To E*, or not to E
To E*, or not to E, that is the question, y’all — for realz!
Since coming out as trans (in my case, as gender-nonconformist, but still shifting gender), I’ve become part of a secret society. It’s not exaggeration. Suddenly, people who have been right in front of me have let down there guard to inform me of there trans identity. It never occurred to me that my bank-teller, that electrician, that physician and so many of the people I encounter daily are trans. I’d like to say it doesn’t matter. Only someone who is not trans would consider that.
Trans folx, especially trans folx of color are the number one target of violent crimes, including murder. Who would want to telegraph that? Who would intentionally put up with the blatant hostility and ignorance of the general public over the issues of trans people (the bathroom thing is just the tip of the iceberg)? Trust, no one is trans who doesn’t have to be. I guess it’s no different than any other “calling.” It is an unrelenting voice that can only be silenced by full acknowledgment, regardless of external inputs.
I feel ill-equipped to talk about being trans, that’s a feature of the system that violently suppresses anything that doesn’t fit this far-fetched dominant narrative. That’s the reWe are meant to feel alienated from each other. We are meant to feel alone. We are meant to feel fear about being who we are. I’ve been claiming my identity since I was five years old and have the bruises to prove it. I’ve been privileged as male-presenting. That doesn’t help when one is trying to shed that identity.
I will always have been conditioned in an environment that elevates masculinity (whatever that is — to be masculine). Regardless of what I might do to transform my appearance, my carriage is that of someone who can intimidate without even thinking about it. When I walk into a space, I’m am conferred authority. I’ve cultivated a voice and manner that shield me from the shit other trans people might experience. Still, that person is not me. I’m not my height, my skin color, or my gender presentation. I am the person I have forged in spite of how the world sees me.
I was literally born for this. I’ve always expressed myself outside gender expectations. When I was a kid that was just being a “faggot” or a “sissy.” The rhetoric around being trans, is that one is simply a cis-person who is broken or confused. That message gets internalized early, so that I constantly interrogate everything around my queerness. It’s being gas-lit every second of my life. “No, you are not who you say you are!” I’m sure that attitude is encountered by most people to some extent. To be met with that regarding something as fundamental as gender, was devastating.
Corrective treatment, regardless of how much fear I’ve experienced around it, is not about other people. I don’t need approval or understanding. Living trans is as essential as breathing. For taste of life in denial of one’s true gender (as I experience it) , hold your breath for 30 seconds, breathe for 30 and then hold your breath again. Do that for 50 years, then tell me about the experience. Okay, go! Transitioning in what manner I might (name, attire, hormones or surgery) is “to be.” The alternative is “not to be.” Denying myself the opportunity to explore corrective treatment is turning off the respirator on my life.
