(This is my submission to the next Carnival of Feminists, Wednesday over at Amber’s place (final link will go up when it does). One of the available essay topics was male allies in feminism, and this seemed appropriate.)
(I’ve been meaning to finish this post for a while now, which is why the first link is so old.)
Over at Alas, FurryCatHerder and I got into a fairly interesting discussion about feminist transition (not actually a contradiction in terms). The back-and-forth started with a comment by Angiportus:
When a local library acquired some guides to transitioning, I was startled by how limited and utterly stereotyped was the ideal that the trans-t0-be was urged to shooot for. Just another pigeonhole.
That was 10 or so years back, but newer guides have not yet appeared. Keep up the good work and maybe they will.
I pointed out that most people these days go online when they can: it’s sometimes cheaper, it frequently affords more anonymity, and it offers a much broader range of information than a single book can.
FurryCatHerder responded thusly:
I find that the modern on-line community is a disaster. There’s a lot of emphasis on passing though an uncritical embrace of highly stereotyped behaviors.
I’m bi (like, Kinsey 5.9 :) ), but I mostly date women and in the lesbian community there is no shortage of women who are called “Sir” on a regular basis. The women that happens to understand why it happens and aren’t anywhere near as offended as transsexual and transgender women are when someone calls them “Sir”.
So, yeah, while there is an on-line trans universe, I don’t think it’s providing helpful or particularly feminist information to people contemplating a sex change.
I’m going to try to spell out my thoughts here.
First of all, there’s a lot out there, and your search is truncated to your needs. A married forty-year-old transguy living in Utah will find different information than a fifteen-year-old ft? livejournaller living in San Francisco. The “online trans universe” is more like a set of parallel ones connected by the occasional wormhole. Because I have no interest in becoming a woman, I have not spent anywhere near as much time looking at information available to those transpeople who want to become women. Because I am not married, I don’t know what resources someone looking to preserve or end a marriage might encounter. It’s worth pointing out as well that some of the deepest gulfs in networking exist between transmale and transfemale communities.
Second, there are certainly unabashedly sexist transguys, and guys who consider stereotypical male presentation cues to be part of manhood in general. They exist. I have no reason to believe that they are less likely in general to make use of the internet. I mean, what’s more phallic than a series of tubes?
However, I wouldn’t put them in the majority by any means. In fact, what I’ve encountered more often is a different, related problem with transition and feminism.
I call it The Passion of the Secret Vagina.
I hate race/transgender analogies, because they so frequently compare scars instead of dynamics. But maybe this one will serve this purpose. What Furrycatherder is talking about is someone who believes that womanhood is the same as stereotypical femininity, that it is impossible to be a woman if you are not feminine, and that your womanhood is indisputable if you are. Call it the Farrah Fallacy. This would be analagous to someone who is unabashedly racist, I suppose, or suffering from internalized racism.
What I see, as often if not more so, are transmen who consider themselves to be deeply feminist, so much so that they cannot cope with the idea that they are becoming men. They cannot admit to the privilege they receive by virtue of doing so. This would be analagous to the baby anti-racist white kid so suffocated by shame and guilt that he becomes obsessed with negating his whiteness and white privilege. That white kid has failed to understand that neither one is consensual, but rather inalienable, and that the point is not self-delusion but awareness.
This condition is paralyzing, but it has worse effects. Transmen get to be men. Most of us pass as male, whether or not we particularly want to. That means that the people around us see us as male and treat us as male. That means that we have access to male privilege, unlike people who are seen as female. While it is absolutely true that transsexuality and numerous other factors complicate this privilege, that not all of us pass all the time, that we are frequently unconventionally male, and that being outed as transsexual would compromise our safety, we no longer suffer from misogyny the way that women do. Catcalls, for example. Not one strange man on the street has groped anything since I transitioned. When we deny the difference, we end up denying not only the way that sexism functions in our lives but the way that it functions in general. In other words, we end up arguing from an anti-feminist position.
Sometimes, this need to cling to an assigned female identity is self-serving. It is used as grounds for inclusion in queer women’s spaces, and as a shield against any allegations of misogyny. Sometimes, it has to do with an inability to leave an old community behind. Sometimes, it has to do with internalized transphobia–because of course no one can really change sex–or with a simple lag between outside reception and self-image. Sometimes, it is done in the service of a genderqueer identity, or an identity that is somehow complex. I respect the importance of community ties, and I do not believe that anyone should have to cut their history apart in order to be truly transsexual. All of that must be reconciled with the truth of how transition changes our lives. Any other approach is far more steeped in denial than “passing” will ever be.
