Parents: Why we’re way too hard on them
Posted by Not Aiden | Filed under family, rants, social transitions
So I’ve found my biggest issue with transpeople is how we react to our parents. There are a million other things that also drive me nuts (particularly when it comes to transmen), but the parents issue is one that always grinds on me more than the others.
It’s this horrible thing where we seem to assume that our parents should automatically accept us, that they should be able to look past their own personal experiences and welcome our transitions with open arms. In reality our parents are human beings just like everyone else and they’re going to need some time to adjust to the idea that their daughter is really their son or vice-versa.
It’s worst with transpeople whose parents are honestly trying. You’ll get the transpeople whose parents love and accept them and always will, but when they first come out they say things like “That’s my bo–girl…um…son. You’ll always be my son.” Now, they obviously mean “you are my child and this isn’t going to change that,” but because we’re so overly sensitive we hear it as the world’s biggest insult. We act like these parents are as cruel as the ones who throw their teenage children out of the house when they try to come out to them. In reality they’re just being human and taking some time to adjust. We have to respect their need for time because it’s the only way they’ll be able to respect our need for immediate change.
What gets me even more are the parents of idiotic genderqueer kids who you can tell are just trying to be assholes. When your mother comes up to you after reading a book on gender and asks “so…you’re a boy…in a girl’s body?” the correct response is not to go on about how on Monday you’re a boy and on Tuesday you’re a girl, on Wednesday you’re both, Thursday neither, and Friday through Sunday you prefer to identify as a Cherry Coke. Your mother is trying to understand you and you are purposely being a dick simply because she didn’t use the right word. It’s not her fault she didn’t use the right word, she doesn’t know what it is becuase you haven’t taken the time to explain things to her. Instead you tell her you identify as a high-fructose corn syrup infused beverage.
It’s also not fair to expect your poor parents to understand that you see yourself as a transman in a biological male’s body. I don’t understand that and I am trans, your parents are going to be even more confused.
I just think we need to give our parents a break. They’re transitioning right along with us, but they don’t have the 15+ years of experiencing what it’s like to feel like your body is against you to help them understand. They can’t read our minds, they don’t know what it’s like for us. To them we were just their quirky little kids, maybe a bit different from the other boys/girls, but not enough to cause concern. Sure, we were moody and depressed when puberty hit, but aren’t all teenagers? They’ve tried so hard to protect us for so long that to hear that they’ve failed in such a hugely fundamental way is heart breaking. It’s not their fault, there’s nothing they could have done to make us feel any better, but they’re our parents so they still feel guilty.
Then you add in the fact that we tend not to tell our parents until we’re ready to physically transition and that adds another level of shock to things. It’s hard enough for them to get used to the idea of calling us by the opposite pronouns and a different name, but now we’re also saying we’re going to change how we look. Different clothes might be ok, at least we still have the same face (complete with Daddy’s eyes and Mama’s nose), but now we’re taking that away from them too? It’s too much for them to take in at once, they just can’t handle it. Some will manage with more grace than others, but in reality it’s a huge leap for our parents to make. We’re asking them to jump across the Grand Canyon when they can’t even walk yet.
So often we forget that we’re not transitioning nearly as much as the people around us. We forget that our transition affects them just as much as it affects us — sometimes more than it affects us. We’re so focused on finally making ourselves happy that we lose sight of everyone else’s happiness. I’m not saying we should give up what we want to please others, we’ve all tried that and it doesn’t work. I am saying that we need to give them a little more room to mess up because even though they love us, it’s still going to take them more time than we’d like.
Tags: issues within the trans community, parents
Response to an Essay in “Beyond Masculinity”
Posted by Not Aiden | Filed under genderqueer, non-pc, rants, responses
I’ve refused to read the essays in this collection simply because I knew they’d all annoy the hell out of me. I loathe the current generation of queer feminism, I reject the idea that I need to apologise for being a guy, and I don’t believe it’s necessary to spend every waking minute of every damned day analyzing “what it means to be masculine”. First of all, I’m not. Second, even if you were to take the more “butch” aspects of me (read: I like martial arts and was in JROTC) I don’t think they’d be considered exclusively male. My partner’s mom is more masculine than I am and she’s a perfectly happy, straight, cisgendered woman who just happens to like camping and working on cars.
