Throwback Thursday posts are posts I have previously written on other sites. They are reposted here sometimes on Thursdays. This post was originally posted on Queereka on 10/13/2013. Usage note: “Trans*” was a common convention in 2013 but is generally no longer used. I no longer use it but have preserved it in reposts in which it originally occurred for transparency.

Lately there has been a huge increase in the number of media news stories about trans* youth, especially pre-pubescent kids. Mainstream media shows them, blogs cover them, and stories get passed around on social media. Many of these stories are uplifting tales of families that accept and nurture their non-gender-conforming children and go on at length about how they are managing their local school systems and other barriers to acceptance for these kids. The kids featured almost always seem to identify firmly on the other side of a gender binary from the sex they were assigned at birth.

While seeing examples of accepting families is reassuring and inspiring for many, I’m worried about this messaging. I don’t think it’s function is to increase acceptance of trans* people in society. In fact, I think it’s primarily designed and intended to enforce the gender binary and emphasize a very particular kind of story about who trans* people are.

There is a standard narrative of the trans* experience that goes something like this: “Though born as a boy, Sally always felt like a girl. She liked pink things and dolls as a child and wished she could turn into a girl. Family and society pressures caused her to try very hard to be a masculine boy/man and this made her miserable. After years of being depressed and sometimes suicidal she finally came out as a woman. After transitioning and living full time as a feminine woman she lives happily ever after.”

This story is accurate to some degree for some trans* people. It is NOT accurate for many. This is not the RIGHT way to be trans* – there is no right or wrong way to identify or perform one’s own gender. But this is the story that cis people generally recognize as being THE trans* experience, and any other process is questioned by many. If this is not someone’s narrative they risk being labeled as not a “real” trans* person.

The “cute trans* kid” stories largely serve to enforce the idea that “real” trans* people firmly identify as the opposite gender to their assigned birth sex from a young age. I am concerned that this leads to diverse trans* experiences being lost in the messaging and increasing ideas that there is such thing as the right kind of trans* person – someone who consistently identifies on one side of the gender binary for their whole life. It threatens the legitimacy of people who discover their gender identity at a later age or who do not identify on the ends of the gender spectrum at all.

I will say that these stories are reassuring to me in the sense that it is good to see some kids having much more accepting experiences than people in my generation and older generally did. Many of the parents in those stories are doing good by their kids and making real changes in their school systems. That’s great – but when we share those stories and see them in the media we must also be aware of the other messages they are sending and how those messages may not be in the best interest of trans* people in general.

The post TBT: Trans Kids and Media Messaging appeared first on Scrappy Deviation.

Throwback Thursday posts are posts I have previously written on other sites. They are reposted here sometimes on Thursdays. This post was originally posted on Queereka on 8/20/2013.

CN: Transphobia

Recently someone on Fetlife in the Minnesota kink scene posted a proposed draft of advice for how newbies should attend a munch. In the kink world a munch is a casual public gathering of kinky people for conversation and socialization. It usually takes place in a restaurant, coffee shop, or bar. Generally they are open to anyone and are often the first thing new people do when entering the kinky scene because they are fairly non-threatening and have a very low bar of entry.

When discussing the most conservative level of expected attire the proposed advice was the following (emphasis mine):

“Conservative dress that won’t attract unwanted attention from the vanillas. This means no stereotypical fetish or dungeonesque clothing or handcuffs. Any visible collar should pass as jewelry. You can cover a collar with a scarf or perhaps a turtleneck. No Fetishwear. No latex clothing. Some leather clothing may be okay as long as you aren’t covered from head to toe. We don’t also want it to look like a biker convention. No corsets worn on the outside. No littles wear. No ageplay clothing. No visible diapers. No pony play costumes. No puppy play costumes. No furry costumes, etc. No t-shirts with offensive or suggestive slogans. No Ballet Boots. In the case of crossdressers, if you don’t pass, don’t crossdress. Don’t showup in a sequined dress looking like a flamboyant glammed up drag queen. In the case of genderfluid, genderqueer, and transgender people, do your best to pass. The point is for everyone to blend in as best they can. This is NOT the place for social protest.“

What followed was a heated discussion. Objections to the idea that gender expression is equivalent to fetish attire were voiced. The OP and others claimed that anyone seen with obviously transgender people would risk being fired from their jobs. Heated defenses of trans* people and our rights to public spaces were voiced, including one from my friend James:

“I am appalled that you would label this post as a guide for people new to kink and include such virulent, hateful transphobia as if that attitude was not only acceptable but encouraged in your community. Being trans is not being kinky – it is simply being. People who identify as trans aren’t coming to your precious munches in kink attire, they are simply trying to live day-to-day life. What, are the trans members of the community supposed to hide their faces in shame and stay out of the public? How is a trans person supposed to meet the community in a non-play environment? Or do trans people just not matter enough to particularly care about them?”