I have a perfect example of denial, from a personal blog I’m gonna refrain from linking to. It’s his private space, and I don’t know him too well, so you’re just gonna have to take my word for it. The guy was ranting, which is another reason I’m not gonna hang him out to dry. He had recently been in a discussion with ftms, most or all further along in transition, who saw themselves as men, or possibly men with a little something different. They lived as men and wanted to be seen as men. They were not out to most of the people in their lives–coworkers, managers, casual acquaintances, housemates, friends of friends, somewhat closer friends, certain in-laws. Their partners, families, physicians, and close friends knew, but not many other people. Some of them saw their transsexuality in terms of their medical privacy or their history. They no longer identified primary as trans, and some had ceased to identify as trans at all.
Dude was incensed. Sellouts! Cowards! Traitors! I’m never gonna forget my female life! I’m never gonna go stealth!* I’m never gonna pass! I’m never gonna lie to people! I’m always gonna be a woman and have these woman parts and that will always always always be a part of me and my life! I’m never gonna be like men! Because I have a cooter!
I was reading this and thinking, Do you even hear yourself?
He’s an ftm, too, but earlier in transition. At the time of the j’accuse, he did not pass consistently and might not have been passing at all. His life in transition had not advanced to the point where he had started a job or grad-school program as a passing transguy, or moved to a new city as a passing transguy, or started dating someone as a passing transguy. He came out to people as male-identified, not as originally female-assigned. He was, however, on that trajectory–odds are very very high that in a couple of years, he will have exactly the same options as the guys he was yelling at.
In other words, a few years from now he’ll have a male body just like I have white skin. He will interview in it. He will work in it. He will shop in it. He will go out to bars in it. He will walk down the street in it. A photograph of it will appear on every piece of identification he carries, right next to his male name and male gender marker. Everyone who meets him will see him as a man. While it’s true that he’ll still have his Secret Hoo-Haa, he won’t have to walk down the street with his pants down. In order to avoid being seen as male, he will have to announce his transsexuality to every single person he meets–and eventually, they might not even believe him.
In other words, yes, he will pass. Yes, he will go at least a little bit stealth. If that’s lying to people, then yes, he’ll be lying to people. Finally, yes, he will be like men.
I understand how scary can be to leave behind beliefs you’ve always held about yourself and your place in the world. I can understand how distasteful it can be to join a group of people you’ve always seen as the oppressors, especially if you’ve suffered gendered abuse at their hands. I can understand how frightening it can be to feel invisible all over again, and even to feel as though you’re trapped in yet another ill-fitting identity. That doesn’t make it negotiable. You’re changing sex. Who’s being cowardly, here? The people dealing with their lives as they are, or the people pretending to fight battles from positions they no longer hold?
And on the subject of trans invisibility, denial supports ignorance in another way:
As a trans woman, this is how I feel right now about many FTM-spectrum folks (as well as many non-trans queer women) in my community. While some trans guys & queer women I know are righteous allies in the fight against trans woman-exclusion policies in lesbian & queer women’s communities, others choose to enjoy the privilege they have being accepted in queer women’s spaces, even if it comes at the expense of trans women’s identities. Often this is couched in the language of fighting to change such policies (see comments in a recent TransNation Camp Trans article and my response below). What is typically overlooked is how this enables anti-trans woman sentiment in queer/trans spaces.
In other words, if transmen never really become men, transwomen never really become women. If we never really possess male privilege, they never really lose it.
*Slang term for not being out to everyone or most people; arguably derisive, especially in the mouths of people who will never hear, “Oh, so you’re really a woman?”
Similar Posts:
- “How Young is Too Young?” by piny June 7, 2006
- “Nobody is begrudging him his dick.” by piny January 29, 2006
- Consistency by piny October 25, 2006
- Two Kinds of People in This World by piny July 17, 2006
- “That’s Outrageous!” by piny April 12, 2006
There are married 40 yr old transguys in Utah? Wow! Oh, wait–that’s me.
