Transgender London

I'm A Man Same As Any Other

I am an FTM transgender person. What does this mean to me? There are a lot of different thoughts on what it means to be trans*, even, and perhaps especially, within the community itself. To me, it means that I was born with an intersex condition: male brain, female body. There is nothing I can do about this– nothing I can do to change the chromosomes I happened to receive.

Moreover, I do not wish to change it. I am who I am because of this. But on the other hand, this has done nothing to change who I am. It is an integral, in-born part of me– not the only part, of course, but a large one. Had I not been born transgender (and I’ll leave the nature vs nurture argument out of this, because it really isn’t important), I would obviously be different. Likewise, if I’d been born in Luxembourg, or to a different set of parents, or without my right arm, I would be different. We are shaped by our circumstances.

To live, being transgender, is a difficult thing– but no-one’s life is easy. Mine is, arguably, harder than the average young white middle-class American adult’s. But it is not only race and class which determine the level of difficulty in one’s life. And in some aspects, my life is a lot easier than most peoples. And anyway, it does not do to dwell on the difficulty of one’s situation. Things will be difficult, and easy, and good and bad, for everyone.

To borrow a favourite quotation:

‘Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we’ve passed. Or a month, it makes no difference.

So, unless we’re going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes. Us, or anyone else. Because we’re not comparing it with anything. And anyway, we’re all dead, or never born, and the whole thing really is a dream.’
– Hugh Laurie, ‘The Gun Seller’

Sure, I wish that things could change for me. Things out of my control. I wish there were better, more affordable, more easily accessible drugs and surgeries for people like me. I wish I didn’t have to go to therapy for months or years to get these drugs and surgeries, when anyone else can walk into a surgeon’s office and ask for a surgery that is not medically necessary, or hormones that won’t save their life, but will certainly make it easier.

I wish that I didn’t have to deal with ‘are you a boy or a girl,’ or people calling me by the wrong pronoun all the time, or having to explain myself to everyone I meet, to every person I may want to have a physical relationship with. I wish that I didn’t feel like I was lying to everyone I didn’t tell right away. I wish my ability to have physical relationships with people didn’t hinge on my anatomy, but rather, my personality. That’s what’s important; that’s who I am. My lack of external reproductive organs doesn’t make me any less of a man, just like a woman with a flat chest isn’t any less of a woman than Dolly Parton. What we look like is not who we are. And yet, I have to go to some pretty extreme measures to look like who I really am, so that people will be more likely to respect that. And so that I don’t have to look in the mirror every day and wonder who that person staring back at me is.

I confuse people. People can’t seem to understand where I’m coming from, who I am. They don’t understand gender dysphoria, or body dysmorphic disorder. They don’t understand that I have no other option but to go the route I’ve chosen. And I’m not saying I’ve chosen to be transgender– I’ve chosen a specific path that will allow my outside to more closely match my insides. Because, even though who we look like isn’t who we are, it is vitally important to how we think of ourselves, and how others think of us. Like it or not.

People sometimes tell me things like ‘why don’t you just stop? Just be a girl,’ ‘why don’t you wear dresses? You’re so pretty.’ Calling me ‘pretty’ is insulting. And I could no more ‘be a girl’ than I could change my DNA or my past experiences– because that’s what I’d have to do to achieve that. I can’t go back, if I was ever there to begin with.

Law regarding transgender issues are a laughing matter. If I wanted to marry a man now, it would be legal. I’m sure I’d get a lot of hassle, and I’d have to out myself to a few people, but it would be legal. If I got my gender markers changed on my birth certificate, drivers license, and social security card, and I wanted to marry someone, it would have to be a woman. Gender is an arbitrary designation. If I had my gender marker changed tomorrow, I wouldn’t be a different person than I am today. Nothing important would have changed.

I can’t use public bathrooms or locker rooms. If I go into the men's room and get called out for whatever reason, I could be arrested. If I went into the women's room, I would be carted out by security and possibly threatened with a lawsuit, or at least an angry boyfriend or husband. All because I needed to pee. Hardly fair. In a lot of circumstances I’m excluded from things such as church, adopting or fostering kids, sports teams, teaching, modeling, the military, Big Brothers Big Sisters, being a Scout master or camp counselor... Not that I necessarily have any interest in all of these, but it does hurt to know that if I wanted to participate, I couldn’t. My qualifications, such as they are, amount to nothing. In most states there is no anti discrimination policy for transgender people. I could be fired from a job, or not hired in the first place. I could be assaulted or murdered and the assailant wouldn’t be charged with a hate crime.

My life is made difficult, or sometimes impossible, and people want to tell me that I chose it, that it’s my own fault. People go out of their way to make my life worse. All because of ignorance, or prejudice, or religious belief. I’m trying to survive and be a good person, and the message I keep getting is ‘you’re not worth it.’

I’m just a man, same as any other.

Benny

November 3, 2008

This site was last updated 08/11/10