Transgender Athletes and Unfair Advantages

I usually try to stay somewhat lighthearted in my posts. There’s a certain flavor of snarky charm that I like bringing to my writing. But writing style can often change with mood and I’ve spent the last two days arguing with TERFs (Transgender Exclusionary Radical Feminists) online. Yes, I know…I know…rule one of the internet is don’t read the comments. But I was finding their hateful rhetoric in a space I never expected it to be so prominent: the Facebook page for Equality House. If you ever needed proof that the transgender community isn’t always welcome in the gay and lesbian community, take an eye-opening stroll over there (I can’t even begin to throw up enough trigger warnings for that so PLEASE do so at your own risk).

The TERFs being particularly vocal were adamant that I take the time to debunk any claims they made about transgender women eroding women-only safe spaces (HA!), and taking away women’s rights (HA HA!), but they weren’t posting any real backup to their claims either so I didn’t see the need to do it myself (not to mention I don’t argue civilly with anyone who disrespects my gender and tries to un-person me). However, there was one topic where they did post articles backing up their claim: the notion of transgender women having an unfair advantage when competing in women-only sports. I’ll admit that one actually got my brain turning a little bit. Regardless I wasn’t going to get into an actual debate with a TERF, but the notion of transgender athletes does come up a lot and I’ve rarely weighed in on it. I’ve seen many of the stories she shared before, but they all have the same underlying theme: transgender women have bodies build in large by testosterone and thus have an unfair competitive advantage. Hate-filled radical feminists aside, I did want to share my thoughts on this matter.

There’s been plenty of chatter on both sides of this one. Is it fair to cis women to let trans women compete with them? Is it fair to force trans women to compete with cis men because sports is all about body type and physical ability? My stance on the matter might surprise you in multiple ways. On the subject of fairness, no, it isn’t fair to cis women to compete against trans women. Though HRT (hormone replacement therapy)  can deplete muscle mass in trans females, it isn’t always to the extent that their muscle mass would match that of a typical cisgender woman. Couple that with the diet and workout routine typically found with serious athletes and you’ve got a scenario where one competitor does have an unfair advantage over the other.

Anyone sharpening their pitchforks yet? I can hear the crackling of torch flames already. Faith, how can you say this?! You’ve always been an advocate for transgender women to have access to all female-only spaces! You’ve betrayed us all! If this is you, simmer down. I only said there was an unfair advantage. I never said such an advantage should disqualify transgender women from competing with other women. I firmly, 100% believe all transgender athletes should compete with others who share a similar gender identity. How do I marry these two seemingly opposing viewpoints? How do I justify advocating for trans women to enjoy the unfair advantage they have in sports? Simple…

I don’t care.

That’s seriously my big reveal. I unabashedly do not give a damn. Transgender women should be allowed to compete with cis women and enjoy any advantage that gives them. Why? Because it’s beyond ridiculous that transgender people have to keep justifying their existence by figuring out how we can insert ourselves into a society that was built assuming we didn’t exist. You say trans women don’t fit into the sports structure? I say make a new structure. Change sports entirely to reflect a gender diverse population. Have all sports be segregated solely on body type regardless of gender. If a cisgender man and woman are both about 6 feet tall and weigh between 180 and 200 pounds, put them in the same sport together. I don’t care what it is; put them together.

My clash with the TERFs yesterday showed me just how sick and tired I am of having to constantly figure out how I get to exist. And I’m not going to do it anymore. Transgender people have always existed. We have cultural, archaeological, and anthropological evidence to prove that. For as long as there have been socially defined notions of gender, there have been those who didn’t fit the mold. Other cultures shaped themselves to incorporate us, but western culture has largely tackled this by labeling us freaks and mentally ill. We’ve been shamed into staying hidden, into playing along with whatever roll we were handed. It’s led to severe depression and suicide time and time again, but that didn’t matter because it all happened in the background as the world kept going with the assumption everything was working just fine. The system works, and if it doesn’t work then that part is kept behind the curtain.

