An ‘Edge of Trolling’ Detour
A recent comment from (amusingly enough) “Your Personal Troll” to On the Edge of Trolling, Pt 5 was written in such a way to make me want to respond, if only to get my own thoughts in order.
For the sake of disclaimers: I’m going to assume the commenter has the best of intentions. However, I have no obligation to respond to (let alone allow in the first place) any comments on this blog, particularly ones who say I my resources “could be spent better” on something other than “the wild goose chase” of transitioning. Likewise, it is not my obligation to educate you. Google, Wikipedia, your local library – all places that can and do provide informative resources for your further education. Lastly, unless otherwise noted, I speak for no one but myself. I make no claim for my experience to be representative of anyone’s but my own.
All that said, lets get to the comment. I’ll selectively quoting here, so check out the original if you want the full text.
Say you do transition successfully. HRT, facial feminization, vaginoplasty from some world class doctor in Thailand. Lazer stuff for the hair, face, legs, etc. Doctors examine you and you present as female.
What then? Have you arrived? Do you continue to feel as though you “don’t fit”, which is presumably why you began this journey in the first place?
I don’t feel like my transition is over, so I don’t know how I’ll feel when I’m done (or if there will ever be such a clear-cut finish line). But, based on my experiences transitioning over the past two years – and of talking about my identity as trans for much longer – I can speak to how I feel right now.
I’m happier, more well-adjusted, more confident, and more assertive than I was before I started transitioning. I’m not only speaking about how I feel, but how the people around me perceive me to act. Anyone who has been following this blog knows it hasn’t been a smooth journey, and I foresee ups-and-downs in the future as well. Transitioning has been a positive experience, but it’s also really fucking difficult. So I’m not attempting to sugar-coat things, or say that transitioning has been a universally wonderful experience filled with rainbows and green fields of butterflies.
Yet, I do feel like I “fit” better now than I did a few years ago…into the world, into socializing with friends, into myself. My Personal Troll misses the non-physical aspects of transitioning, too – the above list of criteria for “transitioning successfully” is all physical. I’m not saying the physical isn’t important (it is) or I’d want to de-transition (I don’t). But the way I interact with friends, family, coworkers, loved ones, has shifted for the better. The way I think of myself has shifted. The ways I allow myself to be expressive have shifted.
I don’t think “not fitting” is the best description I’ve heard for why people transition, but it’s also not the worst: something didn’t fit before I transitioned – others’ perceptions of me, my perceptions of myself, how I interacted with the world, and that something is slowly changing.
That’s my argument. Please name me some very successful transgendered individuals, people who are widely known and recognized as successful leaders and teachers and individuals, because I don’t know any.
No. There are quite a few lists out there that can do it for me, complete with artists, doctors, athletes, journalists, heads of industry, and more (as a quick Google search would have shown you). But I don’t see how that’s a useful benchmark to begin with – it strikes me too much as “But there aren’t any successful [racial or social group], so obviously they can’t be successful!” Requiring “widely known” success for the validity of trans experiences, in a world that is so transphobic, seems somewhat like you’ve decided on the answer before asking the question.
But all that also ignores my lived experience, and requires me to justify the existence of all trans individuals. I’m successful: I have a full time job in my chosen field, manage an organization with a half-a-million dollar budget, teach middle- and high-school students regularly, and help old ladies cross the street. (Well, maybe not that last one.) Ultimately, it seems like you not knowing of any successful trans people seems to be a shortcoming on your part, not theirs.
It seems that all the resources used by individuals to change their physical bodies and processes to “change gender” could be spent better. All that money, all that anguish, all the fighting against the system, and what do you gain? Will you really gain the peace you seek? Or are you stuck in a continuous loop of unfulfillment because instead of dealing with the hand you were dealt, you decided to discard that hand? Instead of learning the true meaning of “happiness” and finding it in what you have, you go off on the wild goose chase, the search for the holy grail, the elusive “peace” that is sure to come when you look completely like a woman. Right?
I’m going to get this out of my system, because seeing a string of questions makes me want to be glib: Contentment, yes, no, no.
But seriously…
I’m not asking you to help pay for my transition. Well, actually, I am. I want Obama’s health care plan to include transitioning costs for very selfish reasons. So maybe it’s not totally unreasonable to require me to justify why your (the general populace’s) money go towards helping me grow boobs.
I’m going to ignore medical evidence, genetic testing, brain scans, and all other tests I have never taken to ‘prove’ I’m trans and put things more simply: I would be dead had I not transitioned. I would have taken a knife, or a bottle of pills, or a walk along a high bridge, and killed myself. I’m not speaking metaphorically (“I’ll kill myself if I don’t get this work done!”) but quite literally.
