Male and Also Genderqueer: Where I'm at about one year into my gender journey

I am a contradiction.

All the best stories are, after all. (This is a lesson about literature that I learned from a graduate class on teaching Chinese culture, of all places.)

Usually such contradictions can't be clearly explained and that's why stories have to be written dancing around them, never quite saying right out what they mean, but leaving the reader to grok it intuitively. After all, paradoxes just can't be rationally explained.

But nevertheless, I'll try to explain what I've realized about how I see myself and how I want the world to see me.

Last summer, I read this article about transgender writer Nick Krieger. At the time I identified as transmasculine, as between male and female, and the way he described his identity really resonated with me:

I would say that I understand my body as being male, and that when others use language (“sir,” “man,” “dude”) to reflect that they too understand my body in this way, then I feel comfortable and at peace. I would also say that I literally see my body as being trans-male, meaning I see my chest scars, my hips, my dicklet – my maleness built on top of my femaleness, my body as a beautiful hybrid.

I also don’t see my body as being directly correlated with my identity. In the same sense that transgender men may have once had female bodies but didn’t consider themselves women, I now have a male/trans-male body but that doesn’t make me a man. I identify and probably always would have (had I known there were more options) in the gray area, the middle ground of gender, but when it comes to a culture that splits us up into only two categories, I’m significantly more comfortable on the not-female side, which the mainstream calls the man side.

There was just one catch. I wasn't physically male and at that time, didn't plan to be.

Now, that is exactly what I'm pursuing.

I want, no, I need my body to be male. To lose the curves; to develop more defined muscles and a deeper voice; to have a flat chest, or rather, to have pecs instead of...those things. To grow facial hair and more body hair, if that's what it takes for people to see me as male.

Because that is what I want people to see. I want them to perceive my body as male, and to call me by male terms to reflect that perception.

But what I feel inside...that's not quite so clear.

I don't think I have ever understood myself as female, although the extent of my dissociation with femaleness has only become clear in the past year or so. (It's one year and eleven days since I was thrown onto this journey of gender discovery.)

When I was a child, I didn't mind being assigned female, because it didn't affect my life all that much. I got to run around in the woods behind our house and play kickball with the neighborhood kids and swim to my heart's content in the neighborhood pool. I read books and started to write; I rode horses and began martial arts; and I liked making doll clothes and cooking and baking. My parents gave me the message that I could do anything I set my mind to and my gender made no difference in that.

During my teen years, when social life normally becomes more important, I was largely outside of its influence (and therefore, the influence of gender conventions) because (1) I couldn't have cared less about this thing called "social life," and actually actively identified myself as "antisocial"; and (2) I was very nerdy, so the social life I did have was more driven by intellectual conversation and less by boy-girl drama. My friends and I talked about things like Star Wars, Star Trek, and science fiction/fantasy novels, and didn't care much about being attracted or attractive to others (aside from some angst on my part about being attracted to girls). Actually, I dressed more like the nerdy guys I was friends with than like girls of the same age - baggy pants, big T shirts and sweatshirts. In a way, being nerdy made me genderless, because there was no motivation for me to express gender, and I wouldn't be surprised if the popular set considered me somehow "not a girl" because of this.

It was during college that I first started to feel a disconnect between myself and femaleness. At the time, I voiced it in phrases like "I don't get women," "I don't have anything in common with them," and more misogynistically, "Women are shallow/ gossipy/ catty" and "All they care about is shopping/ clothes, shoes, and makeup." I found I had trouble making friends with heteronormative women; most of my friends were guys or queer girls. At the same time, dating straight guys and feeling the influence of their preferences was causing my appearance to shift toward the way heteronormative women dressed - flair leg jeans instead of baggy cargo pants, tighter tops and smaller T-shirts. I liked these clothes because I felt they brought me positive attention, from the guys I liked as well as people in general, but I kept on wishing I could wear what I wanted. And I started to wish that my body was different, and tried to diet and exercise my curves away.

The disconnect with femaleness finally broke the surface in 2011, when I told a date, "I'm not a girl." But that revelation didn't lead anywhere, as I quickly discovered that what he wanted to date was a girl, and so again I let my sense of myself be buried by what the person I was attracted to wanted. I didn't really know I had another choice. No one had ever wanted me any other way, than as the heteronormative woman I was so good at dressing up as, so I figured that's just what people had to do to get along romantically.

And then my life changed when I finally did find someone who could like me when I was doing me the way I wanted, and not putting on a show for the other person. I started to modify my body to be less feminine, more masculine; I started wearing "men's" clothing; I started to take a more and more masculine role in my romantic relationships; I dropped female terms one by one, tried neutral ones, and finally went to male ones; and eventually I started HRT to make myself physically male.