What you say is true. I am granted male privilege whether I want it or not. I pass. I can’t help it. To some degree, that was the point. My body now matches my identity and that feels so much better than when they were incongruent. And though I am a feminist, I don’t tell the pizza delivery guy, the plumber, or the server at our favorite restaurant.
I come out on a “need to know” basis. Beginning to form a friendship? You need to know. Joining my congregation? You need to know. Telling a sexist or transphobic joke? You may need to know and I’ll tell you IF it doesn’t compromise my safety. Dating my daughter? You don’t need to know yet. Helping me at the hardware store? You don’t need to know and you probably don’t want to.
When I was doing my chaplaincy at SF General Hospital I had to learn that sometimes coming out is inappropriate. Just because a patient is trans doesn’t mean they need to know I am trans. More likely, I want them to know so I can stop getting those suspiscious and hostile looks. The same is true in some queer spaces. I often WANT to come out b/c it makes me feel better. After all, I like to be included and really hate being seen as just another forty-year-old white clueless man.
Then again, I live my life outside the closet. I am out at work. I’ve appeared in the newspaper and I speak regularly at “queer” events. I tell every person who comes to the “newcomer’s group” in my congregation. I willingly let myself be a poster child for my denomination and other groups. So it’s not like I’m in hiding.
Then there is the whole “womyn’s space” thing. I spent 30 years as a lesbian. I miss that community. I still like some of the music and would be glad to hang out with the dykes at a concert. But I don’t unless I am invited. Which doesn’t happen much, since most of the time, people forget that part of who I am. I miss it. I sometimes feel the sadness of that loss. But I know I live in a culture where my male presence has meaning beyond my complex experience.
One other example and then I’ll shut up. A couple in my congregation had their first baby. They happen to be lesbian and the women in the congregation had a “blessing way” for the baby that included the women in the congregation who had had babies supporting the new moms. Well, I’ve had a baby. And I would have been glad to be there and add my blessings and experience. But I wasn’t invited. And that made me sad, but I didn’t push. I mentioned it later and a few of the women went, “Oh. Wow. We totally forgot.” Maybe next time, they will ask. And I’ll probably decline, and let the women have their space and their event. Feminist? I think so.
Sean
It’s interesting because *I* seem to have a fair helping of male privilege – without having done anything to my body, I contrive to take up a “male space” in the world at times. I used to think this invalidated the whole concept of male privilege, but I’m starting to wonder…
Great, complex, interesting post, and I first and foremost thank you for your insights. People who identify as male who didn’t always identify as male offer up a particular lens to what it means to be male, masculine and the like. I don’t mean to put you forth as ftm spokesperson, piny, but in light of your post, I do have some comments and questions. I’ve got a bazillion of ‘em, but I’ll limit myself to a few…
But you say this as if having a male body is all that it takes to pass, whether you want to or not. I would hazard a guess and say that, while it might be true, the degree to which one passes will always be a matter of degree–and there are other things besides a male body that one might need in order to pass, depending on the context; especially to pass as a priveledged male. There is a taking up of space, there is a way of walking, sitting, etc. There are reasons that drag kings take classes in being drag kings, and they don’t all have to do with not having a male body (and yes, I know ftm’s aren’t drag kings–I think the point still holds).
It seems to me that he has some choice in passing, just not complete choice, in every context, all the time.
Secondly:
It’s not negotiable at all? Furthermore, is it either completely negotiable or not negotiable at all? I think that there seems to be a gradation, as is expounded pretty well in Sean’s comment, above. Sean is ‘more out’ than some people, passing in some situations and making sure he doesn’t pass in others. But Sean is probably also ‘less out’ than some other people. I recognize that perhaps the person whose blog you’re arguing against may be also making the mistake of thinking one is either out or not out (with nothing in between), but I’m uncertain why we have to exist within this dichotomy.
Just a quick response to jeffliveshere: Nearly any ftm who goes through a full course of testosterone therapy/sugery, who acquires all the trappings of a ‘male body’ (I use this term advisedly, but I’m pretty much referring to the whole nine yards of facial and body hair, fat redistribution, lower voice, flat chest, etc.) is going to pass, unless he chooses otherwise, regardless of the space he takes up, excessive hand gestures, or a particular way of walking. Even transmen with visible chest scars or pre-op breasts can easily explain those away, if they want to. You’d be amazed at what testosterone can do. The fact that drag kings aren’t ftms is important – they don’t usually have a male body, or male identification, and they’re projecting a particular image on stage; not the same thing at all.