I’m not going to do it anymore. For as long as there are women-only spaces I will demand access to them. Don’t like that? Well, let’s change the system to something that recognized both that I exist and that I’m equal. Is that a lot of work? You bet your ass it is. Do I care? Not one bit. Any cultural aspect that can’t support the existence of transgender people should be completely dismantled and then rebuilt to include our existence. If we’re not willing to do that, then I will continue to do what makes me most comfortable and let society deal with however that makes them feel.

I’m done trying to find a spot on the puzzle where my piece fits. I will put my piece where I damn well please, no matter what corners I have to cut out of that hole to make it happen. My happiness is valid. My identity hurts absolutely no one. My safety and health are more important than making sure you’re not slightly inconvenienced. If that’s not fair, come to the table and lets’ rebuild in a way that respects both of us. But until that day, I will no longer lessen myself for your comfort.

So let the transgender women compete. Let them enjoy any advantage that gives them. I promise you, they’ve overcome enough just to get to that spot that they’ve earned it. I personally long for a day where notions of gender segregation are torn down, but I know I’ll never see such a world in my lifetime. So, game on!

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Not All Bad-ass Women Are Created Equal

Wonder Woman was a really good movie. I’m not a film critic so I won’t go into any nuanced details on that statement except to say it was by no means perfect but that didn’t change what it meant to me. Seeing the First Lady of Comics finally portrayed on the big screen in such a manner was cathartic to me both as a feminist and as a long-time nerd. When my wife and I left the theater, she turned to me, her face wet with tears and said, “where was that when I was 10 years old?”.

It’s a sentiment shared by many. Even though I was socialized as male from birth, seeing a big, female-led superhero movie also struck chords with me that moved me to tears. To so many women, especially very young women, this was a defining moment.

Leave it to the internet to try and ruin a good thing.

Have you seen this meme? Do you agree with it? Do you share it? I’ve been seeing it, as well as a version shared with Xena and Ripley from Alien, all over Facebook lately. The message is simple: saying Wonder Woman is some kind of first for bad-ass women forgets the bad-ass women who came before her. On the surface, it’s a fine argument. It makes sense in the simplest of terms. But if you dig any further down than the surface, you find a lot of cultural factors that it just doesn’t hold up to.

If you’ve shared this meme before (or a similar one), I have some predictions about you. I predict that you’re older than your mid twenties and grew up as however you classify a nerd/geek from an early age. Am I right? Do I get a cookie? The reason I’m confident in that is that this mindset comes from the very specific set of circumstances that shapes such a worldview. I’m there too. I’m in my early 30’s. I’ve been a geek my whole life. I used to watch Xena and Buffy all the time. I loved those women and the power and confidence they portrayed. I’m sure you were the same way, and that like me you also see many of those same characteristics in Diana.

Here’s the problem though: we’re not 15 years old right now. See, for as much as we like to think we’re still young at heart and are in with the same pop culture stuff today’s teens are, it’s just inescapable that we have a dynamically different world experience from them. Even when we were growing up watching Xena and Buffy, we knew those things were never part of the mainstream culture. When we were teenagers, liking nerdy stuff meant getting your ass kicked. It meant being bullied, teased, harassed, and shunned. I’m not saying those things aren’t still there to some degree, but liking sci-fi/fantasy isn’t taboo anymore. The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies were some of the highest grossing films of all times. The popular culture is currently dominated by the very same superheroes we were teased for reading about as teenagers. Nerd stuff equals cool now, and that’s something we never even considered growing up.

Remember, 15 year old girls didn’t grow up watching Xena and Buffy. And even if they did, their fandom never carried the cultural ubiquity that sci-fi/fantasy does today. Do you ever remember Walmart having an entire section of the toy department devoted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Xena? Well, they certainly do for superheroes right now! Iron Man, Spiderman, Hulk, Thor, Batman, Superman, their images are on everything these days. I can walk into any crowd of people, ask “who is Tony Stark?”, and likely get a majority of correct answers. The same is not true for, “who is Buffy Summers?”. It’s not just about the character existing, but the character existing on the same global stage as everything else people are into.