Predictably, tone trolls abounded and whines that peoples free speech was being impinged upon appeared. The discussion itself hasn’t come to any kind of resolution (it’s only been up for a few days) but it’s certain that the OP will not change their opinion and there are definitely others in the MN community who would rather avoid going to munches at all than be seen in public with someone different from themselves.

Other LGB folks are silenced in this way as well. When a question was asked about same-gender couples holding hands at a munch the response was that public displays of affection are always unacceptable at munches – a clearly untrue statement that no one would EVER put onto a heterosexual couple, but is likely to be applied to a queer one.

The fear of the cisgender heterosexual kinkster is that someone, usually someone from work, school, or family, would see them with “weird” people out in public and suddenly realize this obviously means they must be a big pervert. This fear, the idea of not seeming “normal” is terrifying. They claim they could loose their jobs, spouses, children. Being even seen with us has the chance of taking away their enormous privilege.

Worse, they believe we have a responsibility to protect that privilege. In order for them to maintain their comfort and ability to keep jobs (jobs we could never get) we must appear normal or not show up. In order for them to have access to kinky communities without risk the rest of us – the queers, the trans* people, and the weirdos with facial piercings and green hair – need to change ourselves or stay home. They want privileged access to kinky spaces just like they have privileged access to everything else.

FUCK THAT. A trans* kinkster has no responsibility to be someone they are not just to protect the next person who walks through the door from the tiny chance that they might have to explain why they’re at the same coffee shop table with a man in a skirt. Every day that we leave the house we have to explain ourselves. Cisgender newbie? Welcome to our fucking world. That’s the way we’re treated all of the time.

Don’t want to be seen with the huge diversity of people in the kinky world? Don’t show up. We don’t want you.

The post TBT: When Kinksters Don’t Want To Risk ANYTHING appeared first on Scrappy Deviation.

Throwback Thursday posts are posts I have previously written on other sites. They are reposted here sometimes on Thursdays. This post was originally posted on Queereka on 2/16/2015.

CN: Transition experiences, discussion of aggression and objectification.

On Cracked yesterday a trans man named Roman Jones wrote about 6 Awful Lessons I Learned Transitioning from Female to Male. Some of the stuff in there felt similar to my experiences, though it’s been awhile (9 years) since I had to bind and much of this stuff applies more to the transition process than the stage of life I’m at now. I found his commentary about medical care especially on point – problems with getting decent medical care has been an ongoing problem for me and many other trans people.

But then late in the article Jones says:

It’s not only physical, either — transgender people who have undergone hormone therapy are a goldmine of information about the differences between men and women because of the effect different hormones have on your mind. Describing his experience with testosterone on This American Life, one trans man flat-out says “I felt like a monster.” He completely stopped thinking about the random women he encountered as people, and a nice-looking one would turn his mind into a pornographic View-Master. That guy was on an irresponsibly high dose, but most trans men on testosterone agree that it increases libido and aggression, which can be a shocking revelation for someone who’s spent their life chasing the estrogen dragon.

Here’s the thing: Testosterone does not create sexism on it’s own. People learn these attitudes (aggression, objectification) from their culture. Just because trans guys are usually raised being perceived as girls doesn’t mean that we don’t live in a culture steeped in sexist attitudes and we internalize them as much as anyone else does. T makes us look more masculine and for many guys it makes us feel more masculine, but it doesn’t tell us what masculinity means. Our culture does.

Trans men often say that T made us more visually stimulated. This is certainly my experience – when I’m on T I am far more likely to look at porn, to be aroused by the sight of my partners, and to notice attractive people around me. But visual stimulation isn’t the same thing as objectification. Lots of people are visually stimulated, not all of us see the people who’s appearance arouse us as less than human. One can be both attracted to someone AND know that they are a person. People do it all the time.

Aggression is similar. Some trans guys experience increased aggression on T. Many don’t. Some of us start crying a lot more (I cry at movies. A lot. Especially Pixar ones.) and some of us have a mellowing of emotional volatility because we’re so much less stressed out with less dysphoria. Our responses are varied because our expectations are different and our ideas about what manhood is and who we are as men is so diverse. Guys who are already prone to aggression or who see aggressiveness as a manly trait and part of their masculinity will have problems with that. These problems are created by a culture that teaches us – all of us! – that violence and anger are male attributes, a natural result of testosterone.

