Being genderfluid has made me become a better transfeminist, but seeing the same cishet pressures come from within the trans community until I was edged out of my own comminity made me realize I was genderfluid.
When I came out as trans over a decade ago, my biggest goal was being able to go stealth. I played support, non-visible roles in queer activism and was never a bold speaker about my bisexuality, and when I realized I was trans I was even less confident in wanting to be some sort of spokesperson for that experience--not even my own. I wished I had been "born the other gender." I wanted to speedrun transition, timelines were slow, the visibility I had by not passing but clearly straying from my cis identity was terrifying.
I had many hurdles to medical transition, some that were recurring, I did not have the support of my parents, and I did not have insurance that would make surgeries possible. I consulted for years about GCS and had to restart the process many times when securing a letter was difficult, I got a letter and then my legal name changed, my insurance made getting a new letter impossible, and when my insurance was changing yearly, I had to start the process over again from the beginning. I gave up on that at the time.
Slowly but surely, my dream had come true and I began to pass more and more until eventually, no one had any idea I wasn't cis. Until I told them, gleefully. I became more open, I wanted to help people like me who didn't have anyone to look to for what to do. I wanted to dispel myths. I wanted to connect people to the literature that helped me understand myself. The speakers who made me feel seen. I wanted to help the communities and programs that helped me and make sure they grew.
But I suppressed a lot. There were aspects of my identity I erased to fit in. There were things about my AGAB that I missed, but would either weaken my ability to pass or outright negate it. Being openly trans and openly embracing aspects of my AGAB were taken as signs I was "reverting", so I shut them down. Then slowly I became more fluid in my presentation and came around on aspects of my old identity that I realized I only hated because I was forced to be it.
And that got me a lot of flak from binary trans people. I saw nonbinary and genderfluid people being accused of co-opting our experiences. I saw them get accused of being fake. Get accused of detransitioning and that detransition was *always* a grift and not a path many people are either forced into or outright choose simply because it is the reality they have uncovered after the wonderful privilege of getting to find out who they are on their own terms.
The exorsexism of a lot of binary trans people reared its head. Cis people who came out as nonbinary either wanted attention or were too chickenshit to be a "real" trans person yet. But a trans person who came out as nonbinary? Oh, you're getting cold feet on trans identity. Was it too tough for you?
The very people I expected to have my back were some of my loudest critics and that was tremendously painful. But then I realized a lot of the specific hate I got within the trans community was the exact same language I got for being bisexual. And crucially--it sounded an awful lot like what the "opposite" trans people were saying they faced from cis society.
I started reading even more about the "opposite experience." I already had done so because hearing about ANY trans people finding acceptance and success and joy brought me joy regardless of whether the exact methods were relatable. There were rich trans people of my transition path I couldn't relate entirely to, there were trans people of color on my transition path experiencing horrors I could only imagine. It was easy then to see "other" trans people as simply more variants in this experience and not ever as my "foil", but once I started living out my genderfluidness, suddenly they were my gender path.
Suddenly I needed their passing tips. Suddenly their unique experiences spoke to me. Suddenly the accusations lobbed at them by cis society and trans community were the ones I was being hit with by both camps. Suddenly the steps they took to accept their gender were ones I needed to utilize to accept my own. To find that part of myself worth celebrating and not pushing it down.
It is strange to sometimes find greater kinship between "opposite" trans people, when I too once loved trans spaces entirely made up of people who were on the same path together. I still think those spaces are important, but I became isolated from other trans people, and became isolated from myself.
I think even if I hadn't been genderfluid, it would have done me some wonders for fighting gender conformity to have listened more to the people who romanticized the parts of myself I was afraid of. Just like when I thought I was cis.
And the whole experience made me realize how extremely easy it was to relate to all these people. How easy it was to find the overlap in our experiences. How easy to find innate differences truly laughable because if "men" experience A then what about me? If "women" are always B then what about me?
When I first came out as trans, I was afraid of theorists like Kate Bornstein because she spoke to a part of me that isolated me from other trans people, and I wasn't ready to be isolated again like I was from cis people. But once I accepted that part of myself, I realized the binary trans people who dumped this shit on me are lonelier than I ever have been, because they think comformity and binarism is the answer, but through my spectrum of identity I have found so much connection with people I really thought I couldn't ever relate this way to.
Nonbinary people will never be accounted for in separatist ideologies, but I was pushed to the fringes long before I knew I wasn't binary because I was "failing to conform" to this idea of transness, just like I had "failed to conform" to an idea of cisness.
We are isolating people left and right by pretending there is some unified "trans woman experience" or "trans man experience." We are isolating people left and right by pretending all trans of your gender want the same thing. Trans women have said "if you aren't willing to do makeup every day are you really even trying" as if adhering to the most oppressive industries preying on women is what makes you a woman. Trans men have said "if you don't pursue phalloplasty then what is even the point of being trans" as if the ultimate defining point of maleness is having a penis. And these aren't online takes either, both of these were things someone had the nerve to say out loud in person in a room full of trans people. We are strangling ourselves and creating rifts between rich resources. It's not just people like me, fluctuating between identities that benefits from this partnership, but more than that, the only people who benefit from these rifts are cis people who do not want us to have any source of autonomy.
"all this fuss about us, a measly N% of the population" I do not just want this for genderfluid people, I don't just want this for one binary of trans people, I don't just want this for trans people! I want everyone to have the freedom to be themselves, the autonomy to choose for themselves, and the unity of a community built around the freedom to make those choices, not built upon the same systems of hierarchy that pushed us all to the margins to begin with. So YES, there IS tremendous fuss about us, because we threaten--or sure as shit SHOULD threaten--the cisheteropatriarchial powers that be, not recreate localized versions of it.
