xoros

I can be pretty hard on myself sometimes. I still berate myself for things I did nearly twenty years ago. Things that perhaps other people involved barely remember now? Who knows! I’m my own worst judge and jury and I have very little mercy for myself. I should forgive myself such things, especially so long ago.. and so relatively minor. I just don’t like hurting people, ever. Maybe I should try not to hurt myself too, that would be fairer!

If’s and buts about the past serve only to trap us there. Constantly reliving and wondering if we could have done it better. Done my life better. The irony is that by doing so I never do get it right, because I only ever go back and focus on what I think I did wrong. Not what I feel I got right. I can’t undo a decision and slowly beating myself to an emotional standstill over a thing is not going to achieve a different outcome. It might make the one I did choose seem like the wrong one, because I can say “Hey I’m kind of not happy about that!” But am I more unhappy because of what I did then, or because of how I view what I did then, now? Shouldn’t I recognise that the now I do inhabit is a good one and that it deserves my attention? Would any other alternate now be a better one?

It’s impossible to say, regardless I am still left with the simple fact that the past is immutable. What’s more, the me that is now, doing the regretting, only exists because of that past. To seek to change it would be to erase my self. And that’s something I do not want to do.

The only healthy thing to do is forgive myself. Not forget, because these are the things that make me me, just as much as any decision I look back in approval on. I forgive others more easily than myself. But it is not actually so hard, is it? To say “I’m sorry my me, it’s ok to be you”?

And it is ok.

She’s amazing <3

Further to my last entry, Elana is continuing to fight a good fight on Feministing with this post. I seriously doubt I will comment, I’m not even sure I want to read the comments that much once it gets going. But kudos, Elana, for a very, very, pertinent and well made point. And for continuing to be prepared to fight that amount of transphobic bigotry.

[Update - 11/11/09]

Since posting gossip analysis about a popular US television programme is clearly more important to the Feministing editors, than, ya know, actually saying anything or doing anything other than completely killing trans subjects through comment asphixiation, I’d say they clearly aren’t serious enough about trans issues. Meh, sadly not really much of a surprise.

Just a quick addition today! I’m all ranted out for the moment, lucky people you.

So, a nonpology around the original incident that caused this has appeared. That’s my opinion of it anyway. For a more detailed and angry response than I can currently muster, my personal favorite so far is geopunk’s.

And also, if you want a very well written, non ranting explanation of how othering works and how the cis~ words fit into destabilising this, then I really highly recommend this one. It’s quite excellent and has easy to understand tables and examples. There is even less excuse left now!

[EDIT] There is a very interesting and generally well tempered debate going on in the comments of the apology post, it must be said.

Hello again and welcome back to my continuing current preoccupation with the words cis, cisgender and cissexual. Clearly I haven’t got my frustration out of my system yet. Quiet at the back, no groaning. Today I’m going to very quickly (no really, doing this at the length the conversations these are based on would need a whole website for each bit) go through the objections I’ve heard about those oh so difficult to understand and accept words that cis (oops used it twice already) people have thrown at me (and usually ignored my answers in order to throw right back at me). Then I’m going to tell you what I hear when they are said. And what I think of that.

Stop pushing an identity on me!

Well, I have kind of covered this, right? So, you know, basically it’s just isn’t. Kthx.

Gender is a social construct! It doesn’t exist! Therefore cisgender is a flimflam!

Whoa, wait a moment, so what you seem to be saying is that trans people are just making it up about their gender identities and basically you think we’re all in dire need of psychiatric help? No, you are, you can’t deny it, because if gender identity is only a social construct then clearly my assertion that I have one, that it is not derived from my natal body is also false and the fact I do so must be a symptom of some deep issues. Cos, you don’t insist on having a gender do you sane cis person? Well no, you don’t need to. Everyone agrees and reinforces yours. You’ve never needed to actually think about and locate that sense of self. You’ve not had to consider whether you even have one and then try to assert your right to a self and you still don’t! Oh and you know? I’ve just noticed that your argument that rules me as a liar for making mine up has handily for you ruled anything I say about my lived experience that would support my position also suspect. Go you! You’ve discovered a magic anti trans people shield that psychiatrists have been using on us for ages!

But it’s a binary and binaries are evil! What about people who are genderqueer! You excluder you!