And yet, while it's pretty obvious now that I'm not female, and that I prefer to be masculine or male to the outside world, what I actually am inside is still a matter of question.

I should make it clear here that my story does not reflect that of all trans people. Some trans people have a very clear idea of their gender identity - as do some nonbinary people.

But I do not. It seems that since I like being perceived as male, because I want a male body, that I must view myself as male, but I don't. It may be because when I look in the mirror, or compare myself to other men, or find out that strangers still perceive me as female, I find myself lacking, not man enough. It may be that I feel like I still don't know how to act "like a man," or know what it feels like to be treated as a man by society at large. After all, it took 28 years of life experience for me to understand that I can't live as female. Might it not take more than one year for me to understand whether I can live as a man?

In the meantime, then, what am I to call myself? To the outside world, I still call myself a man, male, a guy, a trans man or trans guy. It is the role I wish to fill in society. Yet what sort of man am I? I am not cis. I am not straight. I defy gender conventions.

I was actually inspired to write this down by a bit in Julia Serano's Whippig Girl where she says that "genderqueer" and "gender-conforming" are not opposites. (This is one of the main arguments of her book, that things like "men" and "women," or "cis" and "trans" are not binary or opposites.)

They are not opposites, but they are two different options, among many. I am not gender-conforming; my gender is queer. A guy who is not sure he's a guy. A guy whose feminine past still shows through. You might say that I can redefine masculinity to fit my purposes and declare myself a guy no matter how much I like the colors pink and purple or how readily I emote, but I think watering these identities down makes them meaningless. Besides, why claim an identity that I don't feel is my own? I feel far more comfortable saying that I fall somewhere in between.

As long as you still see me as a guy and call me by male pronouns, anyway.

Friendship Never Ends

The Spice Girls had it right.

I actually grokked this over a year ago now - after the breakup of a serious, three-year romantic relationship, while in the midst of an angsty, confusing rebound entanglement. I never got a chance to write it down, and once I settled into the relationship I'm in now - which is more Serious and potentially Long-Term than any I've ever been in - it started to fade from my conscious thoughts. But talking to a friend about her breakup brought these ideas back to mind, and I decided to finally write down my official philosophy toward relationships.

And I don't mean just romantic relationships. Partly thanks to seeing things from a poly perspective, and partly because the feeling of romantic love and platonic love are almost impossible for me to differentiate, I don't like to put romantic relationships on a pedestal above other kinds of relationships. I just have relationships.

Some of them are clearly romantic, like with my girlfriend. Some of them are clearly familial, like with my blood relatives. Some of them have a tad of professional distance, like with coworkers and people I volunteer with. And then some of them, especially my closest friendships, are unnameable. I love my closest friends with an intensity of feeling that is indistinguishable from the way I love and have loved romantic partners, present and past. Actually, some of my closest friends were at one time romantic partners. And that's kind of what this post is about.

In February 2014, when my relationship with a kind, caring, very amusing and very metal guy ended for various complex reasons, I felt pretty despondent about romantic relationships lasting. In truth, I'd felt that way ever since my first serious romantic relationship ended. As a romantic-minded teenager, I'd been convinced that that first relationship would last forever. It limped on into my senior year of college before finally going down in a dramatic blaze of glory. I went into my next serious relationship very pessimistic about the prospect of relationships lasting. That person wanted to marry me, and I remember talking to one of my roommates about how naive I thought he was. "I'll marry him," I said, "but it's not gonna last." That relationship went sour in ways I won't get into here, but I wasn't free of it till three years later (and without ever getting married, although we were engaged for a while). A year after that I got together with Metal Guy, and still I couldn't shake the persistent feeling that while I wanted the relationship to last, it couldn't possibly do so. Part of that was a suppressed awareness of the very issues that finally led us to break up three years later, but part of it was also that same pessimism, that same unhealed grief from my first serious breakup.

I'm still struggling with that feeling. At this point, I have much less cause to doubt that my girlfriend and I have a future together than with any of my previous romantic relationships, and yet I still am unable to trust that yes, this is it, we will be together for the rest of our lives. "For the foreseeable future" is all I can promise, to myself or to her.

That'd be all well and good if that was all that I (or she) wanted, but I've come to learn that I do want a love that will last a lifetime.

But can it last? Well, it depends on what we're talking about. Love itself, that can definitely last a lifetime (I'll say more about that in a moment). Romantic relationships though...they're a bit more tricky. They take not just love, but also commitment, willingness to communicate and problem-solve, and similar ideas on how to live life. Sometimes, one or more of those things fall through. My past romantic relationships have been brought down through lacks in one or more of those areas (and only once, by the disappearance of love). I can hope that at nearly 30 years old, I've learned enough about all those things to be able to say, yes, I can do it right this time. The relationship I'm in now seems to be on much better footing regarding all these things than any of my past relationships. And yet, you never know. Can I really rule out that something won't come up later on that's a dealbreaker? Something that even our practice of open and honest communication and complete support for each other's lives and goals can't handle?

