“Just because you don’t like women doesn’t mean you’re not one,” was hurled at me in a Boston living room.  Another trans person declared that I was not trans, and their main evidence was “you’re wearing a skirt.”  Occasionally, other trans people reject my trans-ness.  Often, they reference my decision not to use medical transition or my femme presentation.  In trans communities, border patrol is a barrier to connection, and it can be invalidating and hurtful.  Who is issuing the badges and cudgels to the trans police?  Who decided on the uniform?

Recently, a commenter left the italicized text below as a comment on my earlier post about non-medical transition; and  another post about identifying myself as male-bodied.  I chose not to publish the comment as-is, because the comment attacked me and another commenter.  I am re-posting it here, with my responses in plain text and bold, because I think it illustrates a destructive hierarchy within trans communities and between trans communities and dominant culture.

you tend to write much better on your period? what is this about “loving the bleed”? i hate people questioning others on their gender identities as much as the next trans person does (i am androgynous FTM myself) but this “period-loving” crap is the first i’ve ever heard about dealing with being a man on the inside.

i absolutely hate bleeding monthly, it’s a womanly process coupled with distressing hormones and excruciatingly painful cramps. i respect your desire to be acknowledged as a non-op, no-ho transman and i am not dissing any of you as fellow brothers in any way, but i simply have not met any die-hard FTMs who love having their periods!!! this is just ridiculous.

Actually, calling someone’s body experience process “crap” and “ridiculous” is “ questioning others on their gender identities” and “ dissing any of you as fellow brothers.”  I am sorry that you do not have a large, diverse trans community where you are.  I am sorry that they have not expressed and taught you a fuller array of gender spectra.  I respect your hate for your own bleeding, but I ask that you not impose your feelings and desires on anyone else.  It sounds as if you are distinguishing between ”die-hard FTMs”  and some other kind of trans masculine person, as if the rest of us are not committed to ourselves, to our gender.

if you love having a female body so much why do you insist on being a man in society? i understand you do not need to transition medically to be male but the majority of males, both cis and trans do NOT wish to have female bodies and if a cis man woke up tomorrow in a cis woman’s body he’d be in absolute terror and dismay, not rejoicing over his period or newfound sexy curves. part and parcel of being transMALE is not wanting those things.

If you paid attention to my self-identification, you would know that I don’t have a female body.  I have a male body and I bleed.  This paragraph is essentializing, and is not far removed from the transphobic crap I could hear in any mainstream discussion about gender in any of the bro bars in my city.  Part of being a transmale for you is not wanting a period or curves.  That’s your body experience.  Please don’t universalize this.  Accept others’ rights to know ourselves and to define our experiences.

for those of you who are not willing to transition medically because you love your natal bodies, i have news for you… you’re not actually transsexuals. yes you’re transgendered and on the spectrum of “transness” but you really are falling into another group altogether when you really LOVE your female bodies. FTMs do not love their female bodies at all and i’m not beefing on you here to be an ass or to state that medical transition is the only way forward as i really do respect the fact that some folks really CAN’T go through medical transition, but just because they can’t doesn’t mean they love their female bodies any more. make no mistake, transmen do NOT love having natal female bodies, but an androgynous person or a gender queer might.

This is absolutely transphobic.  I am a trans man, and telling me I am not is textbook transphobia.  I love my male body, as I’ve stated before, and I don’t desire medical transition.  Also, this implies that a trans man cannot be androgynous or gender queer.  I am all three of these things.

perhaps those of you who love your breasts and your periods might like to consider this question – why is it that you want to identify as male only on the inside? for me that psychological aspect is only half of the battle towards becoming myself. there is some social element to gender as you have discovered by changing your name and pronouns, and although i understand your PTSD related behaviours (i too have this condition) i think you truly underestimate how much medical transition or attempting to “pass” actually helps alleviate those fears. no way am i stupid enough to put myself through the agonizing fear of trying to socially transition in my tiny female body. perhaps you think it’s ballsy to do so or manly, but i just find that bloody weird.