However, this essay was linked in one of the trans communities I read so I broke down and looked at it (I couldn’t help myself, there were a ton of comments and I’m a sucker for internet drama).
I do not identify as a male, but as simply, FTM
And here starts the insanity. FtM stands for “female to male“. If a person does not identify as male then they cannot be FtM. Why? Because they are not meeting the second requirement of the definition. If you identify as “not female” fine, but don’t call it FtM. Call it FtNF or genderqueer or non-binary or something. FtW (female to whatever or female to win) is my personal favourite, but I’m a bit of a snarky jackass like that.
My refusal to identify as male scares many transmen I’ve met so much that they are pushed to going out of their way to take me down. My identity, they feel, somehow undermines their safety.
Not really, mate. You’re putting way too much thought into this, not to mention making yourself out to be far more important than you actually are. We’re not afraid of you, we don’t think you’re going to mess with our safety. We just want you out of our spaces because you don’t meet the basic definition of being a transguy. Again, it’s right there in the name.
Simply put (and it is very clear to them,) transman equals male. What seems to baffle and miff them is the idea that in a broader sense, transman can include masculinity that is not necessarily male. Okay, now, hold on right here. Am I crazy, or isn’t that what FTM transgender is? An FTM can be a man who is not male.
Yes. Transman does equal male. Why? Because transman = FtM and male is right there in the definition. You seem to have some serious issues with reading comprehension.
Now, I have no problems with the idea that masculinity does not necessarily equal man. I know more than a few masculine women, masculine genderqueers, etc. I also have no problems with men who are not masculine (hell, I’m one of them). However, you lost me at the last sentence. Male is a synonymn for man (and boy and guy and a bunch of other words). A person cannot be a man without also being male in some way, shape, or form.
For example, I am a transman. I consider my physical sex to be FtM because I have female genitalia with male secondary sex characteristics. My gender identity is 100% male. (Man who is male.) A cisgendered man would have a male physical sex and male gender identity. (Also, man who is male.) To go the other way, a transwoman would not be male (or a man, obviously) because they’d have MtF as their physical sex with a female gender identity. (Woman who is female.) “Boy shaped” genderqueers could have a male physical sex, but their gender identity is not that of man. (Genderqueer person who is physically male.) Nowhere in there do you get “man who is not male.”
Traditionally feminine characteristics, be they performed outwardly or in my case, lived in my emotional experience, particularly as a partner (boyfriend,) are highly looked down upon by much of the trans-masculine community.
This is true and it drives me batshit. That’s a rant for another day though, if I started now I’d never get back to the original point.
I was suddenly expected to wear big baggy pants (preferably cargo) to hide my hips, big square polo shirts to give me a rectangular torso shape and hide my chest, cut my hair short but add just a bit of gel, stand slouched, shoulders curved to further hide my chest, hands in pockets, to emphasize the squared off posture, and drop the ends of sentences instead of doing what women and gay men do, raise them.
Yes, you were expected to do all of those things. So was I. I followed the “rules” for all of a month before figuring out that I was trading one hated box for another and started discovering out my own style. Now I wear pink and purple fitted shirts with fitted jeans (”Jeans are like the UPS man, they should always give you a nice package.”), rainbow shoelaces, earrings, and occasionally something over the top camp like my pink, glittery collared muscle shirt. I stand how I like, sit how I like, speak how I like, and act how I like. Why? Because I see no point in transitioning if I’m not going to be who I am. That doesn’t make me “not male”, it makes you too stupid to figure out that you didn’t have to either conform or stop identifying as male.
