Misconceptions and Anomalies

 

When I first started coming "out", I also started learning about my own misconceptions of what being transgender means.  Now that I've been out for a while, I can say that this ignorance was common to the larger cisgender society we live in.  And I've come to believe that being transgender is being on a spectrum of gender development issues that involve gender identity, gender preference, gender presentation, and gender manifestation.

To start, for most people, gender identity is a simple concept: you are either male or female.  But what happens when the mind develops in a way that this concept doesn't fit?  Like many transgender people, one can reject the genitalia that one is born with and look to have both surgeries and hormone treatments to correct this physical anomaly. However, many transgender people do not suffer severe gender dysphoria and choose paths which may only involve hormone therapy and other, less radical body modifications. To some cisgender people, this is beyond comprehension, and it is an abomination.  But why?  A baby's gender is the first thing people want to know when a child is born, as if defines much of the path that person's life will follow from birth to death. Anyone who challenges that basic path might be a threat to social unity, and that has to be stamped out before the threat becomes a reality.

Next comes gender preference, a concept with which people are only now starting become comfortable. Like gender identity, this is considered a threat to society by many cisgender people. However, many cisgender people have grown to understand this concept and accept that people with non-traditional gender preferences should be treated with respect and accepted by society.

However, gender expression (presentation) is not as understood by the general populace.  Why do some lesbians present with a more "masculine" appearance?  Why do some "straight" (in gender preference only) prefer to present as females? Many in cisgender society have problems processing who and what a person is when a person has an androgynous (or non-conforming) gender image that resists categorization.  This may trigger cisgender society's deepest fears, as people tend to fear most what resists categorization and being understood.  

Lastly, gender manifestation (or, I should say, being intersex) is something that is either hidden or "corrected" at an early age.  For example, many babies born with ambiguous genitalia have been "fixed" to look like "normal" females.  But this potentially creates a problem for these children as they grow up into adults, as their gender identity may be in conflict with their "corrected" gender manifestation. As a result, many intersex people are demanding that no "corrective" surgeries be performed until the child knows enough about its own gender identity and can provide input into the process of gender identification.

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With all of the above being said, I have to focus on the misconceptions people have about transgender people.  For example, not all of us want to have surgeries to convert our genitals to that of the sex of which we identify.  One person I know has had hormone therapy, but chooses to retain her masculine sex organs.  (Who wants to live a life without being able to have an orgasm again?  This person needs to preserve her ability to self-pleasure.)  Others need to have genitalia which resembles that of their gender identities.  And then, there are issues related to how many gender related physical traits that transgender people feel they need to fix before they feel they are of their identified sex.  (Hair transplants, Voice Adjustments, etc.)  As they used to say in old commercials, your mileage may vary.

Another misconception is that many cisgender people have about us transgender people is that we want different genitalia, so that we can have sex with our "former" sex.  (I knew a LCSW who believed this, and I am glad she is not in my life.)  For the most part, one's gender preference does not change after one has gender corrective surgery (GCS).

What I found surprising is how many cisgender people react when they interact with non-op transgender people (like me) who travel with legal IDs which conflict with their gender presentation. Some, like my Texas friends, are amazed that I will often travel in female mode while holding male ID. Others will (in bad taste) wonder aloud whether a transgender person is a male or female.  If I had heard that while boarding a ship on one cruise, I'd have asked the couple: "Why don't we go back to your room, and the three of us find out?  It could be some great fun."  That would have thrown them for a loop.  

Yet, when it comes to sports, more of the general population doesn't want transgender people to compete against people not belonging to their natal sex.  But what happens when a person's natal sex is ambiguous, or when hormone levels are that of the opposite sex?  There is a female runner who has been disqualified from running against other females because her naturally occurring levels of testosterone are that of a male.  How should we accommodate people like her?  There is a transgender female swimmer who is now disqualified from being in competitions against other females - even though many of her peers support her inclusion in these competitions.  I feel that if a transgender person's body has not undergone the puberty of their (at birth) assigned sex, and has only gone through the puberty of their identified sex, they should be allowed to compete against others of their identified sex as they will have no advantage from the wrong puberty. And even this is an issue that perplexes many in society.

