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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The Night I Enjoyed my Privilege

Me with the lead singer of “A Light Divided”. They’re an awesome band out of NC and you should check them out.

I do a lot of activism work. Between keeping up this blog, running an adult transgender support group in my town, heading an LGBT podcast (and also planning another), speaking at events for EqualityNC, talking with legislators, and marching in protests, a good chunk of my not-work time is spent in the trenches, so to speak, of LGBT activism. It’s rewarding work, but it’s also mentally taxing. I’ve had multiple nights spent up with people, talking them down from suicide. I’ve heard stories from transgender people in my group about losing everything. My messages have been flooded with requests for help, advice, or just a shoulder to cry on.

It’s tough, but it’s rewarding. I like being able to help. Activism has kind of just become my life. You’ll usually always find me wearing my Trans* Pride bracelet or a rainbow pin, or something else to mark my place within and acceptance of the LGBT community. One thing I’ve talked about in previous blogs and in various speaking engagements is that trans people who live full time live as their authentic gender are ambassadors of our community. Just by existing out in the world we show people that we’re here and there’s nothing scary about us. Of course, many transgender people hold this ambassador role because there’s no other way to be out for them. This is where the notion of cis-passing comes into play. Cis-passing simply means that people can’t tell you’re trans just by looking at or listening to you. For many transgender people, this represents a transition goal (cards on the table: I’m one of those people). Whether it’s your goal or not though, cis-passing is an example of privilege within the transgender community.

Yes, passing is a privilege, and I say that as someone who has it. Early on in my transition it was a scary experience to go out, especially to work. My day was filled with customers doing double-takes, whispering after they passed me, name calling, laughing, etc. As hormones took their effect and laser hair removal took away the stubble shadow on my chin, those problems slowly died away. Today, even going to a public women’s room, which used to be utterly terrifying, has become a mundane routine. It’s a privilege I’ve acquired over time, and I think it’s important to always recognize it for what it is. I still wear my pride bracelet, even to work. I still try to be forward about my transgender status wherever it’s safe to do so because, for someone who passes, that ambassadorship is even more important. People who revile the transgender community often believe they will always be able to tell someone is transgender. They’ll often say they’ve never seen a trans person, not realizing they’ve probably met several and never knew it. I consider it an important responsibility of cis-passing transgender people to remain visible so they can further shape the misguided understandings of the general public.

Still, activism can be exhausting, both physically and mentally. I’ve had many sleepless nights, panic attacks, and bouts of severe depression just feeling the weight of it all upon me. Every person’s problems, every great injustice I can do nothing about, it all swims around in my head.  Everyone needs a break. Everyone needs to engage in self care. A few nights ago, I took such an opportunity. Some friends of mine in a band gave me free tickets to a big show they were playing in. On that same day, I was invited to a nearby pride event. Each event was taking place in cities about equal distance from where I live. It was simply a matter of choosing which thing to attend.

I went to the concert.

There was a pride event going on, and I chose not to go. I probably could have done some good there. I probably could have further helped the LGBT community by being there. But I chose not to. I invited a gal-friend to go to the concert with me and that’s what we did. What’s more, I made sure absolutely nothing about the way I looked that night telegraphed the fact that I’m transgender. I wore a sexy little corset top with jean shorts and knee-high boots. I had smokey eyes and blood-red lips. I wore no pride bracelets, no rainbows, no gender symbols. I’ve known for a few months that my transition has taken me to a place of cis-passing privilege, and that night I made the conscious choice to enjoy it.

The show was great. My ears were still ringing the next morning. My friend and I rocked out to bands we’d never heard before. We drank beers and margaritas. I even enjoyed a few flirty looks from guys as they passed me by. I went to a crowded bathroom without worrying about being called out. I made new friends who thought I was cis and I did nothing to make them think otherwise. I was completely stealth, and it was awesome.

People with privilege don’t like to talk about it because it makes them feel guilty. In a lot of ways, ignorance truly is bliss. People want to enjoy what they have without thinking about how other people don’t have it. Men don’t like to think about how much harder it is to succeed as a woman. White people don’t like to think about how America is a very different place for people of color. And cis-passing transgender people don’t want to think about all of their transgender siblings that never get to have a relaxing time out as their authentic selves. Guilt is a powerful emotion, and our minds are predisposed to fight it. This is why, so often, people lash out against things that remind them of their privilege by saying “I’ve done nothing wrong!”. And while that’s true, blame isn’t really the point of it. Privilege isn’t something you took, it’s something that was given to you unfairly. What’s more, it’s not something you can just give up. As long as society stays the way it is, your privilege is going to endure.

So what point am I trying to get at in all of this? Well, for me it’s been the question of weighing the need for self-care with the guilt of privilege. Self-care is vitally important. Just like how you’re supposed to put on your own oxygen mask on the plane before assisting others, you can’t help anybody until you first take care of your own needs. The problem is in knowing that there are many, many people who have the same needs as you but can’t overcome the social, economic, or cultural boundaries placed between them and the thing you can just reach out and take. Self-care is limited by lack of privilege. We take a quiet nap in our own beds knowing that the homeless freeze on park benches. We go out for a nice meal knowing the poor must beg for food. We go for a walk while others stay behind locked doors because they know their neighborhood isn’t safe. And, yes, we go for a fun night out with friends knowing others would be too afraid of being harassed in the same scenario.