I would be dead.
That’s why I transitioned, and that’s why it’s worth all the money and anguish and fighting the system. Because the alternative was, quite literally, to end my own life. I’ve sat with a knife in my hand, I’ve gotten pills out of the cabinet, and I’ve mapped the way to the nearest bridge that I thought would do the job. But the reason I’ve never actually tried to kill myself was because possibly, maybe, some day, I’d be able to transition and be who I knew I could be, with just a little help.
Ask your questions to someone with diabetes and see how they respond. See how they feel about finding contentment “with what they have.” Cutting off my access to hormones (as a stand-in for the transition in general) and you’ll kill me just as surely as if you cut off a diabetic’s supply of insulin. I have a medical condition whose the treatment involves something that, for many, seems ridiculous. But it’s deadly serious, and very real, to me.
(And again, I realize that it’s tempting to focus on transitioning as the desire to “look completely like a woman,” but it’s really more than that. I’ve described transitioning as “Moving from presenting myself as and interacting with the world as a man to doing so as a woman.” Yes, appearance is part of that (“presenting myself as…”) but it’s not the only part. How I move through the world is just as important, and if I physically transitioned but everyone still treated me the same and called me by my male name, I’d still feel like things “didn’t fit.”)
I’m not saying that your transition isn’t valid, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do it, I’m not saying you’re wrong or that you will never be a real woman.
It really does sound like you’re saying all those things. You may not be intending to say them, but I don’t know how to read “It seems that all the resources used by individuals to change their physical bodies and processes to “change gender” could be spent better” other than “your transition isn’t valid, you shouldn’t do it, and you’re wrong.”
What I am saying is this: What is your transition going to change? What is it going to resolve for you that was so unresolved that you felt you had to take this path? How is this path going to help YOU? It’s going to greatly benefit trans-surgeons and doctors and everyone you’re going to pay for your procedures, but what about you? Does this path really bring happiness?
That’s all I’d like to know. That’s the only part that really worries me– I’ve read and heard horror stories of how people do get to the other side and feel just as lost as they did before, which leads me to wonder if the transition is just another symptom, not necessarily a solution.
Again, I refuse to speak for others. I’m not going to comment on people who have transitioned and regretted it, except to say that there have been people who were misdiagnosed in other areas of medicine and paid the price for incorrect treatment as well.
But, speaking for myself, the transition is going to change how others perceive me and, more importantly, how I perceive myself. It’s going to resolve the disconnect between my presence in the world and what my mind expects my presence to be. It’s going to help me stay content, stay who I am, stay alive.
Which isn’t to say transitioning automatically makes (or keeps!) me happy. But not transitioning was making me unhappy (suicidal, even). So transitioning gets this huge block out of the way, so I can focus on simply living. Transitioning allows me to focus on the important things, finding peace in what I have, and lifts a weight of unhappiness so I can focus outwardly, on the world around me, rather than forever focusing inward on myself.
If you had lead weights attached to your soul, they’d weigh you down every day of your life. And of course removing them would make a difference.
Sorry for the super long comment and I want to apologize if anything I’ve said here offends you– it’s not my intention, and I’d appreciate your consideration.
I don’t think your comment was offensive so much as ignorant. I hope this post helps you – or someone else out there – understand that transitioning isn’t about you. Your questions, well-intentioned as they may have been, were operating from a position of privilege: your body automatically matched your brain, so no work was required to achieve that level of congruity, a level which the vast majority of the world is blind to out of never having thought about it.
And others have said this before. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my blog enough to feel like it was a place to ask, and I’m not attempting to cut off discussion, but I bet you could have found answers to most of your questions by typing them into Google.
AFTERTHOUGHT, 9/24/09 – Following a comment below from My Personal Troll, I want to make a correction. “Ignorant” literally means “lacking in knowledge or training.” But, in real life, “ignorance” has negative connotations about and beyond a simple lack of knowledge.
In the literal sense, I do think the questions were displaying ignorance as they showed a lack of knowledge. But that’s an inherent part of asking questions. Otherwise, why ask them? I’m ignorant about lots of things, and hope I’ll be able to ask questions to remove my ignorance.
But few people actually use ignorance in that literal of a fashion, and I admit I wasn’t doing so here. I want to apologize to My Personal Troll for indicating that the questions she asked were ignorant, with the implied insult “ignorant” usually carries. I’m sorry, and I hope she’ll be able to forgive me.
