Absenteeism

Okay, okay, I've been gone for a while.  The holidays were busy with holly and ivy and gastroenteritis.  This whole joyful transman gig may be harder than I thought.  When I began it, I felt like a pretty happy person, overall.  And I am very fortunate indeed, but finding reasons to tell y'all about being happy is less simple than I'd thought.

Can I be happy about this?

An acquaintance mentioned my being trans over brunch a few weeks ago and paid me a compliment, kind of:  "It's hard to remember you're trans because you're not an Angry Tranny."  At the time, I laughed it off, but it stuck in my craw a bit until I could make sense of it.  Why, I do believe I was called a "good n****r!"  

Yes.  That is an awful phrase.  But I do think it's an accurate analogy.  That's why it's quite likely to turn me into an Angry Tranny instead of a Joyful Transman.  Apparently, my value lies in the fact that I don't happen to make people as uncomfortable with my gender as other transpeople do.  

What I don't quite get here is why someone else's comfort level automatically translates into a characteristic of mine.  Why am I an angry or not-angry tranny on the basis of their comfort level? 

No, I don't think I can be happy about that.

Can I be happy about this?

So, I met a guy.  He showed all the usual signs of interest.  Until it came to stepping things up a notch.  Then, he needed "time to cope" with my being transgender.  Okay, fine, this sort of thing happens once in a while.  Okay, twice in a while.  Okay, a hundred times in a while.  Makes me ask:  What's worse, being strung along by someone who really just wants to meet the freak or just having guys give me some honest, old-fashioned ostracism?  That's right, fellas!  Waste my time, add yet another person to my life who has issues with my freak-status, 'cause obviously there's a shortage of those!

Oh, did I come across as Angry Tranny?  Dearie me. 

No, I don't think I can be happy about that.

So, what is there to be happy about, when a report has just come out documenting that 41% of transpeople report having attempted suicide, transfolk are twice as likely to be unemployed as the general population, 20% of transpeople have been homeless because of their gender identity or expression, and we're 4 times more likely to live in extreme poverty than people who are not transgender?  [The Report Can Be Seen Here]

I guess I can be happy that I'm one of the lucky ones, but I don't think that will be enough.

So long as we are expected to adjust our lives, behaviours, and even our emotions to others' comfort, being joyful will be a tad difficult. 

So long as we are expected to be forever patient and understanding with those who want to place the stress of their confusion regarding us on our already rather full shoulders, being joyful will be a tad difficult. 

And that's why it is so vital that we work to be joyful.

How?  

Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out.  Joy is to be found in snow days and in the snoring of a napping cat.  It's to be found in the flavour of a walnut cookie and in a perfect tie found at the thrift store.  And yeah, it's to be found in the very things that can piss us off so much too. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. . . that's the greeting card version. 

About all I'm finding at the moment is we're still here.

Yeah, we are still here.  Suck that, bigots! 

We.  Are.  Still.  Here. 

For now, that will have to do.

Introductory Blog Post II

4.  Demystifying Gender and Transgender:  As I pointed out last night, gender is something we all experience, whether we're happy about that or not.  Strangely enough, it's also under-studied and under-thought-about by most of us.  After the period of early childhood where we learned to distinguish between the correct time to say "he" and the correct time to say "she," most of us just tend to think we know what's going on.  Until, that is, we encounter the boundaries gender puts up in our lives.  Sometimes that happens because we want to do something that is not typically considered acceptable for someone of our gender.  Sometimes it happens because we meet someone else who transgresses gender norms.  Many (if not most) people become very uncomfortable when they encounter someone who does not behave as expected.  We don't know how to be polite; we don't know what to make of such a person.

The fact is, though, we all transgress gender norms sometimes.  There's no such thing as a completely masculine man or an entirely feminine woman.  That's because if we look carefully at gender, we find that it doesn't make sense.  Rationality is a traditionally masculine trait in the Western tradition.  But I daresay we all know very rational women.  Empathy is a traditionally feminine trait in the Western tradition.  But no man could learn language without empathy.  Sometimes the gender traits even contradict one another -- women are supposed to be both less than fully rational and also to be competent to raise rational sons.  Eh?  How's that again?

It's a mess.

But where there's a mess, there's a question. 