But do you just stop? No. I don’t think that’s the answer. I don’t regret my stealthy night out. It helped to recenter me. It helped to calm my nerves and put me in a better place to rejoin the fight the next day. Privilege isn’t about being guilty or ashamed, it’s about being aware and sympathetic. If you have privilege, enjoy the things it offers you. Just don’t forget that they aren’t something you “earned”. Understand why you are one of the “haves” while others are “have-nots”. Come back from your experience refreshed, but also more aware of what you might take for granted. When privilege is enjoyed in the right mindset, it can help you to be more sympathetic towards those who don’t have it and that makes you even more equipped to make a positive difference.

So You Wanna do a Project on Trans People

(Note: this post was originally written for an old blog I contributed to called The 4G Show. Though that site is no longer creating new content, I own all of the rights to what I produced for it. Therefore, I’m going to occasionally bring over old posts from that site to create a more robust reading list here.)

When you live openly as a transgender person, some otherwise strange things happen in your life with a degree of regularity. You get used to being a little nervous going into bathrooms, reading people’s eyes to see if they can tell you’re not cis, Being careful about how you talk about your past, etc. Some of those things you kind of expect. One thing I didn’t expect when I came out was how often I would get asked to be the subject of someone’s photo shoot, article, documentary, etc. on transgender people. These pop up more often than I’d ever thought and I have some serious reservations about them. On the one hand, expose pieces can offer visibility about a group or subject matter to people not often (or ever) exposed to it. However, done wrong they can exploit instead of educate, perpetuate already dangerous misinformation, and just overall make things worse.

I’ve seen pieces on transgender people go both ways and the ones that do it wrong always tend to screw up in the same kinds of ways. Whenever I’m contacted by someone wanting to do one of these projects, I always ask a lot of questions so I can try to determine how I think their finished product will turn out. I like helping out with these when they really have a chance of educating the public, but I don’t like the idea of having my image and name attached to something harmful. So, I figured I’d make this handy little guide to help would-be project makers determine if their transgender documentary, photo shoot, article, whatever is on track to help or hurt our community.

1 – Ask yourself why you’re doing this.

And I don’t mean just take a second to think. Really ponder and consider why this project, this subject matter, is what you’re focusing on. In my experience, people who make the best projects on a particular topics have a personal investment in it. Are you trans yourself? How about a family member? Did your spouse come out to you? Did your child? What made you want to not only know more about the transgender community but to spend time/effort/money in educating others?

Here’s the hard question: do you have no ties to the trans community at all and you just want to show off your writing/photography skills using transgender people while they still occupy that rare space between edgy and topical? Is that you? Yes? Well…fuck off. Seriously, just stop right here. Your project is going to be garbage and only serve to harm the community you think you’re helping. The only two reasons to take on this project when you have no personal ties to trans people is either this or an overwhelming sense of privilege guilt. Now, privilege guilt (i.e. I’m a straight, white male and my life is easy so I want to use my position to help the less fortunate) is not a bad place to come from, but it does make you less likely to do it right. You people don’t have to fuck off, but you do need to keep reading very carefully before you start shooting/writing.

2 – Consider the diversity of your subjects.

But Faith, I’m making a thing about transgender people, and that already makes me Captain Diversity! Wrong. Just wanting to make something about trans people doesn’t automatically elevate you to grand enlightenment. Roland Emmerich learned that the hard way when his movie about the Stonewall Riots bombed because he made it about a white guy and not the transgender women of color that really started it all. If you’re only contacting conventionally beautiful, white transgender women, you’re gonna have a bad time. 

All transgender people are at high risk of violence, unemployment, homelessness, etc., but the threats posed to transgender women of color (TWOC) are astronomically higher than the rest of us. If you’re not planning to include them, you’re doing it very, very wrong. Include transgender people of various races in your pool of subjects (don’t forget trans men, too; they’re basically invisible in our society) but there’s more to trans diversity than the basic race, color, sexual orientation (oh right! You do know gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same thing, right? No? Maybe you need to read up more before you start your project), etc. You also need to consider how long the subjects have been in transition, how often they get to present authentically, and to what degree they pass for cisgender (a touchy topic, I know, but I’ll explain why that’s important).

Here’s the number one thing you need to be thinking about at all times when you make your documentary or whatever: this might be someone’s first or only exposure to transgender people. Everything they see and don’t see will influence their perception of the community. That’s a point that can really throw a wrench in things and make you be more careful in your decision making if you’re being genuine in your convictions. Consider the following list of unintended messages conveyed from your decisions:

• Only use white people? – People of color are never transgender.
• Only use females? – There are no transgender men.
• Only use full-time subjects? – Gender identity is only valid when the person presents as it. If they don’t dress like their gender, I don’t have to call them by it.
• Only use people who pass for cisgender? – If they don’t look like their target gender, they aren’t really trans.

