Category: Trans Life

Trans Life is where posts that focus on everyday aspects of being trans are found. We have articles on everything from loving your body, to leftist politics.

What Happens When Schools Overreact? Vulnerable Students Suffer.

By

On November 22, 2021

In Trans Life

school is not a safe space

I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, school is not a safe space. I am referring to the pervasive sense that if I spoke about my real issues (suicidality, depression, my gender), I would get reported to the school administration and possibly the police. Keep in mind that I am white, and I cannot speak directly to black experiences, but I know that some black kids I grew up with felt this pressure tenfold.

The government has established that while students are on or using school property they have little expectation of privacy from the school. Students have very few rights because the government considers itself responsible for students when they are on or using school property. So essentially the government is the worlds worst parent and we all are just lying to our students if we tell them they can trust any type of school official with any type of personal or sensitive information. The school will use the information against the student in the name of “safety”, and if not for safety’s sake, then they will invent some other reason.

“School districts have been clear students shouldn’t have an expectation of privacy but they haven’t been as clear about what they are tracking, how they are tracking it, how long they keep that information. They really should be doing that.”

74 article, Laird

They already tape students while they are on school grounds and schools rarely, if ever, disclose what those cameras record, and how long the footage is stored. I imagine that school administrations see little to no difference between this practice and monitoring their students computer activity.

It is because of this attitude that I never trusted school officials with sensitive information, and I always tried to impress upon other students that school is not a safe space. I know that this is a really controversial stance to take, but as a former troubled teen myself, I feel I can speak on this.

My own experiences with opening up at school traumatized the heck out of me. I had the school police officer corner me in a private section of the library and question me after I approached the school nurse asking to go home and was honest about how I didn’t care for a teacher because her voice regularly gave me a headache. For some reason, the nurse decided that was cause enough to warrant a police officer’s involvement, so she sent me out of her office into the back portion of the library. The next thing I know, I have the school police officer approach me, direct me to a private alcove, block my ability to physically leave the conversation by putting me in a corner and standing directly in front of me, and then proceed to question me about any “violent thoughts or tendencies” I may be experiencing. I was 14. The whole interaction lasted less than 10 minutes but it made me incredibly distressed and I never opened up at school again.

I’m not alone. This type of overreaction is still a major part of public schooling, and the adoption of technology in schools is making this easier. A transgender eighth-grader mentioned his recovery from an attempt to die by suicide in a school assignment. The assignment was subsequently flagged by the assignment monitoring program Gaggle, and a school administrator was notified that a student had used the word “suicide” in an assignment, without providing the greater context of the assignment. The student’s parent was notified without telling the student that they would be. The student learned this lesson the hard way, he felt betrayed, and rightfully so. No one had ever told him that school is not a safe space, in fact, it seems like the teacher encouraged vulnerability with the assignment (a part of which can be seen here in the article by the 74 million).

school is not a safe space
Photo by Tamanna Rumee on Unsplash

“I was trying to be vulnerable with this teacher and be like, ‘Hey, here’s a thing that’s important to me because you asked,”

the student was quoted as saying.

This is how schools handle sensitive student issues. Thinking a school is equipped to handle things like this is similar to an adult thinking that HR is on their side. HR serves the interests of the company, and school officials serve the interests of the school, regardless if they have convinced themselves otherwise. I want to think that teachers who encourage students to be open are not motivated by malice or ill intent. I think they genuinely believe that they are there to help. They are bought in to the school system. But when push comes to shove, and the school administration requires the teacher to report something, it is out of the teacher’s hands. Many teachers do not consider this before encouraging openness. Many believe that if something is escalated then it will truly be in the best interest of the student, despite all evidence to the contrary. And the teacher doesn’t want to lose their job, so perhaps they need to believe that the manner in which they are legally bound to handle sensitive situations ultimately serves the students interests. Otherwise, how could they sleep at night?

