“Marriage Equality is Not a Transgender Issue” – HRC’s repeated failure and why I hate that their symbol is becoming the symbol for marriage equality

HRC has a long history of contension with the transgender community. Because of this, it should come as no surprise that at what is, to date, probably the most important development for the fight for marriage equality, that contension once again arose.

At the Supreme Court hearings, where many gay rights supporters had gathered, a transgender pride flag was placed near the podium. HRC reps asked that the transgender flag be removed, claiming that “marriage equality is not a transgender issue”. HRC is claiming that this did not happen and it is not their policy, however people who were actually there say otherwise. (1, 2) One person even claims that the HRC reps continued harassing the person over this flag.

Anyone who thinks that marriage equality doesn’t effect transgender people has NOT been paying attention. Courts repeatedly rule that heterosexual marriages between a transgender and cisgender person are not legally valid, because the transgender person is “really” their birth sex. I’ve seen it claimed that in same-sex marriages that take place before the transgender partner transitions (by which I mean a trans woman marrying a cis woman, or trans man marrying a cis man) will still be valid after the partner’s transition- however I have not seen anything that makes it clear that they would not face problems. Also, when my financial aid department believed that I had legally changed my sex, I was told that I had to apply for financial aid as “single” as the federal government would not acknowledge my marriage- which suggests that legal transition does, in fact, impact your marital status.

The most heartwrenching thing about the marriage situation for transgender people is that these cases almost always come up only when the cisgender spouse dies and their family wants to deny the transgender person what any widow/er has a right to. Instead of being allowed to mourn the death of their loved ones in peace, transgender people are thrown into the public spotlight and have their entire lives and relationship torn apart by bigots. This has happened as recently as 2010 to Nikki Araguz, the appeal to that case is still ongoing. The exact argument against her is that she is “really” a man, and since same-sex marriage is not legal in Texas, their marriage is invalid.

But “marriage equality is not a transgender issue”.

I’m sure that some people would justify this by insisting that all of our problems will go away once same-sex marriage is legal, so transgender people should shut up, sit down, and stop trying to have our problems acknowledged. This is not an acceptable solution, though. Marriage law effects transgender people in ways that it does not and will never effect cis queers, and this needs to be acknowledged.

Marriage equality IS a transgender issue because it is an issue that effects transgender people.

Meanwhile, the HRC symbol is being spread far and wide across the internet as THE symbol for marriage equality. “Equality”? This is an organization that has repeatedly actively excluded transgender people, cutting us out of bills that would offer us protection from discrimination and acknowledge hate crimes against us. But their symbol stands for “equality”. That’s a laugh.

Why I don’t like coming out as trans

Anyone who’s been following this blog for a long time (and, well, I’m really impressed if you’re still around as it’s kind of dead) might know that I have/had horrible social dysphoria. I say have/had because it’s starting to chill down for the most part, but it’s still there with a vengeance in the wrong situations.

I don’t mind so much, now, getting misgendered by strangers, in part because I’ve gotten better at avoiding situations where people will gender me too much. It’s not always possible, but limiting it helps.. I’ve accepted that I do not pass as male at all, that I really don’t want to take testosterone so likely never will, and I’ve come to accept that being misgendered by people who don’t know better isn’t commentary about me. It isn’t saying a word about my body or genitals, they have no way of knowing about that, or that I fit XYZ gender roles, or anything else. I’m still not at the point where I’m comfortable dressing as feminine as I’d like to, I still feel pressure not to “justify” their misgendering, but I’m at least a bit better at being misgendered.

Our society really doesn’t allow strangers to do anything else, especially not employees who could get in trouble at work by doing something subversive like asking someone’s pronouns. Most people will get offended by that question, and that’s cissexist but it’s the case. Also, asking is so complicated even for trans people. A person who isn’t out trans being asked around family will have to either lie or risk being outted, or if the wrong person overhears the answer it may put the person in danger. Ideally we wouldn’t assume pronouns, but there are reasons that asking is difficult. So even people who may be trans friendly will be nervous asking about pronouns. Is that right? No, it sucks, I wish it would change, but I’m stuck with it and learning to deal with it.

(note that this doesn’t excuse society, trans people shouldn’t be put in danger by being outted and cis people shouldn’t get offended when someone doesn’t assume they’re definitely their gender, and it doesn’t mean that trans people who can’t deal with being misgendered should suddenly be fine with it. Each individual is in a different situation, there are so many reasons why being misgendered by strangers is deeply hurtful and even terrifying for many trans people, and that needs to be acknowledged and respected. It’s just why I, personally, can deal with it)

But after I tell someone, that changes. As soon as I come out to someone, and ask for pronouns, misgendering me becomes deeply hurtful. It hurts to reveal something very personal and risky about myself, to express a need to someone, and have that person ignore it. When they acknowledge they messed up and apologize, then it’s easier to deal with, but I’ve had a lot of people just not care, and the more that happens the less willing I am to tell people.