That last one can be particularly damaging. After North Carolina passed HB2, a lot of memes started popping up of trans people in the wrong bathrooms with the caption “Do I look like I belong in here?”. It kinda got the message across, but also perpetuated the notion that trans people always pass for their true gender. A lot of trans people don’t pass for cis, and many never will no matter how many hormones they take or surgeries they go through. Don’t let your project make it seem like trans people are always going to blend right in. You’re going to have trans people in restrooms where you can tell they’re trans. If all the person in the next stall ever saw was cis-passing trans people like the ones in those memes (or heaven forbid, your project), things are going to end badly.

3 – Your pictures will make or break everything.

No matter what kind of project you’re doing, it’s likely going to have pictures. There’s an old saying that a picture is worth 1,000 words and that’s very true. What they don’t say is that many of those words can be unintentional. If a transgender project creator is going to royally fuck up anywhere, it’s going to be in the images. This is also where you’re going to be able to tell pretty damn fast whether or not they went into this ordeal with the right intentions.

Before you start snapping pictures, really consider what you want those images to say. What is it about your subject you want to show? I was in a conversation about this with a potential project maker a couple of days ago. He asked me about this and I told him the pictures need to show that transgender people are “remarkably unremarkable”. We don’t need pictures of how feminine or masculine we look. We definitely don’t need you to include our “before” pictures to highlight the difference.

This is another area where only showing cis-passing subjects can come back to haunt you. If you take pictures of…say…a cis-passing trans woman with no other information conveyed, those who are frightened about trans people will be thinking, “oh god! they could be anywhere and I won’t be able to tell!” You need to show subjects at various stages of transition and different levels of passing. But just showing what we look like isn’t enough.

Images of transgender people in your project need to convey normality. Show your audience that we do what they do. Show us at the bank, at work, at the grocery store. Show us hanging out with friends, volunteering, going to a party, or whatever. Convey to your audience that we’re just normal people. There’s nothing to fear when you come across us in your daily lives.

Lastly, these do not need to be glamour shots. I see this more with pictures of trans men than women, where they’re all shirtless with ripped muscles and it conveys a message of sexiness. Please, please don’t shoot your subjects like fashion models or, god forbid, porn stars. There’s already enough trans-fetish material out there. Don’t let your project get grouped into it. Normal clothes, normal poses, normal activities; that’s the key.

4 – Choose your words carefully.

Maybe your project doesn’t include a lot of text, but if it does it needs to be about the right information. Again, we’re asking ourselves what the public needs to know about transgender people and it’s still all about normalcy. Make sure your text reflects that and isn’t including shock value tabloid nonsense.

Have you ever seen an interview with a transgender celebrity? Have you ever noticed how a lot of times the questions derail into asking about very private things like genitals and plastic surgery? Have you noticed that? Well….don’t do that! That kind of stuff is no one’s business but the trans person and their doctor’s. Unless you’re specifically covering the topic of gender confirmation surgery, I’d highly recommend leaving that stuff out entirely.

So what should you include? Well, what would you type about anyone else? Where they grew up, where they went to school, what they do for a living, what their hobbies are, etc. Again, we’re trying to teach people that trans is normal. If someone is looking through your project for shock-value stuff and not finding it, that might serve as the wake-up call they need.

It’s generally okay to mention when they started transition, but there’s no need to state what they’ve had done, what kind of hormones they take, etc. And, for god sake, don’t include the subject’s birth name anywhere. This is about who they are, not who they spent their life pretending to be.

I’ve said many times that the key to transgender acceptance is visibility. People need to know us, to see us. They need to understand that we weave into the fabric of society just like they do. We’re not out on the fringe. We’re not some scary unknown that disrupts everything around us. Too many expose pieces on trans people convey the wrong message, either intentionally or not. If you’re considering taking up something like this, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons and that you’ve got a vision that accomplishes your goal.

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.

Responding to Pre-transition Pictures Without Being a Colossal Asshole: A Guide

I take a lot of selfies. Like, a lot of selfies. I may be 33, but I have the heart of a young Millennial, posting a picture of my face on my way to or during all kinds of things. I love them. Is it vain: maybe. It helps me though. First off, it’s a confidence booster to put up a picture of yourself and get back a bunch of positive responses (good medicine for a day when dysphoria is particularly weighing on you). Beyond that though, I’m planning to do a transition video in the future and having that many images cataloged by date posted will give me a handy pool of pictures to show the timeline of little changes.

Occasionally, under certain circumstances, I’ll also post an old picture of myself pre-transition. Why? Well, because it’s fun to see people’s eyes get big as they shout “that was you?!“. I’m proud of how far I’ve come. I’m proud of how different I look now from when I presented male. I also know that before transition I used to look up other people’s before and after pictures to get an idea of what kinds of results I could expect from hormones over time and I want to give that same opportunity to others. Now, I don’t show those pictures to just anyone. Seeing an old picture can be a trigger for some trans people and for me it depends on the people I’m with. If I’m surrounded by people who know me as Faith and respect my identity, I have no problem showing them. If I’m around people that still want to refer to me by my old name and pronouns, looking at those pictures is depressing.

