The ~Future~

is a scary thing.

But I’ve finally gotten mine on the right track, I think.

Well, I finally gave in to the realization that my future is in LGBTQ things and not in museums, as I was so firmly convinced.

So now my major is Gender and Sexuality Studies, and I made it up. It involves nine different departments at the moment, though may expand if other departments offer shiny new relevant courses that I’m interested in next year.

And thus begins the frenzied search for graduate programs that appeal to me. I’ve found one really shiny lovely one – it’s a psychology program that offers a certificate in LGBT Mental Health and it’s exactly perfect for what I’m looking for in my graduate school experience.

Now I just need to keep looking for other programs I like while trying to keep my stuff at Juniata under control.

The problem I’ve been having with trying to find programs I like is that they claim to be “(Women &) Gender Studies” but really just mean the binary, which is not what I want. Or they offer the opportunity to do an LGBTQ-related thesis, but the rest of the courses I’d have to take aren’t interesting to me. Or they claim LGBT but only provide for the LGB.

Bah. Back to the search.

(And if any of you have suggestions for programs, do let me know.)

Planning a Gender Workshop

So my co-officers of Trans* Parachute United and I are currently planning a gender workshop for this coming Sunday, and I’m actually really excited. We have some great ideas for it, and I really hope that we can pull the execution off.

Originally, we started planning a simple panel, with people speaking about themselves and their personal experiences, like most panels at Juniata run. After about ten minutes, though, we realized we had the beginnings of an educational workshop on our hands, and we just ran with it. It’s caused some unnecessary stress, but I think we have something good here.

One of the main problems is not knowing exactly what to cover. I’m in up to my neck in transgender-related terms and discussions every day, which makes it difficult to know exactly what other people know and don’t know. I think we have a good beginner’s guide to transgender things, though, and I really hope that we don’t go too far over people’s heads.

It’s been pretty chaotic planning this thing, though. We came up with the first activity pretty quickly, then decided on an hour and a half for the running time, and then laid out a basic framework with four panelists, thinking that we had two weeks. Then we realized that we had one week, a one hour running time, and a panelist that wasn’t responding to e-mails asking to meet up to discuss the event.

But now our event is pretty well fleshed-out, the panelist finally met with us, and now all we can do is wait for Sunday night.

Note to self: Next time you want to plan an event like this, do it more than a week beforehand.

Identity Policing

Identity Policing can encompass several things. At its essence, it is the idea that one person has the right to think or say that another person’s identity is false. Oftentimes, Person A will think that Person B is not “trans enough” or “asexual enough”, to quote two examples from my own life.

I really hope at this point that I don’t have to explain why identity policing is bad, but I will anyway, just in case.

You have no right to tell someone else what they can and can’t identify as.*

Zero right.

You are not them. You can only see what they present to you and what they do, and those things may not represent how the person identifies.

I recently found out that one of my roommates, who is heteroromantic and asexual, doesn’t think that I’m asexual because of the way I act with my non-romantic partner thing. I have told her, and everyone else, repeatedly that I still identify as aromantic and asexual, despite what people assume about me.

When I say that I am aromantic and asexual, it is not okay to continue telling me I am wrong about myself.

This is also a problem with trans* identities. There is some tension between some binary trans people and non-binary trans* people; the most prevalent irritating thing I have seen is the insinuation that non-binary trans* people aren’t “trans enough”.

Just because I don’t want hormones or a penis or to pass as male does not mean I am not transgender.

Just because their identity is different from yours, or different from the binary identities, does not invalidate their identity as transgender. And if I sometimes act cuddly or “cute” with my non-romantic partner thing, it does not invalidate my identities as aromantic and asexual.

It’s not your right to impose requirements on someone else’s identity.

Stop thinking you know better somebody better than they know themselves.

(*Please note that I am not talking about cases in which someone comes to you for advice. That is a different situation, though the majority of this still applies.)

Dysphoria

I’ve had this post sitting around for a while…I originally wasn’t going to post it at all, but I eventually decided to just put it up.

This post is extremely personal for me. Dysphoria is extremely difficult to explain, but I tried my best. Keep in mind that I’m speaking from my own experiences, and I’m not trying to speak for anyone else. This is me trying to explain how my dysphoria feels.