The front of my upper torso is my chest.  Using incorrect terms for my body parts denies my experience.  I’ve done the transition, and it’s not because it’s “ballsy” but because it is too painful to be called by the wrong name and gender indicators all the time. That’s not “stupid.”  I am a small-bodied person, and I know the dangers.  I’m making an informed decision, because it’s better for my health to risk the danger than silently to accept constant mis-gendering.

i am non-op, no-ho right now myself but i am hoping to transition medically in the future and i may not even be able to medically yet, i have tests to do first, so please do not think i am hating on anyone here or having transphobia. i just am not convinced that the female-body lovers here are in the same part of the spectrum as me, though i respect that they are somewhat non-binary people…

If you have to say “do not think i am hating on anyone here or having transphobia,” what you have to say is probably going to be transphobic.  No one is claiming to be you, so you ought to accept that we will have different experiences and still identify similarly.  Why do you think we must convince you of our identities?  You don’t have to believe it for it to be true.  You have shown so much disrespect for people’s expressed gender identities and bodily experiences here.  You have argued against the ways folks have described our bodies and our experiences.  You have deliberately mis-assigned my body several times.

My hope for you is that you educate yourself.  I hope  you find love for yourself and your fellow trans people.  I hope you do not repeat this shit and alienate those who might be helpful to you with your process.

All the best to you.

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.

The normative transmasculine medical transition process goes something like this: first a change to a normatively masculine name, pronouns, and clothing accompanied by binding to convince a cisgender medical professional that the person should have access to medical transition. Next, folks start taking testosterone (T), then save up for a few years and have chest surgery. I think any of those actions should be readily available to everyone who wants to access some or all available medical transition. However, I wish that as trans people, we could decide together to honor everyone’s genders and identities without pushing them in any particular direction. I am not choosing to access medical transition, and even trans people can be quite inquisitive about my path. Sometimes the expectation of a normative trans trajectory is implied in their questions: “How far along are you in the process?” Other times it’s less veiled: “Why aren’t you taking T?” The simple answer is I don’t want to.

As I’ve mentioned, I think my body is a perfectly masculine body just the way I am. I love and feel at home in my self. Additionally, the effects of testosterone would be detrimental to my mental health. I don’t want to grow thicker hair all over my face and body; it sounds like a pain to deal with. Singing is how I express myself, connect with others, and cope with heartbreak. If I took T, it would destroy my singing voice. I know there are many singers on T, and people have tried to convince me that I could sing just fine with a lower voice. Maybe I could sing beautifully on T, but the voice that I love and recognize as an integral part of myself is high-pitched. I am no little mermaid, and I won’t be giving up my voice for any man. T would change the fat distribution on my body, and I like having thicker hips and thighs than cis guys. My ass looks too hot in jeans for me to even deprive myself and the world of that sight. Not having a period might be nice, but it’s not worth the other losses. Also, I enjoy tracking my cycle and watching as it syncs up with other period-havers near me. So, I’m not seeking medical transition because it would have no physical effects I desire, and a lot of effects that would destroy some of my most cherished parts of myself.

Despite my strong love for myself the way I am, I consider taking T almost daily. If folks saw normative cis guy features on me, like a beard and a more pronounced jaw, they might be more respectful about my gender identity. The trade-off would be that I would feel terrible about my T-infused body, but perhaps not feel uncomfortable about the way other people assign my gender most of the time. If I have to choose, I would rather be comfortable in my own skin than be comfortable with the brands others want to burn into it. The social benefits do not outweigh the psychological damage T would do to me.

Even the few social benefits of T would be reduced because I am actually not interested in passing. I am interested in safety and people referring to me by my preferred gender indicators, but I don’t want people to think I’m a cisgender man. Passing male privilege might make me into a prick if I was able to get it. To have my thoughts and words valued above women and other trans people through dude privilege is not appealing to me. I don’t want folks to defer to me at others’ expense because of my gender.