The reason that I’m so concerned to hammer away at this point is that the notion that transfolk can be ‘spotted’ is at best icky and at worst dangerous. It contributes to essentializing notions of gender, it contributes to the idea that transfolk are deceptive, and, IMO, it’s just distasteful – not mention, untrue. The most succinct way to put this (that I’ve heard) is an admonition to remember that the only transfolk that you ‘spot’ are the ones that you spot – in other words, no one ever sees all the trannies who pass completely, unless they want you to.
Ben–
Thanks for your response. I didn’t mean to say anything ‘distasteful’, and I apologize if that’s what I have, indeed, done here. I tried to approach everything with the utmost respect.
I think I disagree with you on a couple of levels, however. First off, I’m not quite sure how my implicit suggestion that some ftm’s can decide to not pass if they like, regardless of having a ‘male body’, is essentializing–in fact, I think the idea that they *can* choose to pass or not removes ‘passing as a male’ from ‘having a male body’ in a way that is very not essentializing. Not only that, but you seem to also embrace the idea that ftms have some control over whether or not they pass, given your comment. (More on that in a sec.)
Secondly, I think that your point about what you seem to see as the central difference between ftms and drag kings–that one group have male bodies and the other group doesn’t–is itself essentializing. You are implicitly claiming that the ability to pass as a man is inextricably intertwined–or, essential, if you will–with the male body, and that’s part of what I’m concerned about, really. I think that it may be the case that masculinity isn’t ultimately dependent on a male body–that a male body is neither a necessary nor a suffiecient condition to ‘pass’.
I think your closing remark sums up my original point exactly, however. You said:
Part of my whole point was that piny seemed to be saying that ftms who have gone ‘far enough’ in their transition will pass whether they want to or not (i.e. “That doesn’t make it negotiable.“); I was pointing out that I thought that one’s ability and desire to pass is a matter of degree, with ftms being able to choose to which degree they might pass–and if they want to pass at all–without it being an all-or-nothing matter. I hope I didn’t come off as saying that I thought I could ‘spot’ any ftm at anytime or anyplace…my point was that it can take more than a male body to pass–and inasmuch as it does, many ftms–even those ‘with male bodies’ can decide to pass or not, to various degrees, given various contexts.
So, I think I disagree with you that having a male body is all one needs to pass (this certainly isn’t a universal truth–there are, of course non-trans men who have trouble passing as men) but I think we agree that, ftms can have some input as to what degree they pass or not, in different contexts. Which I think goes against, at least a little bit, what piny was trying to say in response to the ftm who said that he would never choose to pass.
I’d appreciate it if you’d define what you mean by “male body,” since that can mean any number of things in this context. What does that mean, and how would ftms not possess male bodies?
Actually, the central general difference between ftms and drag kings–like mtfs and drag queens–is a male identity rather than a male persona adopted for performance. I’m not sure it makes sense to describe drag kings as passing as male, because…that’s not exactly the point.
The “nonnegotiable” part is the extent to which transitioning into a male body causes people to react to your male body, not the extent to which you decide to be stealth. There is some wiggle room there, but not as much as the ranting ftm was suggesting.
Ftms can choose whether or not to be out, but as transition progresses that option is less and less a matter of presentation. Like Ben said, it’s a lot harder to opt not to present as male. Think of it this way: say you went around telling people that you were assigned female at birth, and later transitioned to male. You’d be treated differently from jeffliveshere the putatively cisgendered guy–although that wouldn’t necessarily mean not being treated as male. However, your situation would be radically different from that of a cisgendered woman, and no amount of wishing on your part would change that.
there’s a bit of an underlying syllogism.
i think the definition of ‘far enough’ in this instance is ‘to the point where one’s body appears unmistakeably male, and where conflicting or feminine mannerisms, dress, etc., will not cause one to be read as female-bodied but as a man with odd and/or gender inappropriate mannerisms.’ (for most FTMs taking testosterone, that point is generally reached beginning at 2-5 years of taking testosterone.)
at that point, one can be *out,* but being casually perceived as anything but male-bodied is difficult to impossible. possibly gender-variant male-bodied, but the casual observer and other people to whom one is out will assume that one is, underneath it all, male-bodied. even when one is out, there are certain visceral cues that people respond to whether or not they know one’s history, so an out transman is not treated in the same way as a non-trans woman.
refusing to acknowledge that is one of the things that contributes to a variety of social messes, such as women’s spaces that include FTMs (except sometimes those who pass too well) and exclude MTFs (except sometimes those who are not known to be and are not perceived as such), or individual FTMs excusing behavior ranging from annoying (such as saying that, because they are FTM, they can use a variety of female-related pejorative terms in mixed company in a reclamatory manner) to inexcusable (such as saying that they are not being abusive to/assaulting a partner because they are not really a man and hence don’t really occupy a position of power over their partner). (both of these being situations that i’ve seen recently.)
