"I will respect and support your need to identify as a wuss"
If a tree falls in the forest where no-one can hear it, does it still make a sound? If a trans guy isn't completely out, even to himself, is he still trans?
The story so far: I saw a psychiatrist who, in an unparalleled display of empathy and support, decided that the challenges of being gender dysphoric and pregnant were greater than the challenges of avoiding my third relationship fuck-up within a year, despite the fact that the latter rather than the former had prompted me to seek psychiatric help. When I tried to explain that I didn't see parenthood as intrinsically gendered, he waved my objections away, asked whether I intended to breastfeed and took my affirmative answer as clinching proof of his thesis.
As a response to that, I wrote
Lady Madonna, baby at your breast, in which I tried to make my case that breastfeeding and a diagnosis of gender dysphoria needn't be incompatible, that my gender dysphoria is far more complicated than "wanting to be a man" and that I've more or less made my peace with the girlie body parts and the things they can and can't do.
Jay Sennett was
inspired and impressed by my post and felt moved to hold me up as an example of a brave pregnant transman sharing his feelings with the world. I, of course, felt moved to immediately disclaim all compliments, especially the suggestion that I was in any way courageous, because I'm still living in female role and don't even consider myself a "proper" transman.
Jay and another trans guy basically told me that a gender identity I haven't acted on is still a gender identity and that I was, too, brave. I resist the suggestion that I'm brave, but it's got me thinking, what is a transman anyway?
About a year before I started seriously questioning my gender, I watched a documentary about trans men at various stages of transition (diagnosis, hormones, top surgery and lower surgery). I was fascinated by the similarities between me and them, but the thought of appropriating a piece of their label seemed almost blasphemous. Here were men who suffered all manner of pain through being forced to live as women, and I, who voluntarily puts on a dress from time to time, dared say, "Hey, guys, I'm a bit like you."
Every time I interact with (other?) trans guys, that's been my attitude. I say that I'm questioning, exploring, that I like shaving and binding and pitching my voice low on the phone, that I prefer to be called "Nick" and squirm with delight when someone reads me as male, and then hastily add that I'm not FtM, I'm not trans, I'm just questioning and I'll shut up now so y'all can talk about the important stuff that affects "proper" transmen. When trans guys accept me without qualification as one of their own, I feel guilty, as if I'm somehow conning them and claiming a kinship I have no right to.
I discussed this more than once with my friend Sam. In his usual forthright way, he told me I was talking crap. For every trans guy who knew from birth that he was a boy and wondered why his parents insisted on turning him into a girl, there's a guy who grew up with a nagging feeling that something didn't quite fit somewhere and didn't put his finger on just what it was until he learned about the existence of transfolk. And, he informed me, every trans guy who learned late and gradually what he was has been where I am now.
Would I turn round to some guy who goes by his boy name in general conversation but his girl name in official contexts, who enjoys fucking men and doesn't see why he should give it up, who loves to be seen as male but is afraid to permanently alter his body in the interests of bringing that about, and tell him that he isn't a "proper" transman and should just shut up about gender already? If it was some other guy, I know I wouldn't, and yet I have no qualms about effectively telling myself just that.
When you're defining your gender, you start by dipping a toe very tentatively into the water. It feels OK, so you put the rest of your foot in, then the rest of your leg, and slowly you ease your whole self into the water. And even when you think you're comfortably in as far as you need to be, you sometimes hit a cold spot, or something slimy brushes against your leg and sends you scuttling for the safety of the shallows. I believed, quite sincerely, that I was comfortable with my gender identity now. And yet, I feel compelled to run away with all speed from the label of transman.
I take a step back and start to understand that my gender is still a work in progress. My comfort lately comes from accepting that it's a work in progress rather than jumping for definitive answers, from embracing the apparent contradictions rather than trying to explain them all away and fit myself into one box or another. The label bothers me because it has a connotation - which, for all I know, it doesn't have for Jay - of having reached a conclusion. Rightly or wrongly, I interpret "transman" as meaning someone who has at least begun the process of transitioning, not at all an accurate term for someone who casts envious glances at drag kings with the nerve to cut their hair.