I guess I can't, but I can promise that I'll do everything in my power to work through anything that does come up.

And if something does come up that spells the end, well, it will hurt like hell, but it won't be the end of everything.

Because even if relationships don't last a lifetime, love often does. And with it, so does friendship.

My first serious relationship ended, but I am still in (occasional) touch with my best friend from high school, and still think of her as one of my best friends ever. My absolute best friend ever is someone I only ever knew online, who disappeared from the web a couple years ago, yet my deep feeling of friendship with her continues as well, and I'm sure if we met again, we'd immediately pick up right where we left off. In recent years, one of my closest friends was first a coworker, then a good friend (but I was afraid to call her my best friend because I had a more than friendly interest in her), then a romantic partner, and then after that ended, again a close friend, which she still is today. In the interim, I fell madly in love with another friend, and we dated for a while but then broke up, and even though my heart was broken (because, of course, I hoped things would last forever) we stayed friends and are still good friends to this day, too. And I have other friends, too, with whom I've never been romantically involved, but whom I love so much that it doesn't feel any different from romantic love. (And since I like snuggling with friends, it's not even as though the physical component is wholly missing.)

I will likely be friends with these people for the rest of my life. Even the ones I've lost touch with are still in my thoughts occasionally, and I still harbor feelings of affection toward them. My friendships will last forever, and I love all my friends in one way or another - with nostalgic fondness, friendly affection, deep ardor, or some combination or fluctuation of the above.

And because I find it so hard to separate romantic and friendly affections - not to mention the fact that my history with several friends in fact includes romance and intimacy - I don't think it's a stretch to say that for me, relationships don't so much end as change form sometimes. People move away. Relationships change from romantic to friends-with-benefits to just platonic (not always in that order). I lose touch with people. And sometimes, sadly, people disappear from my life.

That last one is pretty rare though. Most of the non-familial relationships I've cultivated over the years have endured, in one way or another, and even those who are gone are remembered. Friendship endures. Besides, friendship is ultimately the basis of every chosen relationship, even, or especially, the romantic ones. If any aspect of relationships deserves to be put on a pedestal, then, it's friendship. It's the root, the heart, and the eternal essence of all our chosen relationships.

What the Rachel Dolezal Controversy is Teaching Me About Racism

Regarding Rachel Dolezal claiming she is transracial and identifies as black, I feel like I don't have any grounds to say whether or not she can actually be black (seeing as I'm white), and I said my piece about how her situation relates to being transgender in a Facebook post here.

But that's not to say I haven't been doing a lot of thinking about her situation and whether it is actually possible for a human being to cross the divide between black and white. Many voices are saying no - transracial adoptees disputing Ms. Dolezal's use of that word, black women saying that she can't possibly know the struggles of growing up as a black woman, or comprehend the full weight of racist oppression without having lived under it her whole life.

I'm hesitant to disagree with those voices. After all, they know a heck of a lot more about being black and transracial than I do.

And yet, I'm also hesitant to agree, because so much of the criticism leveled at Ms. Dolezal sounds eerily similiar to the criticisms and attitudes hurled at trans women by some feminists and some segments of society - they can't really be women, because they were socialized male and didn't experience the oppression of sexism before transitioning.

Of course, I don't think that the situations of Ms. Dolezal and of transgender women are totally analogous. There are differences. But there are also some similarities, and so I hesitate to throw Ms. Dolezal under the bus for reasons that sound so much like other people's reasons for hating, fearing and hurting transgender women.

My thinking on this is informed by Julia Serano's Whipping Girl, in which she asserts that sexism, the devaluing of women and the reducing of them to sex objects, is at the root of transmisogyny as well as homophobia and society's general derision toward any sort of femininity on the part of those who are assigned male. Again, the situations of Rachel Dolezal and transgender women aren't totally analogous, but it seems pretty clear that racism is a key part of the controversy around Ms. Dolezal. After all, if I, a person of Finnish ancestry, were to claim to be Swedish instead, it would be a lie and might get me in some trouble, but it wouldn't generate nearly the amount of controversy surrounding Ms. Dolezal (at least not in this country, and even in Finland and Sweden, the tensions between people of Finnish and Swedish origin and/or native language aren't nearly as volatile as the tension between black and white here in the U.S.). It is pretty clear that the issue of race, of white privilege and entitlement and of black degradation and suffering, is at the heart of this controversy, and it is the real malady of our society, of which Rachel Dolezal's situation is only a symptom.