I’m able to give birth, that doesn’t make me a woman.

[this post may trigger dysphoria]

One thing that really bothers me about otherwise trans-friendly cis people is the way that they treat birth as a trans-free situation. I’ve seen cis people who try their best to point out in virtually every other situation that not all female perceived people ARE women, who try to use gender neutral language when talking about birth control and breast exams and other assumed “female-specific” situations, then speak about people who give birth by referring to them exclusively as women and mothers without a second thought. This isn’t malicious, I don’t think it’s intentional, but there seems to be a mental hang-up and it’s a big problem. Because trans people are people, so not all of us want to have children, but some of us do and with as much trouble as cis queer people have adopting- they aren’t going to be lining up to give us children any time soon. I now know too many people who are willing to treat a trans person with respect suddenly start saying “Well, are you still trans? Are you a woman now? How am I supposed to treat you?” after the trans person gets pregnant, when they had no problem accepting the person’s gender and treating them respectfully before.

Sometimes you will get cis people who will only acknowledge a trans person’s gender if they’ve “fully transitioned”, if they can believe that the trans person no longer has their original genitalia. But the same cis people who are willing to accept that there are trans people who may menstruate, indicating a potential for pregnancy, suddenly can’t accept their gender once that person becomes pregnant.

It feels like they, or maybe we as a society, are willing to accept that trans people exist, but aren’t willing to accept that we can be parents. It feels like they consider birth to be this sacred, womyn-born-womyn only space even when saying that they don’t support those spaces in any other situation.

Pregnancy and reproduction is virtually never discussed among or concerning transgender people. The closest I’ve seen is trans people objecting to sterilization being a requirement to legally transition, but no one really talks about the possibility of openly trans people or trans people who’ve started transitioning or trans people in any sense having children. No one talks about what resources pregnant trans people need, I’ve seen people object to the way that reproductive health information can alienate trans people but no one ever says “And, hey, we need obstetricians and midwives who are aware of trans issues, too!”. The only time I’ve seen the situation forced to come up, when Thomas Beatie got so (in)famous, and many trans peoplewere reacting horribly to it.

All of the talk about trans people as parents assumes that we’ve finished having children before we start transitioning or even coming out, that the child hasn’t grown up knowing their parents as their true genders and will have to adjust to the transition. There are no resources for “explaining that your dad gave birth to you”, only “your daddy wants to be a woman, your mommy wants to be a man”.

This needs to change, because there are trans people who’ve gotten pregnant after starting to transition, and there are trans people who are pregnant right now, and there will continue to be trans people who are pregnant and getting pregnant and who want to have children in the future. And these people need support, they need prenatal care from doctors who are understanding of their situation and who don’t trigger dysphoria, they need to know how and when they need to explain this to schools to make sure that their child doesn’t face undo discrimination, they need advice for explaining this to their kids and when to do it.

Instead? Our community treats pregnant trans people like the elephant in the room, the black sheep of our metaphorical family, a shameful secret to brush under the rug.

Doing a Workshop at a Trans Conference

Trigger Warning: Intersex “Treatment” Trauma and Sexual Abuse Trauma: Not So Different

Take the trigger warning seriously, this does describe systematically made mandatory sexual abuse, it’s horrible and if you don’t have the spoons or if you’re triggered by this, proceed with extreme caution.
From Full-Frontal Activism

In my own experiences, some doctor would feel compelled to check the length of my vaginal canal every time I vistited (every half-year for many years starting when I was maybe 10, and then every year until I was 14 or so). This meant that they would take a freezing-cold metal dilator, coat it with (medical?) lube or something that burned like hell (it was probably alcohol-based), and insert it into my vagina and held for several seconds until I, of course, started to whimper, shout, tell him to stop, burst into tears, or all of the above. I did not know that I had the ability to deny consent to these vaginal-length-checks using the dilators. They were presented as a standard procedure, like listening to one’s hearbeat, or opening one’s mouth and saying, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” really awkwardly. I had no idea that these procedures did not benefit or track my health…they just tracked how likely a candidate I might be for one of several kinds of particular genital mutilation surgeries collectively called vaginoplasties, which would also not benefit or improve my health. It would only give me a reconstructed vagina, which may or may not have serious, deleterious health consequences, as I briefly detailed in a former post.