To be fully honest, I love myself, but I still allow myself to accept dominant cultural body hatred sometimes.   Any love that I have for myself and my trans body is the product of hard work to purge internalized self-destructive thoughts and feelings. I have chosen to love the cellulite on the back of my thighs. Every time I catch myself disliking the shape of my body, I have to rein myself back in the self-affirming direction. I chose to accept my soft chest as a man’s chest. I fought hard against every ingrained expectation to believe with my cerebrum what the rest of me already knew: I am a man, with all a man’s parts.

It has been work to get to a place where I love myself so much, and that self-love is enabled by privileges I experience. I’m white, blonde-haired, and thin, three things that dominant oppressive beauty standards uphold as universally desirable. I also have a temporary disability that is not always visible, and most people view me as a normatively able-bodied person. Except for being trans, in a fatphobic, racist, ableist society my body is generally perceived as desirable because of my race, size, and perceived physical ability. Those privileged experiences inform the experience of having a trans body. In addition, I think having a small chest makes it easier for me to not have to bind or consider surgery. I don’t know what people notice when they look at me and call me “ma’am” or “she,” but it sure isn’t my chest.

I am not seeking medical transition, because I love my body the way I am. I think other people ought to believe me when I describe my experiences and use the name and pronouns I prefer whether or not I decide to inject myself with hormones or have major surgery.  For other trans people, I hope we as a community can affirm each other’s choices and identities.  I hope we can make space for everyone’s body experience, and their choices, whether and however they decide to modify themselves.

My sister Rachel recently explained to me how queer communities re-create patriarchal relationship structures.  In dominant culture, masculinity is defined in opposition and superiority to femininity.   As an example of re-creating those values in queer communities, Rachel said, feminine and women identified partners of butch or masculine identified  individuals will sometimes uphold butch or masculine  identities by doing all the housework.   The term privilege, systemic unearned benefit in dominant culture at the expense of others, doesn’t quite apply here, because transmasculine and butch people are not, for the most part, accorded power in dominant culture because of our genders.  The butch or masculine vs. femme or feminine opposition is a real experience, and illustrates how rank within subcultures can create inequitable power dynamics. 

This plays out in my life when I feel compelled to wash the dishes at every social gathering.  First, my socialization as a girl kicks in and tells me that I am always responsible for the least desirable tasks, that I should be elbow deep in soap suds halfway through every potluck.  I have to fight this urge to do all the work and remind myself that I am worthy of leisure time.  Then, since I’m a man, I don’t want to be the guy who sits around while the women do all the work (for the most part, the cis guys will not do much).  If I don’t offer, I get called out for being a guy who’s not washing dishes.  I often enjoy pitching in to clean up after a social gathering, but I think there has to be space for me not to wash other people’s dishes sometimes.

No one should have to wear a shirt if they don’t want to, and it’s fucked up that men-assumed people can usually get away with going shirtless in public and women-assumed people can’t.   I usually don’t take off my shirt in public, even when I want to, because people assume I’m a woman, and  I’m not trying to get kicked out of any bars.  The exception is Lick, a dance party for “trannies, fags, dykes, and their friends.”  In an explicitly trans-welcoming space, where I am more likely to be accepted as a man,  I must interrogate the meaning of taking actions that are exclusively reserved for men in the dominant culture.  For sure, my intentions are good, but intentions and impact are different creatures.  In a space where I am accepted as a man, my action of taking off my shirt  could perpetuate male privilege in the form of assumed acceptability of shirtlessness.

