norks AKA @notCursedE over at twitter:
14 year old girl: *buys a padded bra to make her boobs look bigger*society: naturally
14 y/o trans masc: *buys a binder to make their chest look flatter*
society: what the f*ck do you think you are doing
This is one of the most common logical errors made by errors. They think they represent the god given default and are therefore unable to contextualize.
Photo by Fytist
Pharrell Shaymar was assigned female at birth, but new from an early age that he was not a woman. As part of the Australian broadcasting company SBS’ coverage of the gender spectrum, he writes about how his gender variance expressed itself through gender dysphoria:
As far back as I can remember, which would be the age of five, I knew, and I mean really knew, I wasn’t a female, that this is not me. I am not a girl and I will not become a woman, it can’t happen, I don’t want it to happen. I used to think: ‘why is this happening? Why can’t I change it?’ Every single day, this is all that would go through my five-year-old mind, to the ages of six, seven, eight, and nine. It never stopped!
I used to think: ‘I do not want to be here anymore’.
I didn’t want to wake up anymore. I would go to bed crying, asking God to please bring my body back. I spent hours praying, and asking, wishing, hoping, and then being hopeful as I cried myself to sleep.
I would wake up and smile, hoping, only to be disappointed. Nothing had changed.
He found it hard to get the acceptance and approval he needed from the doctors, as they constantly invalidated him and forced him to live up to their stereotypical ideas about “real masculinity.” But at the age of 18 he did transition.
Pharrell writes:
I always have this image, of the backyard of the home where we had a very big backyard. I see the cubby house, and I see me, this little girl, seven years old. She has short hair, so she’s just a tomboy. I see her, and I always see me as I am now. As I walk towards her, it becomes slower, like I am watching it in slow motion, and the slower I walk, the more I observe the little girl. I then stop walking, pause and smile.
She no longer had to worry as the man she was spending her whole life looking for was in front of her the whole time, and that man she has now become.
“Getting to talk to women with zero barriers and the full ability to relate to so many extra things was probably one of the nicest parts about transitioning.” (u/Girlmode on reddit)
Given all the transphobic propaganda about trans women never being accepted by cis women, it is good to read stories like the following one by Kthaanid
on reddit:
“MTF here. I pass fairly well a good majority of the time, and something I knew about but never really saw first-hand until my transition was the sisterhood. Women will come up to me and just vibe in dangerous areas.
I’ve gone to the bathroom while on a bike ride only to come out and find that a couple of girls were watching my bike for me.
I was recently in a bike accident, and it looks like I have a gnarly black eye (two facial fractures will do that), and nearly every woman I’ve talked to has checked on me, made sure I’m safe, and offered help.”
However, both trans men and trans women report on how implicit sexism and misogyny make people treat them differently. u/significant_digit, a trans man writes:
"I was shocked when I moved to a new job where no one knew me ‘before’ transitioning; they just knew me as male.
In meetings and conversations about work (I’m in a technical field), people tend to listen to me more than when I was female-presenting.
And, not only that, they don’t even make as much eye contact or open body language toward women to include them in the conversation; it’s mostly towards the men…
I’m gonna spend the rest of my career making sure people really listen to the women around me.”
Another comment says a lot about the way the gender binary is upheld:
“I’m a trans dude, and people actually find me funny now. “
(u/kasimirthered)
Buzzfeed has published more, similar, transgender life stories and comments from reddit, which you can read here.
Illustration photo of two women chatting by ferrantraite
Pink News reports:
Nicolás Cazorla Fernández shared a video of the adorable moment to TikTok, explaining: “My grandpa wanted to change my pre-transition picture.”
The heartwarming video shows his grandfather removing an old photo of him at his graduation and replacing it with a newer photo. It ends with Cazorla Fernández saying he deserved a “grandpa of the year” award.
Nicolás Cazorla Fernández has 9,600 followers on TikTok and he is using his videos to help other transgender people.
See also Newsweek: Watch Touching Moment ‘Supportive’ Grandpa Updates Trans Grandson’s Photo
Yepp, it is true. Disney (!) has made a cartoon where Big Hero 6 asks cis women in a store about what tampons they would recommend. Then a trans man shows up and gives his recommendation!
The episode aired on Disney+ on June 29.
Chloe Stillwell writes over at Mic:
The woman [Big Hero 6 addresses] suggests the ones she usually buys, and that was followed by other shoppers in the aisle excitedly offering up their own recommendations. That includes a character wearing a trans flag shirt who says he likes pads, “the ones with wings.” It’s a subtle and quick inclusion of trans visibility, which is incredibly important.
Indeed it is!
