Transgender Day of Remembrance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_Day_of_Remembrance
So here's the thing. I have two X chromosomes, and was born with / have developed typically all of the "normal", expected accoutrements of biological femaleness. I've also had a female identity my entire life, and while I've been sort of tomboyish, and present somewhat masculinely personality-wise (this presents more problems than you'd think with manners-- if a woman acts unthinkingly like a man, she reads as very rude to many people), I look very female and have never had any problem acting/presenting/feeling okay with being a woman. This means I am cisgendered, for those of you who are new to that term-- that's all it means. It's not a perjorative term, it's just descriptive.
What I'm saying is, I'm not trans, and don't really have any experiences that would give me any particular insight into being such. It's sort of hard for me to imagine what that would be like. Sometimes I don't like being a woman, and sometimes I wish people could understand that I'm not being rude, I'm just talking like a man does and almost definitely am not aware of it-- but that's not the same as feeling like my body doesn't match my mind, feeling that my identity is somehow fundamentally at odds with how I look to others, feeling like I have body parts that aren't the right ones. I'm even struggling with how to write that sentence, just now, because I so truly don't understand what it would be like.
(Sure, for example, often my boobs get in the way and are just these giant bags of fat that have no particular purpose and annoy me, but they're also definitely part of me and while in my self-image they're not so giant, they're definitely there. They're definitely me.)
But many times when the topic comes up among people I consider friends, people whose opinions I value and who I generally think of as decent, as kind, as good-- many times these people react with distaste, and underlying all of it seems to be a feeling that transgender people are wrong somehow, that it must be something they're doing on purpose to make others uncomfortable. Or something. People usually can't articulate it well, and are confused when presented with the choice-- so either you hate these people for something they can't help (which people reject, because that's kind of "unambiguous piece of shit" territory and nobody really wants to stake a claim on that), or you hate them for this thing that you assume they're doing on purpose?
So I follow that up with, wait, you think trans people really have a choice in this matter? Like, they were bored or something, so they sat down and thought, oh, what's the most uncomfortable thing I can do to annoy people? I know! I'll change my gender. That'll really fuck with people. Yes!! That way, I can up my likelihood of suicide about a hajillionfold, and make the possibility that I'll be physically or sexually assaulted and probably brutally murdered about a hundred bajillion times greater! Yes, that's a fucking fantastic idea. Because you know, nobody wants to live a happy life and grow old or anything. That's just so boring.
It's patently ridiculous. Maybe it throws a bit of a wrench into conversations, but pointing out the inherent absurdity of this unquestioned social impulse seems worth it. Even if it gets people to not say shit like that around me, it's progress, or so I like to think-- because I'm just some pretty obviously cis white lady, but maybe if they know they can't say it around me they won't say it around someone who's more vulnerable to that kind of bullshit either.
I don't know. What I do know is, it's fucking heartbreaking how shitty the odds are if you're trans. And no, I can't really understand what it's like, but I don't have to. I can't understand what it's like to give birth either, or to get shot, but that doesn't stop me being sympathetic/respectful to / understanding of people that happens to. I don't think this should be different.
One little hopeful note-- the topic has come up a couple of times recently in the company of my roller derby team, and there has consistently been a literal chorus of teammates' voices correcting those who use incorrect terms or wrong pronouns, making it pretty damn clear that most of us care about this issue and want to do the right thing, with our words and our actions. We happen to be a bunch of cis chicks but not all derby folks are, and we know that. (And voted in WFTDA's surveys about it. Yes, the WFTDA implemented a policy for transgender individuals, since it is a sex-segregated organization, and the policy we adopted, by popular vote from every member league, was to allow skaters to self-identify, and let it go at that. If you say you are female, you are female, for the purposes of flat-track derby. And yeah, an MTF individual can be intimidating to skate against, but shit, I've gone up against some 6'3" cis ladies in my day, your chromosomes ain't even what it's about. And you know what, we practice with plain old non-trans men fairly frequently-- my team has had male bench managers who put on skates for our practices for years; it's a lot less of a big deal than the hype would have you believe. I'm usually bigger than them.)
And the end thing is, being transgender sucks (given those odds!) but it really shouldn't have to. No more than going through puberty, which yes, is difficult, and yes, is annoying, and yes, does pretty well suck for most people but the vast majority of us survive it. Transitioning should be the same. Like, oh, look how funny/cute I was with braces; look how funny/cute it was when I first started on T, what a crazy ride that was, wow zits, hey boobs/not boobs, oh good times, aren't we glad we're adult whatever-we-ares now.
Not dead in some ditch or bathtub or whatever. I don't even know any of the people on this list and it still makes me cry.
http://www.transgenderdor.org/memorializing-2013