And so, instead of talking about Ms. Dolezal over much, I wanted to talk about racism itself. And since I'm on the privileged end of the race issue, and perhaps therefore have less insight than the people who are suffering because of racism, I thought I'd do that by highlighting some keen things written by people of color about racism that I've read thanks to this controversy.

Indeed, if racism didn't exist, then perhaps it wouldn't be such a problem for people to identify as whatever they wish. The thing is, the issue of racism does exist, as pointed out by Syreeta MacFadden in a column in The Guardian:

...to argue that real parity between race and ethnic groups in the United States exists – and can be exchanged one-on-one – is to deny protections for those groups marginalized by institutional power.

She goes on to point out, though, that race and racial identity aren't always clear cut, and that the racial history and racial mixing of this country are as relevant to white people as to black people:

Black America is quite familiar with the complex fluidity of racial and ethnic identity within our families, because we live most directly with the legacy of four centuries of intergenerational chattel slavery in the United States. But while that history of slavery is often positioned by white people and American society as my history, not our history, that is a stupid delineation: the evidence of black or white blood, relationships and rape, flow fairly seamlessly in my bloodline and in white Americans’.

This complexity is perhaps sometimes (often?) invisible to white people, especially to someone like me who is a first generation immigrant from Europe. And yet, if you go way back, I likely have some Central Asian blood in me. Also, no matter where I was born, now that I'm living in this country, the history of slavery should not be ignored, for its effects are still in force today - no matter where I came from, the system of white privilege treats me the same. And the system of racism, the very way we talk about it, ignores that this society in fact holds a continuum, or perhaps more like a cloud, of different skin tones and cultural backgrounds. The institution of racism would have us divide everyone into black and white, when in fact that's not always so clear.

Ms. McFadden quotes Nell Irwin Painter's book The History of White People to make another astute point about racism, which is that it's not so much about black and white, as about black and non-black:

Painter notes that criteria for “race” constantly “shift according to individual taste and political need” and “the fundamental black/white binary endures even though the category of whiteness – or we might say more precisely, a category of nonblackness – effectively expands.” The opposite of whiteness is presumed “alien” or “degenerate”; the opposite of blackness is the presumed moral majority. It is a thinking that denies the value of black people, and limits our acceptance. 

In essence, in U.S. society, black people are considered the ultimate "other," while all other groups are considered more or less part of the norm, the "moral majority," as Ms. McFadden puts it. And such othering, while dehumanizing and unjust, also denies the racial complexity of our society.

I noticed an aspect of that othering in a recent video by vlogger Kat Blaque:

Part of being a black woman in this world is coping with anti-blackness, and the self hate that comes from living in a Euro centric society. Many black women have to go through a journey of self acceptance and love, because they’re taught from day one that their natural features are not beautiful. That is part of the black female experience in this society.

(Note: in that video, Kat Blaque talks a lot about how Rachel Dolezal's situation compares to being transgender. I thought the way she talked about gender was a bit confusing or misleading, though, and that was what led to my post comparing gender and race.)

And then there's this post by Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh on Huffington Post's blog. A person of mixed heritage herself, she argues that the color line, the division between black and white, is "a racist concept based on racial ancestry being some sort of poison to 'white' people you can dilute but not eliminate," and notes that "'White' ancestry does not have the same effect on 'black.'" There is no such thing, she goes on to say, as "really black." "Race doesn't exist, biologically, only as a social construct," she writes, because so, so many of us are of mixed heritage. The insistence on upholding the division between white and black, on classifying anyone with any African blood as black, is a racist tactic to keep black separate from white, and to keep anyone with this "stain" in the black camp. This is because the color line is "one-way," as she puts it - people with any black heritage are allowed to identify as black, but not so for identifying as white. And, Ms. Lyster-Mensh notes, Rachel Dolezal "upsets those who think they should be able to tell the difference by looking. Society wants not only to maintain the color line but to keep one side of it easy to identify."

"There is such a thing as racial identity," Ms. Lyster-Mensh writes, but "it is not genetic. It exists because society thinks there is such a thing as 'black' and 'white' and benefits from those concepts. Post-racism there would be no passing or choosing."

Ms. Lyster-Mensh's description of her own identity resonated with me, not only because some of her statements ring true to my own, different struggles with identity, but because I have a racially mixed daughter, and so I have at times thought about how she will identify when she's older, and whether we are moving toward a post-racial society where many people are a blend. Here is how Ms. Lyster-Mensh describes herself and her own hopes for the future:

How do I self-identify? If asked, as neither. I'm not "black" and I'm not "white." I reject the terms and the identities offered to me. Do people look at me and make assumptions? Yes. I can't help that. I could take the Dolezal route and play up certain hair and lifestyle choices that could push me over the color line, of course; many people of my skin tone do. I could also deliberately "pass" as many mixed people historically have, taking advantage of mainstream racial privilege by denying my family ties. You can say that I'm doing the latter by not deliberately choosing one, considering my appearance, but I actually reserve the right to be myself. I expect the next generation, even more mixed, will too. The color line is fading.