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I feel that we have a long way to go before society understands and accepts transgender people.  At best, we are considered anomalies whose identities are not fully accepted because they are ambiguous.  At worse, they trigger irrational fears in others that will trigger them to cause us harm.  Hopefully, things will change for the better for us soon.

We are under attack!

 

Now that the GOP has lost its war against Homosexuals and "Gay Marriage", they have turned their sights directly onto us, the Transgender Community.  If one looks carefully at the bills that have been passed which ban gender related treatment, we see an underlying hatred for things "Conservatives" don't understand, are fearful of, and want to rid the world of because of that fear.

I see homosexuality and being transgender as part of a greater intersex spectrum, something that happens when one part of a fetus's development (brain and body) does not happen according to typical gender lines. This is different from many people see intersex, as I include the wiring of the brain as part of the definition of intersex.

When people are not able to classify something into something they can understand and manage, their fears go out of control.  Rationality is lost, as primeval instincts kick in.  When people live under constant threat due to their inability to escape poverty, they turn to bombastic populist leaders. When people remember "the good old days" without seeing how bad they were for others, they want simple answers to complicated problems.  We now see all of these issues and more in the people who support the radicals in today's GOP.

We are under attack.  There are a large number of places in this country where I am afraid to travel as Marian because of being transgender.  My rights to be treated with dignity and respect are being taken away by the likes of the governors of Florida and Texas, all for political gain.  The people of their states (and other "Red States" as well) need scapegoats to punish for their misfortune.  Even though I blend in well with cisgender women, I would not feel safe in entering a public washroom in these states.  If I were to enter a place of public accommodation, I could be discriminated against without reason.  And, if I were to deal with law enforcement authorities, I could be treated in a way that puts my life at risk.  Is this right?

There is a culture war going on right now, and large swaths of the population who have retreated into political tribalism. There are large areas of this nation which are one party states.  In the past, even the dominant party in these states could reasonably be expected to be voted out if it didn't do a good enough job for their states.  This is not the case anymore.  People such as Florida's governor are trying to ban the opposition political party for actions many of its leaders took over 160 years ago. This is not democracy in action.  This is an authoritarian government in waiting that is trying to do this.

I'm not sure of what we can do next.  Strangely enough, I would take (the lunatic) Marjorie Taylor Greene's suggestion that we have a Red and Blue State divorce, and run with it a little. I'd suggest something a little bit more dangerous to the Red States: a requirement that the US Federal Government spend no more than 5% more or less in every state than it collects in tax revenue.  Since the Blue States contribute more to the government in tax revenues than they receive, this would be a net benefit to these states.  We could also set a federal minimum level for social spending in every state as a requirement for new federal projects to be placed in the Red States.  This would slow down the "Brain Drain" from Blue to Red states, caused by the poor education standards (as a whole) in those states. 

In my opinion, what we're seeing are the things that happen when there is a great difference in living standards between the rich and poor in a society.  Like the people of Brazil, America's people fell out of love with democracy and elected a bombastic and ineffective leader as it moved to the right, and then moved to the left as a backlash against the right.  Until we can force government to do its job, people at the margins of society are at great risk, as we are the pawns in a larger game of power.  

So what can we do to change things?  As a species, we do not like rapid or radical change. Progress can only come slowly.  In the case of politics, our leaders are in a continual battle to be reelected, so that they can gain power.  Not solving  problems is their best way to have things to rally against, and get votes.  As the parties become more extreme, the more likely one will pick a minority group (Jews, Muslims, Homosexuals, Transgenders, Political Opponents, etc.) as demons to obliterate.  But the question remains: How do we enact simple, long term changes to fix this?  To me, the answer is amazingly simple - term limits for all politicians.  Years ago, a friend told me that death gives meaning to life.  Without death, we'd have no reason to finish anything.  The same goes for elected leadership.  If a leader knows that s/he has only a limited amount of time to achieve anything, they will focus on getting important things done.  By that subtle change alone, there will be no need for scapegoats, as politicians would only be judged by what they supported, and not what they opposed.

Yes, I am proposing a subtle change to nudge the system in a way that benefits us.  This prevents the opposition from labeling this in a derogatory fashion.  And, if we were to "grandfather" all currently serving officeholders from these same term limits, we might get the support needed to make an important change in the system whose effect could be seen in a single generation.

What do you think?