This is an understandable and human rationale. What we can understand from this unfortunate reality of the system is that we need to educate our parents and students on the true nature of public school. I will say it again, for the people in the back, school is not a safe space.

Everyone should go into a school environment with the full knowledge that there is no expectation of privacy for information that is disclosed in school. Personal issues should not be discussed with school officials if the student is uncomfortable discussing the issue with the parents present. That is the standard for the information that students should feel comfortable disclosing to any school employee, or more recently, on any school computer. If this makes you uncomfortable, I encourage you to look further into how our public school system is not designed to support students, but is designed to support the salaries of the people who work within the system. This is simply the reality of running a public school system in a hyper-capitalist society, and we shouldn’t be deluding our students into thinking that the system is for them when it clearly is not. This will only jeopardize the safety of our most vulnerable students.

If you, as a parent or other adult with a connection to a public school student, are concerned about your student, I encourage you to research your school district’s privacy policies, and speak to your school’s administration regarding how they handle students’ personal data. If you are able to, attend a school board meeting to voice your thoughts and opinions, respectfully.

And what do I propose as an alternative avenue of helping the students who need it most? It is very simple, but that does not mean it will be easy. We have to start by making mental health services free, and available to all people, but especially people under the age of 18. (It still poses something of a problem that providers have to notify parents if the minor is seeking assistance on their own, but that’s a different fight.) We have to make information on mental health resources such as hotlines, online avenues to licensed mental health practitioners, and support groups as available as schools make information on colleges. We need to make sure there is a licensed mental health professional on staff before we make sure there is a police officer. At the very least, we need to train all staff on both trauma and LGBT+ issues and how to handle topics like this in a manner that doesn’t jeopardize the mental and physical health of students. But until this happens, school is not a safe space.

Complement this with a look into some actionable tips on how to learn to love your body.

Learning to Love Your Body as a Trans Person

By

On November 12, 2021

In Trans Life

love-my-body
Photo by Sam Burriss on Unsplash

I identify as a queer, transgender man, but my journey getting here wasn’t easy. It took a lot of introspection and experimentation to finally settle on this identity, and honestly, it’s still subject to change. 

It took me a while to initially identify my struggles with my gender identity (I didn’t start to question until like… 23) because even though I had issues with my body, but so do a lot of women, and I am still attracted to men. So, logically I should be a woman. Starting to acknowledge my queerness is what eventually led me to explore gender. 

When I first came out as trans, I came out as nonbinary because fuck gender, right? I didn’t seem to have the same experience of dysphoria that other trans guys seemed to have, and there were some feminine things I was still attached to. 

My Personal Experience with Transitioning

Existing as a nonbinary person in the world wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I realized that I preferred to be seen as a ‘young man’ more than anything else. However, the idea of starting testosterone was terrifying. I wanted my voice to drop because it was often the thing I felt gave me away on my most masculine-presenting days. But I wasn’t sure how I felt about things like bottom growth (it sounded scary), and I really didn’t like the idea of shaving. 

Starting testosterone ended up being the best thing for me. My voice dropped, my jaw got a little more square, and my body a bit stronger. 

I haven’t had top surgery, and while I wish I was born with less tissue on my chest, I don’t plan to have top surgery. At least not in the near future. 

Some may be wondering why I’d make that decision, especially considering upper surgeries are covered by the public health system in Canada. There are a few factors that have led to this decision; 

  • I like the way my nipples are now. I like the size and shape and how sensitive they are. I don’t want to lose the sensitivity or have scars.
  • Naturally, I have a small chest, so I can mostly wear what I like without worrying too much about my chest. And in the cases where I want to wear something tighter or dress up fancier, I bind. 
  • Surgery is a big deal and a big thing to undertake for what I would consider being a relatively small change. 

So, rather than undergoing surgery, I have found ways to love the body I am in. 