I really love the line, "I reserve the right to be myself." It is something we should all be able to do. I also know from the experience of trying to live as gender non-binary, that it can be difficult when the rest of the world insists on assigning labels to you. We are certainly not at a point, either with regard to race or gender, where living without labels, but just as yourself, is an easy option, and for many people isn't realistic, either.

And I'm not saying that gender differences, or cultural differences between different groups, should be eliminated. The unique things that each person, gender, or culture brings to our world are fabulous and make our world richer. We don't need to all be the same. But to see unjust divisions between groups of people eradicated, to acknowledge that we are all intermingled and interconnected, could only create a better world, and make it safe for all people to be themselves, however that may be.

While there are a lot of practical things we can do to end racism and discrimination, we also need to change our fundamental ways of thinking if we're to uproot this problem once and for all. Controversies like Rachel Dolezal's will only be skin deep, and any results only bandages, unless we open ourselves up to consider the gaping wound of prejudice beneath. We need a bit of the Daoist philosophy of duality and unity, of different parts coming together to make a seamless whole. After all, whether black or white, we are all Americans, and we are all human. At the same time, no matter whether people of the same race, or different, or mixed, we are all different from each other. And we are all beautiful and have something to contribute.

I feel like I'm stating the obvious when I say that the Rachel Dolezal controversy is just the alarm bell; that the real emergency is the pernicious institution of racism that affects all of us. And I am not trying to take away from people who decry Ms. Dolezal's actions as an abuse of privilege, because I sympathize with their outrage and think the discussions they start about race and privilege are very worth having. Yet I also think that the underlying issue bears remembering, because not a one of us but Ms. Dolezal herself can decide how she lives her life; but battling racism, discrimination, and white privilege is something that all of us can do, so that one day, there will be no need for such controversies.

To Pass or Not to Pass

Trans people think a lot about passing.

My girlfriend (who is a trans woman) and I have had multiple conversations about passing, and the upshot of most of them has been that passing shouldn't matter, and yet it does, a lot. It shouldn't matter because we should be able to express ourselves however we want, without worrying (or having to worry) about how other people will judge us. And yet it does matter because people do judge us, and when they do, we badly want them to perceive us as the gender each of us identifies as - that is, to "pass."

Or is that it? My girlfriend has said, "I don't care if people know that I'm trans, but I do want them to see me as a woman." And yet, the idea of passing implies not just being seen as the right gender, but also not being perceived as trans. Why? One glaring (and terrible) reason is safety. Being seen as trans can put an individual at risk of harassment, assault, or murder. The second and more insidious reason is that being seen as trans automatically undermines a person's gender in the eyes of the cisgender, heteronormative world. Once they find out we're trans, they no longer see a woman or a man, but a "man in a dress" or a "woman pretending to be a man." And so, not just in order to stay alive, but in order to be accepted and affirmed as their natural gender, trans people may feel they have to pass - to be indistinguishable from cis men and women.

One trans man has written about how we should stop calling it "passing" and call it "being recognized" instead. In his view, calling it "passing" implies that we're masquerading as something we're not. He also mentions the problems it causes for people who can't pass.

But if passing means being seen as cis, because that's the only way to be generally seen as "really" being the gender we identify as, then aren't we, in fact masquerading as something we're not? Because we're not cis, we're trans. So the problem goes deeper than just a word. The problem is with society's ideas of what makes a "real" man or woman. Mainstream society seems to think that a person has to be born with a certain set of chromosomes and genitals and develop a certain set of secondary sex characteristics in order to be male or female. What a person feels in their head hardly matters, as far as the mainstream conception of sex and gender is concerned. It's all determined by the body. To cis society at large, a person with a penis is male and a person without one is female, no matter how you dress it up.

It can be difficult or uncomfortable for people to wrap their minds around the fact that a woman may have "masculine" features or "male" anatomy, or a man may have "feminine" features or "female" anatomy. Even for those who are supportive of trans people, it can be an awkward thing to face up to. Before I knew I was trans, when I was intimate with a trans woman for the first time, I felt a little uncomfortable with her male anatomy. It didn't jibe with the fact that I saw her as a woman. But the human mind can get used to anything, and it took just a couple times before I was used to it. That, and I read an article which made me realize that the body of a female-identified person is entirely female, even the parts that would traditionally be thought of as male. It's the body of a female person, so all the parts are female too, no matter what they are.

