Interestingly, the person who he mentions as having been part of the impetus for the post is referred to as "he". I was surprised by this, but didn't take offense.
In fact, and this may seem odd, my first reaction was that he had done this to protect my identity in some way. Here's the excerpt.
"Now, I know you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this. Well, there are two reasons: One, goes back to a quick convo I had with a Twitter follower. The other is an important lesson that even I have to learn.
I told him about my online encounter with a transsexual that ended in me leaving in a huff. He wanted to know why I was pissed. For a while, I looked back and thought long and hard wondering what caused me to be cross with her."
Part of the reason I assumed that he wasn't misgendering me, but rather obscuring my identity, was that he refers to the trans girl he reacted badly to as Her and She.
The other part of my reason for not taking it personally was that my conversations with @BrothaJamesWolf have always been very civil, even friendly.
The other part of my reason for not taking it personally was that my conversations with @BrothaJamesWolf have always been very civil, even friendly.
It wasn't until I reached this sentence that I concluded that his understanding and experience of trans people and of our lives was perhaps, somewhat limited.
Here he is talking about an experience where he reacted badly to learning that the girl he had been flirting with online was trans:
Here he is talking about an experience where he reacted badly to learning that the girl he had been flirting with online was trans:
"This young woman most likely didn’t know I was heterosexual just like I didn’t know she was really a man."
Again, I'm not entirely sure why, but my response to this was mostly to be perplexed.
I know a number of other trans people who I suspect would have felt pretty angry about this, for my part I consider myself fortunate to not take this sort of thing personally, so I wrote the following reply to the post.
I know a number of other trans people who I suspect would have felt pretty angry about this, for my part I consider myself fortunate to not take this sort of thing personally, so I wrote the following reply to the post.
Please do read all of the original post by the way, it's honest and intelligent and written with humility, even if it's author makes what I consider to be factual errors.
My Reply:
If you start from the position that trans women are in fact men, then that idea seems perfectly rational. It is, however, wrong for a number of reasons.
As you state, you are a heterosexual male, you are also cisgendered.
Cisgender is that opposite of transgender, and just means that your internal sense of self matches up with the way the rest of the world sees you and the opinion of the doctor present at your birth in terms of what gender you understand yourself to be.
Now some people will make the claim that your external genitalia and your chromosomes dictate whether you are male or female but in the real world it’s not actually that simple.
Some people are born intersexed, that is, their external genitals are indeterminate at birth and that can happen for a number of reasons. They might have XXY, XYY, XXX or a whole range of other chromosomal variations that mean they can not be assigned to either the male or the female category with any certainty.
Stranger still, depending on how genes are expressed during fetal development, it is perfectly possible for a child born with XY chromosomes to never develop ANY male physical characteristics. There has even been one recorded instance of an XY female carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth to a healthy child.
In short, biology is simply more complicated than most people realize and there is no meaningful or clear boundary between the sexes at the level of the individual.
As to gender, another non-scientific word, we have to understand that we are talking about two different things here as well.
Gender as a social construct reflects the way in which a given culture expects men and women to behave, and how that culture enforces those behavioral norms. It’s also something that changes over time as a cultures values change. I.e. Women can wear trousers today and no one thinks it’s strange, but 60 years ago it would have seemed very odd to most people.
By contrast, Gender Identity refers to one’s internal sense of whether you are male or female.
As a cisgendered male, your experience of gender identity is basically zero, in the same way that if you have perfect eyesight you experience of being colorblind is zero. Gender identity is simply not something you have the capacity to be aware of unless, for some reason it doesn’t match up to your physical body. By contrast, those of us who are transgendered experience the very disconcerting sensation that we do not have the correct body.
For many of us, this sensation is so string, so overwhelming that the only way we can make our lives livable is to do everything possible to change our bodies to reflect who we know we are inside. That is why, as I’m typing this, I am in quite a lot of pain because yesterday i paid a doctor $3000 to make an incision in my throat, and carefully cut away as much cartilage as possible from my adams apple to remove the bump there.
Please take a second to feel you throat, put your fingers on that bump of cartilage and actually think about that. What would drive someone to do that if it was medically unnecessary? When, for them, $3000 is a small fortune?
Sadly the answer is “at risk”
That is, in a society where being gay or lesbian or especially being trans are considered to be sick, wrong, morally abhorrent behaviors, clearly associating with such people creates an avenue for others to question your hetero status.
I don’t need to go further into that because after all, that was the point of the post to which I am responding. You obviously understand that.
But you do still seem to think that trans women are men, and that is a problem.
I’m also pretty attractive. If a hetero guy is attracted to me, that doesn’t make him gay. If I wanted to have sex with gay guys, trust me, I could have stayed male bodied and had plenty of it. As it is now, gay guys are far less likely to be attracted to me than the straight ones are.
Which is good. Because I’m not a gay man and I gave no interest in having a relationship with a gay man.
Personally, I’m attracted to people who see me as I see myself, that is a bisexual transgender woman.
Of course, there are a lot of people who simply can’t or won’t believe that I’m a woman and honestly I don’t care to much so long as they keep that opinion to themselves and don’t try to murder me, assault me of lobby to have my human rights taken away.
I get that for some people, my medical history makes the idea of dating me a no go. That makes me sad, but I’m not going to tell them they should feel other than the way they do because, frankly, they can’t.
We don’t have control over our emotions in that way, and to expect you or anyone else to read this, and suddenly have some moment of epiphany is unrealistic, but the pervasive notion that I am really a man is a big problem because it creates the story that I’m out to trick people and that simply isn’t true.
I’m out to live my life, like everyone else I hope to meet nice people whom I can have meaningful relationships with.
Generally I disclose my trans status pretty quickly and openly because to not do so puts my life at risk, but just like any other girl I like to go out to the club , have a few drinks and dance with friends. If some guy decides he want’s to hit on me I’m not about to tell him right there and then that I’m trans because to do so puts me at risk. At the very least it can lead to a confrontation where my night is ruined, at worst it can result in physical violence.
As a trans person, if I choose not to disclose that fact, it isn’t because I’m trying to sneak into some guys pants.
I personally don’t like playing Russian roulette, and the idea of having sex with someone who might literally decide to murder me if they learn that I’m trans is terrifying.
Honestly it would be a whole lot better if those people who, for whatever reasons (I won’t judge, really), prefer not to date trans people would go around wearing a “no trans please” T-shirt or something. That would take a lot of stress out of my life.
Trans women are women. They are not “really men”
Same goes for trans men but in reverse.
My pronouns are “She” and “Her” on account of how I’m a woman, not a man.
----------------------------------------------------
How do you begin to explain a concept like what it means to be transgender to someone who thinks of you as a man?
I touched on a few different points but in the end left feeling my response was fragmented and inadequate.
I'd wanted to say more, but what was most pertinent? Where would I stop?
It seems strange to me, that while much of the feminist debate I follow addresses issues of human rights and how living n a patriarchal society negatively impacts various groups of people, there is little conversation concerning how or why it is that almost all human societies came to be patriarchal in the first place*.
*I'm not implying that nothing has been written on this topic, only that in all the blogs and conversations I have read, I have not encountered it.