I understand that I have a lot of privilege; I am a thin white boy with a small chest. For many trans guys, their chest dysphoria is debilitating, or their chest is large enough that surgery feels necessary. There is nothing wrong with that, and every trans person should be able to make their own decisions about their body and how they want to transition. I am by no means telling these folks they should simply learn to love their bodies; for many, that’s just not possible, and that’s very real. 

How I learned to love my body

I’ve been on testosterone for just over four years now, and it has taken me a long time to love my body, and, of course, I still have good days and bad days. Here are a few things that helped me to learn to love my body, particularly my chest. Maybe you can use some of these strategies to start feeling better about your body. 

I am a man, so my chest is a man’s chest. 

Reminding myself that because I am a man, my chest is a man’s chest regardless of whether or not it looks like a cis man’s chest, and I refer to it as such. Turn this into a mantra if you have to. Get your friends to repeat it to you when you’re having doubts. 

Also, use language that feels affirming to you when describing your body. I typically say ‘my chest’ or ‘my nipples’ rather than usually more traditionally feminine works for that part of my body.

Perspective makes a difference

Knowing that my perspective looking down at my chest is different from how other people see my chest looking at me straight on. 

I remember one particular day where I was out with my partner, and I kept doing that thing where I pull my shirt away from my chest because it felt like it was too tight, and everyone could clearly see my chest. You know what I mean. Eventually, my partner noticed and asked me about it. I told him what I was doing, and he assured me that my chest didn’t look the way I believed it did in my head. When I didn’t believe him, he took a picture. He was right; despite how I felt looking down at my chest, the picture looked great. 

Stand up straight

I mean…nothing about me is straight. Stand-up gay? It’s natural to think that curving your shoulders in will hide your chest, but it doesn’t; in my opinion, it brings more attention. Stand up straight with your shoulders back. 

Look in the mirror

When you don’t feel good in your body, it’s easy to avoid looking in mirrors, I get it. But taking the time to look at yourself, particularly in your natural state, can help you to appreciate your body. Don’t think about judging yourself on what you have or don’t have or your view on attractiveness (which is arbitrary); instead, focus on the amazing things your body does. While you’re at it, try picking one thing you like about your body. Only one thing, and it doesn’t have to be big or feel significant, but it can make all the difference in building your confidence. 

My body allows me to ride my bike to work in the morning. I am thankful for my strength. By spending time looking in the mirror, I have also found ways of holding my body that make me feel good. Like standing in certain positions that make my chest look a little more like I wish it did. I also notice things that I like and make me feel masculine, like the definition in my arms, the hair on my legs, and my tiny little treasure trail. 

Fake it till you make it

I know this is a bit cliche, but it works, at least it has for me. If I fake confidence in my body, people around me question me less. Eventually, the confidence actually starts to rub off. Go to the beach with your shirt off, change in front of your friends, act like your chest is a man’s chest, and eventually, you will believe it. 

Wear clothes that feel good

Find clothes that make you feel good in your body. That could be a particular style or cut or even specific colours. I find I like men’s shirts that are small enough to fit across the shoulders but not too tight around my chest and in bright or dark colours, never white or grey. 

As I have started to love my feminine self more and acknowledge myself as a femme gay boy, I’ve started to experiment with how I dress as well. I’ve found crop tops that are T-shirts or long sleeves (no tank tops), and a bit looser around the chest are fantastic! 

This can also apply to loving other parts of your body. Find pants that make you feel good about your hips. Hem your pants if you’re worried about them being too short and don’t want to cuff them. Wearing a packer if that makes you feel good. 

Supportive people 

Having supportive people in my life has made all the difference. I have friends who I will text selfies to on dysphoric days who will describe me in ways that feel gender-affirming to make me feel better about my body. 

I also appreciate having friends who will correct other people on my pronouns, especially feminine days. 