I was (and still am) outraged that these trauma happened to me and I wasn’t told I had a choice as to whether I want it to happen or not. And I am still dealing with the aftermath. Sometimes, I have vivid daymares consisting of flashbacks of some of these dilation procedures, and the other stigmatizing parts of the appointments that followed before and after. It felt so dehumanizing to me, even as a young child, to have to change into the scratchy-ass nightgown, lay on the cold metal table, and these things done to me I so, so didn’t want done. (Often, multiple times if they couldn’t get a measurement the first time, after which I was berated for moving around and whining too much. Doc, you would do it, too, if you knew what that felt like.) But, as intersex individuals, we’re taught not to talk about our intersex or any issues surrounding intersex with others, oftentimes preventing effective dialogue even among our closest family members and ourselves. So I didn’t discuss it out loud, but I felt that these procedures were abusive. I felt really guilty about feeling this way, because I was clearly taking up space I didn’t need to. I wasn’t “really” abused…abuse was for individuals that were touched, prodded, and traumatized under entirely different circumstances, right? If there was an old white dude in a medical coat present, it wasn’t really abuse, was it?

Emi Koyama, intersex activist and founder of Pacific Northwest’s Intersex Initiative, created a booklet entitled, Introduction to Intersex: A Guide for Allies (2nd Edition). On page 2 of the booklet (or page 5 in the Adobe PDF), she explains the following:

“One of the biggest problems with this “treatment” is that it sets in motion a lifelong pattern of secrecy, isolation, shame, and confusion. Adult intersex people’s stories often resemble that of those who survived childhood sexual abuse: trust violation, lack of honest communication, punishment for asking questions or telling the truth, etc. In some cases, intersex people’s experiences are exactly like those of childhood sexual abuse survivors: when they surgically “create” a vagina on a child, the parent – usually the mother – is required to “dilate” the vagina with hard instruments every day for months in order to ensure that the vagina won’t close off again.”

I would expand on this to include forced dilation at any interval during “treatment,” and not restricted to those post-mutilation surgery. This is definitely how I feel about my experiences.

Koyama continues:

“Even so, many intersex adults report that it was not necessarily the surgery that was most devastating for their self-esteem: for many, it is the repeated exposure to what we call “medical display,” or the rampant where a child is stripped down to nude and placed on the bed while doctors, nurses, medical students, and others come in and out of the room, touching and prodding and laughing to each other. Children who experience this get the distinct sense that there is something terribly wrong with who they are and are deeply traumatized. “

I have not experienced this, but can easily see how being publicly ridiculed would be traumatizing, and how one’s emotions while/after being touched and prodded against one’s will may be akin to those of childhood sexual abuse survivors.

This post is a major bummer, but I’m not sorry, because I believe that negative feelings, when properly channeled, can be used as vehicles to initiate oositive change. If you’re outraged, there are lots of conversations to be had with those that don’t know about intersex issues, e-mails and letters to write, lots of protests to organize, lots of petitions to create and sign, lots of books, zines, art, and music to make and support that raise awareness and try to change these medical abuses. I always must remind myself that it is okay and healthy to allow oneself to experience negative feelings, but if it just stops there after my own negative feelings have passed, will they be gone for good if the social systems and problems informing them still exist? If my own feelings are resolved for the moment, is that justification to stop fighting for others still experiencing pain and trauma? I don’t think so.

Koyama states “…it is estimated that five children per day continue to undergo the medically unnecessary and irreversible surgeries in the United States.” These five (plus?) children a day are worth fighting for. We just have to go out and actually do it.

-phobia

I have never liked the -phobia language used mostly by the LGBTQIA community. And trans, asexual, and intersex people use it, too, so they’re included this time. But it’s getting to me a bit more than usual. There are two main reasons: It is ablist and it hurts the communities.

For why it’s ablism: because phobias are real things. They qualify as disorders, if you want to use that term, it’s in the DSM and all that. I hate the DSM, but it’s there. I also am uncomfortable with the term neuroatypical, but phobias almost definitely qualify under the label. A genuine phobia can have serious effects on a person’s life.

Things like homophobia and xenophobia are not the same thing, but are being compared to that. This is not fair on people who have genuine phobias.

Something that I hadn’t thought of before but eateroftrees pointed out, this also makes things harder for people who actually can develop genuine phobias as a result of internalizing hatred. Although not for everyone, for some people the self-acceptance process can involve panicking, even for people who have friends who are gay/bi/trans/feminine and support those friends, because of the heavy anti-gay, anti-bi, anti-trans, anti-feminine messages in this culture. This is not the same as mistreating people for being gay or bi or trans or feminine, and conflating it with that only makes it harder for people who experience this.

This also has a very real damage to the communities. Don’t believe me? Look up “Gay Panic Defense” and “Trans Panic Defense”. The idea that hating gay people and trans people is a phobia adds to the validity of these. It sets up an ideology where a cis man on trial for brutally harming a trans woman who made no moves to harm him save for self defense can say “I was afraid for my life”, and a jury will believe it because they keep being told that people like him are severely afraid of trans people instead of being told that people like him hate trans people.

Selling your soul to who, exactly?

