“is it wrong for a cisgendered person to wear a binder?”

I went to check up on the stats for this blog, and found that somebody stumbled onto it by Googling the above question.

So I’m gonna answer it:

No. It’s not wrong at all.

Binders are not a limited commodity. They are mass-produced. If you don’t want to or can’t buy one, you can even make your own with cheap, easy-to-buy materials (if you’re interested in more information on that, let me know).

I had a hard time letting myself buy a binder, thinking that only trans men or transmasculine people had “the right” to bind their chests. Eventually, though, after talking to some people about it, I realized exactly what I’m telling you right now. You should do what feels right for you. Binding is not a special privilege limited only to masculine-identified people. Binding is something to be done if it makes you feel more comfortable in your body. Or if you’re cosplaying. Or if you just want to.

But the point is this:

If you want to bind, go for it. It’s your body.

Just please don’t use ace bandages or tape.

Everyday Cissexism

Cissexism is, among other things, the assumption that everyone is cisgender. That people with penises are men and that people with vaginas are women. I hope by now you can see how this is a harmful idea.

I interact with a lot of trans* and otherwise queer people on a daily basis, and sometimes I forget how cissexist the Real World is. And then I stumbled upon the site Dear Blank Please Blank – which is an entertaining site, to be honest. But then I found this, and just saw red:

Dear health class movies,

why do you always say “the male penis…?”

Sincerely, is there a female penis?

Yes, there is in fact a “female penis”. The penis is not an inherently male thing.

And yet, the world at large sees no problem with this kind of thing. Most people don’t even realize that they are erasing entire groups of people – not even just trans* people, but intersex people as well.

And it’s not just this. I bet you’ve heard tons of stuff like this, maybe even said things like this, without even thinking about it. How many jokes about “chicks with dicks” have you made or heard or seen? How many jokes about other people that you see because you can’t automatically discern what their gender is?

Stuff like this needs to stop. It’s not funny, it’s hurtful.

I’m too annoyed to write more about this right now. Please, pay attention to what you say. Language is important. And jokes aren’t funny if they hurt or erase people.

A Brief Note on Education

I’ve mentioned before that educating people on LGBTQetc issues is important to me and that I enjoy doing it.

Something important to understand, though, is that that is extremely specific to me.

Educating is hard. I’m aromantic, asexual, agender, and neutrois. People automatically want to know things about that – and they tend to ask questions without considering how invasive or personal or rude they are. Do I masturbate? But I’m in a relationship, how am I aromantic? Do I want The Surgery? (“The Surgery” is a common misconception of medically transitioning using Sexual Reassignment Surgery, which are actually multiple surgeries) Am I sure that I’m not just gay? Am I sure that I’m not just a girl who doesn’t like traditional gender roles? Am I sure I’m not just a trans man? How can I be sure that it’s not just a phase? What does transgender even mean? What does asexual even mean? Are these things even possible for humans? Can I explain every small detail of being trans*/asexual/aromantic?

And even for me, the storm of questions gets tiring. It’s mostly the same generic questions, which I have a spiel to answer, and then some horribly invasive ones.

Now, if this gets tiring for me, someone who enjoys educating, imagine someone who doesn’t like talking about it being asked day after day to explain the same basic concepts that they have discussed a hundred times.

It’s not fair to expect someone to answer your questions just because they’re trans* or ace or aromantic or any identity that’s not heteroromantic heterosexual and cisgender.

You might say, “But if you don’t teach them, how will they learn?” The same way I learned. The same way other trans* and asexual and pansexual and such have learned – Google. Google is your friend. If you search for something basic, like “what is asexuality?” you’ll come up with things that will answer that question. You can find tons of information on the Internet without having to worry. And if you need more information, there are places online (like here) where people will be more than happy to explain. But please, don’t expect someone “different” to answer all of your questions, or even some of them. They’ve probably explained the same thing a hundred thousand times, and that gets really tiring.

Keep in mind that this does not mean that you’re not allowed to ask questions. If someone seems open to explaining, feel free to ask – just make sure you don’t ask anything too invasive unless they’ve explicitly stated, “I don’t mind answering questions about X.” Personally, I’ll answer just about any question. But it’s very important to keep in mind that if you’re heteroromantic, heterosexual, and cisgender, you live in a very different world from people who are not. And they might not want to answer your questions, especially if you don’t pay attention to how you ask them.

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.

Lobsterfest

Juniata College has this tradition called Lobsterfest each fall in which every club on campus can get a table and sign people up. A few friends and I put together a club called Trans* Parachute United, and this was our first Lobsterfest. Basically, this meant that I got to sit on the quad at a table by myself for three hours in the hot sun while people walked past and gave me weird looks.

Now I had wanted to look as androgynous as possible, which would normally mean wearing my binder (a shirt-type-thing that kind of squishes the developed breast tissue and pushes it away from normal boob area to achieve a flatter/more “masculine” chest) along with a button-down shirt. It was, unfortunately, far too hot for that. It was way too hot even for the t-shirt and jeans I was wearing. And, since you may not know, wearing a binder when you’re sweaty results in prolonged feelings of stickiness and grossness and general discomfort.

But while I was sitting in gross discomfort at the T*PU table, I had a paper in front of me with the Gender Diamond on it.

On the top of the paper, I wrote “Where are you on the gender diamond?” (I had also replaced “Polygender” with “Other Gender” and “Genderless” with “Agender” in fitting with my personal definitions) and had a Sharpie next to it. I labeled my own gender right at the very bottom point and encouraged everyone who came up to me to label theirs as well. I am friends with many of the people that put themselves on the diamond, and have had gender-related conversations with most of them, but there were still some really interesting things I noticed.

1. Almost everyone hesitated at putting down a point, often changing their mind at the last minute before placing a dot
2. Even people who said, “I am definitely cis” didn’t place themselves at the extreme point of their birth-assigned gender (except for one)

Point two is especially interesting to me. These people did place their dots, for the most part, within the circle I would consider cisgender, but several fell closer to the purple center than I expected. This isn’t to say that I doubt that such people aren’t cisgender – if they say they’re cis, and that’s what they identify as, then that’s their decision. I was just a little intrigued by the cisgender people placing themselves closer to the purple than I would have initially guessed. I certainly expected more dots on the feminine and masculine corners than were there.

I also thought it was interesting that people who never seemed to question their gender before hesitated greatly before finally placing their dot.

Overall, it was a good day. A bunch of people came over to the table for information. Most of them wandered off giving me strange looks, but a few people looked honestly interested. I’m glad that we’re around to get the word out and help educate people. If we want to get anything accomplished, we need to make sure everyone knows we exist.

(Eventually people will know what neutrois means… Eventually. XD)

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.