Get tattooed 

I got a chest tattoo, and it actually made a significant difference in my confidence. I feel like it visually takes away from the extra tissue I have on my chest. And in situations where I feel like someone is staring at me when I’m topless, I remind myself that they’re probably just looking at my tattoo. 

While these are primarily geared toward my experience learning to be more confident with my chest, most of these could help our overall confidence in our bodies. We deserve to exist in the world exactly as we are at this moment. 

Final Thoughts

No matter who you are or how you exist in the world, it’s challenging to be confident about your body. Even the people out there who you think don’t have issues with their bodies, I assure you, they do. But building confidence and starting to feel that love takes time. Consider just making a commitment to yourself to take one step forward, no matter how small. 

You are beautiful and loved and deserve to feel good. 

Complement your dive into self-love with a deeper understanding of how the desire to pass can change the way you feel about yourself.

Everyday Trans Joy: Trans love is still resistance

By

On November 9, 2021

In Trans Life

Photo by Jennifer Bonauer on Unsplash

Trans people can experience love. Trans people can experience joy because they are trans. And yes, cis people can love trans people.

I never thought I would find more to say on these ideas than the above. To me, they are self-evident. But apparently, many, many cisgender people do not understand these concepts. There have been so many transgender people that have pointed this out over the years, and it seems that the greater culture still isn’t hearing us. In an interview with journalist Tuck Woodstock, author Jeffrey Marsh tells us about a time when another interviewer asked them if they hoped to find love.

Jeffrey: It’s so funny because I think I know the clip you’re talking about. I think the interviewer even was like, “you know I hate to have such a traditional mindset but do you hope to have a partner?” It’s like what are you talking about? We’re human beings. Anyway.

Tuck: I’m very traditional, but do you hope to experience love (laughing)?

Jeffrey Marsh, Gender Reveal Ep. 93 25:30

And this same question has been asked of every part of the LGBTQ+ community for as long as we have been publicly visible. One of my favorite quotes of all time is Harvey Fierstein’s response to a really ridiculous question by Barbara Walters.

“Those are not heterosexual experiences and those are not heterosexual words. Those are human words. Love, commitment, family, belong to all people.”

Harvey Fierstein, Interview with Barbara Walters 1983

I only recommend you watch the full interview if you want a sense of where the public perception of gay people was back then, how far it has come since 1983, and how many of these same questions are being asked about trans people today.

I am not the first person to say that trans people love. We will be saying this as long as we love. Because as long as some cisgender people continue this rhetoric that all queerness leads to is pain and suffering, we will continue to shout it from the rooftops that we love and are lovable.

“I am transgender and this doesn’t mean that I am unlovable.”

Lana Wachowski

I credit the deliberate campaign of some people who feel threatened by our very existence as the reason that this ridiculous idea continues to permeate the zeitgeist to this day. I feel extremely strange to be addressing this specific issue. I am old enough, and from a conservative enough area, to remember when society at large was asking these same questions about gay people.

“Perhaps the most important contribution of queer by choice people to the fight against homophobia is that when we say that we chose to be queer, we force people to realize that it’s possible to want to be queer. For too long homophobes have painted us as one-sided creatures who experience nonstop pain. To paint us this way is to paint us as something less than full and well-rounded human beings, and they paint us this way specifically to scare others into repressing their own potential queerness. The reality is that there’s much to enjoy about being a member of the queer community and we who are queer by choice want homophobes to realize and acknowledge that.”

Gayle Madwin, queerbychoice.com

But what’s worse is that the people who call us “unlovable” are likely some of the very same people who claim we have gone too far in accepting transgender people. How could we have gotten this far without love? People who love trans people, trans people who love themselves, how would societal acceptance of trans people have been possible at all if trans people were inherently unable to love and be loved?