Earlier today I was on a makeup group on Facebook. I’m not the only trans woman in the group and occasionally one will post a before and after. It’s a really good group for the most part and most of the responses were pretty positive. Still, when you put that kind of information out there to such a big group of people, you’re going to get an array of responses. One that I kept noticing (and finally said something about) amounted to various forms of being hurtful without realizing you’re saying something negative. Comments like “you were so hot as a guy!”, “I would have totally dated you before”, “you look good as a woman but looked better as a man”, etc.

It baffles me that people think these are okay responses. The whole point of posting a before and after is to let people marvel at the transformation. When you uphold the past as being more desirable, you send a message that the trans person made a mistake. You also show that you see their transition as being something for you, not them. Transition is not something done for the benefit of others. It’s a selfish act and I mean that as a good thing. For transgender people, actually transition and living authentically is the ultimate act of self-care. It’s often done at the expense of friends, family, jobs, and even homes. That kind of sacrifice isn’t made for the benefit of others. In fact, living for others is what keeps a lot of transgender people in the closet in the first place.

Another thing to note is that these kinds of responses are a desire for a person that never actually existed. Remember, physical appearance never ever dictates gender identity. I don’t care if the trans woman you’re talking to looks like Jason Momoa; if they say they’re a woman, they’re a woman. Showing preference for the past photograph is to pine over a fictional character. That person never actually existed. They just pretended to be what they looked like to please an uncaring world. Saying you miss someone’s former identity is to tell them you want them to go back to pretending, go back to being miserable so you’re life can be improved on an immeasurably small level. It’s an asshole thing to do.

Finally, show some damn respect. Sharing a before picture, especially on social media, is a tremendous act of bravery. They didn’t owe you that. So often transgender people get asked for before pictures and it’s incredibly rude. You have no right to see how someone used to look, no claim to that information. When someone shows it to you, it’s as an act of pride. They want you to be amazed at how far they’ve come. It’s no different than sharing before and after pictures of weight loss. Would you tell someone “I liked you better fat?” Actually, scratch that. I actually have seen people say that and it’s just as creepy. If someone’s happy being heavy, awesome; more power to them. But if they want to make a change you should compliment the results of the journey, not lament that it was ever taken in the first place.

This is my before and after. It’s something I’m proud to show because I’ve come a long way. I like knowing it can serve as a source of hope for other transgender people not as far along as I am. I’ve been told before that Joe was a good looking guy and I’m inclined to agree. It doesn’t matter though; he didn’t exist. He was a masculine shell I was trapped in so I played the part and tried to make it normal. The picture on the bottom is real. The picture on the bottom is what should get the attention. Before shots are just a marker to show how long the journey has been. If you’re looking at them with any kind of longing or disapproval of the change, you’re doing it wrong and insulting the transgender person opening up to you.

So please, I beg you, don’t be an asshole if a transgender person chooses to show you their before picture. Take it as the tremendous honor bestowed upon you that it is. Be humbled by the act of bravery you’re witnessing. And, for goodness sake, don’t ruin the moment by implying the transition was in any way a mistake.

Businesses Showing Pride: “I’m Lovin’ It”

Happy Pride Month.

June is always a fun time to be LGBT. For just a few short weeks, the whole world gets a lot more queer. Pride events pop up everywhere, colorful parades march down city streets, social media is awash with rainbows, and tens of thousands of people boldly declare that they’re not ashamed to be who they are and love who they love. It’s all so wonderful. In the past few years, it’s become more and more commonplace for businesses to get in on the pride action. Special rainbow packaging appears in stores for various brands, LGBT take center stage in advertisements, and colorful decorations welcome people into local shops. It all comes together to create a world that, just for a few weeks, seems to be fully accepting of LGBT people.

Just don’t read the comments…

If you read the comments on any of these corporate displays of pride on social media, you’ll see the same statements pop up with alarming regularity: “Boycott such-n’-such!”; “Can’t you all just flip burgers/sell clothes/whatever without being so political?!”; “This is just a marketing ploy to get attention” ; and my personal favorite… “stop pandering to the LGBT people!”. That’s all stuff you kind of expect, right? I mean, we sadly still live in world full of homophobia and transphobia (fun fact: as I was typing this out, my word processor took homophobia just fine but underlined transphobia to tell me it’s not a recognized word; we’ve still got a long way to go). What’s weird though is to see people who are supposedly either pro LGBT or even a part of the community themselves spouting off a different form of disgust. “My civil rights are not an opportunity for you to sell stuff”; “stop reducing our struggle to a marketing slogan”; etc.

Am I really seeing this? Are we just so used to being defensive that we react that way even when we’re winning? Of course they’re pandering to us right now…it’s freaking Pride Month! This is our spotlight time! No, that doesn’t mean we fade into the shadows the rest of the year, but months represent things to people and I for one like seeing businesses embracing that.

Do you consider this pandering or making light of Black History Month?

How about this? Is this pandering?

Now, I’m sure many of you are saying, “yes; both of those are examples of businesses doing terrible things!” I’ve heard that opinion before. I’ve also seen more than a few advertisements that used this gimmick and did so in very poor taste. Still, I don’t get as angry about the general concept as some people seem to. Yes, an advertisement is ultimately there to sell you something, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have another message as well. Why can’t an ad for a tennis racket also remind people who have breasts to get screened? Why can’t McDonald’s make me hungry for fries while also reminding me that February is a time to celebrate the history of the African American population?