The models of masculinity I saw growing up in my family were extremely gentle. My father is an incredibly gentle man. My best memories of him are of sitting on blankets on the floor with him and my siblings, playing and telling stories. He works incredibly hard for my family, is soft spoken and introverted, and deeply devoted to my mother. My strongest image of adult masculinity is that of a devoted father and husband. Unsurprisingly, aggression is not a problem I have had with T.

Testosterone doesn’t create monsters of trans men or anyone else. Patriarchal culture creates toxic images of what manhood is, and some guys (trans and cis) internalize these images. When we experience an increase in libido and visual stimulation due to suddenly having our hormones corrected it shows to us and the world who we really are and who we think men are. The toxic culture we live in can create aggressive and objectifying sexist pigs out of us if we let it.

Guys, don’t let it. You don’t have to be that guy.

The post TBT: In Testosterone Veritas appeared first on Scrappy Deviation.

Throwback Thursday posts are posts I have previously written on other sites. They are reposted here sometimes on Thursdays. This post was originally posted on my Fetlife account sometime in 2009. It written in response to a question someone asked about moments of fear of regret about the process of transition.

CN: Body dysphoria, medical transition.

I remember the day I realized the binding had permanently damaged my breasts. I knew I hated them, knew I wanted them removed… but I was terrified. It felt more like a commitment than any other move had felt – starting therapy, changing my ID, changing my name, coming out to my parents, etc. I looked down and realized I’d done something I could never change back, and I felt totally unprepared for it. I cried (which is rare for me) but I didn’t feel like I could tell anyone else, because I was afraid they would think it meant I shouldn’t be allowed to start on T or transition any further.

It took awhile for me to come to terms with that, and I had similar moments of panic later on (the day I realized I was getting back hair for example, or the first time I realized I was balding). But that was the most serious time of confusion for me.

I suppose I could have stopped transitioning then, and I could have gone back to my earlier life. But I didn’t. As terrifying as as that moment was, going back would have been worse. I’m incredibly glad I didn’t loose my nerve that day, or I would certainly not live the life I have now.

The post TBT: A Thought About Transition appeared first on Scrappy Deviation.

Throwback Thursday posts are posts I have previously written on other sites, such as Livejournal, Science Based Sex, Queereka, Skepchick, or Skeptability. They are reposted here sometimes on Thursdays. This post was originally posted on Queereka on December 14th, 2012.

For years after I began my gender transition I regularly had an experience that is nearly universal among trans* folks: Someone would use the wrong gender pronoun for me, or my old name. That was a bit uncomfortable, but not nearly as bad as what came next. If they knew me and realized their mistake it would be immediate – if they didn’t then either I or someone else would correct them, prompting the response:

“Oh no. I am SO SORRY. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I just did that. How could I do that? I’m so so so sorry…” etc.

That was the worst part. It would last seconds, but felt like hours. In the end, I was spending my time and energy comforting the other person, and often the original conversation was entirely derailed. Now we were focusing on my transition, and the conflicts or struggles my transition was causing those around me. Again.

It still happens to me in a slightly different context. Someone will use an incorrect pronoun for someone else in conversation with me, and again they are apologizing. Repeatedly. Exaggeratedly. Apologizing to me for a mistake they made regarding someone else’s gender, and worse – they are quite forthcoming with me about how HARD it is to get those things right, how much they STRUGGLE with it because, you know, they’ve known her all these years…

Just stop it. Please.

First of all, the longer you spend talking about, and apologizing for, the mistake the longer I and everyone around us is spending thinking and talking about someone else’s transition. Furthermore, telling me about how hard it is for you shows complete insensitivity. Changing your language is hard? Tough. Deal with it. Compared to what your transgender friend is dealing with in transition, it’s incredibly easy.

How to get it right if you make a mistake? Correct yourself. A FAST apology is perfectly appropriate, but get back to the subject at hand.

“I was out with Keith… I mean Alice! Sorry, my bad. So anyway, Alice and I were out at the movies…”

The post Throwback Thursday: How To Get It Right, When You Got It Wrong appeared first on Scrappy Deviation.

Throwback Thursday posts are posts I have previously written on other sites, such as Livejournal, Science Based Sex, Queereka, Skepchick, or Skeptability. They are reposted here sometimes on Thursdays. This post was originally posted on Queereka on September 19th, 2012. Since this post I have gotten married, and my spouse now identifies as genderqueer. Language reflects their identity at the time.

