Political transgenderism. My reality

The other day I was drawn into a Twitterstorm following a throwaway comment by some punter about trans people.  I don’t usually step into such things, as the online vitriol serves no purpose other than to show our own ugliness.

But I asked the author, a self-described feminist, if she had any first-hand knowledge about the trans experience.  Did she have a family member, a loved one, a sister, a brother, a parent, a cousin, anyone in her immediate circle where she might have direct experience?  More importantly, someone close to her where her first feeling and obligation is to love and understand?  Crickets.

And this is true.  So many people latch onto issues, whatever they are, as a means to hide their own bigotry and poor self-image.  The trans experience should not be something we even need to debate politically.  I understand these issues are enormous, and deal with some very prickly situations.

Transgender Children

Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will know that the issue that stirs me more than any other in life is the protection of the innocence of children, of allowing them to grow up in a loving and supporting environment, encouraging them, and shielding them from abuse.  Sadly, in our greatest crime, we fail at this as a society, both at the individual and collective level.

The statistics related to abuse are alarming.

I can only share my own experience and draw from that towards policy.  I recognise that a broken home is more common than anyone would like.  That parents, even ones with good intention for the welfare of their children, stray at times into the realm of abuse.  But in a world where everyone is doing their level best to support the child, we should be able to assume that together, that family unit, with support, can make the right decisions, and do so without the interference of the political system.

One of the reasons I blog is with a vague hope that someone reading about dysphoria will come to understand, whether their own, of someone they love, or just generally.  And through understanding, might come to be a more tolerant, less judgemental, and better human.  I do the same about sexuality, the goal being stepping away from shame.

Being out is an even stronger form of that.  I feel an intense obligation, and I embrace a sense of responsibility for my presence and my actions and seek to stand ever more publicly as a transgender person.  Imagine my delight from some things which have happened to me recently.  I have been at a number of large public gatherings recently, and at two of them, different women came up to me and affirmed me, and then asked me some very personal questions.  My open responses led them to offer up their motive in asking.  Their children.

Each had a child who is expressing their transness.  And they wanted to know what to do about it.  They obviously cared very deeply about their children.  They also saw in me at least superficially someone who needn’t be feared, and I mean this in the sense of “oh my gosh, I don’t want my child to grow into that.”  You see, the ballerina giraffe is an ambassador.

They wanted to understand how to deal with it as parents.  To know if it was real.  I asked about whether they had support, professional, therapeutic support with a therapist who had experience with these issues.  I shared what it was like to grow up knowing that I was trans from my first conscious breaths, and to know that this was taboo, and should remain unspoken.  There was an absence of tolerance and plenty of confusion in my home.

It was wonderful for me to be a help to these two mothers who were obviously interested in finding what was best for their children—both kids were under 12.

I realise that the drugs we have at our disposal, puberty blockers, mainly Spironolactone and Finasteride, are powerful chemicals which do have health effects, are far from perfect.  But in a society where passing remains so critical for a trans person to fit in, a trans child who goes through puberty in the wrong direction, their lives are forever tainted.  Forever.

And for someone who wishes to be the opposite sex, or simply feels that they are in the wrong body, to be forced to go through puberty is a kind of existential violence that is utterly corrosive to our sense of well-being.  It is not something we can ‘get over’ or resolve through therapy beyond a level of just coping.  When we are talking about the most fundamental aspect of self-hood, our gender, we have to let the river flow.

The real statistics should tell us enough.  Intersex people are approximately 1.7% of the world population (people born with genetic deviations from XX or XY or born with physical features congruent with a sex that is different than their genetic profile).  This is fewer than the number of red-heads present.  Transgender people, whether male or female, are 1% of the world’s population (on our best estimates to date).  We don’t deserve to have so much air time, to have so much political ink spilt over us.

The most important statistic is that transgender are 100x more likely to attempt to take their own lives.  100x.  And the political debate doesn’t deal with that.  Instead it deals with the prejudice of people who have nothing to do with it, who have no direct experience.  And the legislation seems to enshrine the idea that Big Brother knows better than the individual, than the family, than the doctors who are trained in this.

I get it, people have agendas.  Even trans people.  But it is not healthy for us to legislate morality, and that is what it has become.  The state wresting control over life and parenting from the parents and the children that this affects.  As imperfect as they are, WPATH is an international set of guidelines which professionals and trans people from all over the world have participated in creating, and now guide access to transgender care globally.