If people could get more used to this idea, that a man or a woman might have different body parts from what the cisgender norm dictates, that'd help do away with the need for trans people to masquerade as cis to protect their identities and their lives.

And then, of course, there are people who are born with chromosomes or genitals that don't fit neatly into the narrow mainstream notions of "male" or "female." As much as 1% of people may be born intersex, meaning with physical characteristics that are somewhere between the traditional concepts of "male" and "female."

And, there are people whose gender identities and/or expression don't fall neatly into society's boxes of "male" and "female," either. Part of my gender journey included a stop in the agender camp, identifying as neither male nor female, no gender whatsoever. And let me tell you, it is very difficult to live as genderless and androgynous in a society that insists everyone is either male or female, and which one you are is determined by the sex organs you were born with. People will refuse to even try to call you by a neutral pronoun. There often isn't a public restroom you can feel comfortable in, since they are usually divided into "male" and "female." There's no way to change your legal documentation to a gender-neutral status, so anyone who sees it will assume you are whatever gender is on the paperwork. And there's no such thing as passing - there's only confusing the heck out of those who are clueless about gender.

Living as genderless, and then as a trans man, taught me a valuable lesson about passing, although it took me a while to understand it - passing really isn't all it's cracked up to be. Some people see passing as the ultimate success for a trans person - you made it, you're just like the mainstream cis versions of your gender and no one can tell you're trans! I suppose that for someone whose ideal of gender expression aligned pretty neatly with society's norms, that might be pretty good. Even then, though, it often takes a lot of effort and expense to get there - hormones and several surgeries and a new wardrobe and countless hours relearning how to do everything from walking and talking to using the toilet. That's not in reach for everyone, whether it's due to financial limitations or lack of services in a particular area or even, being too young for surgery. Not only that, but for many trans* people (myself included), gender identity and/or expression may not align with society's expectations. So what we are we do, go through all this expense and effort, and put our lives at risk, to leave behind a gender we don't identify with, but then conform to a new set of standards that we still don't identify with? Heck no!

And that's why I think passing is a useless, outdated idea. Because what, exactly, am I trying to pass as? The narrow idea of masculinity and maleness that society demands, which, frankly, is impossible to attain even for most cis guys? No way! I'm trying to be myself - a metalhead with long hair, a martial artist who wants to be fit and strong but not overly buff, and a pansexual man who shows his fabulous side whenever he gets a chance. Not only that, but I'm not and can never be cis. Even with top surgery, I'll have scars to show. Even with bottom surgery, my exterior and interior parts will be different from a cis man's. So why should I have to pretend to be cis?

For a long time, "passing" has served to protect trans people from abuse, but it has also served to shelter mainstream society from trans people, and that's why trans people are still being attacked when fearful people "find out" that they're trans. Because society still has not learned to accept that men, women and other sexes and genders come in all shapes. Not until we can all wrap our heads around that idea will trans* people be safe from violence, as well as from the oppression of "passing."

There's Aydian Dowling and Caitlyn Jenner, and then there's the rest of us

First off, let me congratulate Mr. Dowling and Ms. Jenner. The attention they've received from the media wouldn't be happening without a lot of hard work on their part, or without the courage not just to be themselves, but to bare themselves to the public. I wish them the best in all their endeavors.

Now, I just wish I could see people like me in the media.

Although I'm not sure that's even possible, considering that the biggest part of my identity comes from underground scenes, goth and metal, which are by definition outside the media spotlight.

Or considering that anyone who graces a magzine cover is inevitably sculpted and airbrushed and generally pretty far from what your average person looks like.

But when we're talking about a group that's either invisible - when we "pass" - or likely to be harrassed when we're not, then showing the world what real trans* people look like becomes important. We all know what the average heteronormative person looks like, so it's easy to see that cisgender celebrities we see in the media don't reflect the general population. But when the only images of trans* people that are shown are those that conform as far as possible to society's standards of what "men" and "women" look like, that creates a problem. Because not all trans* people do, can or even want to conform to those standards, and as long as the public's image of trans* people is "they should look just like cis people," then the non-conforming individuals will continue to be harassed.