One of my strong values is to define my masculinity in feminist terms.   Since everything I do will be perceived as a function of my gender, whether or not my gender motivates it, I have to be considerate of my actions.  And sometimes people will think it’s my job to do all the dishes.  Some people will think I should be equally clueless in fashion boutiques and  the kitchen.  Others will say that I should get surgery on my chest, and only let it show in public when it is sufficiently flat.  My aim is not to please everyone, but rather to make considerate choices and to make those choices accountable to people who share my values.  I can listen to others’ reasoning and call-outs, but I’m the one who lives with me.

This endless web of extended family catches me.  It doesn’t wrap me up in spider silk and suck the blood out of me; that would be taking the metaphor a bit too far.  But the strands of this asymmetrical net intersect within my being in ways that I don’t always have control over.  I feel connected to trans people, often despite geographical distance and limited contact.  I could drive across the continent and always be within a day’s drive of people I care deeply about.  Some of them have only spent a few hours of their whole lives with me, and yet, I am invested in  their joys and struggles.  I am so blessed to be a part of this beautiful interconnection.

We trans people often have strained relationships with our families of origin.  I feel lucky that I have two queer sisters who are amazing allies, and the rest of my family calls me by my chosen name and pronouns.  Not everyone has it so easy.  In my experience, because we often don’t have the option to have family structures accepted by the dominant culture, we create family with each other.  I know I put out the “I wanna be family” vibe to other trans people on purpose.

Let me be clear: I don’t love all of the other points on the web.  Love requires commitment and hard work, and  I do not have the energy to love all the trans people in the world.  But I do have a shared sense of  responsibility to and for them.  I am responsible to live by my values and to take good care of myself.  Only if I am maintaining my body and mind can I contribute to the community.  I also decide to pay attention to members of my communities and to whether they are enacting their values and caring for themselves, as they can choose to support me.  That support ranges from commenting on my facebook status to writing letters to sharing experiences in a support group.

People whose names I don’t remember have changed my life for the better. Sometimes others’ existence and style alone can be really affirming.  I am so glad that I’m living at a time when I don’t just have to be butch.  Only through interactions with others and self- experimentation did I learn that I can be a femme man.  I was a lousy butch, changing my car oil in five inch heels and fishnets.  Here are some examples of people who have affirmed and enlightened my path as a trans person.

A* from Atlanta and I sometimes have deep feelings talks, even though we will go eight months at a time without talking, and I often think about him.

B who used to be in Boston was the first person to actually use gender neutral pronouns for me.  Ze used pronouns that I had never heard, and I immediately fell in love with these two little words: ze and zan.  Oh my, and all the other Boston genderqueers: A and A and E, and I know I’m leaving people out, showed me that I could be nonbinary and still be accepted and treated like a legitimate human being with a legitimate gender.

My beloved E in Boston let me know that I could be a boy and genderqueer, and I didn’t have to choose a binary identity just because I’m a guy.  I wish I lived closer to him.

Although I think that Bash Back 2008 was really problematic, being around that many other trans people was really uplifting for me. And there I met G (I think that was his name).  He was the first other trans guy I met who didn’t bind, and he  had a pretty big chest.  That’s how I knew I didn’t have to bind.  He exemplified for me that I could be a guy without modifying my body.

N from the midwest calls to share squee! queer moments, even though we’ve only seen each other the one time a year and a half ago.  Many of zan name and pronoun processes have coincided with mine, which is exciting.

I see N from Maine’s facebook status, and I know he’s doing slam poetry, like me,and it makes me so happy to know someone’s speaking the fag truth, even on the other side of this landmass.

And I appreciate K from BC’s everlasting commitment to fae styles.  They let me know I’m not alone.

T, D, and C in Oly help me to stay strong in my never-gonna-pass presentation.

And here at home, I have my immediate trans family to do the love work, the long-term time-spending.  D, B, E, N, L, G, C, F, and others have transported me to doctor’s visits, let me cry on them, and have let me support them and laugh with them all the time.  I think our trans yarns knit in specific patterns in part because our stories contain similar threads.

