Braver than the binary?

‘It takes real courage to do what you’re doing.’

‘I’m so proud of you.’
‘You’re being true to yourself and that’s so brave.’

I’ve been told I’m brave quite a few times the last couple of years. Yes, this transition required me to quiet my trembling body and lay down on an operating table. It required me to look into my parents’ eyes and reveal I’m not who they wanted me to be. It still asks that I shake up the notions of gender for those in my life. But those actions don’t make me brave. Those choices bring me closer to an unexpected understanding. An enlightenment. An evolution of my soul.

I never felt female. So I did what I was told I changed my physical appearance and name to something less feminine. I did this because it was an easier option than exploring a space in the middle between female and male. I did this because even despite the risks of violence and discrimination, it was easier to survive in this world as a transman than someone without a pronoun.

But as I watch the walls of masculinity grow around me, I realize I’m not comfortable. This isn’t my home. I don’t belong among men.

I walk the world wrapped up in white, male privilege. It’s a safe space to be in and maybe that’s why I’m here because I haven’t felt safe most of my life. But I can’t deny that I feel the roar of femininity inside of me. I feel Natasha desperately clinging to everything she was and could be. I struggle with the realization that my gender no more transcends the binary than a non-transperson. I didn’t move beyond the binary. I just picked the other box.

But now, as I research and dissect the gender social structure I can feel myself let go of that comfort and safety of my masculinity. I’m ready to truly to be brave. I’m ready to give up the safety net of societal acceptance and embrace who I might really be beyond the binary.

*My experience is mine alone. Every transperson experiences their journey and transition differently. I speak only for myself and my convictions.

**Also, you can totally still tell me you’re proud of me and I’m brave… oh and beautiful.

***The working title for this piece, ‘Let’s deconstruct this bitch’

Photo from unsplash.com

3 thoughts on “Braver than the binary?”

  1. I love this. It’s funny, you know – I all of a sudden find myself coming at this from kind of the opposite side. I have to date privately identified as agendered/non-binary (because that’s how I feel on the inside), while continuing to identify publicly as a cis-woman for largely socio-political reasons. This was mainly because I assumed everybody basically does the same: they start off non-binary and are conditioned, on the basis of what they are designated at birth, to look, act, and to a greater or lesser degree (due to the way they are treated and the ‘lens’ thus created) *feel* the gender they are assigned at birth. Some of us recognise it as such, and some of us do not, I figured. Some of us, my reasoning continued, for whatever reason(s) and to whatever degree, find some conscious or sub-conscious appeal in identifying more strongly or even completely with the opposite gender to the gender they were assigned. I simply did not know, or – in holding myself hostage to my own interpretation of the Bulter-esque notion of “gender as performance” – I stubbornly refused to accept that some people genuinely feel and believe themselves to be and *are* more boy/man than girl/woman, or more girl/woman than boy/man. I took “gender as performance” to mean gender, of a binary type at least, could *only ever* be some form of performance and not something innate. Which has, sadly, lead to some awfulness, as a cis-feminist, in the form of transmisogny on my part, and I have only recently become aware of my error. It has been quite the earthquake within me to finally and suddenly realise, with the help of some very patient people – friends, acquaintances and even strangers – that just because my personal experience is of being innately agendered, with my gendered ways of being a product of external forces, does not mean that experience is universal. For now, I’m conceptualising it maybe rather like a bell curve, with the binary options labelled either end and an increasingly smaller proportion of people feeling on some profound level, and thus identifying, as male/masculine and exclusively as “a man”; some people as innately female/feminine, and exclusively “a woman”… regardless of social conditioning (truly, this came as a shock to me!). And maybe I will grow to find this is too limiting a conceptualisation, too! I have found the whole experience a bit akin to being areligious/atheist and trying to understand why people align themselves with one religion versus another. Or perhaps someone with Aspergers learning to understand empathy. Totally, mind-bogglingly difficult for me to imagine feeling innately gendered. And this lack of deeper understanding has made trans issues feel somewhat threatening to my own sense of identity, so taking a stance of superiority has been appealing in its comfort. BUT. It got to the point where I recognised that my stance is/was causing psychological harm, to me, as an individual – to continue to hide how I feel on the inside – and to those I love, for allowing dogma to turn me into a hateful person. So I’m gonna stop that now, for the greater good (I believe I can become more effective in the world if I personally feel more coherent). I agree that dismantling the gender binary is so, so important, because the policing of extreme gender norms to the exclusion of other forms of gender expression is harmful and not to the benefit of anyone, really. I just need to remind myself that, conversely, not everyone is innately agendered/non-binary; I’ll repeat it, for my own benefit (because it’s tempting to forget!): some people genuinely feel and believe themselves to be and *are* more male than female, and some to the extreme end(s) of that bell curve. Even if I don’t understand it, deeply, for myself/as it applies to me. I don’t need to understand it to accept that it is okay. There is, or should be, room for everyone. That is what we must fight for. I hope to find the strength to be brave like you – brave enough to walk my truth side by side with those walking theirs.

    1. I’m with you on it being mind-bogglingly that some people might be innately gendered. How I see gender is a performance, right? So maybe it’s more so that a person feels comfortable performing the role that society determined for them at birth. I look at gender as a social construct built around the idea that based on hormones and genitals, we are expected to perform a certain way. So, if we were to strip away society entirely. Let’s say someone was born on an island alone and they were able to fend for themselves and grow into adulthood with no outside influences… well that persons characteristics, personality, etc would be uniquely theres and couldn’t be gendered because there is no one to gender them… I’m rambling now. 🙂 But yes I agree, living our truth is finding we are comfortable and allowing others to find that place as well.

    2. I’m with you on it being mind-bogglingly that some people might be innately gendered. How I see gender is a performance, right? So maybe it’s more so that a person feels comfortable performing the role that society determined for them at birth. I look at gender as a social construct built around the idea that based on hormones and genitals, we are expected to perform a certain way. So, if we were to strip away society entirely. Let’s say someone was born on an island alone and they were able to fend for themselves and grow into adulthood with no outside influences… well that persons characteristics, personality, etc would be uniquely theres and couldn’t be gendered because there is no one to gender them… I’m rambling now. 🙂 But yes I agree, living our truth is finding we are comfortable and allowing others to find that place as well. Also thank you for commenting!

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