I recently read Doktor Snake’s Voodoo spellbook (available in my school library, donated by someone who a building is named after, I find this awesome). I’d recommend it even for people who don’t care to practice Voodoo or hoodoo because it gives interesting information and was pretty nicely written. It’s not just a spellbook, it also talks about some stories and the author’s experiences. Hoodoo, Voodoo, and Conjure: A Handbook is also pretty good for people who, like me, are sick of hearing about Voodoo but knowing nothing about it. I got it from interlibrary loan.

One of the bits Doktor Snake’s Voodoo spellbook spoke of was Robert Johnson, who allegedly sold his soul to the devil. It talked about how the “devil” at the crossroads was initially an African God who acted as a way for mortals to communicate with the Gods. This God was turned into “the devil” by white missionaries who came to Africa. So the term “devil” doesn’t have the same connotations for people who believe in Voodoo as it does for most people, and selling your soul to him isn’t as horrible as it might be to Satan.

I’m not even sure if you are “selling your soul” to him, it seems more like you’re making an agreement that you get something you want and give up most of your life in exchange, I’m not sure if there’s anything about what happens to it afterwards. There are people who would find 10 years of artistic genius well worth never living to see 50, but if the God got to keep your soul afterwards I don’t see why he couldn’t wait a few more decades to get it. But you might be so I don’t know, I’m clearly not an expert here.

The Vagina Monologues

My school did the vagina monologues. I did not go. I don’t know if they did either of the two about trans women, but I sure as hell hope they didn’t because I’m pretty sure that, if they did, they were performed by cis women. I only know of one trans woman on this campus and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t in it. Maybe they did have trans women doing it if they did it, but I doubt it.

They’ve been advertising in part with posters that feature a line drawing of a person’s torso from roughly the hips to below the bust. It is clearly curvy, considerably more curvy than you’d expect someone perceived as male to be and even curvier than a good number of people perceived as female. Not to get into how people identify. It’s also thin. The poster features a microphone roughly in the area of this line art’s genitalia because, you know, the vagina is talking. Even though the play is people talking about their vaginas.

Only it isn’t. It’s Women talking about women’s vaginas. Well, vulvas. But anatomy fail aside, it’s just about women. Even though women aren’t the only one who have or even want vaginas or vulvas. And not all women have them. I will be okay wtih the monologues when and only when they feature a really burly, been on T 10+ years trans guy who you’d “never guess” isn’t cis go upthere and talk honestly about how much he loves his vagina. And a few other men as well, ones who never want to take T, ones who don’t look cis, ones who are really feminine. And, of course, non-binaries as well. But I want the stereotype of macho manliness to talk about how much he loves his vagina.

I don’t really care how much you love this play, it’s cis supremacist as hell because of the way it associates vaginas with women. The advertising in this specific case was horrific for the same reason. I don’t care for any apologist bullshit about how it’s okay to erase and degender all the non-women out there who have vaginas and/or who have curvy bodies because “but they help women feel good about their bodies!”. Yes, it is horrible the way that non-societally-accepted-as-male bodies are treated. But fixing that by adding to the oppression of people isn’t okay.

This really gets to me because, yeah, my body looks a bit like that poster. It is curvy. Too curvy to be perceived as male. It’s probably at least part of the reason people constantly mistake me for a woman. Associating my body type with “women-only” shit is to erase my gender, and the gender of all curvy people who aren’t women. It is to reinforce the very problem that makes it so that I, and a good number of those like me, will never be correctly perceived. That isn’t okay.

Shields Down

Most of the ways that I don’t have privilege are invisible and things that I wasn’t fully aware of. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t suffer because of not having the privilege. Bad things happened because I didn’t know I was asexual, I spent a long time confused and in permanent denial because I didn’t know I was neutrois, I don’t even know how someone can have double depression without suffering because of it, and I now have a deep-seated fear of being crazy because I didn’t know you could be healthy and part of a multiple system. But I didn’t suffer direct discrimination in the same way, I didn’t realize that the oppression effected me the way it does. I had the shields that privileged people have of not having to be aware of the discrimination all around me.  But those shields start falling once you start accepting yourself and coming out.

The oppressions you face then aren’t worse than if you’d been facing them all your life. But it can be one hell of a shock and because the world is set up for privileged people, there’s nothing set up to prepare people to deal with it. I’m sorry, you chose to step down from the elite? Well, you deserve what you get, after all, we can’t have people thinking it’s okay to be someone like you.

Trigger Warning: [list of names]

This is something that has bothered me for years. What the hell do you do when you’re triggered by a certain name? I don’t know how common it is, but I imagine I’m not the only one who’s triggered by the name of an abuser or by the name they were coercively assigned at birth. What are you supposed to do when hearing the name of a person who had absolutely no involvement in what happened hurts you? You can hardly ask everyone with a certain name to change it, and it’s not always possible to just avoid them.