Piny had exactly the right point in saying “In order to avoid being seen as male, he will have to announce his transsexuality to every single person he meets–and eventually, they might not even believe him.” I know people that this has happened to; if they’re not comfortable passing, they have to seriously work at it. And you can’t even do that 24 hours a day unless you always wear a t-shirt that says “I am a trans guy, I have a pussy! No really, it’s true!” This is helped along by the fact that FTMs are largely invisible still in most of society; if you “come out” in subtle or not-so-subtle ways, certainly in a lot of queer contexts people will understand you. Outside of those contexts, the cues don’t get interpreted, or they’re just confusing, or there’s outright disbelief.
Another interesting thing is — no, it often doesn’t matter if you walk, talk, or take up space in a less than “manly” way. If you have a flat chest, facial hair and other T-influenced features, people can still read you as male and grant you male privilege, all the time; you’ll just be read as a huge flaming homo. Heck you can wear pink every day like Morty Diamond and still pass as male. Interestingly, the “flaming homo” position seems to be a compromise for a lot of trans guys, like a point along the spectrum where you may inevitably receive male privilege, but at least there’s going to be a severe lack of straight privilege. (With the mixture of fear and apprehension and, oh at least I’m not going to be an “asshole straight guy” that brings for some people.) And I sometimes wonder how much that’s influenced the development of transfag culture. Or of people who feel like, even at a level of what medical interventions they choose, they can’t take T or a full dose of T because of the privilege implications. I certainly have friends who have been very influenced by the seemingly inexorable association of T and male privilege.
On the flip side… FurryCatHerder is right that there are very few places online where trans women can find community that doesn’t involve some level of compulsory, peer-pressured femininity. It’s all too often true in real life as well. But there’s kind of an interesting analog, I know a lot of (usually queer, but not always) trans women who take a small measure of pride in saying exactly what FCH said: “yeah, just like any queer woman with a slightly different gender, sometimes I get called Sir and you know what? It doesn’t bother me.” It’s a marker of having escaped from the Barbieland of trans women that was built so many years ago by gender-conformist medical clinics who made trans women compete to see who would be the most feminine, or yelled at trans women to see if they would cry — if so, you pass! And it’s a sign of resilience, of no longer being hyper-sensitive to every perceived barb and arrow of “omg you’re kind of masculine.” Even though of course, there are plenty of non-trans lesbians and dykes who would be offended to be called “sir” for all sorts of political and personal reasons, and there are plenty of dykes and lesbians who wouldn’t get called “sir” in a million years and it doesn’t make them any less gay or queer.
So there’s an interesting mixture of ideas to unpack in there: trans women that reject and revile the “Transexual Empire” stereotype of “all trans women conform to standards of femininity by definition”; identifying with non-trans queer women by virtue of having your gender confused by others sometimes; being more resilient than more newly transitioned women but also quite possibly passing more — there’s an implication of “I might get called sir, but it’s because I pass as a gender non-conforming dyke, and that’s just what happens to us gender non-conforming dykes.” Again, a point on a spectrum that’s not all the way into a “fully passing as normative” level of masculinity or femininity.
One last thing that kind of made me feel sad:
All too often it seems like part of this “woodworking” or “stealthifying” process is not just disappearing from women’s spaces, which a lot of people very sensibly argue shouldn’t include male-identified people with male privelege (although I think there are some bigger questions to ask about such space) but also vanishing from trans spaces completely, vanishing from trans activism, etc. As much as it might be a sort of personal victory to “get on with your life as a man” this is a huge loss for a community and a political movement. And it’s not always the choice of the guy, either. I’ve heard way too many stories about trans guys who pass being excluded from discussions and movements and spaces not because those spaces are women-only, but just because people perceived them as being “average white guys” who couldn’t possibly contribute in certain ways.