You have to remember, today’s teen girls have grown up in a world where shared universe superhero stories dominate the popular culture. We’re talking about a genre of stories that, for decades, was mainly targeted at adolescent boys of our generation. This means that the subject matter largely speaks to them (i.e. why nearly all the heroes are male and win through showings of physical strength) not to mention long-time comics fans have been thrust into the limelight for being the most qualified people to talk about the history, continuity, and nuanced aspects of these properties. And since these properties were so heavily focused on boys back then, it’s mostly boys filling those rolls today. The biggest thing in entertainment on a global, broad-appeal scale right now is something made by men and for men to the largest degree.

This is why Wonder Woman is such a dramatic shift. Not only is it a female superhero, it’s a female superhero leading the movie. It’s also a female superhero displaying aspects of femininity. I mean, Alien was a big movie back in the day (even though sci-fi/horror was still a very niche genre back then) but Ripley always appeared and acted just masculine enough to not offend the fragile egos of boys not wanting girl stuff to distract from the cool, scary aliens ripping people apart in space. Wonder Woman’s whole persona doesn’t just convey confident person, but confident woman; and the distinction is palpable.

Think back to your childhood. How would you have felt to see Xena made into a big blockbuster movie? How would you have felt to walk into a theater and see a giant cutout of Lucy Lawless, dressed in her iconic outfit and striking a heroic pose? How would you have felt if such a movie exploded into the kinds of toy and novelty items that superhero movies do today? How would you have felt if said movie made millions of dollars, became a cultural phenomenon, and cemented itself in the minds of everyone in the world?

This isn’t just about a bad-ass female character. This is about a bad-ass female character sharing the same spotlight as everything else that’s culturally relevant right now. This is about declaring that women can direct and star in movies that are meant to appeal to the masses instead of just needing their own little club. This is about seeing our Xenas and Buffys break from the shackles of Saturday afternoon cable TV and join the biggest of heroes on the biggest of stages. So remember this the next time you hear someone making a “big deal” about Wonder Woman. Instead of trying to explain away justification of their views, maybe ask them to explain why they feel that way. Maybe then we can be the type of humanity Diana always knew we could be.

Actually, Your “Preference for Vaginas” is Both Sexist AND Transphobic

Content and trigger warnings: Sexism, transphobia, graphic imagery.

“I’m not a racist, but…”

I’m not transphobic, but…”

“I’m not sexist, but…”

Have you noticed that nothing good ever comes after these statements? I don’t think it’s possible to actually follow these words with something that makes them true unless they make absolutely no contextual sense; like, “I’m not a racist, but it’s a nice day today.” If you’re feeling the need to preface your thought with one of these types of disclaimers, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be lying to both yourself and others. These types of statements can offer you an eye-opening look into the people you thought you knew. Once upon a time I had a friend whom I thought was a really great transgender ally. He’d certainly been supportive of me since day one. Then, one day, I came across this little gem on his Facebook feed.

Trigger warning: transphobia

My skin crawls when I read that…

Obviously, I removed him from my friends list. This might seem like an entire post dedicated to striking back at a single person who pissed me off on Facebook, but I’m using this as a launching point because it encapsulates so many of the broader notions I see surrounding this kind of thinking. You’ll note the multiple instances of “I know THING X, but…” in here; a soft-sounding preface that does nothing to dampen the blow of vile, anti-trans rhetoric that follows.

There are a lot of people who think this is a a reasonable argument. After all, how does your “preference for vaginas” mean you don’t respect the identities of transgender women? Well, because that’s not what attraction is. If you’re attracted to women then you’re attracted to women. Yes, not all women will connect with you, but your mind has set that as a prerequisite to attraction. You look for femininity in a mate, and I mean that in both a romantic and sexual way.

A “preference for vaginas” has nothing to do with love or even attraction; it’s a fetish. Wanting to pleasure yourself with a vagina is a fetish, as is wanting to pleasure yourself with a penis. On their own, fetishes aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Our bodies crave pleasurable stimulation and do have preferences for said stimulation. Some people get off being hit, others being tied up. Some people like to role play. Other’s like using toys. All of these things are fine. The problem with statements like the one above is that they reduce the person you’re talking about to your fetish and nothing more. At that point, you’ve stripped them of their person-hood.