With that out of the way, I would like to rephrase how I originally closed this post:
I don’t think your questions were offensive, and (in reference to your comment below) I’m sorry you haven’t been able to find satisfying answers to them elsewhere. I had luck finding answers online to similar questions when I was first exploring trans issues, and when I get home later I’ll try to post some links I had found helpful.
However, a number of the things you said – your “argument,” your assertion that resources used for transitioning could be better-spent elsewhere, your quotes around “change gender” – were skating the edge of offensive. (Hence the whole “Edge of Trolling” concept in the first place.)
So I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my blog enough to feel like it was a place to ask questions, and I’m not attempting to cut off discussion, but I do think you could have asked your questions in a more neutral fashion. It sounds like you’re not coming from a place of neutrality on transitioning, which is fine, but your perspective did rub me the wrong way as a jumping-off point to discussion and I hope you and others will keep that in mind if/when this discussion continues.
Themocracy
Yes, this.
Also:
I’ve transitioned, I haven’t had any surgery. I’m frequently read as female. So… we’re not a stereotype you know.
Was it worth it? I’m really happy compared to how I used to be! People I know like me more than they used to because I am not so unhappy and closed off, including my partner. I think that makes it pretty much worthwhile, don’t you?
Well said. Few people have a specifically well-defined “end” to their transition (even if they have The Surgery!) and it’s certainly possible to realize that one has transitioned (past tense) without any specific milestone being reached. (Not saying that you fit that description exactly, Mattie, just that it’s possible.)
Oh yes, I think it’s a personal thing, not so much a state of mind as… a way of marking whether one has done or how much one has done of the things one personally considers significant in relation to a particular aspect of one’s life? Anyway, a process of living, you’ve read my longer winded opinion on that I think
How ironic that troll used a medium for which all basic protocols were developed by women of transsexual history and a PC, made possible by the pioneering work of another woman of transsexual history to question whether there are any “famous” women of transsexual history!
Thanks for the comment, Cathryn. I must admit I’m ignorant of the women you’re referring to! Care to give a little history lesson? ::grin::
Great post!
I remember my cousin called me one day to tell me she just realized that she had gone 3 or 4 days without thinking about transitioning or worrying about her gender presentation at all. She said “maybe this means I’m done transitioning” and we were both like “Yay!” Then a week later she called back after a depressing clothes-shopping expedition to say that she was definitely not done transitioning. We tentatively concluded that for some people transitioning occurs in stages and a bad experience can set you back a bit.
Thanks, Rachel. I think what your cousin was saying makes sense 100%. I’d go so far as to say that no one (trans or cis) never thinks about their gender presentation, but yeah, my personal definition of “transitioned” similarly involves not thinking about it most of the time. (For a very subjective value of “most.”)
Likewise, I totally think that – just like self-esteem in general – it’s possible to feel ‘more’ or ‘less’ transitioned depending on how things in the rest of your life are going. Case in point, today I decided to wear a nice sundress I bought recently, and felt very transitioned as I got complimented by friends and coworkers all day. But I’m sure something else will come up that sometime later this week that will make me feel “less” transitioned.
Very well said. Very well. Came by from Womanist Musings, where I’d arrived from Shakesville originally.
An interesting dichotomy has arisen around my transition, for me. Before I did, I was perceived to be a very, very angry, very dangerous young man. I’d been in the military, been in jail, always for physical violence in defence of my “masculinity”. Long, long time ago. I hurt people, and I know it.
So for me, when I discovered the rage ebbing, as I transitioned, and then began hormones, and so on – seventeen years ago, so this was a slow, slow process, having to get approval from the hoop-guardians before each step. When I discovered that, I began to want to make the world better, in the ways I’d harmed it before. I started working with volunteer programs, in various fields, and have never since ceased being a volunteer. I’ve been President of two major organizations in my city. I have a business of my own, supporting me and soon a couple of employees.
All of that is because I was able to lose the rage, the inchoate rage, that flooded out in damage to society, and because I have a desire now to return to the world the peace and contentment I’ve been able to find.
Have I had a perfect life? Fuck no. Not hardly. Sometimes things have been really hard, I’ve had the same issues anyone does, of love and loss and keeping oneself and one’s loved ones fed and sheltered and all of it. Wouldn’t trade it for the rage, though.
So…for those who say that government health care shouldn’t pay for this: who would you rather pay for? Surgery for Rebecca, a one-time expense less than the cost of a single year’s detention of someone like me, or life-detention costs for me when I finally snapped and killed someone? Because I would have. Them, me, maybe more, if I were desperate enough after the first one.