Side bar: I do have a big exception to all of this and that’s organizations that claim to exist for the sole purpose of championing these causes but use most of their money to either pay CEO’s or sell merchandise with their logo on it. “Autism Speaks” and “The Susan G. Komen Foundation” are examples of this. 

“But Faith,” I hear you saying, “can’t they just include gay and trans people in their commercials without having to make it seem so special? Isn’t the whole point to show this is all normal?” I mean, they can; some even do. Secret Deodorant had one of there “stress test” commercials about a transgender woman being afraid to use the bathroom. Dove’s “Real Moms” campaign included a transgender mother. JCPenny ran ads featuring a two-mom family on Mother’s Day and a two-dad family on Father’s Day. Now, this is far from saying we have plenty of representation out there already, because we clearly don’t. Still, itt is happening and it’s growing. But why is it okay now to be all in-your-face with the LGBT stuff in ads?

Well, as I said earlier, because it’s freaking Pride Month!

What is Pride if not a bold declaration of ones assurance in themselves? I don’t ever remember seeing a Pride Parade where LGBT people in plain clothes just quietly walked down the sidewalk along with everyone else, blending in and causing no stir. No, we shut down entire streets for that. We wave flags and cover ourselves in glitter. It’s a beautiful thing, and I love seeing businesses getting involved with it. Are we really going to proudly march passed the McDonald’s on the corner, waving our rainbow flags, but be offended that they waved one back? How does that make sense?

And remember, LGBT acceptance still has a long way to go. I’ve seen people get mad and call Black History Month or Breast Cancer Awareness Month advertisements in bad taste, but I’ve never seen them then go on to defend racism (mostly) or somehow want people to get cancer.  Some still call gay people sick; they still call trans people freaks; they still use God as a cudgel to try and beat their narrow worldview into others. And businesses do see backlash from that. Target saw boycotts for their stance on transgender bathroom use and their section of Pride merchandise. Anytime a business even casually mentions that they support LGBT people, a swarm of bigots descend upon them calling for boycotts and resignations. The sad truth of the matter is we’re still in an age where publicly declaring your support for LGBT people is risky, and I for one am thankful for the ones willing to risk that. From a pure, money-making standpoint, that’s a bad strategy, so it has to at least somewhat come from a place of genuine love and support instead of calculated business gain.

But there’s another aspect of this, too, and it’s one I think transgender people understand more than anyone else. Take a look at this Burger King ad.

Is that silly and pandering the the LGBT community: you bet! But when you’re transgender, it tells you a lot more than just “we support LGBT people”. This lets me know that, if I want to go to Burger King, there’s a better chance my gender identity will be respected, that transgender sensitivity has been included in their employee training, that if I need to pee during my meal I’m not going to have an issue using the restroom. At the very least it tells me that if I go to Burger King and do have an issue with the staff there, their corporate office will side with me. It’s not a guarantee of safety by any means, but it’s at least a little reassuring. If you’re not LGBT, this kind of stuff seems trivial. Being afraid to go somewhere; afraid that you might be discriminated against for what you’re wearing; who you with, or what areas you want access to isn’t something that crosses the mind of those with certain privileges. It may just be a rainbow colored burger wrapper to you, but it can convey a deeper, more personal message to others.

So no, I’m not upset to see rainbow colored everything in ad campaigns during June. I think its beautiful. You can call it pandering, but our culture has been pandering to male, white, cisgender, straight, and Christian populations for so long and so overwhelmingly that we’ve come to consider these aspects some kind of default or normal state. In a time where even casually including gay or trans people in your marketing is considered edgy, why not just go all out? After all, those corporations likely have a lot of LGBT people working for them who would be damn honored to see their company so boldly declare their support. LGBT people make up parts of these businesses, so let them show the world that.

Please stop getting too worked up about pride imagery in advertisements. If something is truly in bad taste, call it out, but let a celebration be a celebration. Let’s enjoy our month where everything is coming up rainbows and glitter rains down from the heavens. Let’s enjoy Pride Month and take solace in the fact we live in a time where there are so many companies willing to celebrate with us.

Identity, Appropriation, and Subtextual Racism

Do you know who this woman is? Her name is Rachel Dolezel. Well, at least it was. Apparently it’s now been changed to Nkechi Amare Diallo. From 2014 to June of 2015 she was the NAACP president in Spokane, Washington. She resigned after it was confirmed that, though she claimed to be African American, she was in fact Caucasian; born to white parents with no African ancestry to speak of. Her hair and visible skin color were not natural. When called out on it, Diallo claimed that she was born white but identified as black.

This mess was all gaining attention around the same time Caitlyn Jenner (am I the only one who hears ominous thunder every time her name is mentioned?) came out publicly. Naturally, this started a national conversation that anti-trans groups just loved to jump on as “proof” that transgender people were bogus: why can you identify as a gender but not as a race?

I mentioned last time that I left this particular argument out because there was a lot more to unpack with it. The short answer is, no, you can’t identify as a race. But explaining why isn’t as simple as a single sentence pointing out its utter idiocy. This question not only goes much deeper than the others, but digging into it unearths a lot of other related cultural problems.