I am not writing this for people who think we are unlovable. I am not even writing this for those of us who are comfortable with ourselves. I write this for the people who have lived in an entirely cis world, until they started to question their internal dialogue. I am declaring, once again, that trans people are inherently lovable because I was fed the lie that transition is all pain and suffering. I was fed the lie that there is no joy, love, and light in being trans. That trans people are killed, by suicide and murder. That trans people are discriminated against. Sometimes, all of this is true, much more than it should be. However, there is a side of transness that people who call us unlovable don’t want you to see.

The very existence of the great many self-assured, confident, joyous trans people in this world is a form of direct resistance to this narrative.

Trans joy is resistance, trans love is resistance, trans existence is resistance.

But it shouldn’t have to be. Consider why these people, and ideas have been removed from the view of the majority of cis discourse. There are systems, well-funded and hidden from the view of greater society, that actively work to muffle and silence the voices of the trans community because they see it as their Biblical duty to do so. Don’t just take my word for it, take look at the deeply researched series that Imara Jones, and the team at Translash Media, put together on the anti-trans hate machine.

Even in the face of all of this, still there is trans joy. Still there is trans love. Still there are trans people. And still we persist.

Complement these musings on trans love with an exploration of why “passing” doesn’t define your transition.

Facing Disillusionment with Masculinity

By

On October 18, 2021

In Trans Life

Photo by Oladimeji Odunsi on Unsplash

I know there are positive aspirational models of masculinity out there. But trans men in particular may feel shut out of the positive aspects of masculinity that many cis men expound as the virtues of being a man. I find the general air of bioessentialism, and justification for the continuation of the racist historical patriarchy found in the approach that certain cis men have towards thinking deeply about masculinity to be a huge turnoff to the whole idea of interrogating my own masculine identity.

All of the people that have been responsible for some of the most heinous acts of cruelty against me and the people around me have been men, and my mother was raised by a woman who genuinely hated men. This unfortunately common combination lead to my mother picking up some aggressively “anti-man” stances. One of which was the idea that if she just brought her dildo into work her staff would respect her more. This idea was seen as a way of dealing with the patriarchy under which she was forced to work, and this idea that if she only had a penis she would “get the respect she deserved” struck her young trans son (me) as being pretty damn simplistic and decidedly anti-masculine. It reeked of her mother’s idea that if only there weren’t men, women would be fine, and free from oppression. Anyone who has observed groups of humans for any length of time knows that inequity, oppression, and manipulation are not the exclusive domain of cis/het/white masculinity, and cis/het/white women are not the worst targets of this inequity, oppression, and abuse. This is not meant to denigrate my mother’s experience of chafing against the effects of the patriarchy, but she still held down a job that put her in the top 1% of earners for our area. And she did struggle to gain respect at work because she was woman, but she also held the same well-paid job at the same company for over a decade and only left at her own choice. This is not the worst way her life could have shaken out, not by far. In fact, it is because of the above that I felt fairly privileged during that time in my childhood. Stability, however excruciating it may be, is a privilege.

I feel the above may be able to be misunderstood as me saying my mother should be grateful for her position in the patriarchy. Please do not take my criticism of my mother’s lack of awareness of her privilege as an endorsement of the structure in which she found herself. I only take umbrage with the manner in which she chose to express her discontent. I found it only led to further mental anguish on her part because focusing your criticism of the patriarchy solely on the basis of biology leads to thinking that one has no means of action against the structure. She felt that because she was born a woman, she only need mimic the “biology of a man” to improve her comfort within the existing structure. Transgender and nonbinary people didn’t seem to factor into my mother’s understanding of the world, despite the fact that she was very much aware of the existence of trans people.

She never challenged the structure itself. She never felt that she was in a position where she could. All of this, while others out here approach the structure, and (unlike my mother) are actively refused the opportunity to thrive within in it. Thusly, they are forced by society to actively work to change the structure. Not because they are in any particularly special position to effect this change, but they are simply left with no choice other than to lie down and die, by their own hand or someone else’s. When your life is on the line, it can be a much harder spur to effective action.