When I was married my wife and I shared a car. We had a 2004 Honda Civic in the last 2 years of our relationship, shared between us. We really saw no reason for us both to have a car, since we were generally together. When it was clear we were breaking up it was also clear that I needed to have a car of my own, so I found another Honda Civic.

This Civic coupe was 11 years old when I got it, and in fairly good shape. With less than 100K miles on it, a sun roof, an after-market CD player and radio, and a bright red color that made me feel like I was driving a sports car. The car was a very clear symbol of new freedom and possibilities.

A few years later I was in another long-term relationship, and we were having some pretty serious money issues. Since I owned my car in full, and my girlfriend did not, we decided to sell my car and just use her’s for awhile. I sold my beloved red Civic to a friend, and went back to sharing a car and using the bus to get to work. This was frustrating to me, but a sacrifice I was able to make to keep us in our house for another month.

In the end we lost the house anyway, and I lost the girlfriend too. When we were splitting up I was once again in a situation of losing a partner and not having a car to use anymore either. This time I had the added complication of having just lost a house to foreclosure, and so my credit was shot and I was broke. For a few months I tried to get around on a moped as old as I am, but it didn’t run for more than a few days without major repairs, so that didn’t go well.

When my friend who had bought the car 9 months earlier contacted me, it was a dream come true. He said he’d decided he wanted a larger vehicle, and I could buy the car back from him with monthly payments! I didn’t need credit, I just needed to send him a check every month for a few months. I agreed immediately, and got my lovely red Civic back. I was incredibly broke for the next few months while I paid him off, leaving me without money to actually put gas in the car or buy groceries, but it was worth it.

The car was 14 years old by this time, and still running well. I soon put some money into the exhaust system, and repaired a few other things, but it wasn’t costing me a lot of money to keep it going, and that was good, because I was living on an extremely tight budget for awhile.

After that breakup it took me a long time to become comfortable with living alone, and especially with traveling alone. I had been living with partners for my whole adult life, and hadn’t had to travel more than across the city by myself in many years. In that car I faced my fears and learned how to get to Chicago, to Minneapolis, and much further on my own. Within a year I was quite comfortable doing long cross-country drives alone, to various events and jobs. I learned how to navigate, how to keep myself occupied, and how to pack enough camping gear for a long trip into the small car.

The car also allowed me to do all of those every-day tasks that need to get done. I learned how to put a car-seat in it for my boyfriend’s son. I moved out of that one-bedroom apartment in with a bunch of friends by stuffing that car full of boxes for several trips across town. I quit my job, and started commuting to school, which is a much longer distance for me. This in particular made me very happy for the extremely low gas millage on an old manual transmission Civic.

Over a year ago I started dating a woman in Chicago. The Civic was getting really old by this point, but it got me to and from my new partner consistently. It took me to events we attended together, and back and fourth on that long journey to see her. I learned how to get to Chicago from Madison without paying any tolls, and ate a lot of terrible gas station food while doing it. I started letting the car get REALLY dirty in the past year, but it kept on going. I replaced the breaks, and it passed it’s 17th birthday and 150K mark without serious issues.

Then in August I left the car parked at my boyfriend’s house while a huge group of us went camping in central Wisconsin. I rode up to camp with him, and met with my girlfriend, her girlfriend, the rest of our poly family, and a ton of friends for the big weekend.

That weekend, under a sky filled with stars and the Perceid meteor shower, my girlfriend took me out to the dark beach, lit candles, and proposed to me. It was one of the most beautiful and welcome moments of my life, and I’m incredibly happy that I said yes. We celebrated with all of our friends, embarking on our future together deep in the woods surrounded by those we love.

When I got back to Madison my old beloved Civic would not start. It sat dead in front of my boyfriend’s house until yesterday, when I could afford to have someone look at it. The mechanic gave me the sad news yesterday afternoon that my car is dead. It needs major engine repair, and is not worth salvaging. Today I went over and removed my belongings and it’s license plates. It is going to be donated tomorrow.

I bought this car not once, but TWICE when my previous live-in relationships ended. It seemed incredibly fitting that it finally ceased to function at the exact same time as I made a real commitment to the next one. I will miss that car enormously, as it was my friend and companion for so long. But I’m glad I don’t need it anymore – I’m no longer in the place in my life that I was when I got it (either time) and I don’t plan to ever be there again.

As a skeptic, I don’t believe that this happened for any reason at all, but as a romantic the symbolism and timing just makes a beautiful story. I’m okay with that.

The post Throwback Thursday: Honda Civic, A Love Story appeared first on Scrappy Deviation.