Increasingly, these attitudes are becoming ridiculous stereotypes, especially in communities and movements with a lot of active trans guys. There are more and more people around who may receive male privilege on a daily basis, but who were not raised and socialized and schooled with that privilege, at least not in any kind of straightforward way. There are men who may have had experiences with sexual abuse and violence, rape, harassment, abortion, inadequate health care, and sexism in ways that disproportionately or exclusively affect people who are female-assigned or have certain body parts. And it’s kind of crazy when people completely lose sight of this fact due to seeing a white guy with a beard. Of course the current amount and kind of privilege someone receives is a huge factor in their outlook, their politics, the way they take up space; but so is the past.
And no, I don’t believe that if we are to acknowledge the ways that trans guys may have lacked privilege in the past, that automatically means that all trans women must have had male privilege and therefore are condemnable. We need to move beyond these simple see-saw equations and arrive at a more nuanced understanding of how gender operates across the entire lives of trans people. On another board, someone just made a really good point that trans women are often affected by sexism from an early age, albeit not in the same way as female-assigned people, because they identify very strongly as women and get bombarded by a lot of messages intended for women. And the converse might be true of many trans guys. There are a lot of individual stories; and a lot of people getting hammered by the same overarching sexist, patriarchal forces. And a lot of trans people whose lives disrupt a simple, straightforward reading of “privilege.”
Organizing and building community and movements for change around trans issues — trying to make a better future for successive generations of trans kids — this is hard to do if “success” in the trans world is defined by the annihilation of trans identity and/or ability to participate in these movements. You end up with only certain kinds of people in certain positions left behind, and that’s not always a good thing. (c.f. disturbing stereotypes of “crazy old non-passing territorial isolated trans activist,” usually a woman)
[...] , but I was having some difficulty formulating my questions. Piny at Feministe has posted a very interesting entry that has given me lots of food for thought. [...]
d–
Thanks for spelling all this out.
Or, rather, because they are ftm, they are automatically using those terms in a reclamatory manner.
I feel like I really need to write about that particular mess. I don’t even know where to begin, though.
Holly–
Yup! And when you come out to people, they’ll ask you how long you have to live as a woman before you can start the hormones.
I haven’t–or at least, I don’t think I have–affected femmey mannerisms in order to be comfortable with this body and its reception; those were there all along. However, I was very relieved that I didn’t have to be a straight guy. Queerness holds a certain cachet for me, I gotta admit, and the prospect of losing it was a frightening one. I’d also argue that living in the gayest city on Earth during this second adolesence affected the number of male role models I had access to.
Conversely, Flaming Homoland might actually provide some cover to transguys: if people can slot you into “fag,” they might be less likely to question slotting you into “man.”
Or assuming that they’re post-transition in some objective way, and therefore that they have no investment in any trans community. I’ve heard some stories of panty-checks, personally, and a few stories along the lines of what you describe. I haven’t suffered from any of that myself, but I’m guessing that it has something to do with being young and cute enough for objectification. Most of that has more to do with social events and less to do with activism.
And…I couldn’t agree more with everything else you said.
Just for the record, I pass completely even though I still have breasts. Mine are relatively small and I don’t even bother to bind here in SLC because no one sees them. They see the beard and never look at my chest. My partner who has larger breasts than mine passes completely by wearing a tight-fitting lycra sports top. (Not exactly a bra, but longer and stronger. and available at Target for $13.)
The truth is, if I went out shirtless, I’d probably get “why do you have breasts?” long before I’d get “You’re not really a man.” And then I’d get a lot of sympathy.
I also still have a very feminine voice–it’s still higher-pitched than most men’s voices and even though I’m a preacher, I intentionally did NOT change my voice patterns–I still inflect “like a girl.” On the phone, I am called ma’am consistently. Face to face, never.
So, it’s not all about choice. The choices I’ve made are not about reinforcing gender stereotypes, they are about being me. And still, that comes across male. I can’t remember the last time I was “clocked” as TG.
Unless I buy the t-shirt and wear it daily (and even then, I’d bet) I pass. I am afforded privilege and status as a man that I was not as a woman. When I come out to my congregants and others, I generally *still* am afforded that privilege because they see me as male (with a female history, but still, they read all the cues as male) and therefore treat me as they have been taught to treat men.