Even when trans people do irresponsible or hurtful things, I feel a sense of kinship, even with strangers.  Their processes ripple through our communities and impact me and people I love, whether I like it or not.  I find that it’s easiest to accept criticism and support in holding myself accountable when the people supporting me share experiences.

And my immediate family includes cisgender people as well.  I don’t know how I would have continued existing over the last year without them.  I am deeply grateful to R, M, F, J, V, and others that I haven’t listed. The bonds I share with them are not weaker or less dear to me; but they are different than the nearly instantaneous connection I have with people who have similar gender experiences to mine.

Someone I love and respect recently told me squi was tired of hearing only the negative things about being trans.  Squi reminded me that although I know being trans is amazing, and I do not always express the positives.  This is for squir: thank you for being a part of my family, and I would never choose it to be otherwise.

*I am using the first letter of people’s names because I don’t know that they want to be identified, but I do want them to be able to identify themselves.  If you’re mentioned and want your name to be used, let me know.

Moses climbed the cliff down to the empty seabed
I followed hand and foot
my companion beckoned, and the plastic plunger
of a syringe dug into my open palm
the hollow stiletto stared me down
thank you for toiling to make this available
but I swoon at the sight of needles and
this body has always been man enough for me

muck sucked at my shoes
the stench of decaying sea creatures corkscrewed into the tissue of my nostrils, down my trachea, embedded in my lungs
I feared those creatures’ curdled dreams.

for the sake of the unknown
I leveraged my weight against the waves through my forearms
my weary shoulders
my bowed spine
until my back collapsed, and I stumbled face down in the sludge
slid in the tug-of-war, hoping the sea would keep its chivalrous distance unaided
the hallway collapsed,and the rope through my brainstem snapped simultaneously,
catapulting me forward

fishers of men dragged my limp body up across the obsidian cliffs
they pushed the fluid from my lungs
two lungs.
I still had both of them
my saviors examined my unconscious form and rasped to each other,
“how did he even end up on this shore?
his chest is all the wrong shape.
what, is that a dress he’s wearing?”
but they didn’t throw me back in.

when I revived, no fiery chariots attended me
many of my brothers had forgotten their journey
they abdicated the precious perspectives of boyhoods braided into pigtails
as they lifted their deep voices against the strength of the women on our former shore
possessing the promised land entailed colonizing space
spreading my knees to fill one and a half bus seats
never stepping aside on the sidewalk
so I am here on Canaan’s shore
with my feet dangling over the edge
because even if god itself promised my people inhabited land
I’ll forget myself if I take it

I wrote this as a performance piece, but folks have asked to read it, so here it is.  I don’t think it’s quite the same on the page.

I love being a poly faggot.  I have so much love and hotness to share, and my goodness am I relieved that I don’t have to concentrate all of it on one person.  I am so glad that the people I fuck and love get to share themselves with others.  Their bodies and sexualities don’t belong to me, but even more than a principled stance, it’s a visceral reaction, a full bodied affirmation of their desires and their sexual independence.  Sometimes compersion, the opposite of jealousy, that positive feeling I get when my sweethearts get with other people, is an idea, and sometimes it springs and fills me from my curling toes to my dilated pupils.  Loving with an open hand is delicious.

A few months ago, I had my first good group sex.  Someone I’m sweethearts with (she) and I were getting sexy with this total hottie I’d had my eyes on for months (he).  Watching her get sexy with him flooded me with warmth.  I have such strong feelings for her, and it’s really beautiful for me to see her having a good time.  Her sexiness holds my memory close, and yes, I want more of that in the world.  Of course I want her to share that with other people as she wants to!  I was nearly overcome with warmth; I almost confessed my love right then and there.  Feeling encouraged and appreciated by my sweetheart while getting sexy with the other guy felt so safe.  Like I didn’t have to justify my desires to anyone.  I didn’t have to reassure anyone of my honorable intentions, because in that time, my own desires were valuable.  Just for that brief part of  my life, I didn’t have to push against the overwhelming weight of dominant cultural expectations too hard.  No one expected for me to give up sexiness with one of them for the other.  It felt really free.  Yes, this is my body, and I can share myself with whomever I want.  With every touch, every kiss, every motion of my hips, I knew this to my marrow: my sweetheart cares for me and that she doesn’t need a title on me to prove it.