I struggled to accept my own masculinity because I lived in fear of the understanding of masculine identity that I was force fed as a child. My father still looms large in my mind when I think about my childhood, even though I last laid eyes on him in person about 15 years ago. I don’t feel the need to get into the more prurient or heinous details of the abuse my family suffered. I don’t think that’s necessary. Pretty much everyone I know has deeply seeded issues like this with at least one man in their life. This doesn’t bode well for those of us who know themselves to be men.

I think one place to start when thinking about masculinity in general, is to question masculinity as it exists in my life today, rather than reject it on it’s face. I prefer to understand the racist motivations, bourgeois origins, and ableist sentiments of the version of masculinity that is currently accepted as this truly non-existent “norm”. I want to explore how masculine energy can show up in my life in service to my mental health, and development as a person, rather than as a set of standards of appearance and behavior to which I must adhere.

This is vital work in which I encourage everyone to engage. Below is just a sample of some of the questions that you could think over to start off your journey into thinking deeply, and critically about your masculinity and relationship to it.

What are your current ideas of what constitutes “masculinity” and “femininity”?

How do you fit into those ideas right now?

Do you feel a relation to the commonly held ideas of what constitutes “masculinity”? (Meaning do you feel you should be called he/him? Are you sexually attracted to people whom greater society considers to be masculine? Do you want masculinity to show up in your life at all?)

Are the ideas of masculinity and femininity useful to you, and your life?

Ask yourself how have men and masculinity shown up in your life up to this point?

How do you relate to the people that make up that representation?

Is your relationship to them rooted in abuse, fear, and/or manipulation?

Do you currently have any healthy, substantive relations with men/masculine people?

Do you have healthy relationships with masculine people of different generations?

How has religion influenced your view of masculinity?

How has your country or society’s history with racism, and colonialism affected your ideas around masculinity? (i.e. venerating one type of skin color, or body shape over another; promoting conceptualizations of people of color as a set of stereotypes instead of encouraging seeing everyone as humans deserving of understanding, and respect)

Do you feel like your current relationship to masculinity supports your efforts to live your personally held values and beliefs?

What can you change to ensure that your ideas around men and masculine people do not continue to enforce the current status quo? (This could be as simple as consciously being more inclusive in your use of language i.e. using the phrasing “pregnant people”, or as involved as deconstructing the manner in which you argue with your partner and realizing that many of your responses are rooted in the enforced sublimation of all emotion to anger because that’s the only way you have seen men approach intense emotions.)

How can your masculinity be used to better serve those around you and your greater community?

Complement your exploration of masculinity with a better understanding of the effects of the desire to “pass” as cisgender.

Why “passing” doesn’t define your transition

By

On October 4, 2021

In Trans Life

passing
Photo by Jiroe on Unsplash

I’m just going to come right out and say it: people being jealous of you for how much you “pass” is not a worthy transition goal. This is unhealthy at worst, and unrealistic at best (for most). A better transition goal is to attempt to maintain body neutrality, or body positivity if that works for you. Through basically ignoring my body beyond the attention needed to keep myself alive and healthy, I have found that I can appreciate the changes my body goes through as they happen without giving in to the desire to constantly body check myself to see how much and in what ways my body changes.

If I allow myself to focus on the body as the main vessel of transition I am quickly met with a slippery slope back into the eating disorder and severe body dysmorphia that I have struggled with for my entire life. My body changes pretty wildly every single month, and in a variety of ways each time. Some months I gain 15lbs during my cycle, some months I lose 5lbs. Some parts of me are more swollen than they “should” be, or than they were last month. I can’t even give another example because I have been actively trying to avoid letting this topic take up space in my mind for so long. Suffice it to say that my body has been less than helpful in my quest to “feel like a man”. In fact, my body has been my largest impediment to this feeling.

