent candidate for a single-stage FTM chest masculinization as an outpatient.

Since I know most of you are coming here from sites criticizing me for pointing this out because not all chest surgeries are done on male-identified people, I'll state that yes, there are male-identified people on that site being referred to using female pronouns who did not consent to this and who do not appreciate this.  He apparently uses female pronouns on his medical notes, too.

Recently I also noticed that some trans men's therapists put female pronouns on their T-letters.

I don't have much to say about any of this right now except that it's disturbing that people who work with us would make such a big mistake.

Because I'm not a woman.

My identity is incredibly simple.  I understand that not everybody's is... but mine is.  I am a transsexual.  I am a relatively traditional one.  I was born biologically female, but mentally and socially I am male.  Fully male.  Not halfway male.  Not female but masculine.  I am male.  Why is that so hard for people to get?

This list is written as a way to hopefully slap people into an understanding of what is really going on in my life.  It seems that no matter how I try getting people to understand what my gender identity really, they still consistently ask me "Why?" or "Why not?" when they learn I do certain things or refuse to do others.  I don't understand how I can make this more explicit to you people, so for some of you this will be my last attempt.

• Why do I keep cutting my hair as soon as it starts "getting to a length that looks good on me?"
• Because you are judging my appearance under the assumption that I am a woman.  The reason you think my hair looks "better" on me when it is longer is because you are still viewing me as a woman.  I am not.
• Why don't I shave my legs or under my arms?
• Because in my culture women are the ones who regularly shave their legs and underarms.  Men do not.  I am not a woman.  I am a man.
• On a side-note, I don't understand why you care about women's shavinghabits so much either.

Passing Privilege: A Kind-Of Response

I call this a "kind-of response" because when I first read the essay Macho Men & The Femme Factor by Sabrina Pandora I was irritated beyond all belief.  I had a lot of plans to write my own observational essay on why trans women and trans men don't always hang out together at the soda shop or whatever the kids are doing these days, but it never got published because I didn't want to alienate trans women just because one trans woman wrote something that seemed to entirely blame trans men for the lack of collaboration between us.

This is a revised, much more cooled-off version of what I would have written back then which I hope does not automatically pin either trans women or trans men (or in fact all genderqueer people or all traditional transsexuals or anybody) as the reason we tend to gather in cliques.  The thing is, it really isn't just one group of us doing it... it's all of us.

A list of things I hate being told by non-FTMs...

Because sometimes I just need to write a list and sometimes when the holiday season is over I am forced to mull over the massive list of things people have said to me that are what-the-fuckery at its finest.  Some of them, of course, aren't that obviously obnoxious, so maybe this will help for the SOFFAs out there.

(Or not.  I'm only one guy, after all, and it's inevitable a lot of people don't consider this stuff irritating as I do.  Say them to me, though, and you have a problem.)

• Personal questions when you don't know me.  Hell, even if you do.  Stuff like what medicine I'm on (if any) what surgeries I'm having (if any) and how I have sex are none of your business.  In fact, in most of these cases it wouldn't even occur to people that they were any of their business if I weren't trans.