They set certain rules, such as the requirement for two therapists, one of whom must be a PhD.  This is to get a diagnosis.  The diagnosis of dysphoria is required before you can access an endocrinologist.  For surgery, you need all three for a year before interventions are possible.  In reality, it takes longer than that.

While part of me doesn’t like the gatekeeping, I also know that it is there to help people who are not in as clean and clear a set of life circumstances as I am.  The goal is to help ensure people make the best decisions, and isn’t set to prevent us from accessing our best lives.

Schools have to be a haven for a child to be able to come out, to be out.  No child is going to be encouraged into being trans.  It is hardly chic.  It is an active choice for a life of risk and hardship.  Forcing the reporting to parents of expressions of these kinds is sanctioning abuse.  For if the child has not come out with parents, then you know already that it is not safe for them to do so.

A child with dysphoria should not be forced to experience puberty of the wrong gender.  Puberty blockers, as nasty as they are as chemicals, are the current best solution to preserving choice until a child is old enough to consent.  It is primordial that a child be given the freedom of choice.  And at this time, it is the only way.  Their lives do really depend on it.  One suicide is too many.

I know that I would be dead today had I not been blessed with a body that looked androgynous.  That I had the good fortune of being conventionally attractive enough to model.  Going through male puberty was a horrible thing for me, and it has meant that I am condemned to being a freak in the eyes of society.  I will never pass, will never blend in.  I have found that I can be okay with it, and I do that by being out, in-your-face, unapologetic in my choice of clothes…for we come in all shapes and sizes.

I am wistful at times for the woman I know I could have looked like, for she would have been striking, coming as she did from a lineage of truly gorgeous women (who have graced the covers of some of the most glamourous magazines in the world).  Maybe beauty standards will change.  Maybe we will actually learn to celebrate diversity in body shape, colour, creed, gender.  At least we are talking about it.

But if there is one thing that makes me want to put a stake in the heart of male privilege, it is the shrill cries and actions of the political-evangelical white Christian right to interfere with the most personal and important aspect of being for a tiny minority in society.  Their nastiness is my call to action, and a big part of why I refuse to do anything other than stand up and be counted.  We’re here, get used to it.

How I deal with the Bathroom Issue

Is it true that this is the sharp end of the transgender debate?  It seems absurd.  But yes, it likely is.  Women’s spaces more generally.  It is interesting that trans men do not seem to attract the same flames.  That’s an easy one.  A trans man is implicitly buying into the patriarchy (not literally, but figuratively.  Important point.  Why?  Because on some level, society sees men as “superior”…and therefore it is socially understandable that a woman might want to trade up…that she might want the privilege associated with being male, might hate or eschew the burden of, and discrimination against, being female).  In other words, a trans man is not threatening the status quo in a way that a trans woman is.

A trans woman is explicitly rejecting the patriarchy, saying, ‘take your privilege; my freedom matters more’.  And this is threatening to the social order.  The women who reject trans women in women’s spaces do not reject trans women, they reject interlopers.  They are legitimately fearful that a man will use the cover of trans-ness to invade their space.  This is, unfortunately, a real issue.  As many trans people say, the issue is men, not trans women or women.

Everyone has a right to feel safe.  Bathrooms, changing rooms, are intimate spaces.  A woman naked with other women in a locker room shower would understandably find it jarring to see someone who was at least anatomically still partially or fully intact in a male body in their space.  I can understand that.  One of my very dear friends is a trans woman who transitioned at a very young age…you would never know she had been male, except if she were naked.  She is female in nearly every way, but she still has the vestige of maleness that allows her to pee standing up.  In the eyes of the law she is also female, but in the context of a shower, her presence might upset some.

The hardest time to negotiate is the time when we are really in the midst of the physical changes which accompany this journey.  With every passing day, I look less and less male.  Do I look female?  No, not really, but I do have clear aspects of that.  I am going from male beauty to something which is more female.  It looks great on me.  And naked, I have curves, perhaps not as pronounced, but my body is delicious.  I will not enter a female changing room or a bathroom even when invited.  There are two things that stop me.  First, I will only feel that I belong after I have made the profound step of a sex change operation.  That’s me.  That isn’t my friend, who has not taken that final step because she can’t afford it.  The second, which she has, is legal recognition.  I am not going to go into such a space without my documents in order.

