Also known as: “It must be so nice to be comfortable in either social role (even though you say you aren’t)” and “I don’t care about non-binaries enough to find out what things are like for you, so I’m going to make snippy digs about how I have it worse and therefore don’t have to care about non-binaries”.

This conversation happened on facebook in a conversation about passing: Person1: “I don’t really identify as female. I identify with both sexes. It’s kinda hard to explain.” Person2: “okay, then why would passing as male as opposed to female be an issue?”

Non-binaries get this all the bloody time. I don’t know what Person1’s exact gender is. If Person1 is bigender, a lot of bigender people have the problem that they don’t enjoy passing as either all the time. If a bigendered person is currently a werman, he won’t enjoy being called a woman any more than any other guy (of course, having the other half of his gender denied is aggravating as well). It can be just as painful. Bigendered people get the distinction of, somewhat literally, switching from trans to cis without any real control over it. With current medical technology and androgyny acceptance, it’s fairly difficult for bigendered people to get a body/presentation they’re comfortable with all the time. In other words: No, being bigendered doesn’t mean you’re happy when you don’t pass. It means it’s even harder to figure out how to pass unless you have Androgyny Powers (what I call being able to switch from passing as male to female and back fairly easily, or just passing as androgynous).

And that’s with people who are literally both. The rest of us still get these snide comments about how we can be happy in either social role. News Flash: I CAN’T. I’m not comfortable in either role. Binary gendered people, visualize something for a moment. If you’re trans- this should be easy. Think back to the last time you were misgendered, for whatever reason. If it happened often, think about how that felt. Think about the pain when no one saw you as the correct gender. If you didn’t pass easily, think about how aggravating it was to work to look like who you know you are and have it be ignored. Now remember this feeling, and expand it to feeling like you would be misgendered no matter what you were called. If you’ve never been misgendered- imagine how it would feel to try and convince anyone what gender you are, and have none of them believe you. For complete strangers greet you with the wrong option out of “sir” and “ma’am” and just looking confused and disbelieving when you go to correct them. Just imagine that anyways.

The entire world can flip a coin- heads is werman tails is woman or vice versa- every time someone sees you and it comes wrong all the time. You will never be called the right title, pronoun, or gender by a stranger (it’s touchy on friends and loved ones) no matter what you do. Even painting a giant sign saying “I go by [pronoun] and my gender is _____” will just get skeptical looks and laughed off as a joke unless you’re in an extremely trans and queer friendly environment. Even when your pronouns and gender fit the binary, people will react with confusion when you tell them your pronouns. It can be even worse with less accepted pronouns.

When you don’t fit into the binary, the closest to being correctly gendered most people get in this world is a stumbled “Ma’a — si — ah…?”. Which isn’t necessarily what non-binary people want. And that is not easy to achieve because people don’t like androgyny. Small amounts- some people think it’s cool or cute when a girl acts is a tomboy and acts like “one of the guys” (but not completely, she’s still a girl, she can’t be treated the same as guys!). Some people compliment a boy for being sensitive (within reasonable limits, a boy who cries too easily is just “a sissy”). But in those cases- you can still tell who’s a man and who’s a woman. You can still assert your sub-conscious “right” to constantly know what genitalia every stranger you meet has.

But proper androgyny, where you genuinely can’t tell? People don’t like that. It makes people confused and uncomfortable and even angry because it’s unknown to them. It throws their life views into question. When you’re walking the line between what society sees as a “werman” and “woman”, people seem to become hyper-aware of every little gender-tell and unless you have the right combinations, they’ll slap a label on you, and sometimes they’ll be more fervent about that label when you point out it’s wrong (or not entirely right), as if constantly misgendering someone will make that false-gender real. Some people are content with a close-to 50/50 split of what you’re being read as, but that really is about as good as it gets, and is difficult to get with friends and family and people who know you as a certain gender.

The idea that we can deal with misgendering any better just because being correctly gendered is so hard on binarists (and I know quite a few trans people included in that description) is insulting. Our gender is just as valid, our preferred pronouns are just as valid, misgendering isn’t any more acceptable than it is to misgender a woman or werman. Our dysphoria (social, bodily, or otherwise) is just as real. The habit so many people have of dismissing, denying, and erasing non-binary experiences is problematic. So often the assumptions people make about non-binaries are directly disproved by actual non-binary experiences, and even when this is pointed out the speaker doesn’t seem to care.(sometimes they do, but I’ve seen too many who don’t)

So, yes.

Misgendering does matter. Even when it’s applied to me.

I come from a place of not feeling comfortable in a female body.

The time that I remember feeling uncomfortable in my own body, I think, started around puberty, when I was developing.  I developed later than most other girls,  but when I finally did, I tried to deny the changes that were occurring in my body (breasts, menstruating).  Before development, I felt like a light, genderless, free human being.  I never looked forward to developing breasts or gaining my period.  According to others, my body would someday change, but I almost did not believe them because I could not imagine it, and it did not appeal to me.  There was something about the “female” body that did not feel like me; I could not imagine looking more like my mother. I could not imagine looking more like my father, but a flat chest, and no blood felt like it would fit me better.