5.  Keeping a Record:  I'm human.  Yes, I know, some people will argue against that, since I'm one of those evil transgender persons.  But yeah, human here.  And that means my thoughts and understanding are subject to change as I learn and grow.  Keeping a record of how these thoughts do grow and change is a good idea -- the changes themselves might even be worth thinking about as this blog grows. 

6.  Having Fun:  Yes, being transgender is a Very Serious Business.  But besides fighting for social justice and struggling to understand what's going on with gender, it's vital to maintain a sense of humour about being transgender, just as with any other aspect of life.  I mean that literally -- it's vital.  As in "absolutely necessary for life."  The suicide rate and rate of drug use among transgender persons are appalling.  We are ground down by daily life, by constant social disapprobation, and by alienation from the social sphere that we need as much as anyone else in order to thrive.

There are people who want us dead.

Really.
They actually get so upset over our very existence that they want us dead.
Some of them are willing to do something about that.

I defy them.

My defiance consists, in part, in my refusal to be ground down and in my insistence on harvesting as much happiness from life as it will yield.  So if my posts sometimes look as though I'm ignoring the plight of my less fortunate brothers and sisters, remember this:  I will not let the bastards grind us down.

Every time a transgender person laughs, a bigot is defeated.

Introductory Blog Post

Hi.  Welcome to my blog.  Allow me to introduce myself, I'm J.T., and I am a gay, transgender man, a gay "transman."  This means I was born female-bodied, but am masculine gendered and am so oriented as to be attracted to other men.  If that sounds bizarre, don't worry.  It took me a while to figure it out.  Too long. 

I'm starting this for several reasons, not least of which is that people have asked me to make this passing notion a reality.  The other reasons are
1.  Visibility
2.  Breaking Stereotypes
3.  Sharing Ideas
4.  Demystifying Gender and Transgender
5.  Keeping a Record
6.  Having Fun

That's what I've got so far.  That, and that there are some reasons I'm not writing this blog.  I am not writing it to pick up dates.  I am not writing to satisfy curiosities about my (or anyone else's) genitalia, surgeries, hormones, chest shape, earlobes, or the like.  I am not writing it to justify my (or anyone else's) existence.  I am not asking permission.   
 
1. Visibility:  It's important for us to be out, to be visible.  No, I don't think it's an obligation or anything, so I'm not demanding that people who choose to remain stealth come out of the closet.  But the more people know us, the more the issues we have to deal with have a face for them.  Questions of rights, social roles, and sometimes even our lives are personal, and they should be personal to more people.  Every person who meets a transperson and likes hir is one less person objecting to hir using the right public restroom.  And boy, do I wish the issues we deal with were as simple as negotiating pee space! 

2. Breaking Stereotypes:  Most of the images people have of transfolk are negative.  We seem to be portrayed as serial killers in movies, dying, victims of social injustice, entertainers, prostitutes, or just those people your mother warned you about.  And I do not intend to treat the subject of transgender persons (operative word: "persons") as though it is trivial or we are trivial or our lives are some kind of object lesson.  But we need more positive voices speaking up.  We need to show the world that while we struggle to be who we are, the struggle itself is not negative; our lives are not negative.  It's just so amazingly wonderful to gain freedom from fear, from social proscription, from a life that is so constrained as to dictate that we never so much as feel comfortable while sitting in a chair among others, lest we give away our true natures, and this wonder ought to be shared.  I suspect that many people who are not transgender will find that similar fears and proscriptions govern their own lives, and I hope that some (transgender or cisgender or whatever label is wanted or needed) people will use these parallels to improve life for all of us.

3. Sharing Ideas:  All of us are affected by gender.  Let me say that again:  All of us are affected by gender.  Whether we are happy with the gender assignment we were given at birth or not, whether we reject gender entirely, we are affected by gender.  Until you read this sentence, you probably were not thinking about the chair you were sitting in.  You would have just kind of expected it to work, right?  But if it broke, you'd think about it.  You'd look and see what happened, right?  Well, some of us just don't match up with gender in the ways people tend to expect without thinking.  And looking at our lives may give insight into what's going on with gender for all of us.  Most websites about transpersons are about the effects of hormones, or about how to dress, or about the crushing, soul-killing experience of trying to live up to those ubiquitous expectations that just don't fit us.  I want to write something different; I want to write about joy.  Writing is nearly magic.  While you read these words, your mind is thinking what my mind is thinking as I type them.  I want to show you the joy. 

More to come.  Thanks for reading so far.