When trying to figure out exactly what i wanted to write about on Blog Against Sexism Day i knew only one thing, i wanted to write something original and challenging. But what did that look like? Well, i figured the best persyn to challenge was myself, so here’s what i’ve come up with.
I’m not writing this piece for the majority of those who will read it. This is merely a conversation that i need to have with myself and other trans-identified people. My biggest fear in writing this is that it will be used against me and other trannies in this already tensely transphobic atmosphere. So, my non-trans friends, instead of looking at this piece as another excuse to exclude trans folks, please look at it as an invitation to challenge yourself and the internalized oppressor in you. If you have nothing but words of hate to spew, stay the hell out of my house. Now let’s get on with it.
Its easy as transgendered and genderQueer people to believe that we are beyond or outside of gender politics as usual. As those who live on the margins, its only natural to focus on ourselves as oppressed beings - victims of a transphobic society. But something i’ve had to come to terms with is my own socialized sexism as a trans persyn.
After breaking up, my most recent partner did me a great service for which i will always be thankful. Zi pointed out the many ways that i carry out sexist behavior in intimate relationships. From my emotional detachment to my often selfish sexual whims to expecting my partners to be empty recepticals of my emotional baggage and more, i’ve learned sexist behavior. So how does this happen? How is it that people whose very existance challenge the binary gender roles get stuck in perpetuating some of the worst aspects of those roles?
For trannies, gender socialization is complex and confusing. Like everyone else we learn what it means to be a real man and to be a real womyn. Unlike most others, we mesh those roles together instead of doing the more difficult work of creating something entirely new. Its easy to mesh together the frame work of an oppressive system because its already there. Its widely supported. Its expected. Its all we’re taught. Unfortunately, the parts we mesh together aren’t really the healthy parts of gender socialization (if the argument can be made that there are indeed healthy aspects of either socialization process). Instead, we learn a complex system of submission and dominance.
For example, when i’m around self-identified or assigned men i am often much more quiet and submissive, but while i’m around self-identified or assigned wimmin i’m usually more outspoken and dominant. I can only speak for me persynally and my own gender socialization. Each trans persyn has different experiences and learns different lessons, which is why its important for each of us to explore our own gender socialization. However, to do such work alone can be difficult, depressing and stressful. So where do we find support if each of us has different experiences and learns different lessons? Do we start up extremely exclusive support groups like the “female-assigned trannyfag survivors of sexual assault” and the “male-assigned trannygrrrls who never experienced sexual assault”? The idea alone hurts my head let alone trying to create such networks. Its become very obvious that we aren’t really welcomed in most male-assigned-male or female-assigned-female spaces. Nor do i think we should necessarily be fighting to be included in these spaces. Such people have different issues than us; incredibly interwoven, but different. Instead, i think its time we dialogue amonst ourselves and have the difficult conversations of recognizing the ways that we’ve been socialized as both oppressor and oppressed. I truly believe that our liberation is found not in lying to ourselves, but in speaking honestly about our stories. When we are liberated from the lies of liberation, we are truly free.
So for this blog against sexism day, i challenge trans folks to look at ourselves and see how sexist gender socialization effects us and dominates our actions. Its not easy. Its not always clear. But if sexism is to end and we truly are to break free of the restricting rules of a binary gender system, then we must do the hard work. So get to it!
*i recognize that my writing is specific - persynal. And i know that i write from a place of unearned privilege. I don’t mean to make sweeping generalizations, but instead wish to spark a thought that so often is denied especially in my own head. I encourage critical readings and analysis of this piece, but as i said before, if you’ve come to do nothing but hate, get the fuck out of my house!
[tags]blog against sexism, sexism, trans liberation, antioppression[/tags]
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Great post! I have only one nit-pick….
“Unlike most others, we mesh those roles together instead of doing the more difficult work of creating something entirely new.”
I think this sentence gives “most others” entirely too much credit!
you’re right amp, the wording of that does not say what i was meaning for it to. That’s the problem with my style of writing - get it out and go. No looking back for such silly things as editing.
I should have gotten rid of the “Unlike most others” and written something more along the lines of:
“As trans-identified people, we often mesh together the worst parts of both male and female socialization instead of taking on the more difficult work of saying ‘ok, that’s the way we learn to be. But here are the ways we can choose to be. By recognizing the repressive/oppressive lessons we learn from such socializations we should be able to create something entirely new. Something that liberates the body and soul from strict gender rules.”
Its just so easy to try to fit in to the accepted roles of male and female. The extremes, that is. Because when we meet the supposed standards of gender education (often times becoming parodies of the respective binary definitions of gender), we become a sort of model for normativity. A model that passes as acceptable in this fucked up world. When your options are to pass or face death, its so easy to pass. Anyone can do it.
I’d contend, though, that as trans people we are never alive until we lose that fear of death. I speak only from theory, tho. As i still play the roles. I still pass. I still fear death, even when i’m already dead.