Not only that, but the media coverage tends to focus on trans* people's bodies and the procedures that were necessary to bring about that look. Hormones. Chest surgery. Facial feminization surgery. This focus on bodies and physical transitions superficializes trans* people and emphasizes the popular conception that we're "trying to be something we're really not." In her 2007 book Whipping Girl, Julia Serano argued that the media focuses on the "artifical" aspects of trans people's transitions in order to enforce an "impenetrable class boundary" between the sexes, to make it seem impossible for someone who was assigned male to really be female, or vice versa: "Playing up the 'artificial' aspects of the transformation process gives one the impression that the class barrier itself is 'natural,' one that could not have been crossed if it were not for modern medical technology." She goes on,

Of course, it is true that plastic surgeries[1] and sex reassignments are 'artificial,' but then again so are the exercise bikes we work out on, the antiwrinkle moisturizers we smear on our faces, the dyes we use to color our hair, the clothes we buy to complement our figures, and the TV shows, movies, magazines, and billboards that bombard us with 'ideal' images of gender, size, and beauty that set the standards that we try to live up to in the first place. The class systems based on attractiveness and gender are extraordinarily 'artifical'--yet only those practices that seem to subvert those classes (rather than affirm them) are ever characterized as such. (pg. 59)

[1] In her analysis, Ms. Serano compares media portrayals of transitioning trans people with depictions of people losing massive amounts of weight or having extreme plastic surgeries.

So it's not just us. People are constantly changing and shaping their bodies to better suit how they want to look and how they want to be perceived. It's all a matter of expressing who you really are inside.

And when it comes to gender, there's an infinite variety of ways to express oneself. No way are we limited to just the buff, bearded guy and the traditionally pretty woman. If that's what someone feels themselves to be, then of course it's fine, but there's no limit to the ways we can present ourselves. Anyone who says, "you have to look like this to be trans" or "you have to look like this to be a man/ woman" is just plain wrong. Cis or trans*, gender expression is ours to do as we wish. And it's something more than just "passing," or fitting or transgressing society's norms - it's showing who we really are.

So let's celebrate us, the real us, in all our variety!

Might as well start with a photo of me. This was taken about a month ago (on May 8, 2015). My sports bro strap shows. Let's pretend I did that on purpose to make a point. Like in my recent rant about society's expectations of trans men, I picked a photo where I'm not making my "ugly metal face" so you can see how I really look. Also, my hair is pulled back, like it is about 90% of the time. (You can see me with my waist length death metal hair on display in that other post.)

And my girlfriend suggested this one:

Yay, cute trans love :D

My hope is to gather a bunch of photos of "the rest of us" here - but considering that people may be kind of uncomfortable being publicly identified as trans*, we'll see how that goes. If you want me to include your photo, email it to castleofwinter at gmail.com. You don't have include your name, face or anything identifying if you don't want to; or if you want me to include your name or a little blurb explaining who you are or anything, that would also be cool. You don't have to meet any standard of "transness" or "masculine" or "feminine" to participate in this; that's what it's all about, showing the variety of our community. You may even send multiple photos if you feel like, "sometimes I look like this and sometimes I look like this." Thanks in advance for making my post cooler! :D

Alternatively - I don't really do the hashtag thing, because I don't twitter, but if people want to post their own photos, someone could start the hashtag "#therestofus".

Update: Even better, there's now a meme showcasing the variety of trans and gender-nonconforming self expression. A tumblr user started a trend of trans* people creating their own Vanity Fair covers. (More MyVanityFairCovers)

I thought of making one, but there are already so many photos of me going, this is what this one trans guy looks like, dammit! I figured I'd already done enough.

And update! The New York Times is also doing a project showcasing the diverse stories of trans * people. Yay, we're being recognized!

Anger

The post I made last week (about my frustrations with society's expectations of trans men and mainstream cis folks' difficulties with correctly gendering non-passing/non-binary trans* folk) left me a little uneasy.

On the one hand, I felt that my anger was valid, and that it was my right, perhaps even my duty, to express it. Nothing says oppression like being forced to stay silent. Moreover, I would be doing nothing to enact change if I stayed silent; and I would be doing less, delivering a weaker blow to oppression, if I didn't unleash the full force of my anger upon it.

On other hand, not only do I profess and personally believe in writing and enacting change from a position of benevolence and compassion, I know that to do otherwise is actually counterproductive. Angry discourse only polarizes people more. It makes people hurt and angry, making them into enemies and not supporters. It's simply not an effective way to go about winning people to your side for a cause.

And yet. I was angry. And I had to express myself, or else explode. At least I got it out in writing, and not in physical violence, right? Was there anything so very wrong with that?

Feeling anger is quite natural, and expressing it or working through it are not only natural, but necessary. But pouring out anger in a violent outburst - even one made only on the internet, directed more at a society as a whole than at one particular person - can inflict the sort of damage anger is meant to prevent.

Anger is a protective mechanism, a surge of energy spurring you to defend yourself against a threat. But unless you need that adrenaline rush to physically fight off an attacker (or even then - we can get into whether violence is justified in self defense another time..) expressing anger, explosively, virulently, without moderation, is likely to do more harm than good. To your opponent, yes, but also to your cause, and yourself.

