Warning! Discussion of transphobia and violence
I used to say I didn’t need the state’s blessing on my chosen name. I said I would be Oscar at home and whatever-they-wanna-call-me at work. Then, I got work, and being called the wrong name and pronouns all the time was way more distressing than I thought it would be. For months, people I actually liked knew me by the wrong name. The reinforced walls between my home and work personae became barriers to friendship and community.
The very first business day of 2011, I threw down the high fee to change my name at the King County Courthouse. So, now I’m Oscar at work, and I piss in the men’s room. Most people just need to be corrected a few times on pronouns, and after that they get it. Others require correction every time they talk about me. Almost constantly, folks give me the shitty remarks about looking very young, and for the most part, people do not take me seriously. It’s not completely smooth, but I have the power to demand respect regarding my gender, even though I will never pass. I am lucky to live in Washington, a state where gender identity and expression are protected by law with regard to housing, accommodations, and employment. I know that there is a difference between the law and what people actually do, but at least I have a law to scare people if and when they are hostile about my gender.
But I’m still scared that people will want to hurt me. These fears mostly manifest when I go to the bathroom. At work, or anywhere with gendered bathrooms, I wait a long time to pee. If I pee fewer times, that’s fewer chances for some transphobe to see me in the men’s room and hurt me. I start using my menstrual cup a few days before I think I’m going to start bleeding, because I don’t want to rinse it out in the men’s bathroom before I use it at the beginning of my period. When I walk into the men’s bathroom, I glance in the shiny tiles on the wall to see if anyone is reflected there. I take inventory of how many people are there, and how close to leaving they might be. I go in the stall, and if there’s someone else in the bathroom, I wait for a toilet flush or for them to leave before I start peeing, to mask the noise. I don’t want my co-workers to think about me peeing sitting down. I’m visibly trans, but I don’t want them to have any more occasion to imagine how my body might be shaped. I think a lot about how the bathroom walls are sound barriers, and how it’s possible no one would hear me if someone attacked me in there. When I wash my hands, I stand at the sink where I have the best view of the room. I’m constantly checking the mirror and my peripheral vision for possible attackers.
I don’t know if I’m safer now than I was before coming out. It’s better for my mental health to be able to ask for correct name and gender pronouns in all areas of my life. Conversely, a lot of trans and gender variant people are hurt, discriminated against, and killed for our gender identities and expression. I know that most folks are doing the best they can to keep themselves safe. They don’t select friends or dates or times with an object of endangering themselves. I am also trying to keep myself safe, but unfortunately, I won’t know who is dangerous until they do something to harm me or someone else.
I try not to waste my time worrying, but I also want to be prepared. I wish the hypervigilance gifted to me via PTSD wasn’t so damn practical. I have to just live, and love this precious life. I don’t know when it will end. I just know that it will, some time, quite possibly from old age fifty years from now. I don’t know where every danger lurks, and I don’t know where every joy hides. I could find joy any moment in a smile, in raindrops, in the cold wind across my face, in a suddenly remembered joke, in loving my friends, in loving my own trans body. I’m out at work in part because I love my trans self so much, and I’m doing everything in my power to maintain a respectful atmosphere, knowing that I deserve this and so much more.
Tags: body love, cissexism, cissexist, cultural criticism, experience, feminism, ftm, gender, gender identity, gender presentation, genderqueer, male-bodied, man, masculinity, men, preferred gender pronouns, presentation, safe space, trans, transgender, transphobia, washington state human rights commission
April 12, 2011 at 11:28 pm |
I miss you Oscar! <3
May 19, 2011 at 2:13 pm |
“unfortunately, I won’t know who is dangerous until they do something to harm me or someone else.”
I’d respectfully suggest that this may not be true. Gavin deBecker wrote a book, “the Gift of Fear,” that highlights ways to use our own observation and intuition to know before someone does us violence that we may be at risk. The information is always clearly there before someone is violent; we just too often don’t believe that knowledge.
As a gay trans man, I have found that there were times when I was in physical danger, but I’ve done a good job of believing my intuition and getting the heck out of there before a problem escalates out of control. That’s not to say I haven’t had my feelings hurt – sometimes quite badly – but I haven’t been physically or sexually attacked throughout the years of my transition. Even when I lived in rural Mexico, I was safe.
I’d like to encourage you to check this out from the library or buy it. I don’t want any of my fellow trans folk to live in unnecessary fear. You deserve to be able to identify however you like, and it would be awesome if other people could just nod and say, “Okay. Nice skirt, Mister,” and have it be no big deal.
http://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1749432030_the_gift_of_fear