Well how ironic. You’ve bogged me down into explaining cis and trans in ever decreasing circular arguments and now you want to try to trip me up by going “Aha! You’re prejudiced against people who aren’t binary gendered!”? Well thanks for noticing they exist too! Convenient moment to do so as well! But wait, you know if we hadn’t spent the last eon trying to get the concept of cis to fit into your brain, we could have gone on to talk about why trans and cis don’t cover the whole rainbow of people out there. You know, bogging me down in details and ignoring what is said then suddenly zooming out to the big picture is not actually the same as proving that I am prejudiced against genderqueer people. In fact, I never said it was a binary, you did!

But it’s so complex with the trans/cisgender and the trans/cissexual and the trans/cis and the genderqueer and everything!

Ah I see, so basically you’re saying you think transgender means the same as transsexual, cos that’s clearly simple and easy and means we’re all just “transgenders” and I’m “a transgender”? Well no… I’m a woman. Trans woman if that’s relevant. Not a thing! Not a strange other noun that makes me sound like a different species. And while we’re on the subject? I’m transgendered and transsexual. Cos they aren’t the same thing. I mean really, is that so hard to get? If I start bringing in cis based counterparts that mess with that handy othering of me you think your brain might explode? Well… I managed to learn the difference. In one afternoon! You can too! It’s not so hard, go on, I believe in you!

But having your gender match the one assigned at birth just doesn’t line up to a word! Reductionist!

Hold on one moment. You’re happily refering to me as trans, or transgender (or “a transgender”, good grief), based on the fact that my gender doesn’t match the one I was assigned at birth but… there can’t be a word for when they do? I’m reducing you to a word? I’m being essentialist? I’m sorry, what was that word again… you know, the one you were using that was based on reducing me to the relationship between my gender identity and my body? It’s on the tip of my tongue… ah well, it’ll come to me.

You can’t create a label for another group! That’s oppressing me!

Oh you don’t want to be labelled? You don’t want to have words that reduce you imposed on you? You feel that belittles you? That it’s not fair for other people to label you? That you have the right to be known as person? That’s right, poor you! Me and the million trans person army at my back just marched in and imposed a word on you. We’re sorry, martial law was inevitable wasn’t it? I mean, we just have so much power to impose things on you don’t we. Nevermind, perhaps one day you can escape the matrix by unplugging us from the mains electricity! I mean really? You think trans people have that kind of agency over the cis majority? Really? You think we asked to be labelled? You think we want to be known as anything other than a person? Why do you think we use this little cis adjective then? You know, it might, and I’ll take a wild stab at this, it might be because we would like you to consider the idea that we aren’t freaks, special snowflakes, a different species, abnormal fundamentally different to you and that you shouldn’t enforce transphobia by having special othering words for us and there be no word at all for the default state you possess and are othering us from.

I should get to decide what label describes me!

We’d happily have used one you all came up with but, tsk, I guess you didn’t check your to-do list yet. I’m sure you would have got around to it eventually. Perhaps we should come back in twenty years when you have one? Would that be enough time? You do promise to get round to it don’t you? Or perhaps, you know, we might be allowed to talk about these things before you catch up with us? Actually, now I think about it, isn’t it possible that you can only catch up with us if there is a word like cis? Have you considered that unless we created one we couldn’t even be talking about the default at all? Even amongst ourselves?

It’s an ugly looking/sounding word, I don’t like it!

Well… that’s constructive! I don’t like the word transsexual, personally. I still get stuck using it. Other people understand it, it was here before I arrived so I guess that’s that. We could try using our own made up ones but it might be a bit hard for other people to know what on earth we were on about. While we’re at it, can we replace the word cabbage with “zoon”? I like it more!

It’s an academic word and therefore elitist!

Oh I’m sorry! I confused you with a new word that sounds clever? I know, lets ban all new words that sound clever and replace them with ones that aren’t. So, first on my list is economics. That sounds way too academic to me and it’s not been around that long either, what shall we use instead? Or do you mean that it only gets used by that rare person who studies gender for a living? Aha! So all the trans people and allies in the world using it are really a secret plot by gender studies professors to make sure they have a job! How cunning! I’ll be sure to mention we’ve been rumbled at the next faculty meeting.

And rest…

Well, there you go. Glad I got that out of my system! If you come up with any more, please do let me know. No really, I’m just dying to hear why you should be allowed to other me and defend your cis privilege. It’s not like it happens to me often at all is it.