When I look at pictures and videos of me and my friends from that time, I’m shocked to discover that we were clones. Literally, we wore the same shirt in different colors and we all had the exact same hair cut. (Image here)
Of course you were! Look at 99% of teenage boys, they all look the damned same (teenage girls too, but we’re focusing on guys here). In fact, that picture could be of any 4 of the guys I grew up with. Transmen go through the same awkward teen years as cismen, we just tend to do so several years later. If you think about it it makes sense, we have the same hormonal changes happening as 14-18 year old boys and we’re just starting to learn how to navigate the world as men. It’s a confusing, sometimes scary phase of life, but it’s not unique to transmen. If anything the extra couple of years make things easier for us.
My comfort level lies somewhere in between — I like passing, but I also like remaining visibly queer. I would like to be read as a transman most of the time, but there are exceptions, like in bathrooms, gas stations, or on busses – or, for that matter, anytime when strangers are within earshot.
I understand the desire to be visibly queer. I grew up in San Francisco and I identify very strongly as a gay man. Long before I came out as trans (or even knew there was such a thing) I interacted with people online as a gay boy/man. It started when I was about 11 and continued up until I came out as trans (at which point it was no longer necessary). I never changed anything about myself other than my name so I’m not sure it would actually qualify as role playing, but that’s how I justified it.
Again, that does not mean I identify as something other than a man. I am a gay man the same way any other 23 year old gay male is. I see no reason to stop considering myself a man simply because I do things that cisgendered gay men do all the time, it’s ridiculous. It perpetuates this idea that transmen are fundamentally different from cismen in ways other than genitalia and I’m offended by that. Which is also why I hate people who want to be “visibly trans”. Be visibly “other” if you like, but transpeople are NOT “other”, we are the same with regards to everything except what may or may not be in our pants (and in some cases we’re the same there too!)
I just want to be treated with respect and dignity – I want to be treated like a human; an adult not a child; responsible not immature; a person not a sinner. The “sore-thumb-sticker-outters” are often blatantly discriminated against and harassed. While I admire their bravery, I don’t have the energy for dealing with constant harassment — especially when I get so much of it from my fellow transmen. This doesn’t make me weak, as some quite visibly queer folks I’ve encountered have scoffed.
This is just plain contradictory. You want to be visibly queer, but at the same time you claim you don’t have the energy to deal with the consequences. No, that doesn’t make you weak, but it does make you a bit of a flake. If you want to be treated like an adult you’re going to have to learn that sometimes you do have to pick a side.
FTM, to many, means the transition from female to male, starting in one place and ending at another. It is not intended as a place to stay, but is only the transition, the midway. The idea here is that the point of being FTM is to become a male, eventually.
Again mate, that’s where the “TO MALE” part comes from. Seriously, why is that so hard to understand?
Much of the controversy surrounded the fact that I am exclusive to dating transmen, and I don’t date non-trans men. This group of transmen found this offensive because they believe to be considered different than non-trans men emasculating and devaluing. What they don’t understand is that I highly value and prefer the masculinity of transmen, mainly because it is chosen and continues to be chosen at each injection day
This entire paragraph is just patently offensive. I don’t care if you like transmen more or think we’re “better” than cismen for some ridiculous reason, it is still saying we are different and I am not ok with that. I did not choose to be a man any more than I chose to have brown hair or an allergy to grape juice. It is part of who I am, a biological aspect that was programmed into my brain without any input from me.
I did choose to transition. I did choose to stab myself with a needle every week for the rest of my life. However, that was a choice made out of necessity, it was either transition or be miserable until I finally broke down and killed myself. I’m not sure that can be considered much of a choice.
Experiencing the world as a woman, even if it was only for a matter of years, gives us transmen wholly different perspectives – not to mention different kinds of bodies. While non-trans men and transmen share secondary male characteristics, there are things that each of us knows that the other will not (and perhaps cannot) know. It’s kind of like understanding the misery of menstrual cramps or knowing exactly how awful a kick in the balls feels, for example.