That works for me.  But you can surely see the transition period as one of heightened risk and pure awkwardness.  Indeed, trans women are mostly like to be assaulted during this time period.  And note, that a condition of our transition, a condition of access to hormones, to surgery, is that we live out for at least a year before we can undertake surgery.  We are asked to be our most vulnerable when we are actually our most vulnerable form a social standpoint.  I think of how momentous it felt to come out at the beginning, to go out those first few times, but now that I live that way full time, it really doesn’t matter at all anymore.  But I’m lucky.  I won’t say we create our own luck, and I am acutely aware that years of male privilege and economic success have given me male swagger which I carry into my femininity.  I can own the room, the podium, the conversation, and I feel comfortable doing so.  In that sense, I feel a special obligation to my trans sisters to do just that, to be a role model, to give them the space by fighting for my own space.

But you will forgive me for making the bathroom and the locker room places where I will continue to go with the men until those steps are taken.  That works for me, but it doesn’t work for people who partially transition, who are only partially out, but who run the risk of male violence.

What we are saying is that the bathrooms should probably read: “predator” and “prey”.  I’m serious.  And I expect better of society.  But there is no way in hell that I am going to become a flashpoint on such a basic issue.  I’d rather pee at home.  In the meantime, I make a point of hitching my skirt and standing at the urinal whilst I still can, because I want men to see that we’re everywhere too, and that its okay.

How I think we should deal with sports

There is no doubt that a male body which goes through puberty is going to have certain structural advantages over a female body that has never had that kind of exposure to testosterone.  No doubt at all.  By the same token, some argue that the human condition shows great variety.  Man o’ War, one of the greatest race-horses of all time, was biopsied on death.  The horse’s heart was found to be nearly twice the size of most other racehorses.  There, in a heart, was the source of this horse’s incredible power and stamina on the track.

We look at that difference and celebrate it, a miracle of nature.  We do not do the same with trans people, because on some level, trans people are not regarded by society as natural, but rather as freaks of nature.

It is not fair, however, to compare an ex-male to a natal female.  And whilst I wish there could be such a thing as trans sports, there simply are not enough of us to make up teams.  It is difficult to arbitrate a cut-off point, but a child born in a male body who undergoes female puberty, without undergoing male puberty, should be able to compete as a female, because there is no anatomical advantage.  But with society turning against allowing for this option altogether, this turning point becomes unavailable for most.

As I contemplate my own body, I would expect to be stronger than a woman, even if my advantage is being washed away by a steady diet of hormones and botox injections in my shoulders (and soon my arms) which are hastening muscular decline.  But I am definitely no longer competitive with men.  

This conundrum is easier to resolve in single competition than in team competition.  A transgender marathon runner who runs with the women may have an advantage, but what I want to know is why there can’t be two gold medalists, two silver medalists, whatever…Why do we have to restrict podium access.  This isn’t to make everyone feel nice.  But it does reflect the reality that we are different.  If I run a marathon and I win against all women and all trans women, I would expect to be on the podium, but I would also expect the fastest natal woman to stand next to me and to also be awarded gold.  Thus far, in real life, this is largely theoretical, but is a very solvable problem.

It is harder to deal with in team sports, where a trans woman in football (soccer for my American readers) would potentially lend physical advantages to her team.  Potentially.  Caution.  Those advantages may be real or imagined, but if they are simply thought of, controversy arises.  And it is wrong to exclude people from sports.  It is a form of discrimination.  And right now, there are many voices who seek to discriminate against trans people.

It takes an incredibly deluded mind to think that someone will take hormones, become infertile, and potentially eventually undertake a life-altering surgery which takes a year to recover from as someone who is doing it to win at sports.  But such accusations have dogged trans women athletes from the beginning.

There can be objective measures until we figure it out as a society.  But there aren’t many of us, so the chances of us rising to the top of competitive sports is unlikely…and for anything else, it is just about participation, and anyone should be welcome to participate.  The objective measures are offensive and intrusive, but I would accept them (blood tests, physical exams) as they are far less bad than being denied access to something which I would love were I seeking to compete.

Society needs to find its suppleness.  Hey.  I am sorry that being trans to some people creates a ripple in their sense of self.  But we’re here, we’re deliciously vulnerable, and we are magic when we are allowed to just be.