I have felt extremely alone and isolated with my feelings of being born in the “wrong” body especially since being born with male anatomical parts never felt completely right either.  I do not know what I “should have” been born with or as, but what I have, now, does not feel fitting. I do wonder if there is any body that would feel fitting though.

Currently, I do not identify as a transsexual, but I can relate to transsexuals.  I do not identify as anything.  There has not been a term created for people like me yet. There is no term for persons who feel like the body they have is not the body they ought to have been born with, yet they do not have plans to transition their bodies because there is no other body that would help them feel more connected.  No bodies feel right.  I don’t feel like I should have been born with any female or male anatomical parts.

Recently, I have decided to accept my body, all of it even the parts that are not muscular enough to my eye.  In many ways, I have not accepted my body. I have not accepted it has a “female” body, and I have criticized it as not being muscular enough. Over the years, my body, heart, and self-esteem has ached from my constant criticism and hatred.  One night, as I was stretching, I started to caress my body and felt it crying out to me for acceptance.  Tears strung down my cheek as I said, “Self, I accept you”.  Those words had never felt as true as they did in that moment. I felt ready to take a huge leap on the path of self-acceptance.

By no means is this path easy.  I still have feelings of self-hatred, hurt, and anger about being born in a “female” body that come up.  The difference, now, is that I no longer let those feelings control my self-esteem and take me down a long, dark tunnel of alienation and hopelessness. The way I have felt in my body has been my struggle.  I may continue to feel uncomfortable in it for the rest of my life, but I intend to love myself despite.

I call myself “Fluidity” because my gender is fluid. Gender is a performance. I perform. Gender is complicated. I am complicated. Gender is changeable. I am changeable.  ”My genders” or performances reflect my internal feelings about my body in the sense that they are complex and in a constant state of change or at least trying to change. Gender, as a construct, has defined my body as “female” and me as a “woman”, which I have resented in many ways.  I resent those who label me without my consent.  But, despite being labeled, the feelings about my body have still remained. Gender has been constructed from bodies although gender is fiction and bodies are real. This is a blog about gender as a construct, a performance, and how it is connected to bodies.

Mini-documentary about Midwest trans activist, JAC Stringer: by Hunter Stuart at Stuart Productions

The Midwest is crawling with queers. Not because of any strong presence but in the more literal sense. Queers are crawling because we do not have the space to stand up. We do not have the resources that would enable us to live full, healthy lives. We, like so many others, are isolated in our homes, in our towns, controlled and confined by others, longing for life and being unable to live it.

I was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. When I came out as trans I didn’t know anyone who was like me and I had no way of finding them. The city‘s “gay“ scene was practically extinct and no trans or queer scene it had never existed in the first place. There was no space for me, so I decided to try and make one.

Apparently January is the 2nd annual National Drag History Month. A month-long event that “salutes the richness of drag culture and pays tribute to the courageous queens & kings who have fought for equality while inspiring, educating & entertaining us all.” Sounds cool right?  But when you click the link you may feel the same disappointment I did in seeing that “drag history month” is nothing but a LOGO ploy for programming (also see excellent blog by Queerty). You may become depressed at the fact that the link itself has the word “franchise” in it. Or you may just be downright confused how there is not one mention of any female-bodied or gender transgressive/genderfuck performers. I guess National Drag History Month is for girls only… or is it for boys only because they are drag queens? Either way, WTF? Do drag kings have no history of doing anything? Not that LOGO would know either way because no actual history is ever talked about in the programming.

It is a common misconception that drag kings and genderfuck performers don’t exist, but we actually do. It isn’t like we aren’t out and about. Now days its hard to hit up a lesbian bar without finding some trace of drag kings or go to a queer space without at least some knowledge somewhere of genderfuck performers. Female bodied gender performers have been gaining speed and spectrum, in the past ten years especially, but still we get thrown to the back of the bar. Why?  I remember when I was first getting into drag and I told my sister about a drag king show. Her response, not knowing any better at the time, was “Drag king? But isn’t the point of drag being flashy with sequins and glitter? Boy clothes are boring.” I responded with a very humble,  “Well… but… I wear sequins too…”

Male bodied gender transgression has always been more visible, either because of guarding masculinity or simply because they are a lot taller. As a result so many female bodied performers have busted their asses with character, choreography, and costume and still never gotten to top the bill when queens are around. Now don’t get me wrong, I have some very dear friends who are queens, drag or otherwise. Some of my favorite performers are drag queens. That said, the constant removal of non-male bodied drag and gender performers from the drag movement, or even the queer movement, is fucking bullshit. Drag queens have long been a trademark representative of visual queerness, not because they are better in any way, but mainly because of the cultural dissonance caused by any male person “giving up” their masculinity for the less than desirable feminine presentation. I’m not saying drag queens haven’t been around the block, fighting the good fight. I’m just saying they weren’t the only ones there. Another element that I feel may contribute to the muffling of drag kings is the stereotyping of female-bodied queerness. it isn’t just straight porn projecting “straight looking” women fucking each other anymore. Shows like the L Word promote a gender-normative, hyper-sexualized female queerness that leaves no room for anything or anyone else. Who decided that genderfucked female bodies weren’t sexy? Homonormative, HRC pumping queer gentrification rears its ugly head again.

x posted MidwestGenderqueer, AmplifyYourVoice.com, TransgroupBlogs,

Okay, this is my first post on GenderBlogs, hope to be learning and sharing with you all.