Let’s start with the basics. You can’t identify as your race because race isn’t tied to identity. Race is something you inherit. Unlike your sex, which is a genetic toss-up regardless of who your parents are, your race will be past down to you. Two black parents will never make a white baby. Two white parents will never make an Asian baby. You get the idea. What’s more, race has significant ties to heritage that gender (on its own) does not. Gender can be a part of your inherited cultural history. Young Jewish men having a Bar-mitzvah is a prime example. But there really aren’t any gender-only traditions that have always existed across all cultures.

Now, this isn’t to say you can’t be interested in another race’s culture. If you’re a white person wanting to take an African American studies class, do it! I personally think more of that is needed in this increasingly polarized and divided world we live in. It’s fine to learn more about others. That’s what being multicultural is all about. But it’s another thing entirely to take the history and ancestry of others and claim them as your own. They simply aren’t yours. Besides, your history doesn’t dictate how you have to live your life (at least it shouldn’t), so what reason is there to claim you came from a different linage?

That’s the problem with this situation that you might have heard before. Most of the think-pieces I read about this story when it was at the height of the public consciousness either touched on this point or had it as the focus. There’s another aspect of this though that I’ve not really heard anyone else mention before. It’s one that not only debunks the notion of racial identity, but exposes that claiming such is a racist act in itself.

When I tell my son that it’s time for bed, I don’t have to mention all the things that process involves. I don’t have to go over the list of brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, and getting into bed to read a book before lights out. All of those things are understood in the statement “time for bed”. There are many instances in our everyday lives where the things we say convey broader meaning beyond the words at face value. When I tell someone that I identify as a woman, there’s an implied message within that I want the person to treat me as they would treat another woman. I want to be referred to with female pronouns. I want to be allowed into women-only spaces. What I convey to that person is supposed to dictate either a change in or confirmation of the way they interact with me.

See, gender is really the only aspect of people where we are mostly okay with some degree of segregation. We address people differently according to their gender. We use specific pronouns, we enforce different dress codes (I know what you’re thinking but not tackling that one this time), we designate separate spaces like bathrooms and changing rooms. Ideally, it’s the only example of separate but equal that we can all agree on (in a perfect world, I know). 

So then, if Diallo wants to tell me she identifies as black, does that imply she wants me to treat her as though she were black? And if so, what would that even mean? Remember, there’s no reason to identify as something unless that identity is tied to a system where the world would interact with you based upon it or it somehow makes you different. Last time I checked, treating black people or any race differently than others is racism. What exactly does she want me to do with that information? Is she wanting different treatment?

I realize this all seems like I’m just railing on a two-year-old news story, but it was just too good a case study to make my point with. All of the examples in my last post were just idiotic things people said as a deflection from acknowledging transgender people. In this case, there’s actually a semi-famous account of someone actually claiming it. Identifying as a race might not be as nakedly ridiculous as identifying as a meatball sub or whatever the next internet troll argument is, but it’s still wrong. Claiming to identify as a race is just an excuse to appropriate aspects of their culture because you think they look cool. Appropriating another’s culture isn’t a sign of respect: it’s taking something you didn’t inherit. As for Diallo, if she wants to work with the NAACP (and I think that’s a good thing), then she should use something she has that’s more powerful than a false identity: her white privilege.

Next time, something currently topical…I promise.

Why You Can’t Identify as an Attack Helicopter: And Other Ridiculous Arguments

Is debate club still a thing? It’s been a long while since I was in school, but decades ago there were actually clubs and classes dedicated to learning the art of arguing. Debate was a formal match, a dueling of words and ideas. Debaters would battle back and forth with well crafted, well researched points to counteract each other on any given subject. If you wanted to go into politics or any kind of public speaking profession, it was an essential experience to have.

Fast forward to the days of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and the art of debate has…shall we say…changed. It’s in much the same way the world changed a little when depicted in shows like The Walking Dead. If you go online, it can seem like debate is a lost cause. When we log on we wander through a wasteland of troublesome trolls, celebrity moms that think they’re doctors, and literal Nazis. There is no civility or structure. It’s just a barrage of insults, straw men, and bigoted slurs being lobed overhead like mortar fire in a war zone.

I was not prepared for such a world.

I was trained for the art of actual debate. In a real debate you cite your sources and only score points if you can accurately counteract your opponents claim. That’s not how it works in the wasteland of the internet. On the web, sources are “fake news”, and the proper counter to your argument is either a personal insult or diverting to a barely related topic and acting like that’s really what you’ve been talking about all along. If the internet were really a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the big sign spray-painted on a mangled sheet of metal and posted at the far boarder would read: “DON’T FEED THE TROLLS”.

 Despite my better judgement, I do often find myself engaging with someone online who is…shall we say…less than civil. Most of the time I leave these people alone, but when the argument is about transgender rights, I often just can’t help myself. After all, these are people arguing over my very existence! They’re discussing my right to live, to exist in society, to use the damn bathroom in peace! How can I not weigh in?