Imagine that you are you, exactly as you are right at this moment. Now imagine that you wake up in the morning and you have all the wrong bits. You now have a penis instead of a vagina, or vice versa. You have developed breasts where there was only flatness before, or vice versa. You’ve lost your beard or grown some facial hair. You say something at the mirror in surprise and your voice is too high or too low. You are still you, you know that. But then you realize that everyone outside your room doesn’t. You go to your closet or dresser, looking for something to wear that might help you assure people that you’re you, you’re not this body. But everything in your closet is just wrong – where there should be skirts, there are baggy jeans, or where there should be t-shirts, there are blouses. You pick out the least offensive outfit you can manage, but everything is ugly and scratchy and doesn’t fit right – not to mention that it’s all extraordinarily brightly colored so you’ll be sure to attract a lot of attention. So you pull on a hat with a brim you can pull down around your face and finally leave the room. Someone’s coming in the building, so you hold the door for them.They just kind of stare at you as you walk past, and you just know they’re trying to figure out why in the world you’re dressed that way, and slowly say, “Thanks sir/ma’am.” The wrong term, of course. They see you as the wrong gender.

But you put up with it, pull your hat down further, and hope you don’t run into anybody else. But then you have to order your morning drink with your too high or too low voice that everyone in the room hears. The card you hand the barista to pay screams your (incorrect) gender, and they don’t even realize. You go to class or to work, and your professors and classmates or boss and colleagues all call you by the wrong gender (things like “hey girls” or “sir”) and they don’t even realize that they’re doing something wrong. They think they know you, they think that by the way you look, they can tell exactly who you are.

Now imagine that your best friend in the world comes to hang out with you later, after work/classes are done. They don’t misgender you, and when they ask you how you are, expecting a proper response, you go to tell them that you hate how everyone sees you the wrong way and calls you the wrong pronouns and is just so sure that their view of you is the right and only view and they do this without even realizing. But as soon as you try to put it into words, you realize that you don’t actually have the means to properly describe this awful, empty, hopeless, despair feeling. And even if you did, you are so sure that you can see the flicker of doubt in your friend’s eyes, and you just know, or think you know, that they don’t believe you. That they only refer to you by the right gender to humor you, that they’re so sure it’s just a phase. But how can this be a phase? You just feel so wrong, your body is not you. It doesn’t fit right.

Now do that again. And again. Some days you feel better in your body than others, some days you feel worse. But even when you feel great, this feeling is still nagging at you.

Dysphoria: [dis-fawr-ee-uh] (noun) a state of dissatisfaction, anxiety, restlessness, or fidgeting

Gender and body dysphoria is, therefore, dysphoria pertaining specifically to one’s gender or body. I am currently experiencing some really bad gender/body dysphoria.

I’m neutrois. That means that my ideal body is free of all sexual characteristics. I don’t want breasts, or a vagina, or to be immediately recognizable as female. I don’t want hair except on my head. I don’t want my voice to be quite so high.

Right now, the fact that I am immediately gendered, immediately recognized as female even though it’s not true is distressing. I’m extremely uncomfortable and annoyed that everyone misgenders me, and would honestly much rather be sitting by myself in a corner with a book and some tea rather than out on campus where everyone thinks that they know I’m a girl.

Dysphoria is somewhat pervasive in the trans* community, where there is usually an inherent conflict between one’s gender and one’s body. Not all trans* people feel dysphoric, some do sometimes, some don’t at all. Personally, I only feel dysphoric sometimes.

What to do to ease dysphoria is different for everybody, and I haven’t found or heard of any surefire way to make it better. Personally, I wear a binder to hide my breasts. I like to dress up, wearing a button-down, a tie, and slacks. I wear a lot of layers – binder/sports bra, undershirt, t-shirt, sweatshirt. I slouch more to hide any curve of my chest. I drink a lot of tea. But these things don’t fix the problem, they just make it a little easier to deal with.

Right now, I’m hiding in some baggy men’s jeans, my binder, a unisex t-shirt, and a three-sizes-too-big sweatshirt with a hood vaguely reminiscent of a Jedi robe. And, despite all of this form-hiding, baggy, masculine/androgynous clothing, I still feel too gendered. I feel like I stand out, like everything I’m wearing is neon orange with bright purple stripes and a glowing sign above my head saying, “Look at me, I’m female”. It’s hard to talk to people, to look them in the eye, to even go outside, knowing that they are all so unconsciously certain that they have me correctly gendered. Even going to class today was a battle, knowing that in German we would be talking about gendered nouns and that in French I would have to refer to myself with female-gendered words. Even if I had been quiet in every class (which I couldn’t be, so I had to listen to my too high voice all day), just sitting there knowing that everyone in the room assumed they knew my gender was torture.