There’s a rather large blogsplosion going on, based on the response to, and subsequent “debate” around, the term cis. In the best tradition of blogging about blogging and sticking one’s oar in to a debate that you are only tenuously connected to by reading about it while linking to other blogs, I’m going to do just that.

Essentially, the argument is that trans people have no right to impose an identitity word on everyone else and that we are doing so in spreading the use of the word cis as an adjective equivalent to trans, cis being “not-trans”. The case against is that the “basic issue is that “cis” is an identifier, even though some writers claim it isn’t” (I picked this post because I found it and it neatly and articulately describes the counter argument to mine and not from some malicious “ooo I’m going to pick on… THIS blog” action. It’s still completely wrong though, in my opinion, just sayin’) and that we are therefore trying to redefine everyone and that this is not on, rude and insulting. Thing is though, this is not the right counter argument because… you know, it is based on a complete misunderstanding of how the term cis is intended to work, which is inherent in the quote I put there.

I mean, maybe I and the trans people I know are in some weird little minority bubble (a bubblet? a subbubble?) but, we’ve always taken it as a word only used when needed to distinguish between cis and trans people. So like, as a very good friend of mine said, “no one is expecting you to go into the bakers and say “Hi! I’m cisgendered! Oooh bagels!”". You know, if it isn’t relevant, it isn’t needed. I don’t go around saying “Hey I’m a trans woman” all the time. No, I say “I’m a woman”. Just like any cis person! How amazing! Like, who knew trans people didn’t want to wander around making a big deal of it? Oh that’s right, asking to be seen as equals is making a big deal, sorry! My mistake!

The trans modifier is only there when… relevant. Cis modifiers are even less often relevant, because it’s the unspoken expectation. The only time it needs using is when it would be confusing or othering not to use it. So, it’s not meant to be used as an identifier. It is a descriptor. That’s all. Just a way to avoid saying “woman and trans women”, or “women don’t face some of the issues trans women do” cos that would be like othering. You know? What is wrong with being able to say those with equality and respect for each other in the form “cis women don’t face some of the issues trans women do”?

You don’t have to use it like an identity or use it all the time or use it when it’s not relevant or if there is no need to distinguish between trans and cis people or use it when shopping or use it when you need to pee or anything else? Kthxbai.

I really, really just don’t get it. Unless, you know, you all really do think we ought to be in freak shows and you’re just too polite to mention it to our faces? I seriously doubt me posting this will make any difference at all. If you are cis and you disagree. Meh. I’ve had direct conversations with cis people who do disagree and it’s a pointless circular excercise that basically goes:

Them: “Eeeuw don’t label me!”

Me: “I’m not! descriptor, not identity! No!”

Them: “But labelling!”

Me: “No, no, isn’t, just descriptor. Examples that are also majority descriptors not identities!”

Them: “Eeeeeuw don’t label me!!!!”

…and so on until the heat death of the universe unless one of us is sensible enought to go meh. Which tends to be me. Cos, you know, there is little more soul wearying than talking to someone who wants to say “I’m normal, you’re not, no need for a word to describe me! I’m normal! Now stop being an angry, difficult trans person so I can go back to feeling sorry for you and happy about my normalness.” If we ever get past the label misunderstanding, we tend to end up on another circle of pointless misunderstanding hell where the cis person refuses to accept that there is such a thing as a cis person at all (cos like, who needs another word for normal eh? “Tsk, pesky equality, we don’t need it for freaks. Oops! Sorry! Trans people, no let me pat you on the head and feel glad to be me, off you run”). Any argument on the word cis I’ve ever been in follows the same pattern. Cis person says it’s doing this or doesn’t do that or whatever. Trans person, says, no you misunderstand, it’s not doing what you fear it is. Cis person ignores this and restates their original objection and requires an answer. Repeat until trans person gives in or leaves. Yay for enlightened debate and listening! Another triumph for tolerance and allowing a minority to speak fairly and freely about their position!

So you know, you feel free to other me and so on, you will anyway of course! I’m going to keep on using language that describes things neatly and doesn’t other me and stops me having to saying things like “Oh well see if you are a person-who’s-gender-assigned at-birth-matches-their-gender-identity you don’t face all the same issues as a person-who’s-gender-assigned-at-birth-doesn’t-match-their-gender-identity” Cos that would be silly. Don’t make me do it. No really, no one would win.