To say a transgender woman with a penis flirting with you is “false advertising” reaches a level of trans-misogyny that’s beyond the pale. She advertised nothing false. She’s a woman. She flirted with you as a woman. You recognized that femininity and thus responded to said flirting. Nothing false was implied here on her part. You, however, are falsely implying that you see her as a person when you’re really just thinking of her as a walking vagina. Statements like this just prove that you don’t see trans women as women, and you only see cis women as the sum of their genitals.

Take a moment to step outside you’re ego-centric machismo worldview and consider this same scenario from the perspective of the trans woman you’re flirting with. If she is pre-op or has chosen not to undergo surgery, she’s literally gambling with her life right now in hopes of making a human connection. A cisnormative society teaches us to assume people’s genitalia without question. Woman = vagina and man = penis. Even if you two do make it all the way to the bedroom, what exactly do you think is going through her mind? Do you not think she’s considered the exact scenario of being accused of “false advertising” you’re so casually discussing here? She knows you’re likely expecting a vagina and it’s highly unlikely she’s gotten to this obvious moment prior to intercourse without having that conversation with you. Do you really think she’s just going to let you lift up her skirt and be surprised? That’s the stuff that gets trans women killed! What you’re treating as a moment of disappointment is, to her, a literal life-and-death situation.

If you absolutely need a vagina to pleasure yourself then you’re doing it wrong. Transgender women are every bit as capable of satisfying you as cisgender women. We can be just as erotic, just as adventurous, and just as sexy as any cis woman you’ve ever fantasized about. What this really boils down to is you seeing transgender women as men out to trick you into screwing them and that’s just about as low as it gets. It’s not that you have a “preference for vaginas”, you just don’t want to have sex with a trans woman because you see that as having sex with a man and you’re too homophobic to get over that.

Trust me, transgender women are no strangers to the darker sides of fetishism. The derogatory term “tranny” was coined by the porn industry for their videos about sex with pre-op transgender women. Yes, that is a fetish some people have, and it reduces us again to the sum of our parts and nothing more (and this is why you should never call a transgender person that word). I’ve been hit on by a guy before only to have him tell me he had “a thing for chicks with cocks”, and I was instantly repulsed.

You don’t have a “preference for vaginas”; you have a fetish that you allow to fill the void in your heart where actual human connection is supposed to be. You’re a pig trying to dress up your transphobia as you being the real victim in all of this. And most of all, you certainly don’t “respect transgender people, but…”

The Various Forms of Transgender Misogyny

Trigger warnings: Bullying, misogyny, transphobia

In case this is needed before we start:

Cisgender – having a gender identity that matches the one you were assigned at birth.

All good? Okay, moving on…

One of the hardest things about helping cisgender people understand the transgender experience is that there’s nothing to compare it to. There’s simply no analogue for the ways in which being transgender alters and shapes your experiences. Going to work, going out with friends, dressing, self-care, and even just looking in the mirror are all common experiences that are sometimes dramatically altered when when you don’t identify as the gender you were assigned at birth. If I were to list off every little detail of my life that is only there because of my transgender status this post would be longer that the whole damn Harry Potter series. But nowhere is that more apparent than in the various forms of discrimination we face.

Here’s one universal, undeniable fact: it’s really hard to be a woman. From broad cultural norms to tiny micro-aggressions, and even actual laws governing the use of one’s own body, the female experience is unfairly challenging. There are a lot of movements out there trying to alter this fact and they all generally fall under the umbrella term of feminism. Feminism is a great thing. I’ve considered myself a feminist even long before I came out as transgender. But like all large movements, feminism has its whack-jobs. Sections of the more militant among feminist groups have a deep-seeded hatred of transgender women. To them, since we have bodies that match those of cisgender men and were socialized and lived our lives as men prior to coming out, we aren’t really women and are holders of the same privileges awarded to men. The term TERF has become widely seen among progressive groups online, standing for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist.

If you don’t already know I’m strongly against this idea then you must be new here, but I really want to delve into why this way of thinking is so flawed. First off, trans women do not have male privilege, at least not in the same way cisgender men have it. The argument is made that we had it before we came out and while that is technically true, we held it at the cost of our emotional and psychological well-being. Yes, we’re enjoying the relative ease of life that being perceived as male grants you in our society, but that is coupled with all the other aspects of being a guy that we find torturous because we’re having to pretend to be something we’re not. All my life I’ve always felt uncomfortable in groups of men. I never felt like I fit in. I never felt like I was having fun. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I did have male privilege and losing it once I come out was a sobering experience, it didn’t hold a candle to the immense relief I felt no longer having to pretend to be someone else everywhere I went.