One of the most annoying things is that (most) people don’t even realize that they’re gendering the people they encounter. They see someone on the street and automatically judge whether to use masculine pronouns or feminine pronouns. One irritating part of dysphoria for me is being sure that everybody will automatically label me female forever. That no matter what I do or say or wear, I will never be seen as anything more than a girl.

The single worst part of feeling dysphoric for me, though, is my complete inability to feel comfortable in my skin. I am anxious and fidgety, and constantly something feels wrong about me. My body doesn’t fit right. It’s not the way I know it should be.

How does this relate to you if you’re cisgender? Try to pay attention to how you judge other people. Next time you walk around near other people, watch how you think about them, notice how quickly you gender them in your head. The next step is to try and stop judging people so quickly. If someone looks male, it doesn’t mean they are. If someone wears a skirt, it doesn’t mean they’re female. Gender identity is different for everyone, and some men like to wear skirts while some women like to wear ties.

I guess what I want you to get from this is, besides a basic understanding of dysphoria as it pertains to me, is that sometimes your unconscious judgements can hurt people. I know I’ve talked about things like that before, but honestly. If we can stop jumping to conclusions about people, I think the world would be nicer. Not free of dysphoria, but perhaps easier to deal with.

New Standards of Care

WPATH Announces New Standards of Care for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People

This article came out today, and I couldn’t be more excited.

First of all, WPATH is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

Second, the standards of care are very important to transgender people who want to transition. Transitioning can mean any combination of hormonal treatment, voice therapy, or one or several surgeries – or none of these things. Transitioning usually (I say usually because I don’t know everyone’s personal experiences) has the end goal of living full-time as the trans* person’s true gender rather than the sex they were assigned at birth.

The Harry Benjamin Standards of Care were the ones most often used, at least before these new ones (titled “Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People”) were announced. The HBSoC are called “The Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorder”, and while a good idea in theory, often made it too difficult for one to transition. They required a minimum amount of psychotherapy before any surgery or hormones, and a year of living as the target gender (along with psychotherapy) before getting a hysterectomy or the testicles removed. Unfortunately, I’ve heard that the therapy often asked the trans* person to “prove” their trans-ness before the therapist would (or could, I’m not sure) do anything to help. The article gives me hope that this will no longer be the case:

“There is no one way of being transgender and it doesn’t have to mirror the idea of a change of their sex,” Bockting explained.

This same quotation also implies that these standards of care will not discriminate against non-binary genders. The article goes on to confirm that:

Another major change, Bockting explained, is that the standards “allow for a broader spectrum of identities – they are no longer so binary.” …

“These standards allow for a gender queer person to have breasts removed without ever taking hormones,” he said.

This is extremely important.

The HBSoC do not recognize non-binary genders, only binary ones – trans women and trans men. I have heard cases of non-binary people pretending to be binary so that they could transition, only to be forced to transition entirely to the “opposite” gender and experience just as many, if not more, problems. But now, a trans* person no longer is required to take hormones to have surgery, which means that if I wanted, I could begin transitioning to a body more in line with my gender identity without having to take testosterone.

Taking T (a common abbreviation used for testosterone) would not help me feel more comfortable in my body at all, it would just give me different things to feel uncomfortable about. But if I wanted top surgery (surgery to get my breasts removed), then that would have been a requirement. Not any more. And since this was a major item in the con column for me every considering transitioning, it might now be possible for me to get my “female” genitalia removed without being forced to transition to male. But that’s a thought for the future, not for right now, when I’m a poor college student. But it’s hopeful. And that’s really what matters right now.

“No Dumb Questions”

So there’s this short film titled “No Dumb Questions” that we watched at the Gender Identity workshop I mentioned in my previous post that I want to talk about. The discussion facilitator loves this film, praised it up and down, so I expected something much better than what I got.

The premise of the film is this, as quoted from the official website:

Uncle Bill is becoming a woman!

This lighthearted and poignant documentary profiles three sisters, ages 6, 9 and 11, struggling to understand why and how their Uncle Bill is becoming a woman.

These girls love their Uncle Bill, but will they feel the same way when he becomes their new Aunt Barbara?

With just weeks until Bill’s first visit as Barbara, the sisters navigate the complex territories of anatomy, sexuality, personality, gender and fashion. Their reactions are funny, touching, and distinctly different.

This film offers a fresh perspective on a complex situation from a family that insists there are no dumb questions.

I was going to bold the particular things that annoyed me, but I would have bolded nearly the entire thing.

The first thing that makes me cringe is the first sentence. “Uncle Bill”. “Becoming a woman.”