All this isn’t to say that this approach is best for everyone. For some monitoring the changes your body goes through may be helpful “to see how far you have come”, and this can be affirming for some. One just has to look at the plethora of transition selfies and videos available online for proof that a lot of people find a lot affirmation in comparison. This same idea is also pushed in the weight loss industry as a way to “help” or “encourage” people to keep up healthy lifestyles.

I see monitoring my calorie intake and sometimes even focusing too much on the quality of my food (is it “healthy” enough?) as playing on my obsessive tendencies. Tendencies that have a propensity to bring to the surface a certain form of internalized transphobia that I wasn’t even aware I was dealing with. I regularly catch myself focusing on how much my body doesn’t “look like a man’s”. Yes it does. It just looks like a trans man’s body. It is a man’s body because it is my body. I have been forced to expand my cissexist definition of “man” and found that the audacity to self-define is not the exclusive domain of cis people.

This could easily have been titled “why external validation doesn’t make you trans”. Your transition is not defined by how much you look like a cisgender person. I am not cis and because of this I have to ask myself if how much I “pass” really matters to my perception of myself and my inherent masculinity.

This is not to say that “passing” itself is wrong, or the desire isn’t useful in a good many situations. A lot of trans people find comfort, and psychological and material safety in “successfully passing” or “going stealth” in their everyday lives. This essay is not designed to excoriate “passing”, itself. Rather, here I attempt to offer an alternative to the self-hatred, and dissonance that does occur when one, like myself, is visibly queer and not in imminent physical or material danger because of this. The alternative I offer is to base your perception of your transition around more than one facet, and on facets that are within your personal circle of influence.

Yes, a lot of the time hormones and surgeries can bring on the bodily changes that one should have had all along. But that does not mean that you have to focus all of your mental and emotional energy on policing your self and your actions so as to prevent “looking like a man/woman”. This is just a hamster wheel of self-hatred with a veneer of “transition goals” slapped over it. In fact, I argue that we shouldn’t base most aspects of our sense of self on “not being a man/woman” because this is just unproductive. I posit that one should focus on growing up well.

Part of growing into a mature adult is striking the appropriate balance between having an internal locus of control and understanding the limits of one’s personal circle of influence. Trans people do not have a choice but to work toward this balance because we cannot afford to let other people tell us who we are and should be. They will try, and they will always fall short of who we know ourselves to be.

My thinking on this issue has been deeply influenced through learning more about nonbinary people and their experiences. Because there isn’t really a way to “pass” as nonbinary, this “passing is the goal” problem can’t really exist. (Of course, that is not to presume that nonbinary people can not “pass”. This is not true in any sense.)

For nonbinary people “passing” cannot be the sole factor on which they define their transitions, so they must take a more multi-dimensional approach. This may sound basic to some, but for me, seeing this reality for the first time opened the door to the possibility of a more playful relationship with my gender. From watching, specifically Milo Stewart, and other nonbinary creators, I have been able to get a glance at an existence that isn’t ruled entirely by the norms of cis experience. This idea of someone wanting to live and thrive in a space that is so uncomfortable for me gives me hope that I can be happy regardless of how much my body changes, or doesn’t. And if I can be happy regardless of if I “totally pass” or not, then I can free up some of that energy I was wasting on obsessing over my body and appearance, and direct it towards the more appropriate goal of growing into a decent man, which is something over which I have total control.

Complement this with an interrogation of the disillusionment many face when exploring masculinity in earnest.

Everday Trans Joy: Make trans friends!

By

On September 27, 2021

In Trans Life

trans friends

When I was teenager, I came across some advice for dealing with other people’s perceptions of you. The general idea was to assess the person that you are concerned about by asking yourself a series of questions such as “Who is this person to me?”, “Are they the kind of person that I would like to be?”, “Do they share my personally held values, beliefs, and standards of behavior?”, “Do they have some kind of material power over me (i.e. a parent, teacher, or boss)?”, etc.