The first thing you learn when arguing with someone online is that they have no intention of learning anything. It’s not about expanding their worldview to them, but rather taking their narrow understanding of reality and stretching it over everything else. What makes this incredibly frustrating is that, given their position in this fight, it’s a technique that’s both easy to use and sadly effective.

How is it effective in winning? Well, because you and they are going into this with two very different definitions of victory. You’re trying to change their mind, when all they need to feel accomplished is to simply not have their mind be changed. There is no call to teach on their side of the debate. They don’t care if your stance on anything is changed, only that they demonstrate that theirs is wavered. This is especially true when it comes to arguing about civil rights. 99 times out of 100, you’re arguing against someone who isn’t in the demographic being oppressed. You’re likely arguing women’s issues with a man, race issues with someone who’s white, trans issues with someone who is cisgender, etc. If you are a part of the targeted demographic, you have more on the line. It’s your rights, your freedom, your person-hood that’s being discussed. There’s no cultural threat imposed upon your opponent, so the stakes aren’t the same for them. Therefore, what constitutes an intelligible argument from them can be something completely asinine. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous their statement is; you’re the one with something to lose so it’s on you to rebuke it.

You will always be on defense.

I’ve seen this too many times when arguing transgender issues online. In my many (let’s be collected and call them) discussions with naysayers, I’ve seen some pretty baffling arguments. Here are some of the highlights from things I’ve actually been told are counterpoints to being transgender:

“What’s to say I can’t identify as an attack helicopter?”

“I identify as a 70 year old so you have to respect that by giving me Social Security”

“I identify as a house cat, so I don’t have to work anymore and people have to feed me.”

And the one that makes my blood boil and would likely land me in jail for murder if someone said it to my face…

“What if a pedophile just identifies as a 7 year old? Do you have to respect their love of children then?”

All of these things have actually been proposed to me when debating transgender issues online. These are their counterpoints to my researched topics, personal testimonies, and cited sources which I shouldn’t waste my time on because I know they’re not going to read them. To any rational human being, these are ludicrous notions. In an actual debate, using points like this would have you laughed off the stage. Countering them is like shooting fish in a barrel. You can’t identify as an object because objects aren’t conscious and thus don’t identify as anything. You can’t identify as an age because age isn’t a social construct and is tied to actual brain development that alters your understanding of the world (i.e. you can’t revert your mind to an adolescent state of being without giving yourself some kind of specific head trauma).

The problem is not in countering these points, but in the simple notion that you feel like you have to. Beyond the fact that they’re incredibly insulting, they serve as a reminder that you and your opponent are here to achieve two different things: you want to prove your right but they simply don’t want their mind changed. If you just respond with “that’s ridiculous and I’m not going to entertain such a notion,” then they win because you didn’t rebuke their argument (as flimsy of one as it is) and thus their world-view is unaltered. They didn’t change your mind, but that doesn’t matter to them. They know you’re the one with something to lose so you alone see a need in changing the other’s perspective. Your victory here is impossible. The only way to win is to fire back with facts and logic that will just be ignored anyway. Even if you do manage it, they’ll just come back with something religious and really have you on the ropes because its a lost cause to argue against the what someone “believes” to be true.

What’s the moral of this little story? Well, make sure you read the sign before you traverse the wasteland: DON’T FEED THE TROLLS. I understand the frustration of encountering a bigot online. I’ve lost many an hour of sleep arguing in vain against a stranger online because they were advocating for my very existence to be legislated away. Instinct tells us to fight when we’re under attack, and these online trolls serve as reminder that there are many in the world who are out to get us and have the social or political influence to make it happen. Just remember that for every troll you find, there are thousands of people who take a more neutral stance on the issue and are more capable of being persuaded.

These are the people you should concentrate your efforts on, and you win them over by being an example of just how normal and awesome transgender people can be. Living by example is the most powerful argument of all, no matter what the topic. Live as an example of your community to the people in your neighborhood, your city, your state, etc. It’s not only the best way to win, it’s the only one.

Now, if you read my examples earlier and were wondering I didn’t include people who argue about identifying as a certain race…well…there’s a lot more to unpack on that one so it’s getting it’s own post. I’ll see you all next time for that one.

 

Discussing Invasive Medical Procedures Over Tea

After I came out as trans, a lot of things changed. I’m not just talking physically. I’d been locking away a different person under the facade I was presenting myself as for so long even I didn’t fully know her. I’d always thought I was an introverted loner. I wasn’t really one for big crowds. I had fun at crowded events, but I was usually pretty content to be a small, invisible person among the chaos instead of drawing any attention. But that was Joe. Faith, on the other hand, loves to party! Get me on the dance floor, behind the podium, on the screen, near the microphone, anything! I love attention.

Mainly it’s just me being so happy to be free and authentic, but another part is my passion for educating others about transgender people. I want them to see me so they can see us. Now, I certainly don’t go around blurting out that I’m transgender to groups of strangers (except on Day of Visibility) but in certain environments where I feel safe I’m willing to divulge that information in order to help others. One of those places is my local gay bar.

I love that bar. It was a quintessential part of my coming out. Going there was my sanctuary back before I was out at work. After a long work day of pretending to be some guy named Joe, Faith wanted to put on a dress and go dancing. A lot has changed but I do still love going there to relax and see friends.