This is a warning for the well-meaning: other people’s bodies and identities do not belong to you.

I was hanging out with some friends, and I introduced myself to a friend of a friend of a friend, “I’m-Otr-I-go-by-he.”  And I got the “Your name’s Otr, but you go by what?” and I explained “I go by he for pronouns.” To which the person replied, over befuddled eye-blinking, “Oh, when did you start going by that?”  None of their fucking business is what I should have said.  I could have asked when they started going by their preferred pronouns, and explained that I thought it was an inappropriate question.  But I was having a good time with everyone else.  I knew that if I responded to the hostility that I was feeling enacted upon me, it would change the vibe, and I would have had to stop enjoying myself.  It’s funny how transphobic bullshit doesn’t stress social dynamics, but defending against it does.  So, instead of answering the question, I explained that I go by he because I’m trans.  I hoped then that my explanation would be enough to quiet any further inquiries.  Alas, the friend of a friend of a friend replied “Oh, my sister has a friend who’s really involved in that community.” I just tried to say as little as possible after that, but here’s what I wanted to say: Oh, seriously, did you at one point meet another person who is trans?  No way!  How great for you!  I feel like you really must be hip and know all about me and my communities and how to act around trans people now!

Here’s where intention separates from impact.  I know the other person did not intend to be hurtful and essentializing.  They probably didn’t think that they were asking inappropriate questions, and they didn’t intend to imply that my gender is a less legitimate than their own.  They perpetuated currents of transphobia, whether or not they meant to.  Cisgender conforming people don’t have to acknowledge that they prefer pronouns, and they definitely don’t have to explain when they started going by their preferred name and pronouns.  They probably don’t ever have people tell them about the last time they met another cisgendered person either, because their genders are expected and invisible.  This person had never been in my position, so how would they know how fucking toxic they were being? In any case, poking at my gender and my preferred pronouns like I’m an exotic reptile, and remarking about how they’d seen another animal of a similar variety made me feel really sad and otherized, whether or not anyone intended to make me feel that way.

This shit is not an isolated incident, but one manifestation of dominant culture’s entitlement to dissect exotic identities.  People are perpetually telling me about the one time they recall meeting a trans person, or what great allies they are to trans people, or their nail-bitingly close calls with queer communities.  Let this serve as a notice: I do not want to hear this shit.  If folks know how to avoid being assholes to trans folks, I will know by what they do, not by their self-proclaimed closeness with me and my communities.

A couple weeks ago, I was at a dance party, and I was hugging a friend goodbye when they out of nowhere kissed my neck.  I was sober and my friend was drunk, but it was in a pretty safe space, and they pulled away right after they kissed me, so I didn’t feel compelled or coerced in any way.  I didn’t pursue the person that night, because they were drunk, but I thought it felt nice, and I thought the person who kissed me was cute.  So, even though I didn’t get a chance to consent to the interaction, it was welcome, and I didn’t feel assaulted.  In my experience, assault has been about power and control, and it didn’t feel like the other person was exercising any kind of power over me.

The night after, I went to this huge dance party for dykes, trans people, and fags, and I was just dancing my heart out, when this person came up from behind me and said, “You’re cute,” and proceeded to dance up on my ass without asking, which was fine until they started grabbing my ass.  I danced away from them, pretty uncomfortable with the situation, but still I felt like the atmosphere was supportive, and I didn’t feel endangered or traumatized.  I mean, I didn’t feel respected, but I think the other person’ actions were still non-assaultive.