To begin with, if a transgender person has a preferred name, you should refer to them by that name. This woman is not Bill, even if that was her preferred name before. Her name is Barbara, and you should refer to her as such.

Second, she is not “becoming” a woman. She is a woman. I understand that it’s difficult to adjust when someone you’ve known for years and years, sometimes your whole life, suddenly tells you that they have a new name and different pronouns. It might take you a little while to consistently use the correct pronouns and name. They understand that as well, as long as you show an effort to fix your mistakes. But what you have to understand in turn is that this person you’ve known for so long is still the same person. They took a huge risk in sharing this important part of themselves with you. Continuing to refer to them by their old name and pronouns (this is part of misgendering someone – referring to them as an incorrect gender) is a slap in the face. They might just be words to you, but they really do mean things.

Being misgendered is often a daily part of a trans* person’s life, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good or okay thing. Some people are deeply affected by being misgendered, and that is not something you want to subject anybody to, especially not someone you are close to.

And yet, throughout the entire film, Barbara is referred to as “(Uncle) Bill”, “my brother”, “he”, etc. Not once were the girls corrected on their pronoun and name usage. They were adorable, but it seemed to me that they just “made the misgendering adorable”. They’re kids of very different developmental stages, so it was interesting to see how ingrained their ideas of gender were – but it was painful to see how quickly they internalized their parents’ (subtle) transphobia and homophobia. The two older girls ran away the first time they saw Barbara, deeming it scary and strange. They treated the idea of their aunt being a lesbian as strange. The youngest, though still using incorrect pronouns and name (because she was never corrected), was the least affected by transphobia. She had no problem at all playing with her aunt, talking with her – everything the children had done with Aunt Barbara before she came out.

The parents are a different story. Despite being older, they certainly didn’t know better. They consistently used the wrong pronouns and name. They didn’t direct their children’s questions to Barbara, nor did they tell them that some of those questions were inappropriate to ask (such as, “Will she still have a penis?”). They didn’t seem like they were asking Barbara many questions at all, in fact. They just patted themselves on the back for being so “accepting” and continued on misgendering her.

They probably didn’t even realize that they were, in fact, doing something wrong.

There definitely are dumb questions. Without a doubt. Things such as, “Are you going to have The Surgery?” “Will you still have a penis/vagina?” “How do you have sex/masturbate?” “What’s your original name?” Those are all stupid questions to ask someone.

However, just because a question is stupid, doesn’t mean you can never ask it ever. Depending on the situation and how well you know the trans* person, you might (key word here, folks) be able to ask some of them. If someone you just met comes out as trans*, please don’t ask them about their genitalia (unless for some reason it’s relevant to you). Imagine for a minute, that you have this conversation:

Stranger: Hi, I’m Alex.
You: Hi, I’m <name>.
Stranger: Nice to meet you. Do you have a penis or a vagina?

Weird, right? Don’t do it to somebody else just because you’re curious.

I guess the main point of this ramble was don’t misgender people. Use their preferred name and pronouns. It’s okay to make mistakes sometimes – it’s hard to change your speech, especially if you’re trying to change a years old habit. But it’s not okay to just make no effort to correct yourself.

And that’s why I don’t like “No Dumb Questions”. I don’t think it’s a good introduction to trans* issues at all, unless you want to instill all the wrong impressions. I would rather not show a intro film at all than show this.

For me, educating is one of the most important things I can do to “help the cause”. I like explaining gender and sexuality (particularly as they pertain to me, but also the basic Non-Heterosexual/Non-Cisgender 101), I don’t get offended when people ask me questions, and I just really enjoy teaching people about this stuff.

I attended a Gender Identity workshop and a Safe Zones workshop the other day, and having somebody else educate people (and me) was almost surreal. She was a cool person, funny and engaging, and I liked her a lot. She is gay, and the perspective she had on LGB issues was interesting and insightful.

She is also cisgender, however, and that makes it difficult for her to fully understand trans* concepts. I’m not saying that cisgender people can’t be good allies or can’t really get the lives of trans* people – actually, I am kind of saying the latter. Cis people can’t really get the lives of trans* people, just as the opposite holds true. And that makes it harder to teach other (mostly cis) people.

She didn’t do a bad job. I rather enjoyed the Gender Identity workshop. However, there were a few problems with the way she set it up. Firstly, she didn’t introduce the word “cisgender”,  just “transgender” and “transsexual”. This seemed very othering to me; though I’m sure she didn’t do it on purpose, it reeked of, “These people need a label because they’re different, and we don’t need a label because we’re normal.” That didn’t really sit well with me.