When transgender women come out and start living authentically, our world changes dramatically. Being perceived as male does give you a lot of keys to let you pass by certain barriers, and having those keys taken away is quite sobering. I still remember having to get used to male colleagues not taking me as seriously, being talked over by men when I wasn’t finished speaking, and unwanted advances. I still remember the first time a man touched me without permission. I swear my heart stopped beating for a moment. These are all examples of transgender women experiencing the same sexism and misogyny that cisgender women do, so I have come to label it cis-passing misogyny.

I was lucky enough to start passing for cisgender after about eight months on hormones. I know a lot of other transgender women aren’t as fortunate (assuming cis-passing is their goal). When a transgender woman doesn’t pass for cis, she experiences a different kind of misogyny. Her’s is a misogyny of purposeful dead names, articulated misgendering (“how are you doing, SIR?!”), threats of violence, and just general mocking for being “a guy pretending to be a girl”. Make no mistake, this is misogyny; it’s just of a certain type that is specific to the transgender, not cis-passing experience. It’s still being treated harshly because of one’s gender with the actual form of said treatment being specific to the circumstance. It’s no different than misogyny against heavy women (“put down the fork”; “what man would ever want you?”) being different from misogyny against thin women (“stop trying so hard”; “she’s clearly asking for it”). Sadly, the way I was able to tell I passed for cisgender was noticing I was getting the same kind of harassment as my cisgender female friends.

So I passed for cis. I was able to largely go through my day without anyone knowing I’m transgender. Trips to the bathroom regained that glorious banality they had before transition (mostly, anyway). I still remember how good it felt to feel like I didn’t need to wear makeup just to go run a few errands. I could throw on jeans and a t-shirt and still not be misgendered. “Finally,” I thought “life can get back to the normal I experienced before transition: just minus the dark depression and constant suicidal thoughts. Oh no; now my normal was periodically interrupted by cat calls and unwanted touches. My Facebook notifications were full of requests from random men I didn’t know. My new normal was very different from what I was used to before transition.

I’ve never been a transgender man, but I’d have to imagine it’s an easier experience (yes, there’s a lot to unpack there so please don’t take my quick statement as some sort of dismissal of the hardships of transgender men; this is in broad-strokes). Passing for male and also identifying as male is, culturally, the best position you can be in (all other factors excluded). When transgender women start living authentically, we begin an uphill battle towards trying to be cis-passing (some of us, anyway) and if we manage to finally claw our way to that finish line, now we get to run the gauntlet of being a cis-passing woman in a man’s world. We run a race for the chance to run a different race.

“But!”, I hear the TERF’s shouting, “this is why transgender women aren’t really women! They had male privilege and chose to give it up!” I disagree. Do transgender women experience what male privilege is like; yes. However, as stated before, it comes at a great internal cost. Remember, transgender people don’t become someone else when they come out; they reveal who they always were. The only reason transgender women are perceived as male before coming out is that they’re acting like someone who fits their assigned gender. We compensate and sometimes overcompensate for the fact our appearance doesn’t match our identity. I’ve known transgender women who used to be full-bearded biker dudes. I myself used to wear camo, collect guns, and grow a goatee. We try to fit the mold we’re placed in and it just doesn’t work. That pretending to be a man so other people will treat us with respect is another form of misogyny. What kinds of discrimination do effeminate men face? Do I really need to name them off? That’s being treated as a lesser based on the aspects of your person that are culturally coded female; in another word: misogyny.

I said at the beginning that the transgender experience is wholly unique, and that’s very true. Not only is it unlike anyone else’s, it changes as we do. So, the next time you hear a TERF shouting about transgender women having male privilege or not being real women, have the courage to correct them. Stand up for your transgender sisters out there. After all, we’re out there fighting alongside you for the same things. Respect our struggles and see how we can help in the larger fight for equality.