Here’s the tricky part: whether or not I felt assaulted was based on my feelings of safety and support. Non-consent doesn’t guarantee that I’ll feel assaulted, but only giving direct consent guarantees that I will feel safe and respected.  The other people in those interactions did nothing to avoid assaulting me.   In both cases, the other people were folks who experience gender oppression, and so I didn’t feel the weight of gendered power differences.  Those same assumptions of access could have been deeply traumatic in other contexts.

For example, I’ve had similar experiences in which I did feel really traumatized and violated.  About six months ago, I was at a house party, and a friend who I occasionally got sexy with slapped my ass as I walked across a room full of acquaintances.  That felt nonconsensual, unwelcome, and assaultive.  I felt that he was trying to show ownership of my body by nonconsensually hitting a sexualized part of me in front of other people.  I yelled at him then, and the next day, I told him I didn’t want to see him or hear from him again, unless he was contacting me to tell me he was working on his shit.  When I was getting angry about being assaulted, no one at the party had my back.  No one batted a fucking eyelash, and I didn’t feel like there was any support.  In addition, the particular way he hit me brought back memories of the way that my ex used to hit me and assume access to my body in front of others.  The assaulter’s gender privilege as a cisgendered man also made the power dynamic weigh heavily on me, since I was the token non-passing loud mouth trans person in that crew.  Other people in that small scene (not my primary community) made me feel like I was overreacting and being a spoilsport by sticking up for myself.  So, feeling assaulted had as much to do with context as the actual form of nonconsensual touch.

This is why sexual assault has to be defined by survivors: no one except me could have told which interaction was assaultive, based on observable actions.  I think the only way to know if an interaction was an assault is to listen to survivors’ definitions of their own experiences.

*A note on Trauma/Trigger Warnings: These warnings are meant to give people choices in what they read about that could bring up re-traumatizing feelings.  I have switched to “Trauma Warning” because a lot of people experience gun-related trauma, and I don’t want my warning to be traumatizing.  Even talking about trauma can be hurtful, so if anyone has a better term that you think will get the same point across, but not be hurtful, I would appreciate suggestions.

I was born knowing nothing but how to suck on a nipple, cry, shit, and breathe.  Thankfully, I’ve retained that knowledge.  I wasn’t born knowing how not to be an asshole about gender in general and trans people specifically.  Like almost everyone who grows up in the U.S., I ingested oppressive gender roles with my mama’s milk.  I’ve still got a lot of shit to work out.  In the past, I have upheld and enforced the cissexist gender binary with my words and actions.    I have made incorrect assumptions.  I have used incorrect pronouns even after people told me which ones were correct.  I have asked inappropriate questions.  I have failed to stick up for people when unsafe dynamics and spaces developed around me.  I can own my past ignorance and hurtfulness, without tolerating toxic shit from others in the present.

My past selves interacted with gender in ways that would be intolerable to me now.  I’m constantly reminded of that when I go to a party, and introduce myself, “My  name is Otr, I go by he.”  Even in spaces filled with trans people, there will be several quizzical looks, and “You go by what, he?  Is that a nickname?”  or “Is that your real name?”  “Which bathroom do you use?”  I know that my past selves in my current environment would ask all the stupid questions and make all those oppressive assumptions, and I would write my past self off.  And it’s true, even though I’ve been there, I write those people off in the same way that I think the first trans community members I met must have dismissed me.  I don’t think clueless folks are bad people or evil; I’m just not going to put in the effort to be friends with people who question my self-identification.  I minimize my interactions with them, because no one has a right to my body and my time, and the way they act is poisonous to my well-being.

Everyone has to learn everything they know some time, and I’m not done learning.  But I won’t submit to vivisection for others’ educational benefit.  Having made mistakes in the past does not preclude me from correcting others when they make the same mistakes.  I hope my community members call me out if I do fucked up things, even if they’ve made the same mistakes.  Perfection isn’t possible (or desirable), but I know I’m doing things in less hurtful ways than I was, and that I can do better still, with some help and support.