Human

It’s time for me to stand up and be counted as part of the trans rights movement.

Given the current cataclysm of democracy, it’s time for every one of us to be louder about All The Things, but this particular issue is personal. I’m not trans, but I am noticeably bad at being cis-gendered. Yeah, that’s me in the ragged T-shirt and the cargo pants from the men’s rack at Value Village. I enjoy heavy carpentry and recreational math. I wrangle my hair with a rubber band. In my 52 years, I’ve never owned makeup, nail polish, earrings, razors, or a purse.

The fact that I have never really felt mentally or emotionally female (or male) is no secret; I describe myself that way in a chapter in Rebecca Thompson’s newly published book about motherhood (Held Together), and I blogged about it as long ago as 2013 (How to Be a Zero). Long before that, it was probably obvious to those who knew me.

Or maybe it wasn’t. I live in a society that is fairly tolerant of unfeminine women -- especially when they are straight, white, educated, middle-aged, and married with kids. Despite never completely conforming, I’ve mostly had it easy. I say “mostly” because puberty was a hellscape that it took me years to recover from. Alienation and dysphoria are topics for a different day, but it’s important to note that the fact that I leaned to live with the cards I was dealt does not mean that everyone should, or can. However, because I could, I’ve enjoyed a lot of safety and privilege. This means that I am exactly the kind of person who should defend those who are much more vulnerable.

So why haven’t I been loudly claiming one of the labels now available for enby-ish folks? Why haven’t I shown up with more flags at more rallies? And why haven’t I stepped up to be a mentor, or at least a listening ear? The short answer is that a few years ago, as the trans movement started to gain ground (and, alas, draw more hateful attention) I wanted to leap in, but I found myself struggling with feelings of loss.

It took me a long time to explain that to myself, and to start coming to terms with it. The crux was that recognizing the irrefutable existence (and struggles) of trans people required that I believe in gender. I don’t mean “gender separate from biological sex” (noting that biological sex also has a wide range of naturally occurring variations) but rather “gender as something that exists at all”. Believing in gender as anything other than a social construct required upending my worldview. It made me feel alone.

In defense of my logic, gender is widely recognized by psychologists and sociologists as being at least partly a construct. How people define “masculine” and “feminine” differs enormously across cultures and eras. Who wears high heels? Wigs? Rouge? Who does the farming or the fishing? It depends. Plus, humans are clearly capable of assiduous (and violent) group-think relating to categories that are not innate, such as nationality or sports-team fandom. For me, gender seemed like that: a flimsy construct built from prejudices, social norms, early conditioning, and habit. It wasn’t hard to convince myself that everyone else was, essentially, brainwashed and faking it.  

The best analogy I can come up with is blood type. Biologically, I have Type O+ blood. I’m suffused with the stuff. Fine, whatever. But if society obsessively labeled me as “O+” and demanded that I dress, act, and think like an O+, I’d feel gaslit: a frustrated disbeliever.  Likewise, ever since I was a little kid, boy-stuff and girl-stuff – all the divisions of pronouns, toys, clothes, friendships, hobbies, emotions, and every other damn thing -- felt burdensome, arbitrary, and just…not real. It was easy to persuade myself that my gender-free viewpoint was an enlightened one.

I was wrong about gender. In recent years I’ve had to admit that to myself. Cultural details may vary, in terms of who works in accounting or wears skirts, and science has yet to conclusively find gender markers in our brains, but it’s now clear that most people really do “feel” either female or male in a way that I do not. I struggle to “get” trans-ness because I also struggle to “get” cis-ness. Shifting my worldview is challenging. It requires rewriting my beliefs, and trying (again) to figure out who I am.

Many people are choosing new labels and pronouns. I’m glad of it, for their sakes, but it doesn’t solve my problem, because I never wanted to claim a non-gender for myself; I wanted the world to ditch the whole concept of gender. That’s not going to happen, so I’ve added “she/they” to my email signature. It’s not precisely right, but it comes closest to what I want to say.

In some ways, I should be an excellent trans ally. In other ways, I’m clearly terrible at this. Cis people who do “feel” their gender might be better equipped than I am to empathize, but it doesn’t always seem to work that way. I get it. Shifting worldviews is hard. But being kind and accepting of other humans?  That’s not that hard -- and it’s always, always worth it.

Standing up and being counted feels important, because large, vocal, visible minorities are harder to marginalize. When I hear people (usually my age or older) arguing that this is a “fad”… yeah, no. If a group of people have been hiding to escape persecution, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. The classic example is left-handedness, which was noted in only 3% of Americans around 1900, when lefties were met with suppression and suspicion, but which has held steady since the 1960s at 12%. Shout-out to the right-handed Boomers who normalized their “sinister” classmates!

Gen Z didn’t invent gender, or trans-ness, or dysphoria. They didn’t create the confusion, and they certainly didn’t create the hatred and anger; on the contrary, they started trying to unravel it, diffuse it, solve it. They broadened the ways in which we’re able to talk about ourselves, express ourselves, and be ourselves.

Has this process been perfect? Of course not. Is it complete?  Clearly, no. I’m lucky in that I don’t need anything – medication, specialized medical care, access, different bathrooms, a new name, or different pronouns. I don’t even particularly need emotional support or guidance, not now. But I sure could have used some help and understanding back when I was fourteen. Thus I – and I suspect millions of people like me, who have lurked awkwardly and semi-invisibly for decades – do have a role to play, even if it’s simply noting that we exist. People are suffering. Kids are endangered. I have to try.

So – hi. Here I am, a Gen X human who is maybe a bit different from most people, but maybe also a lot like some people? I honestly don’t know.  But I’m ready to get loud about it.