Being trans, facing my own conservatism, and walking into a shit-storm of anti-trans nonsense

If a trans woman thinks that being trans is complicated, is it any wonder that society finds it even more so?

You don’t have to let a day pass in the English-speaking world and not find some noise about trans people—whether we are groomers, paedophiles, change sex to win at sports, take hormones to become predators of women.  These types of statements/issues are so far from the lived truth of any trans person I have ever met, that I wonder if they even exist.  And you have to therefore wonder whether anyone really believes this nonsense.

But people do, and it is wrong-headed and facile to say that they are just uneducated, bigoted or dumb.  It is also wrong to just think they are politically motivated propagandists.  But something is wrong with them.

I encountered a posse of them online in the slipstream of a post by someone I admire, a domme whose controversial views often chime with my own.  The particular post that she had made was that she found Drag Queens offensive to women, and therefore an inappropriate and discriminatory “art form”.  I have written about this, and I do agree with her.  She made the point that we “protect” these individual’s self-expression in large part because they are “gay”, which supposedly makes it okay.

There are many, many women, who love gay men.  Mainly because they feel safe around them.  There are many women who find drag amusing and fun, and don’t find it offensive at all.  One of the commenters on the original post remarked exactly this, citing it as comedy, and that it was more comic because it was delivered by camp men in dresses simulating femininity than it would ever be were it delivered by a woman.

It makes me uncomfortable.  It made the original poster uncomfortable, this idea that Drag Queen performances were ever anything other than derogatory.  I don’t know if this is a bridge too far, but black-face used to be considered funny.  What I’m saying is that the only people where it should be okay to make fun of those people, are those people themselves.  Women are in effect a minority group because of the way society is structured.  They are no different in this sense than any other persecuted group.  The idea that a man in a dress simply by donning a dress and make-up, can make fun of women, is problematic.

So far so good.  

But unfortunately, a post such as the original post, as well-intentioned as it might have been, became an echo chamber for all kinds of far-right noise.  One poster associated Drag Queens and the original post with the “Transgender Agenda to Erase Women.”  I normally keep my mouth shut, but this kind of nonsense needed to be addressed.  My response was mild and educational, intended to help the poster understand Drag Queens and trans people are not the same, and that there is no “Transgender Agenda” other than to transition and disappear, and to live with equal protection and equal rights enshrined in law and social practice.  Well, there has blow-back.  Surprised?

Life is uncanny for this witch.

A few hours later, I found myself in a group therapy session of women.  One of the women, like me, was clearly trans.  Only she challenged every thought I have ever had on what it means to be a trans woman.  And it troubled me deeply, and I can’t tell whether I am a hypocrite, a bigot, or I am right to be troubled.

This individual changed her name a decade ago.  She identifies as she/her.  I did not dig further to determine if she has changed legal sex, has legally changed her name, etc.  She most definitely is anatomically intact, and made no effort to hide it–I admit I looked and the bulge was quite real.  Her body hair was so thick on every part of her, that it is doubtful that she has ever taken hormones.  She had copious if wispy facial hair.  Her voice was all man, her build and mannerisms were all man.  I got no female readings from her whatsoever.  Okay, there was one.  She had breasts.  They were not particularly large, and could just as easily have been implants…and given the lack of any sign of hormone therapy on her body, skin, style, think they had to have been.

And I feel disgusted with myself in feeling that this woman gives trans women a bad name.  And if she is doing that to me, what on earth is she doing to people who already hate us?  And isn’t that shameful of me.  I remind myself of the women criticised by feminists who have co-opted the patriarchal rule book and use it to police the virtuous behaviour of other women, slut-shaming and so on.

And yet, I am thinking, there is just too slippery a slope here.  But the rules I apply to myself are not universal.  I won’t use a woman’s bathroom unless I am carrying my driver’s license that says I am female (I always dress female, but this would be another given).  I don’t want to make other women feel uncomfortable, but I also want to be ready just in case. 

But just because my legal documents are changing, I don’t give myself the reward of calling myself a woman with outright bolshiness.  I ask.  Please gender me in this way.  After a sex change operation, my conviction will grow, but it won’t be certain.  I know that there are men and women out there who would deny me the badge ‘woman’ as I was not born that way, I have no uterus (that day will come soon enough, and there will still be those who do not wish to invite us in).

But again, a sex change operation is a gate post.  It is a serious commitment, and I do feel on some level that taking that step is a sign of a deeper commitment?  I don’t wish to compare myself to a trans woman who decides not to take that step, especially because access to these operations is not easy—delays, costs, insurance, you name it.  Not everyone who wants a sex change can get one.  I have read a stat that says only 18% of trans women have a sex change.  I have also seen higher stats, but I think this is more accurate based on my observation.  That said, transsexual women (a term that was removed from the lexicon for being derogatory but is now being reclaimed) are more likely to disappear into society, to try even harder to blend in. I say that I am not like that, but the truth is, I am likely to have operation after operation until I feel that most of the time, there is no mistaking me as a woman. Chasing the chimera. 

And we do need clarity of definition and labels.  It is too complicated to lump someone in to a transgender bucket when they do not seem to be taking any steps that are associated with gender dysphoria.  What I don’t understand is a new move to say that transgender people don’t have to have gender dysphoria.  That makes no sense to me.  The definition of transgender is that there is a disconnect between gender and sex.  The definition of gender dysphoria is exactly the same.  So, when I look at a ‘trans woman’ who is doing nothing at all to change her appearance, and if anything seems to be leaning into her male appearance, I wonder how is this possible?

I tend to think that most of my readers are very sympathetic to the trans cause, and some of you may even berate me for having these feelings, this confusion.  And if that is true, please help me figure out how society is to navigate this when it seems as if the trans community itself cannot figure it out.  The definitions feel too broad.  They feel unclear.  And when that happens, people worry about what is really going on.

Do I accept that this person is a woman?  I don’t know.  Do I wonder whether this person is a man trying to invade a woman’s space?  I hope not.  But I could easily imagine that someone might interpret this way.

And why do I feel so special because I’ve grown my own breasts, have made every physical, social, and sartorial change I possibly could in the run up to surgery?  Isn’t hopelessly bourgeois of me to think that this gives me a greater right to the title “transgender woman”?

I’m going to go to sleep tonight with this on my mind, feeling rather troubled.  How would you feel?  How do you feel?  Am I wrong and in need of an attitude adjustment?  Do I need to go on diversity training?