Trans woman « From Eternity To Here

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I was moved today by the story of a young (30) trans woman who wants be a mother. Not surprisingly, she is plagued with fears of the unknown. Her parents have disowned her because she had the courage to reveal her truth. What if her child did the same? Can she find a man who can embrace her and walk with her and a child as a family? Though she has much love to give, she searches for someone to give it to. It is a familiar story, tragically repeated amongst so many trans persons.

It is one that daily resonates with me. (Only, it is my children who have disowned me.) “Who will love me?” I often wonder. “Who can love me?” is the great trans lament.

“I realized that gender transition, even under the best of circumstances, is unequivocal and unforgiving. It required of me everything I had, and then some. I was still paying for it. Yet, there was no compromise, no half measure. I had to make my way in the world as a woman or not at all. I had been blessed and fortunate to have done so as quickly as I had and with relative ease. Still, I was resigned to accept the fact that some pieces would never be complete. I doubted that I would overcome gender identity discrimination in Montana, and it did not seem likely that I would find a man who could accept me and love me as the whole person that I am. I had a whole heart, and I wanted the person who could take the hard part and love that too. (The “Hard Part” by Dave Wilcox). I wanted the person with whom I could share every secret so that secrets would be no more. That person was not to be found.

I began to accept that too, as I mused about just who would want a trans woman for a partner. In the ordinary course, a heterosexual male is looking for a heterosexual woman, not a heterosexual trans woman. Guys, with few exceptions, think it’s just too freaky for them to accept. A lesbian woman likewise does not want a lesbian trans woman, as we are sometimes perceived as something less than a real woman. And I get that. Even though I have this hunger to be known, I’m not like the girl next door.”

TransMontana, pp 281-82. (I try here to write for the entire trans community – not just me.)

So, I try to stop speculating about what might or might not be. I have no control over what is yet to come, so must try to let go of fear. My life is now – not some distant point in the future. It is right here, right now. I must live it, even though not as full or complete as I might like. I have peace and joy in whom and what I am. I may be a social enigma, but I know in my heart that I am whole as a woman, even though born as a man. I believe in myself. That gives me great comfort and strength. Thus, I am able to interact with the rest of the world with honesty, authenticity and integrity. And if I may find someone who can love me like that, well, it will have been worth the wait.

Sex and Cis-tems of Oppression (stnfrdstatic.com)
Rethinking Sexism: How Trans Women Challenge Feminism (musingsonlifelawandgender.typepad.com)
The Social Component of Valid Gender Identity (bilerico.com)

An attempt at a discrimination graphic. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was 9:30 at the Helena City Council meeting when the mayor slightly rolled his eyes as he tapped his gavel, signaling the close of the public hearing portion on final passage of the LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance.

“What’s your pleasure,” he said to the council members.

The council took up four amendments proposed by the sponsor in a vain attempt to rescue her two years of campaigning and soulful work on this ordinance to make it as fair and inclusive as possible. The other members of the commission were simply not having it, as she tried to persuade them to drop the trans phobic “locker room” amendment.

“It’s beyond the limits of my understanding,” the mayor proclaimed with exasperation, and a council member said the same a few minutes later.

And, then again, “This is beyond the limits of my understanding,” the mayor repeated, seemingly liking the sound of the phrase he had coined even more the second time around.

He just as well have said, “I don’t understand, and I don’t want to understand!” for that is what I heard with a sinking feeling that remains with me, now rooted in my psyche just as firmly as the amendment is now part of the ordinance, which to some now codifies the vilification of trans people, and legalizes a certain form of discrimination against them.

I had not considered these thoughts prior to the hearing, and I apologize to the trans community for failing you. I had taken the amendment lightly, as if any self respecting pre-op trans woman would be caught dead showing off the wrong genitalia in the women’s locker room. (I focus on trans women only because that was the sum and substance of the hysteria at the hearing, though I do not wish to belittle the safety risk to trans men in the men’s locker room.) I know that I would not have dared reveal my pre-op attachment – I was way too afraid of being read. I’m thinking a penis would have been a dead give away. But, more than that, I am far too modest and respecting of the women around me to compromise them in such a way, for I take my solidarity with women as a sacred trust. For it is to this sisterhood that I belong, and losing that sense of belonging, as a woman among women, would be a fate worse than death. Indeed, it would be as akin to death or more, while yet breathing, as were the last years of living as a man, drunk, dispirited and demoralized.

Could I have made a difference by continuing to urge a more specific understanding, as I had in general terms in my testimony? Some have suggested that the council member who proposed the amendment relied on his belief that I “was okay with it” in so doing. Well, I wasn’t okay with it. In fact, I had posted just last week (and sent the post to the council) a suggested compromise to the amendment whereby a public accommodation would not be discriminating if they asked a person who displayed socially inconsistent genitalia in the locker room to leave. Some would have trouble with even this compromise, although, given my statements above about fear, modesty and solidarity, I think it is entirely reasonable. I stand by it.

Nonetheless, I did not talk about bathrooms in my testimony, so, council members evidently did not feel that the trans community objected. I am just one person who testified, I realize, however, many have looked to me to represent their interest and I did not. I let you down and I regret that.

As I ponder these matters, in the quiet half light of dusk, with a growing philosophical sense, I realize that I am not to blame. No one is that powerful – to enlighten the minds of those with limits upon their own understanding.