I think that this is true for *some* transmen in *some* areas, but certainly not all. I was raised to do whatever the hell I wanted and gender roles be damned. Now, I did do some pretty girly stuff for a while, but I was also a huge tomboy. I modelled and competed in beauty pageants until I was about 9 or 10 years old. I also was a competitive in-line skater and started taking martial arts classes when I was 6.
I was the first girl born to my father’s side of the family in two generations so I was surrounded by uncles and older male cousins who I was expected to keep up with. I played with boys almost exclusively and the two or three girl friends I did have were just as rough and tumble as me. I joined JROTC in high school and was well known for maxing out the male version of the fitness test when only two of the guys could. I can knit, crochet, sew, and I adore cooking, but those are all things my guy friends could do as well.
I have never understood or fit in with girls/women. They really are like a foreign species to me with their over analyzing of the simplest things (no, really, your boyfriend IS just tired) and inability to separate sex from love (he was horny, it doesn’t mean you should be picking out china). I tried, but being a girl is not something I will ever be able to do. For one thing, I can’t stand about 75% of the female population (to be fair, I can’t stand about 75% of the human population). In most ways I respond to things the exact same as my gay male friends, when I don’t I respond the same as my straight male friends. So how exactly have I navigated the world as a woman?
I’ve even been told before that I was transphobic, that I was certainly not trans myself, and that I dangerously fetishize transmen because I prefer to date them over non-trans men. My preference for transmen has been the cause of tremendous offense on more than one occasion. I shouldn’t have to really explain why I don’t want to date non-trans men; I’m simply not sexually attracted to them when it comes down to it. I’ve tried. I just don’t get hot.
Here’s my issue: I like my men to like dick. Why? Because I’m gay. One of the fundamental differences between a gay man and a straight man is a love of dick. Now, there are the gay men who prefer the secondary sex characteristics (hairy chests, beards, etc) to the primary (yay penis!), but for the most part gay men like cock. If you don’t like cock then I can’t be sure you’re seeing me as fully male and I can’t sleep with or date anyone who sees me as even remotely female or other.
I also do think liking transmen, but not cismen is fetishizing. Some guys are ok with that, but the vast majority aren’t. Why? Because it’s loving a part of ourselves that we wish wasn’t there. It’s being attacted to the one part of us that we don’t identify with, meaning you’re not actually attracted to us at all.
I make conscious decisions about things like how much space I take up, how loud I speak and how often. Personally, I believe this is how I can be a responsible man, accountable for the privilege handed to me.
I knew this would come up eventually. It is one of the parts of queer theory and women’s studies that drives me the most insane. Has anyone ever considered that men “take up more space” because they’re usually bigger? Why is it that I suddenly have to scurry around trying not to bother anyone simply because I’m a man? I always thought it was enough to be polite and well spoken.
It really is a reverse form of sex discrimination. First women were the ones expected to sit quietly in the background, not interfering with “men’s work”. Then the first wave of feminism hit and women were clamouring for equality (which I’m all for, btw). We could have (and should have) stayed there where all women were allowed to choose for themselves what they wanted to do with their lives whether it was becoming an engineer or staying home and watching the kids. Instead we moved on to third wave feminism (second wave got squashed pretty easily, no one likes man-hating lesbians) where everything is about the patriarchy and all men have privilege and need to account for it. Bullshit. I am living my life the exact same way as when I presented as female. If anything I have less privilege now because people assume I’m a snot-nosed little boy instead of a driven, responsible woman.
I’m not even going to get into how no one seems to understand that effeminate men (be they gay or not) are treated far worse than masculine women. That’s an entire essay all on its own.
Essentially, this guy has managed to sum up everything I have ever hated about “FtM, not man” types and queer theory. It is people like him that make me want to be completely stealth for fear that someone will think I’m just as crazy.