Which sounds like the smarter choice, for society? Because sure as hell, some of the people doing that kind of damage are people who simply cannot find the way to themselves, and some of those will be trans people. Not most, nor even many – but how many horribly disfunctional lives can be improved, turned to the betterment of themselves and the world, through what is, in the end, a pretty small expenditure?
How many useful lives self-destroyed in despair? Either terminally, or through the use of self-damaging behaviours?
False economies.
Well said, Rebecca. Adding you to my blog roll. Sorry about the mini-rant. This one touches deep for me. :/
Please don’t apologize! Thank you for stopping by, and I’m really glad the post struck true.
I think you really hit on the root of the issue, that transitioning doesn’t so much make people happy as it (hopefully) removes lots of junk in the way of being happy or content. I’m so sorry that your life took you on such a rocky path, but absolutely thrilled to hear that you were able to find what you were looking for.
I hope to continue seeing you around here! =)
That’s it exactly. It’s related to the only advice I’ll really give trans women starting out, and asking how to “pass”. I say, “don’t accentuate the feminine; eliminate the masculine.” Because we have such an atmospheric assumption of man=default, that anyone who is clearly not attempting to show masculinity is assumed not to be a man. No man would do so intentionally, because to do so would be to undermine his very being. It helps to reduce the Mrs. Cleaver aspect of early transition, some.
In the same way, transition doesn’t make life happier. Surgery doesn’t even necessarily make life happier. It (transition, not necessarily surgery) does reduce the obstacles to finding happiness. You still have to do the work to find it, though. It just means you have no harder a path than anyone else, for a change.
I’ll be reading, certainly. May turn up on the blogaround at Shakesville, if you’re not careful.
I wasn’t implying that anyone else had to pay for your transition, I was saying that money spent on gender reassignment surgery might be better spent on education and things like that.
And guess what? I spent my teen years wanting to be a boy. Longing to not be a woman because of the strict gender roles and oppression I experienced while growing up in my parents’ house. But I realized the best way to cope with things was to forge my own set of rules for how to be a girl, a woman, and be okay not being a man. I think more straight people feel funny about their gender while in their teen years than you might think. I seriously wanted a penis, I seriously didn’t want boobs or a period, I seriously was unhappy with my body. But I didn’t decide to become a man. I spent years unhappy, and then I slowly decided to embrace my body and discovered that it wasn’t so bad. I could have gone off on the wild goose chase, but it has proved more worthwhile not to have done that. Instead of spending my money on HRT and phalloplasty, I spent money on an education, I’ve found a career that fulfills me, and I enjoy being a woman.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that I fit into the neat cis box that you’d like to put me in. My brain and body didn’t automatically match up. My mind was very resistant to being a woman, but the more rational I became, the more I realized it was better to find happiness with what I had, rather than going on an expedition to change everything.
Of course, because I’m cis, you and everyone else is going to say that it’s not the same thing! Oh really? I seriously didn’t want to be female. I was seriously depressed. I seriously wanted to be male. How is my experience less valid than yours?
You’re right, and I’m sorry it came across as if I thought that. Rather, I am asking for whatever public health care I hope Obama eventually passes to help pay for my transition, so it seemed like a worthwhile thing to comment on. Sorry for the confusion.
You’re right, it’s a huge cultural and social problem that lots of people have very serious issues with their assigned genders, particularly in their teenage years. Likewise, lots of them (maybe even most of them) are able to reconcile their own sense of self and gender with their assigned sex, and transitioning would be the wrong choice for them.
But here’s what I don’t understand about your perspective. I am not using my experiences – as someone who identifies is trans, is transitioning, and is happier for it – to dismiss your experiences. While I’m sorry if others are doing so or have done so in the past, I don’t think I’ve said anything to indicate your experience is less valid than mine.
So why are you turning around and doing to me the very thing you imply I’m doing to you?
As I said in my post, saying things like “It seems that all the resources used by individuals to change their physical bodies and processes to “change gender” could be spent better.” That implies that you disagree with my decision to transition. And the quotes, “change gender,” implies you don’t believe it’s possible to do so.
Both of those seem pretty invalidating to me.
As I said, I’m very much trying not to invalidate your experience, and please let me know how or if I’ve done so. But I am going to note when it feels like you’re invalidating mine.
I’ve reread my original post and realize I did assume that you were a cisgender and/or cissexual individual. I’m sorry for the assumption, but don’t think I would have substantively changed the post had I known better.
“I bet you could have found answers to most of your questions by typing them into Google.”
What, did you Google my questions too? I did Google, and found nothing of value. This is something I’ve been sorting for a while. Thanks for calling me ignorant, I appreciate that.
You’re right, that was uncalled for, and I’ve edited the ending of the post to reflect that.