I was there last night and met a new person. She was very sweet. I love meeting new people. We started talking about our kids while we were dancing. At one point she asked something about my pregnancy. Now, that made me feel awesome because it meant she thought I was cisgender (that my real gender and birth-assigned gender were the same). Being that this was a safe place, I had no problem opening up about the fact that I’m transgender. There was a look of shock, which again what a big confidence booster to me. Then, it happened.

“So, have you had a sex change?”

If this woman had given me her name yet, I didn’t remember it. We’d never met outside of this one night at the bar. She didn’t know where I worked, where I grew up, where I lived, but she felt comfortable asking me if I’d had an incredibly invasive medical procedure. If you’re not transgender, you might not know that this actually happens with alarming regularity. When someone finds out a person is trans, they seem to have a sort of knee-jerk reaction to ask this highly personal question. I was really hoping this moment would be different; it wasn’t.

If you’ve never been in this situation, I can tell you that the brashness of the question isn’t the most surprising part. People don’t just ask you about your genitals and what kinds of procedures you’ve had performed on them, they do so with such alarming calmness. It’s the tone, the casual essence of the question, that’s truly incredible. She asked me about my genitals like one would ask what you had for dinner, and this isn’t something I’m not used to.

This is what makes situations like this so difficult to maneuver; they don’t even realize they’re asking something so deeply personal. This is casual banter to them! This puts me (and other transgender people) in a very difficult situation. On the one hand, I could answer her question and give this total stranger a glimpse into a deeply personal aspect of my life which would make me uncomfortable. On the other, I could refuse to answer the question and seem rude. What do I mean by seem rude? Well, think of how calmly she asked the question. How would you react if someone seemed offended when you asked them what their favorite type of music was? The invasive nature of the question doesn’t register in their mind, so to them a negative reaction makes you seem like the rude one.

So what did I do? *sigh* I answered her. I just replied with a simple “no” and hoped that would be the end of it. It wasn’t. “Are you going to get one?” *groan* If you’re surprised, you’ve obviously never been in this situation. Again, these people think this is mindless small talk. All I said was “someday” and thankfully that was the end of it. I didn’t want to answer. I wanted to keep my private life private. But I also wanted to keep having a good time. I didn’t want my evening tainted by an even more awkward moment of this woman acting offended and shocked that I suddenly blew her off.

Now, this might all seem like I’m going on a pedantic rant about something trivial. Maybe you don’t see any harm in her line of questioning. At face value, it looks like a harmless question. But there’s a lot to unpack below the surface. Asking such a question says a lot more about the asker than you might think.

Think of it this way: if you meet a new person and they’re in a wheelchair, would you ask them what happened to cripple them? Of course not. You’ve been taught that such is an invasive personal question and that it’s rude to ask. There’s a learned etiquette there. Some things are private and we’ve come to a cultural understanding about what is and isn’t appropriate to ask from our fellow human beings.

When this etiquette is broken with trans people, it sends an alarming implication: if you don’t think it’s rude to ask me that, then you don’t consider me of equal person-hood to everyone else. Shocking? It shouldn’t be. Now, I’m not saying this is a conscious thing. You may not actively be considering a transgender person less than anyone else, but on some subconscious level, you do. Our brains are remarkably good at categorizing things (sometimes to our own detriment) which allows us to consider our actions in any given situation.

If I go to a friends house and their dog has a cone around its neck, it would not be uncouth for me to ask what what procedure the animal had. The dog is not a person. It’s not going to feel offended by my question. It won’t even know I asked. If I see a surgery scar on someone, asking what it’s from would be incredibly rude. This is the distinction made in our minds that tells us what is and isn’t appropriate.

When you ask a transgender person about surgeries they’ve elected to have (especially if you’ve just met them), you’re displaying that your mind puts them on a lesser plane than other human beings. To you, transgender people aren’t actually people, so you can approach them from this angle of perverse fascination. You never stop to consider their feelings. You never stop to consider their privacy. They are the dog wearing the cone: oblivious to the notion that they’re even being discussed.

I still remember when I had to go to the Sheriff’s office to get fingerprinted so I could get my name changed (North Carolina laws suck). While I had my hand on the scanner, the deputy asked me why I was doing it. When I told her I was trans and it was to change my name, the next words out of her mouth were, “are you pre-op or post-op”. And she was smiling! She asked this question with a smile on her face like she wanted to impress me with the fact she knew anything about trans people at all. When I very boldly told her I didn’t want to discuss it, her eyes widened as the invasive nature of her question finally dawned on her. The rest of the session was spent with her apologizing over and over.

To wrap up, no, it is not just ‘being curious’ for you to ask a trans person about surgeries. Learning more about transgender people is a good thing. We need more education and understanding in the world. But if that’s your intention, go Google it. When you ask a personal question of a stranger, your more interested in shock-value gossip than actually learning anything. If you’ve ever done this, make a promise to yourself that you’ll never do it again. If you hear someone else do it, have the guts to point out that it’s rude. Trust me, the trans person they’re putting on the spot probably wants to but doesn’t want to feel like the villain. Basically, just stop doing this, period.