Warning! This post might be controversial. Sorry about that. It’s about me! So I can’t help it!

The fact that I lack any safe space is a source of disillusionment for me. I do not expect people to be false and to go against their own opinions to provide it. It’s important to say that. That would be unfair to them and false safety for me. What exercises me is the fact that I don’t feel I have any unequivocal support for my identity and my lived experience against all comers. I feel I have no community to fight my corner with me when I fire a flare into the darkness for aid. And here I mean wade in and stick up for me, ask questions later, support. In a world where every trans person I know (and the only other person I know personally who might possibly relate to this post and finds themself in a similar  position would definitely like me to point out that she’s genderqueer), has found this, it’s hard to express quite how othered and alone that can feel.

What’s the reason for this you might ask? Go on, I’ll imagine someone asking if it helps. I’ll tell you, I don’t want srs. Call me crazy, call me inconceivable but that’s how I wish to live my life and gender. This is my life, my body and my gender identity. There is no one size fits all way of doing it, although anyone who wants to dispute the need and right of trans people who do desire physical transition can totally rely on my fighting on their side!

You know, I have found a few trans women who are in the same place. They are like me, their outlet is blogging. Reading some one else’s blog is something yes, it makes me feel like I’m not a one off for a start!  But it isn’t the same as a community or personal friends. It is oft repeated and sometimes accepted that 90% of trans women never have srs for all sorts of reasons*. I can find no source for this by the way, but I’ve read it in print and online several times, it took me ages to find the first time round when I just needed to know I wasn’t the only woman who thought this way. In fact, it’s such a shady figure that even when I did find it the comments have always been that all that 90% wanted srs but couldn’t. OK, well, I put my hand up. I probably could have it, but I don’t want it. So, is that 89.99 recuring percent now? With me all in my own category? Or since I exist… you never know so might others! How shocking! Surely you’re out there? But where!?

We’re the dark matter of trans. Invisible and disputed, a theory for some people to speculate on and project their own ideas and pet conceits on to. We have to fight even harder and on even more fronts to have our identities accepted, not just as women, but as transsexuals in the first place, to have the very fact we too have gender dysphoria and are valid women accepted. I think we must be giving up on communities as even amongst trans women our existence, motivations and even identities can be subject to question and suspicion. I know this, I’ve looked all over for you others! Did we just miss each other in those forums? Were you just around the corner when I wandered into virtual world trans spaces? We should make an appointment next time!

We are othered by the othered and cast adrift to fend for ourselves, probably because we make it even messier and more confusing and therefore even harder for the cis majority to accept everyone else. Gender fuck? I sex fuck, sexuality fuck and then get dirty with notions of genderqueer and binary too for afters and I’m still a binary lesbian woman. For my next trick I’ll time travel, or perhaps just be really awkward, I can manage that one sleeping ! My life, body and gender are a grey area for everyone to try and map and claim for their side. Or one of  the other sides, depending whether they want me in their team or not .

Wait a moment though, I’m not a team capture the flag game! So, I find the only sensible response is to plant a fuck off huge sign “Here be a dragon, and she’s fucking pissed off  about it :V”

Thank you for listening .
With love.

*EDIT This includes people who can’t for health reasons, for financial reasons, limits to do with their lives as well as those of us who are able to find a way to balance our dysphoria without. Thought this was important to make really, really clear!

Over at The Thang Blog Rebecca has posted a good summary of how recent problems faced by trans women in feminist community blogs played out, particularly in relation to her own experience on Feministing. My personal opinion on the matter is pretty close to hers but that is not what I want to write about. No, this is about a conversation that developed in the comments where Rachel_in_WY as part of her comment said,

“But it’s not that I think cis women can’t contribute to a discussion like this. In this case I don’t think I can…”

Which I took to mean cis in the all encompassing sense of the adjective. I assumed Rachel to be both cisgendered and cissexual, which changed my assumptions about her, she quite rightly pointed that this was an assumption and was kind enough to explain why.

What’s the difference you might ask, between cisgendered and cissexual? Myself I like geopunk’s descriptions as concise and to the point,

Cisgender: Describes a person whose gender identity aligns with their assigned gender. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a person has to be comfortable with their society’s determined gender roles.

