Monthly Archives: September 2008

I went to the university’s “Gender Chat” on Tuesday.  Not to process gender issues of my own, but to think about gender issues in general, and because it’s comforting to me to hear other folks’ gender-related thoughts.

When K and I first showed up, I think I was quickly introduced to the new LGBT director, and that made me think about K and his relationship to my gender and my transition.  I’ve always made it really clear that, at this point in my life and in our relationship, it’s important to me that K feel able to disclose my trans status when/if he wants to, to whomever he wants to.  And I think he believes me.  I’m pretty sure, anyway.  But, I’ve definitely noticed that he’s become as ambivalent about when/how/if to disclose as I have.  I worry some that it’s more about making me comfortable than making himself comfortable, but K of course is capable of meeting his own needs in this regard.  Still, I wonder about our visibility/invisibility.

It’s pretty straightforward outside of queer spaces–it all depends on how K is being perceived.  We’re either gay men, or a kinda funny looking straight couple.  People usually seem to think we’re pretty precious, either way.  But inside queer space, we’re looked at for longer.  People who assume K is a lesbian are baffled, and once they see how gay I am, usually just end up confused and fascinated.  People who know K’s a trans guy focus directly and pointedly on me.  I think it’s to figure out if I’m a cissexual gay man who’s actually okay with dating pre/no-ho pre-non/op guys (you know, a PINK unicorn, even more rare than the regular unicorns who will date post-transition trans men), or a trans man, or what.  That annoys me slightly.  I guess I could interpret that as “I’m okay with however we’re perceived, so long as my trans status isn’t brought up”.

So, I wonder how the director perceived me.  She’ll know eventually, probably, if I hang around.  But figuring out when to disclose is weird and new, and I don’t want to look like an ass, like “Hi, I’m Caleb–would you like to hear about my genital configuration?”  And, of course, there’s the fact that I don’t really like talking about it all that much anyway.  It was especially strange because I wasn’t sure if the person I was actually talking to (who is a newly-out trans woman) knew, and I definitely wanted to give her the secret handshake or whatever, so she’d know there was a community here.  Even if it is a bit of a sausage party… sort of.

In introductions, I didn’t think to continue the “name + pronoun” intro that K had tried to start, although I really should’ve thought to; I’m not really interested in othering people whose gender reception and pronoun preference don’t match just so I can enjoy my new privilege.  I was just too engrossed in thought, I guess.  Oh, and then I didn’t come out at first, because there were three people there (two facilitators and a student) I wanted to feel out first.

It’s almost like being drunk on power.  I have the power to have someone I just met never, ever know that I am not a cissexual man.  And it’s hard coming out sometimes, even in a situation in which I want to, like gender chat.  I’m not sure if I’ve written about it here, or just spoken about it in private conversations, but disclosing is different than coming out, by miles and miles.  Coming out as trans meant seeking respect for my identity.  It meant giving someone to whom I’m disclosing to know more about me, to get a more complete and accurate idea of who I am as a person.  It was a lot like coming out as queer.  It was kind of empowering in a way.

Disclosing doesn’t make me feel that way.  Disclosing to people I assume are cissexual has, in general, more cons than pros.  The pros are mostly that I get to know whether the person I’m coming out to is a transphobic douchebag I wouldn’t want to be friends with anyway, and that the person won’t be confused when I talk about things like my boobs, my puberty, my menopause, my uterus, my ovaries, my ex-lesbianism, my intimate familiarity with things that most guys know absolutely nothing about.  That’s about where the good bits end.  Someone finding out that I lived as female-ish until about a year ago causes most cissexual folks to start painting a mental picture of me that’s 1) inappropriate and 2) wrong:

My body becomes scrutinized, and if one more fucking person congratulates me on how “real” or “bio” or “genetic” or “magickal” I look for a transsexual (read: woman), I might start congratulating them on how trans they look.  Especially feminine cis women–they all look like femme trans women to me, anyway.  It’s so nice that they can go around looking trans to me, despite being [usually] uterus-laden imposters.

No, I haven’t had any surgeries.  Yes, binding fucking hurts.

No, you had it right the first time.  I’m faggy in the same way as a cis queer guy.  It’s not a holdover from my “natural” womanly mcvaginaness.

No, I’m not dating K because I only date other trans people, nor am I dating him because only other trans people will date me.

No, my family doesn’t need to be praised from the rooftops for not disowning me because of my decision to transition; if you wouldn’t be supportive and understanding of a trans family member, that makes you an asshole, it doesn’t make my family angelic.

Because the male-female spectrum exists de facto, “coming out” put me more towards the male end, which felt more accurate; “disclosing” puts me more towards the female end, which feels less accurate.  The way I’m perceived now is almost exactly how I perceive myself, and how I want to be perceived (fantasies of waking up one morning and having the body of my tall, thin, twinky, genderqueer fag roommate aside).  It’s not as easy to convince myself to go through all that when I don’t usually get anything out of it, except someone thinking that we’re BFFs and that I’ve really opened up to them.

K and I went to The Grill late that night and talked, and I think I’m getting somewhere with my genderqueer stuff.  I’ve been examining my genderqueer identity lately, because I’m the type to pick at a scab.  And there’s some stuff about all this that just sits wrong with me, and I want to figure out if “genderqueer” is a vestigial identity at this point, or if it’s just evolved.

When I was living as female, before I transitioned, being genderqueer, for me, meant a freedom to express masculinity/maleness in a way that resonated with me, without invalidating or repressing my feminine qualities.  Even when I knew I would transition medically, I still identified with “trans-masculine” genderqueers and lesbians/queer women.  We looked alike.  Our experiences were a lot alike, or so I felt.

That’s just not the case at this point in my life.  My maleness is now affirmed by basically everyone I interact with.  These days, my non-binary identity is more about my expressions of queer maleness and femininity.  The genderqueer issues I wrestle with myself cause me to identify pretty strongly with genderqueer-identified people whose gender expressions/presentations usually align with binary maleness/masculinity.

Despite all the theory, I’ve never really seen too much breaking down of binaries, and the idea of the “spectrum” sort of looms large.  I feel like “transmasculine” people and “transfeminine” people are quietly pushed to either side, according to birth-assignation.  I feel like if my trans status is known, I’m pushed to the wrong sort of side–like I’m seen as the far-end of the female masculinity spectrum.  And, I know that tons of guys who ID as genderqueer totally see themselves this way, which is fine.  I just don’t.  Maybe a part of that separation is because the genderqueer community is so heavily female-assigned and currently-or-formerly-lesbian-identified?

I think that may be the root of the anti-cissexual male sentiment that shows up/peeks out sometimes in my conversations with other genderqueers.  And I’m not very comfortable with that idea.  At this point in my life, the only essential difference between me and a cissexual guy is what’s under our clothes.  And I’ve seen trans guys get away with so much misogyny and so much bullshit, and even if they’re called on it, they get the benefit of the doubt.  The possiblity that cissexual men may make those exact same mistakes is used as the reasoning for their exclusion.  I’m not interested in being a part of anything that would include me but would exclude cis men, because, as someone has pointed out, that is so literally phallocentric.