Jossie.

Recently scientists have found that a specific gene can be altered to make a female body begin functioning as a male, and another to make a male function as female. Now, I am not a molecular geneticist, but my parents are, so I feel entirely capable of talking about this situation by summarizing what other people wrote.

If you remember your 6th grade science class, it has been commonly thought that physical sex is determined by X-chromosomes and Y-chromosomes (XX, XY, XXX, XYY etc). The research for this new study, published in the journal Cell, challenges that concept. The genes known as FOXL2 (active females) and SOX9 (active in males) are found on a non-sex chromosome that is in both the male and female sex. The new discovery states that genes are all that stand between changing the female sex (XX) into the male sex (XY), and ovaries into (non-sperm producing) testes. Long story short, FOXL2 and SOX9 are the light switches between the male and female sex.

When active FOXL9 bonds with estrogen and “blocks” high levels of testosterone from being produced. When working with mice, scientists found a way to artificially “switch off” FOXL2, un-blocking the testosterone (along with other elements) making an otherwise female sexed body function as male. The body begins to produce testosterone at the levels of a healthy male and eventually turns the ovaries to testes. FOXL2 and SOX9 both exist in males and females, but if FOXL2 is on, SOX9 is on. (Apparently Dr. Seuss is a geneticist.) For the female sex to become male, turn FOXL2 off which will turn SOX9 on. The research also suggests, or is interpreted, to show that FOXL2 is continually fighting to keep ovaries as ovaries, resulting in several articles titled “Battle of the Sexes,” along with some cute ones like “Minnie to Micky…” and the poorly written mess in “Gene Stops Ovaries from TESTIfying”

What does this mean for humans, you may ask? The researchers are hoping for this information to be useful in understanding and treating medical conditions such as premature menopause in women and, less in my favor, disorders of sexual development AKA intersex conditions which can lead to more problematic, non-consensual “fixing.”

Another possibility especially relevant for us trans folks is that this can help us in physical transition. If scientists can “switch off” this gene in humans, it would trigger the growth of secondary sex characteristics, like facial hair or breasts, and and chromosomally transform human ovaries into testes and testes to ovaries.The body would begin to naturally produce testosterone or estrogen, which means bye-bye needles and pills. Hormonal transition would be entirely internalized. In addition, the research found no adverse health effects and a normal lifespan, something we can’t say for current hormone therapy. Sterility would still be an unhappy result, but the overall process would be significantly less invasive, healthier, and possibly cheaper in long term.

Sounds great, right? Honestly, I think it does, as long as we keep things in check. There are many ways the institution can flip this around and make it totally inaccessible to all of us… but lets try to be optimistic for a minute. I’d like to have some hope for a minute.

xposted MidwestGenderQueer.com, QueerToday, TransGroup Blog

I had my first breast exam today, I have a large lump in my right breast and it turns out it may be a Cyst, which isn’t a big deal, however I did a lot of research on it and it turns out you need to get it drained and it never really goes away. i think that is a good reason to get my breasts removed!

I want to remove my Breasts because i don’t like them on me, it’s the first step to becomming the person i want to be (Alan). however i’m afraid to bring it up to my mother, because last time i tried to tell her i wanted to be a man she wouldn’t stop crying and that was really hard to deal with. i can be stubbourn but i can’t be selfish :/ she knows guilt gets me and i’m afraid she will hold it against me when i ask her about breast removal. but i would honestly kill to have a chest i want a chest more than i want to have money or my job! hopfully it will go much smoother than the first experience but we’ll see

I called a therapist today as well, she never called me back i left her my phone number but didn’t call me back, i hope she had a busy day and didnt ignore me that would be pretty lame (for lack of better sentence) any way. i would like to see a therapist so that she can back up my thoughts about sex change or transgender change. i hope all turns out well in the weeks to come. i have a posotive though about them, and if i keep it up it will be just that

blessed be friends

Iggy

Hi!

Let’s begin by introducing me. My name is Katherine Jane DeIrlande. I am a male to female transgendered chick.

The name that has been given me was the one that my mother chose before I was born, so not much thinking on my part to come up with a new, and exciting name. I have since a very young age identified as female, and now, I am doing something about it.  First, I have decided to plan out the identity change over, and any help or suggestions would be very greatly appreciated. What are the pitfalls? Risks? And finally rewards in being officially recognised as a girl? What are your experiences?