That's because anger makes the other side into the enemy, and makes us want to crush that enemy in order to assuage the churning of anger inside us. Actually, where anger comes from is hurt, and makes us want to hurt the person (or persons, or thing, or whatever) that hurt us, in turn. My anger stemmed from my discomfort at how the media was portraying trans men, and the threat to my self image from cis people saying trans* people should fit certain images of masculinity or femininity in order to be acknowledged. Those were thorns under my skin, and I lashed out to assuage that pain.

It's important to note that my discomfort and pain at the sexist and cissexist world were not invalid, and were worthy both of being addressed and of calling for work for a solution. But there are less destructive/ more constructive ways to deal with pain than lashing out in anger. Breathing exercises. Walking meditation. And, you know, talking it out with the person concerned, if the conflict was with a specific person - which I did do later, although I don't know how effectively, since I'm pretty terrible at in-person interaction.

The thing is, pouring out my anger through the keyboard may have spent that outburst - but it likely did nothing to address the underlying pain and the underlying problem with society.

The only way to let go of my own pain is through practice. Suffering comes from attachment - and that can be over-attachment to an idea, at the expense of what is really good for me and the people around me. Identity is not something that can be affixed with a permanent label, so how much does it really matter what people call me, or how "masculinity" or "femininity" are defined? It does matter, of course. It matters when words and images are used as weapons to hurt, as fences to confine and oppress. But they only work if I let them. I can flow like water past your weapons and under your fences, and then calmly take them apart with compassionate hands. ...At least, if I practiced more, I could.

And the only way to solve the problem with society is to recognize that oppression causes ALL people to suffer, and while the suffering of the oppressed may be the most obvious, the suffering of the oppressors is the underlying cause of the whole thing. Dr. John Makransky, professor of Buddhism at Boston College and lama in the lineage of Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, spoke about this in an interview about how anger relates to social justice:

When people undergo great suffering under oppressive social systems, we may feel strongly connected to those suffering most intensely—for example, those who lack access to resources in countries where a tiny percentage of people control virtually everything. For most people, it seems normal to hate those in charge of such a system. But as we’ve been saying, we must acknowledge that those who maintain such systems do so from their own inner patterns of fear, from their own attempts to establish safe ground for themselves.

What else is transphobia but fear of transgenderism - fear of people who are different, fear at the possibility that you yourself may be different. And we know what Yoda says about fear. The only way to solve the problems with how society treats trans* people is to treat their fear. Anger will not do that; it will only entrench people deeper in their fear, and drive them to anger, hate, and violence out of feeling threatened.

Rather than acting out anger, we can use our concern about social issues or our own suffering to engage in what Dr. Makransky calls "confrontational compassion":

Authentic compassion may forcefully challenge the system. Sometimes such compassion can take a powerful confrontational form, as occurred with Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, and Aung San Suu Kyi. But this differs from anger, because instead of aiming to protect oneself or one’s own position against others, it aims to protect all others, by challenging all in different ways. It can challenge those who cling to a bad system to give others greater freedom. It can challenge those who have been abused to rediscover their great worth and power for good. Unlike self-righteous anger, which hates the “bad ones” on behalf of the “good ones,” confrontational compassion protects all by challenging all differently—those suffering injustices and those inflicting them. It upholds all in their fuller humanity and potential for greater freedom from fear, hatred, and suffering.

So what of my angry post then? Well, I actually feel like I ended on a note of confrontational compassion, as I challenged cis people to recognize the suffering of trans* people and to extend them the small kindness of affirming their identities. It took me a while to get there, though. It took some strong words about my own suffering and some pretty venomous sarcasm about how people who don't fit gender norms are treated. I can't quite find it in myself to take back what I said, although I know it only adds to the suffering of the world - it hardens my own heart, and antagonizes the people I most need to reach.

And a part of me still thinks, if I don't express myself, explicitly and vociferously, then how will cis people ever know how I feel? How will they be able to have compassion for trans* people if they don't know how we suffer? And if I have to hold back my anger, doesn't that make me complicit in my own oppression? With the sort of things that happen to trans* people, don't I have a right to be angry? Shouldn't everyone be angry, when confronted with the alarming numbers of attacks and murders and suicides that happen to the trans* population?

But everyone being angry would still solve nothing. So I guess more practice is just what the doctor ordered, for all of us.

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There are lots of resources out there on dealing with anger, but here are what some of my favorite Buddhist teachers have to say on it:

Thich Nhat Hanh on Loosening the Knots of Anger

Thubten Chodron - How Can We Deal With Anger?

Also, I found a cool site devoted to World Empathy.

And in case you don't know, what Yoda said is, "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to sufffferringgg." :)