I would have to interrupt that deeply-ingrained pattern of sexism in every single interaction I have–all day, every day. I’d never get to have a life…I’d be too busy fighting sexism every second. Sorry, but that’s not my mission. I happen to think my life is a feminist act. I don’t feel driven to do more.
piny–
Sure. As I was responding to Ben’s comment, I was using the term the way he used it:
When you yourself talk use phrases like “earlier in transition” and “transitioning into a male body”, aren’t you (in part) talking about a body that is, in whatever senses, ‘not yet’ male? It would be hard to transition into something that you already were, right? I would imagine that somebody who identified as ftm but had not yet begun to think about hwo they were going to go about their own transition might be said to not have a male body, right?
My only point in bringing drag kings in was that it sometimes/oftentimes takes more than a male body to pass as male. Given some of the other comments, I’m seeing that it may be the case that the number of men who possess male bodies but who do not pass as men may be vanishinly small, however–and I may have been confusing ‘passing as a man’ with ‘passing as a straight man’. I still think that there are people with male bodies who don’t pass as men as often as they’d like, partly because of the type of male body they have (i.e. skinny twink/’pretty’ face), and partly because their performance of male is somehow perceived as lacking.
Sorry, piny, I misunderstood you to be saying that he had no choice in whether he passed or not, that it was completely non-negotiable. I thought when you said, “He was, however, on that trajectory–odds are very very high that in a couple of years, he will have exactly the same options as the guys he was yelling at,” you were implying he had no options at all.
So I guess I’m not disagreeing with you at all in the end (I think), because I just wanted to point out that some of what passing as a male involves doesn’t have to do with possessing a male body. And, to the extent that this is the case, one can choose to pass or not to pass, even if one has a male body (given your point that it will be very difficult to not-pass a good deal of the time when you have a male body). I appreciate you (and others) helping me better understand what you meant.
Yes, but your own definition seemed to depend much more on context and mannerisms–in other words, that there is no such thing as a male body in terms of presentation.
The drag king example serves to dispute the “necessary” argument, which I wasn’t making, but not the “sufficient” one.
This is a pretty important distinction. I cannot pass as a straight man. I also cannot pass as female.
Plus, the whole nine yards can be a little misleading. Like sean implies, passing consistently involves different things for different guys.
When I used the term essentializing, I was referring to the view that sex/gender is essential and inborn*; often, to imply that ftms need certain mannerisms to live/pass as male is to imply that ftms are still women in some essential kind of way, who are just acting (which I don’t think is what you meant to say, Jeff, but it hit my ear in a weird way). I don’t mean that a body has to determine one’s identity, and I don’t mean that a particular body is required to pass (which some of the previous comments demonstrate). Testosterone takes care of the body – ftms will have no problem being read as men; mannerisms are the bonus, and reflect the kind of masculinity one projects; we’re definitely in agreement that a male body (whether XX or XY) is not needed for masculinity, though.
*My personal dirty little secret is that I must think that my gender is somehow essential, or I wouldn’t have transitioned. I get around that by arguing that transition gave me the ‘male body’ (which I use in quotes because there’s no single, definitive male body) that makes other people consistently read me as male, but I get to choose all the masculinity trappings that go along with it, and perform/live my own version of maleness. Here’s where this intersects with Piny’s post, because one of my responsibilities as a feminist transman is recognizing that other people will read me as Man, not as Queer, Feminist, Former-Dyke, Trans Man, and as such, I’ll get certain privileges. Despite that, I certainly have the option to purvey a different sort of masculinity than most people expect. That may include disclosing my trans status.
This is all in my head right now because I’m debating whether to live more openly as trans – as in, outing myself more often, without it being an Event, without invoking a need-to-know standard. I don’t want to flaut my supersecret vagina, but I do want to feel comfortable making statements in public that will accurately reflect my earlier identity and life. I guess my goal right now is not so much to disrupt the gender binary (which I can do by projecting non-traditional masculinity), but to disrupt expectations about physical body and gender presentation on really personal level.
I don’t understand why someone who is transitioning f2m would want to “not pass as a man.” Can someone explain it to me? I mean, I would have thought the very point of it was to become a man and to be seen to be a man. Why would a person want to be a man, but secretly, so to speak? Why bother to get a male body if you don’t want to cop to being male?