Anger Issues
Posted by Not Aiden | Filed under mood, t changes
One part of being back on T that I’d managed to forget about: the quick flashes of anger at damned near everything. It’s not a rage thing, I’m not seriously dangerous or anything. I get mad just long enough to punch a guy and then feel horrible about it the second I’m done. It’s not something I’ve had to worry about much because K doesn’t upset me in ways that induce violence, I’m actually far more likely to burst into tears than hurt him.
Yesterday I spent the day with M, her little sister (C), and her energetic, probably ADHD, pretty ridiculously immature brother (J). Now, normally I’m ok with wild children. J is 12 which I realise is a bitch of an age to be (and be around), but is also the main age of the kids I worked with in YMs. I don’t like the constant chattering just to hear the sound of his own voice, but I know how to ignore it. I was even able to keep the kid amused for a decent amount of time.
Then he decided to go into the hotel bathroom and just start banging on the door. Banging and banging and banging and banging for like 20 fucking minutes. Ok. Fine. Whatever. Ignore it. Except when he comes out he [a] insists he was asleep and [b] starts opening the cabinets in the kitchenette and slamming them shut. The boy is TWELVE. He’s not two, he should know better than to make large amounts of noise for no earthly reason. I go up, close the door he’s got open, and tell him to cut it out before I hurt him which is a very normal reaction from me (keep in mind that I was raised in military programmes).
Apparently I’d already reached my frustration limit for the day. I don’t even know what happened, but for some reason he’d called me ’she’ and then when I corrected him went into “he, she, it, whatever” in a totally normal, joking 12 year old way and I just snapped. I shoved the poor kid against the wall and probably would’ve decked him if there hadn’t been other people around. It’s me so as soon as I realised what I was doing I felt like the world’s worst human being, but that’s not exactly the point.
I’m not used to having to keep an eye on my temper. Normally when I get angry or frustrated I sulk, yell, or cry. Crying happens more than I like to think about. This though…this is different and I’m going to have to learn how to deal with it as soon as possible.
That’s not a name, that’s an exclamation!
Posted by Not Aiden | Filed under genderqueer, non-pc, rants
Hezaa? Seriously? Seriously? Gee mate, I can’t imagine why *anyone* would have a hard time calling you that. There is absolutely no reason they should prefer to call you Mike or Joe when your name is Hezaa.
I don’t understand the transmale insistence on having names that [a] aren’t actual names or [b] no one can spell. No one is ever going to realise that Mykele is meant to be pronounced as “Michael”, particularly not when you’re also insisting that they refer to you as zie and hir.
Normally I’m all for self identification. Normally I don’t care what the hell people do as long as they leave me alone. Unfortunately, what other transmen do ultimately reflects back on me. The reason people continuously think I must have been a lesbian at some point or another and love sports is because most transmen WERE lesbians and DO like sports. It’s frustrating, but it makes sense and is no more offensive than people assuming that guys in general like sports.
I would have no issues if a person who identified as genderqueer insisted on being called Hezaa and zie/hir. Why? Because a genderqueer person does not have a binary gender identity so a completely ungendered name and pronouns makes sense. Now, I personally don’t get genderqueer, but it doesn’t affect me so I don’t really care.
Insisting you are a transguy, but not wanting to use male pronouns though? That rather defeats the purpose. You have to pick one. Either male, female, or other. Other can be both, neither, something in between, I don’t really care so long as you don’t try to claim a completely male identity while at the same time saying you’re genderqueer. Why? Because that doesn’t make sense. You can’t be 100% male while also being 100% genderqueer, that’s saying you’re 200% which is physically impossible.
It’s just one of those things that bothers me. I believe that when you make the decision to transition you are also making the decision to give up those things you did that only people of your birth sex could do. Not stupid, socialised things like transguys would have to give up knitting (I like knitting), but things like transmen in lesbian-only spaces. The genderqueer AND trans kids try to circumvent that and I find it disrespectful. Not only of the women who don’t want to be around men, but also of their own apparently male identity.