Based on your answers to these questions, you can evaluate the utility of their opinion. This method is often used to get people to disconnect from the comments on social media. By asking the above questions about the random person on Instagram, you can pretty quickly figure out that you probably shouldn’t concern yourself with that person’s perception of you. But what about when a trans person asks themself these questions about the people they actually care about in their life? What happens when they find that they don’t have many people that pass this test, even among their family and friends? Well, my answer is make trans friends (where and when you can)!

I grew up in and around cultures that firmly believe that instruction from your elders, and ancestors is vital to one’s social, moral, and philosophical development. However this focus on instruction is often used as a means of social control and manipulation, rather than in the interest of true personal development. For example, I was constantly instructed to “act like a lady” and close my legs, and cross my hands in my lap, and keep silent when adults were speaking. I see the appeal. An entire list of exhortations, and behavioral instructions wrapped up in a single admonition. Personally, I chafed against this method of enforcing social order. I would purposefully splay my entire body across multiple chairs when left alone, and then immediately snap back into place when confronted by an adult, even in public.

But as I aged, mild rebellion just wouldn’t do anymore, and I sought out a framework for moral and social development that would actually resonate with my sensibilities and outlook on the world. I found one of the biggest men’s interests magazines on the web and took the lessons on morality, virtue, and the development of personal standards of behavior available there and generalized them to “include me”. Little did I know that I resonated so much with this white/cis/het/Western canon focused philosophy of masculinity because it was extolling all of the positive virtues of the oppressive structure under which I spent my childhood, while completely ignoring the reality of this oppression. I genuinely thought that I could take the good without the bad.

This isn’t to say that there is absolutely nothing we can learn from writings like these. I credit that particular magazine with introducing me to the wisdom of the ancient Stoics and their philosophy. I also credit these types of publications for opening my mind to the interrogation of gender as an idea, and a concept within our human nature.

I liked analyzing the relationship that our society has to gender, and how that relates to the individual and their development as a person. But I was always stymied because I didn’t agree with some crucial aspects of the arguments being made.

I didn’t personally believe that gender was a binary. I knew that I definitely didn’t fit into most people’s ideas of gender. Yet, because I identified so strongly with a lot of what else they were saying, I didn’t realize that the people having these intellectual discussions on masculinity would object to the nature of my own relationship to masculinity [being trans]. So I felt lost, and disillusioned with men as a concept. There are so many websites dedicated to the understanding of one particular type of gender [i.e. white-cis] and yet I struggled to find an aspirational model of trans masculinity that spoke to me.

And I still haven’t. Even my own writing is not necessarily designed to serve the same function as the “mainstream men’s interest mag”, which are generally designed to serve as a part of a massive, uber-capitalist media conglomerate. I am simply on a path that, while definitely well trod, has markers that have been hidden, obscured, erased, and buried. I would like to explore this ancient path, and possibly highlight some of these guide posts.

Ultimately, I am left thinking about a line from an episode of the Gender Reveal podcast I recently listened to. There was a moment in Episode 94 with Kirby Conrod that extolled the virtues of making trans and otherwise gender non-conforming friends. At minute marker 36:30, Kirby asserts that the transition from friends that misgender you (or otherwise “other” you) to ones that correctly gender you is a natural process and one that may happen throughout the course of your transition. By surrounding yourself with people who get you, you insulate yourself from some of the social trauma that your initial transition inevitably causes. With the psychological safety that having friends that respect you affords, you can have a more accurate self-perception. This is what I mean when I say make trans friends. I mean make friends that are people you can look up to, and who live their stated values and beliefs. People who are thinking deeply about their own relationship to gender. People with whom you can share ideas without fear for your safety. It might sound basic on its face, but I encourage you to consciously try it sometime. It might be an informative exercise, regardless of outcome!

After you resolve to make more trans friends, I encourage you to learn more about interrogating your relationship to masculinity, and why “passing” doesn’t define your transition.

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