But there’s a lot I don’t understand about gender. I’m a woman, and as far as I can tell, a very successful one (biologically, I mean). But my body language and behavior are sufficiently ambiguous that I am usually taken for gay. That is, if I’m identified as a woman, I’m assumed to be a lesbian; if taken to be a man, I’m assumed to be gay. I’ve always been a bit out of touch with gender matters. (I used to joke that I was never invited to the classes in how to be a girl.) So I figured, now that it’s at least possible to choose one’s gender, surely people who choose to change would want to be the one they choose, in all ways. Apparently that’s not so?
In a lot of ways and on a lot of levels, “male” and “female-to-male transsexual,” as well as “male” and “assigned female at birth,” are mutually exclusive. Coming out as transsexual can mean losing the right to identify as male (although this is not quite the same as getting slotted back into ‘woman’); conversely, moving through the world as male typically means that people treat you as though you never presented or were treated as female.
Transsexuals negotiate that problem of history in different ways and with different degrees of grief. Many if not most feel the need to have their histories acknowledged as well as their present circumstances. The ranting ftm is reacting to the pressure to leave his old experiences behind completely when, I think, he would prefer his life to be received as a cohesive, seamless whole.
This analogy has its disadvantages, but think of someone who emigrated from his home country to a new one. It would be impossible to pretend that he had not traveled a great distance, but equally impossible to pretend he had never lived elsewhere.
As far as being the gender you opt into “in all ways,” that…can mean any number of things. Transmen who opt into “male” might not opt into a particularly conventional form of manhood.
I’m not sure what you meant here. ‘Depend much more on context and mannerisms” than what? I thought all I was saying was that context and mannerisms matter, too–not just ‘having a male body’ (allowing, as Sean andothers point out, that the definition of ‘male body’ isn’t fixed). I wasn’t making any claims on what matters more–I think that, especially for ftm’s, the ‘having a male body’ matters more; it just isn’t the only thing that matters all of the time.
I agree. And it wasn’t meant to. The existence of bio-men who don’t pass as men (in various contexts in various ways) deals with the ‘sufficient’ component of your argument, I think, which seemed to me to be something along the lines of “once you have a male body, you have no choice but to pass as a man”.
I brought up both bio-men who don’t pass as men and drag kings because I think they both show that context and explicit performance of gender do matter–just as having a male body matters. Neither one by themselves are always necessary or sufficient. There are people with male bodies who don’t pass as male (again, not many, likely, but some–and maybe the person you were originally criticising is one of them); there are people without male bodies who do pass as male in various contexts (a prime example being butch women in bathrooms who get called out as men). I think, at least in these cases, the contexts and performance of gender matter. And perhaps that’s part of what the person you were originially criticising had in mind.
Ben–Thanks for giving me more insight into what you meant. I thought you were using ‘essentializing’ in a slightly different way, I guess, as being tied to a particular kind of body (rather than being tied to a particular assignment of gender at birth).
I don’t think that deciding to transition implies that one essentialize gender, by the way. I think it’s tough to reconcile non-essentializing conceptions of gender with motivations like “I’m a man trapped in a woman’s body,” (sorry for the cliche) but this isn’t the only sort of motivation, of course–people transition for myriad reasons. But even if it were one’s motivation, though, one could still feel, seems to me, that gender is constructed (and not essential) and decide that one wants to construct hir gender *this* way, instead of the way it was ‘originally’ constructed.
Piny: So we’re talking about not wanting to have “male now” equal “always been male”? I can understand that. I mean what would be the alternative? To manufacture “boyhood” stories? I can’t imagine anyone wanting to do that. (Although I suppose this is a weakness of my imagination muscles.)
Certainly there are many ways to be a man and many ways to be a woman. I don’t know anyone myself who has entirely opted for a conventional form of manhood or womanhood. And I was very glad to hear that the approved course of events for transexuals no longer involves practicing exaggerated forms of “masculine” or “feminine” behavior. Thanks for explaining.
Actually, that was what some transsexuals were forced to do decades ago: they were told that they had to manufacture histories, and to never ever acknowledge–even to themselves, really–that they used to live as another gender. It wasn’t a very healthy program. These days, transmen who prefer not to live as people with openly acknowledged female histories simply don’t discuss them; most of us, myself included pass as assigned-male to some degree. Like the post says, this is difficult if not impossible to avoid.