I have often said that there are no wrong questions and when people ask me about being transgender I really try to be as open and honest as possible. It’s important to me that I help educate others about LGBTQ issues even if that means answering questions I’d rather not or giving up a little privacy. However, there are those people who ask questions or make statements that are so ignorant and offensive that it’s maddening! I try to deal with these situations calmly and educate them about their misconceptions, however, there are three things I hear all too often and wish I never had to hear again.
The first is, “You’re so pretty! Why do you want to be trans?” Of the three, I hear this one most often and it makes me want to scream and commit various acts of harm and hostility. Instead, I’ve begun retorting with, “Then I’ll be a pretty man!” That usually shuts them up for a second as they raise their eyebrows and look confused. It amazes me that they don’t see the gender oppressive stereotypes that fed their statement. The obvious stereotype here is that women are only worth as much as their looks. Their assumption is that I feel like I’m unattractive and therefore am not even worthy of being a woman. I have to deal with my condition of ugliness by rejecting my feminine nature and trying to be a man in a desperate attempt to find a woman who will of course love me even if I’m hideous. If they can just convince me that I’m beautiful then my problems will be solved and I can live happily ever after as a pretty woman worthy of a man to love me. What crap!!! I hate this! Women are people and they have more to offer than a pretty face and open legs! But what I’ve also noticed by flipping this statement around and telling them that I’ll be a pretty man is the less obvious but equally disturbing stereotype against men: that it’s not possible to be a pretty man and if you are, you’re gay. Men are put under pressure to look good all the time, yet they are not supposed to care. Hollywood tells men they are supposed to look like bodybuilders who bathe in Nair but at the same time “real men” can’t waste time on hygiene and hair. “Real men” have better things to do with their time and money. It’s a double standard that has men confused and embarrassed. They simply can’t win. Why can’t we just admit that if you look like you’ve never seen a mirror then that’s a problem; for women and men! But we also need to realize that it’s not all that matters! (I’m sorry for talking as if being gay is a bad thing. I’m just commenting on the culture of our society. Of course gay men are still real men!)
Which brings me to my next most hated comment. One woman actually had the nerve to tell me that I needed to dress in such a way that others would be able to tell my sex! First of all, how presumptuous! This just shows how much people have bought into this idea that gender is based on sex. Secondly, it’s none of her business. She believes that it is though, because without knowing my sex she doesn’t know how to interact with me. She doesn’t know what set of gender stereotypes to use to determine the proper way to behave around me. The way we become uncomfortable around someone whose gender we can’t identify just proves that we treat men and women differently on a fundamental level. We go into our interactions with men and women based on stereotypes that have been fed to us by society and enforced by the media. Without these stereotypes to guide us we don’t know what behavior is socially acceptable. In other words, we have no idea how to treat people like people. When someone walks up to you they don’t see you as a blank slate; someone they don’t know but are excited to learn about. They see you as a blurry chalk board. They have half of it filled in already, they just need to clean it up a little and add in a few things. I don’t know about you, but that pisses me off. Especially because I don’t fit on that board, but most people try to make me fit anyway!
Speaking of not fitting on the board, the other thing I hear quite often is, “But you’re so feminine!” My response: “Thank you!” I know they don’t mean it as a compliment though because this falls directly under the “men can’t be feminine” stereotype. Why? I generally assume people mean that I’m affectionate and sensitive, although I’m sure there are other smaller things. How are these qualities bad? I think that being “feminine” makes me well-rounded. I have a good balance between my feminine side and my masculine side so that I’m not too much of either. I also think it makes it easier for me to relate to women. I can hold a deep conversation with them and actually understand what they are going through. This makes me a better person and a better boyfriend. But this statement doesn’t just bother me on a personal level. What really irks me is the underlying misogyny that fuels this type of statement. When you call someone feminine and you mean it as an insult what you are really saying is that it is bad or undesirable to be like a woman. Woman are so stupid/inferior/worthless; why would you ever want to be like a woman?! It’s worse when I hear this from a woman because they don’t even realize what they are saying about themselves! We need to stop gender shaming women. Men and women are fundamentally the same but women have been allowed to embrace their full spectrum of emotions while men have been emotionally stifled. It would really benefit us as a society to stop crippling men emotionally and then acting like it’s women who have the problem!
Of course, there are so many ways that people have been offensive towards me as a transman that if I were to make this an exhaustive list it would go on forever so I’ll just stop here. Hopefully in reading this you have not only learned a little about what it’s like to be transgender and what you shouldn’t say to us, but also about the hurtful nature of gender stereotypes in general. If we lived in a perfect world we would never even see gender or we would at least see it as a boundless spectrum that people can flow through. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world but maybe you can start to see this world a little more perfectly.
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