She also never mentioned that trans men are real men and that trans women are real women. This may seem trivial, but to a room of people who haven’t thought much about trans* people, stating this clearly would be really helpful.

The other main thing I had a problem with was how the matter of cis privilege was handled. She only mentioned briefly the horrors of being trans* in a cis privileged world – however, we spent quite a while on how privilege negatively affects the privileged.

This really bothered me. Discussing how privilege negatively affects everyone, even the privileged, is fine. But to focus almost completely on that? No. Privilege exists, and it puts other people at an extreme disadvantage. Being unprivileged in terms of gender identity is not something to gloss over, especially while talking to a room of mostly cisgender people who don’t really know what trans* people live through because of their lack of privilege.

I did like the woman who ran the workshops. She was nice, funny, knowledgeable, and a good ally. She explained things well and was engaging. Those two things just didn’t sit well with me, and it seemed to me that her being cisgender had a lot to do with it.

I think that if someone wants to educate people like this, that’s fantastic. But they should also ensure that they are fair to all people being represented, and aren’t inadvertently exerting any privilege.

I’m in an aromantic relationship.

Before you ask, no I can’t tell you exactly why the feelings I have for Joyce aren’t romantic. Can you tell me exactly why your feelings are romantic (if they are)? If you actually can, by all means let me know. But I haven’t found anyone yet who could.

English, and every language that I’ve studied a bit and heard about, is very bad at defining relationships. We have friendship. Okay, that’s typically platonic. Then there’s love. Which is often romantic, but also platonic because of familial love and friendship love. But, in all the potential for human feeling and experience, are we to assume that romantic love and platonic love are really the only kinds of love we’re capable of? We can love activities, hobbies, pets, right? And the love we feel for each of these things varies a little. So why can’t a love exist that’s neither romantic nor platonic?

Basically, there’s no word for the relationship I have. I don’t even have words to describe it that differentiate it from a “typical” sexual/romantic relationship even though it is neither romantic nor sexual. It’s under the “love” umbrella, but it doesn’t fit under romantic or platonic.

And if you go to my school and have seen us around campus, you probably assumed we were just another gay couple. We hold hands. We kiss each others’ cheeks and hands. We hug a lot. We put our arms around each other. By all means, we look like just another homosexual couple. But we’re not. It’s not your fault for judging this way, so don’t feel bad about that. Our society isn’t even 100% aware of asexuality as it exists outside of hyposexual disorders, let alone aromanticism. Just realize that sometimes what you assume to be correct about people is actually quite wrong. And if you can try to stop jumping to conclusions about people, or at least recognize that what you see may not be all there is, then that would be nice.

Invisibility: A Visible Person’s Guide

If you’re heteroromantic heterosexual and cisgender, you might not know what being invisible feels like. Let me try and explain.

When you go to the doctor’s office and you fill out a form, you probably just check off the appropriate Male or Female gender box.

When you go to the department store, you probably just wander to the appropriate clothing section.

When you fill out a survey, you probably just check off the appropriate Heterosexual (or Homosexual or Bisexual) box.

When you’re in class, you probably talk about how sexuality is part of human nature.

When you see a couple walking together, you probably assume they’re sexually active.

When I go to the doctor’s office, I hesitate before checking the Female box because I’m not. I can’t check the Male box because that doesn’t fit either.

When I go to the department store, I hesitate before wandering toward either clothing section.

When I fill out a survey, I can’t check off Heterosexual, Homosexual, or Bisexual. My orientation isn’t acknowledged.

When I’m in class, I also talk about how sexuality is human nature. Even though it’s not relevant to me.

When I insist that my relationship is asexual (and aromantic, but I’ll explain that some other time) people don’t believe me because it’s just so obvious that we’re having sex.

Many people assume that because they’ve never heard of the words I use to identify myself, that they have the right to tell me I’m wrong. They can, because they are heterosexual and cisgender (or even some homo/bisexual and some binary trans people have given me trouble) tell me that my feelings can’t exist.

If you identify as what I mentioned earlier, you’ve probably never had your identity questioned. Never had to worry about not being included. If you’re heterosexual and cisgender, you might not have even given any thought to your orientation or your gender – you can just take them for granted. What you have to know and remember is that there are plenty of people who can’t. There are plenty of people who aren’t even acknowledged.

If your identities are widely accepted and acknowledged, I hope that this helps you realize that you’re lucky in that regard. And please remember that not everyone is privileged like that.