The Umbrella Academy creator and showrunner Steve Blackman says he decided to rewrite season three after Page came out as a transgender man.
In an interview with ET he says:
“I had already finished the season, the writers were gone, scripts were finished and I got a call from Elliot one day saying, ‘I’m transitioning.’ I was very happy for him. To his credit, he didn’t demand that I write it into the story. He said, 'Do what you want. I trust you. Write it in, don’t write it in, whatever you want to do.’ Elliot is very kind like that.”
He reached out to Nick Adams, GLAAD Media Institute Vice President and advocate for transgender rights, and transgender author/journalist Thomas Page McBee for help.
“I didn’t want to hang a lantern on it and make it the sob story of the season. We all agreed that we want it to be something that just happened and let the family react to it. That was the hard balance to find that…We’d work together and then I’d change them. I finally found that nice balance.”
Here’s what Elliot has to say about all of this:
Photo: Christos Kalohoridis & Netflix
I read a post once that the people who made the bathroom bill to discriminate against transwomen completely forgot about transmen.
This is often lost in the noise: But all the bathroom laws will actually lead to men using women’s restrooms.
Esquire has published an essay by Elliot Page about his life as a transgender man.
Elliot writes:
“What have I learned from transitioning? I can’t overstate the biggest joy, which is really seeing yourself. I know I look different to others, but to me I’m just starting to look like myself. It’s indescribable, because I’m just like, there I am. And thank God. Here I am. So the greatest joy is just being able to feel present, literally, just to be present. To go out in a group of new people and be able to engage in a way where I didn’t feel this constant sensation to flee from my body, this never-ending sensation of anxiety and nervousness and wanting out.
When I say I couldn’t have ever imagined feeling that way, I mean that with every sense of me.”
Photograph by Ruven Afanador
“Trans women are women” is definitely mostly performative at this point (and yes it’s important to normalize this, but your activism should not start and end with phrases “trans women are women” “fuck terfs” and “fuck JKR” with no further action) but also it’s deeply frustrating that this has become the default way of showing support for trans people. Trans women ARE women, but not every trans person is a woman. As a trans man, it’s a fucking miracle to see someone say “trans men are men”, and even that is usually an afterthought. Non binary people are almost always left out entirely. This is basic, the-bar-is-on-the-floor bare minimum, the demand to simply say “yes these people exist, yes they are who they say they are” and yet even that seems to be too big of a request. Include all trans people in your activism.
Illustration photo of transgender man by Jacob Lund
umm, hi. i'm currently questioning my gender and every time i do i get more the feeling i am a boy. i was born female and i've always liked girly and feminine stuff. yet i've never felt like a girl when i was a kid. am i a trans boy even if i relate/like feminine things? i'm very desperate and confused.
The only one who can tell whether you are a man or a woman (or something else) is you. But I know this: Gender identity and gender expression are two separate things.
Experienced gender identity is how you feel about yourself gender wise. Your sense of self is female, male or nonbinary. This applies to trans people, and male/female variance also applies to cis people.
For cis people this is normally a simple thing. If their gendered sense of self aligns with their assigned gender, no one will question their gender identity, so most of them will take it for granted, a something self-evident and given.
For trans people this might be harder, as other people will continuously question their real gender identity to the point of denying it. This is why so many of us get confused. What we feel and what other people say we should feel collide, and given social pressure and fear of exclusion we may, for a time, give in to that pressure.
Gender expression is how we express those mysterious qualities of femininity, masculinity and/or androgyny. I have seen no solid and unambiguous definitions of these qualities, but you know what they say: “I know it when I see it.” There is not a one to one relationship between gender identity and gender expression.
Cis men, who are comfortable in their assigned gender, may want to express various shades of femininity, and cis women may love to express masculinity through clothing, mannerism, interests etc. Trans men, trans women and nonbinary people may also want to make use of other parts of the gender expression palette.
I know of feminine trans men and trans women who think of themselves as “tomboys”. If there are cis straight women and cis lesbian women who like to express masculinity, why shouldn’t trans women be allowed to do so? Ditto for trans men.
I think the reason this comes as a surprise to so many, whether they are cis or trans, is that gender expression is such an important part of the way so many trans people explore and come to accept their own identity.
For a trans man exploring and expressing masculinity is one way of finding out who he is and getting others to understand what he is. Young cis boys do the same. They experiment with gender expressions to find their place in the world.
But again: I know of trans women who, after they have transitioned and feel at peace with themselves, realize that they also have a masculine side that deserves respect and visibility, in the same way many cis women do.
So you can be a trans man even if you like feminine things. Definitely!
Photo: IrenaV