i see a lot of people talking to you about trans stuff and i was wondering if you'd be willing to explain transgenderism to me? everyone just says "i feel like a man/women" and that literally means nothing to me? I don't understand how a person could feel like something they're never been, nor have i ever felt that sort of attachment to traditional gender. it just sounds like sexism to me? can you help me understand this?? i'm trying to hard! I don't want to hold prejudice against anyone.
Ok, friend, you sound genuinely sweet sincere and earnest, so let me try my best to answer your question. (Note to followers: shitting on anon in the notes will not be tolerated. People are allowed to ask questions. Don't be jackasses. Ok? Ok.)
So, being trans. I don't know anything about your life, anon, but I'm going to guess that at some point in your life, you've been in a situation where you felt fundamentally out of place. Not because anyone was doing anything wrong or being mean to you or whatever, just because you didn't quite fit. It happens to everyone. So you kinda laugh it off and try to fake it, or you hide in the corner, or you make up an excuse to leave, and you get yourself out of there. Problem solved.
But now imagine that, instead of having that feeling one time in one place, you have it all the time, in all places. Every time you talk to someone, every time someone says your name, even when you're entirely alone, there's just a little something off. Sometimes you can ignore it, sometimes it's just a bit annoying, and sometimes the wrongness is so intense you feel like you can't breathe.
And then, one day, you realize that something makes the wrongness stop. Maybe you're six years old and you haven't had a haircut in a while and someone says your hair looks pretty. Maybe you're fourteen and you figure out how to wear a shirt so your breasts don't show. Maybe you're twenty-five or thirty-five or seventy-five and the barista says "here's your coffee, sir, I mean ma'am, I mean-" and it just feels right. For the first time in your life, just for an instant, that wrongness, that sense of distance, disconnection, that void between you and the world, vanishes. For one second, you feel whole.
So you chase it. You shave your head in the bathroom mirror. You buy floor length gowns at the thrift shop. You imagine your body in different shapes and taste new names on your tongue. And you feel better.
That gap, that distance? You start to close it. When people start to call you by the name you choose, you feel connected to them. When your body starts to twist into the right shape, you can actually enjoy yourself in it. Slowly, as time goes by, the wrongness you've lived with your whole life recedes, dissipates, leaves you with nothing between you and the world. You're free, free to reach out, to talk, to laugh, to play, to exist. It is a joy beyond expression.
If none of this makes any sense to you, anon, that's ok. I can explain the feeling of being trans until I'm blue in the face, but, well, it's a feeling. Explaining will only get you so far. So it's ok if you don't understand. You don't need to. All you really need is to know that the fact that you don't understand something doesn't make it not real.
So next time you hear people talking about trans stuff, don't spend your energy trying to wrap your head around transness as a concept or the definition of gender or whatever. I mean, you can if you want. It's interesting as all hell. But you sound like you want to just know what's going on.
So here's what's going on: We are here. We are part of the human experience. We'd like you to be polite and respectful and stick up for us if other people aren't. If you're interested in deconstructing the patriarchal imperialist gender binary, there's a workshop for that on alternate Thursdays, but it isn't compulsory.
That's all, really. No arcane secrets or hidden agendas. Just us, making joy where and how we can. Which isn't, I think, very difficult to understand.
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