Cissexed: Describes a person whose physical body (i.e. genitals, reproductive organs, secondary sex characteristics), as far as they know, aligns with their assigned sex. Someone can be cissexed without being cisgender; for example, many genderqueer people fall under this category.

Cis: When shortened to just cis, used as an umbrella term for someone who is both cisgender and cissexed.

Transgender: An umbrella descriptor for a person whose gender does not align with the one they were assigned. May include crossdressing/transvestism, gender fluid, genderqueer, and/or transsexual individuals. Sometimes shortened to trans* (with or without the asterisk) when used to mean “transgender and/or transsexual individuals”.

Transsexual/transsexed: Describes a person whose body does not align with their gender, and is either planning to, is in the process of, or has completed a process of changing it to align. This process of medical transition may include hormone therapy and/or surgery. There is no “one true way” to go about being transsexual.

Basically I assumed that in saying cis Rachel was indicating that she was identifying fully as cis. I don’t want to put further words into her mouth but I think she meant that she was using cis specifically in a cissexed context.  It’s an interesting aspect of the words that while trans*, transgender and transsexual are regularly used and differentiated from one another, particularly amongst ourselves, the equivalent word cluster around cis are still vague and cis itself is seen as far more all encompassing than trans words are. Perhaps partly as there is less recognition of the fact that just because someone defines themselves as in some way cis it does not mean that they entirely feel themselves to be so. I think another issue is that the adjective cis is still not accepted by all cis people as a valid descriptor contributes. Discussion around the term focusses on whether trans* people should be allowed to create a word to replace the othering and discriminating situation of there being no words equivalent to trans* to describe people who are not. I feel that resistance to the word cis prevents the discussion moving on to be about what cis is, what it describes and how there can be categories within the term that cis people might use to describe who they are without the assumption that they are completely cisgendered and cissexed.

This brings me back to geopunk’s FAQ page and further complexity, ways to talk about where one is if one accepts that gender is more than just male/female,

Binary identity: Describes a person whose gender identity is defined more similarly to the way that their culture defines “man” and “woman”. This includes cis people, and also a great many trans* people. Some people define “cisgender” in this way, but in order to avoid confusion I use separate definitions.

Genderqueer: Describes a person whose identity is neither entirely male nor entirely female. Can be used as a noun or adjective. Genderqueers may be cissexed or transsexed. Genderqueers may identify as “all of the above” or “none of the above”, or bigendered, or polygendered, or genderfucked, or as an androgyne, or gender fluid. “Genderqueer” as a category is not mutually exclusive from “trans*”, although some genderqueer people do not identify as trans. There are probably as many definitions of genderqueer as there are people who identify this way, so I will keep my definition (and use of the term) vague but flexible.

What I particularly like about the way geopunk is using these is that it stops binary being used as a description for cisgendered, recognising that a great many trans men and women experience their genders as being just that, at one end of a continuum, just as cisgendered people do. This is important. Without this there is no way to express that concisely which is part of a tendency for all trans people to be pushed into a group in between male/female, regardless of whether they see themselves as fitting in there. Equally importantly it allows genderqueer to stand without it being compromised by the inclusion of binary trans people, allowing it to mean what it means and not become a catchall for everyone who is not cisgendered and cissexed. This is important if we really want to recognise and support the amazing variety of lived experiences people have as any time someone is pushed into a category they feel erases them we are denying their right to individuality and self definition.

So it’s all got a bit more complex but then, people are just that. Any reduction of nature to a binary by neccesity chops off and excludes things, nature is too fuzzy and wonderfully messy to fit into neat pairs of categories. To understand it, and ourselves, we need to allow for complexity within our simplifications and to always be aware that someone else might be simplifying when they use one of these terms, whether it is a trans term or a cis term. If these are all to be equally valid and fair to everyone then that goes in all directions, cis, trans, genderqueer, any of them.

So for clarity I can say that I am a binary identified, transgendered, transsexual woman, when I need to be particularly precise about exactly where I am on this web of interlocking terms, when simplifying for either convenience or wider points, I can say I am a trans woman. Equally I am still just a woman and a human being.

What the complex descriptions do is allow us all freedom to say exactly who we are without having parts of our identities erased. What the simple descriptions do is allow us all to remember what we have in common and where we can find points of intersection and common ground. I think both are important and I’m glad I have been reminded of this.