Bi-gendered

[flexibeast]

Being bi-gendered can make life tricky.

There have been a few occasions recently where i've read about "women-only" events. And every time, being gendered as i am, i have to ask: "Would i be welcome?" i identify as a woman; but there are many people who not only feel that i'm not a woman, but that i'm raping the identity 'woman' (which, iirc, is Germaine Greer's position). So when an event is described as "woman-only", i'm forced to speculate on the politics of the event organisers and whether they'd be hostile towards me attending. And not only the event organisers, but event attendees as well: the organisers might be fine with it, but that's not going to help much if other attendees are hostile towards me.

Now the above is the case for any trans woman. But since i also identify as a man, things become more complicated. One of the "women-only" events that recently came to my attention noted that trans women were welcome - a wonderful policy. Yet i still had to wonder whether or not that meant i could attend, because i'm not only a trans woman, but a trans man as well. As i wrote in an email recently:

Personally, i feel /far/ more at home amongst a group of women (whether cis or trans) than amongst men; but i'm also conscious of the fact that at least some women will feel i'm male enough to make them feel uncomfortable and to warrant my exclusion.

Cisgendered people get many privileges that trans people don't, many of which are described in the non-trans privilege checklist (itself based on the 'white privilege checklist' first described in Peggy McIntosh's influential essay "White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack"). The issue i've discussed here is point 4 in that list.
 

Comments

(pt.III)

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

There are so many things that I just don't understand, like, at what point do people make the jump from thinking "heh, I'm a lot like a guy" to "I'm actually a man"? How would people allow themselves to, given that it is a path that only seems to lead to a lot of difficulty? It just doesn't... make sense to me.

I'm sure everyone makes the jump differently. As for how they can allow themselves to, you could also ask how can they allow themselves not to; not everyone who identifies as trans opts to transition, or if they do they don't always opt to do so completely.

If there're a lot of ways in which I think or feel like a woman, would there not be a lot of difficulty for ignoring that and pretending I'm still just a guy? Would not that path also lead to a lot of pain and hardship? What do I do when all the guys think I'm a sissy and all the girls think I'm gay, do I pretend to act macho when I find machismo despicable, do I pretend I don't like sewing and cooking and sappy romantic stories, do I act like an asshole so I can join the boys' club and lay claim to male privilege, what if I don't do it right and get found out?

The tragic thing about transdom is that you're screwed either way. All paths are difficult, but some are more fruitful than others. Whether to try passing or not, whether to have gender confirmation surgeries or not, whether to admit to being trans or whether to go in deep cover or stay closeted, all of these and many other questions are ones which do not have solid answers and yet they are questions which every single trans person must answer. And each person will find that different answers are the ones they're most comfortable with, the ones that will lead to the least difficult or most fruitful path for them.

It's fine to be uncertain. It's fine not to understand. And it's understandable to feel discomfort. I'm uncertain. I don't understand how one can live a life without questioning these sorts of things. It's uncomfortable to bring it up with strangers and it's uncomfortable not to. The important thing is to be open, to be accepting, to be kind.