On Death

I was reading the Wikipedia page for Brandon Teena and was struck when I learned that he was buried as “Teena Brandon… daughter, sister, and friend.” I had never considered that my death could be as much a lie as my life.

To an extent, it’s different now. Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, The Men’s Room… I have a presence online that will likely out-live me. Even though the bulk of my offline existence is lived as “[birthname],” online I am able to live and make my mark as myself, as Maalik. But for Brandon and for the thousands of other trans people who died before their identity was affirmed, it’s almost like never existing.

It’s frightening to me. If I were to die today, my tombstone would be engraved with my legal name. My birth and death certificates would also bear that name. At my funeral, they would talk of the woman who died. And though that person never existed, she would be memorialized; not me. For my identity to be erased like that is unimaginable. I live with the hope that eventually I will be recognized as myself; to never receive that recognition seems wrong.

I read somewhere, following the murder of Teish Green, that her family was exploring the possibility of a postmortem name change. I think that’s huge. Even if it’s largely symbolic, to be legally recognized as oneself is important.

On Covering

“Everyone covers. To cover is to tone down a disfavored identity to fit into the
main stream. In our diverse society, all of us are outside the mainstream in
some way […] every reader of this book has covered, whether consciously or not,
and sometimes at significant personal cost.”

I recently finished Covering by Kenji Yoshino. The book describes how society pressures minority groups to assimilate into majority culture in three basic ways: conversion, passing, and covering. Writes Yoshino, “If conversion divides ex-gays from gays, and passing divides closeted gays from out gays, covering divides normal from queers.”

Conversion is to change one’s self. To become straight if you are gay. Passing concerns hiding those properties. You may be gay, but you must hide that part of you.
Covering deals more with behavior. You can be gay, you can even engage in gay activities, but you must do it in a way that is not “gay.” Calls for gays to stop “flaunting” their sexuality are demands for covering.

Yoshino writes that covering follows four axies. Appearence deals with how a person physically presents himself; African Americans, for instance, are often eshewed from wearing their hair in natural styles such as dreadlocks or braids. Affiliation deals with cultural identification; a gay man may refuse to discuss gay culture. Activism encompasses one’s political identity; a woman who refuses to identify as a feminist. Finally, association deals with the relationships one forms; a trans person who only has cis friends.

Conversion and passing are considered wrong because they are either impossible or impractical. But covering is seen as a legitimate request because it involves behavior, specifically the behavior of a minority group. Yoshino points out that courts generally side with calls for covering; women are asked to wear (or not wear) make-up because it is their behavior, and not their selves, which is being asked to change.

Yoshino also mentions that not every instance of non-traditional cultural behavior is covering. A gay man who likes sports may simply enjoy sports, such intersts are not inherently acts of covering.

In what ways have you found yourself covering? Both as a transgender person and as a person of your assigned sex (or in some other way). What “covering” behaviors are simply a result of your personality and interests? Did/do you ever wish to convert or feel the pressure to pass?

On "Female Socialization"

Recently, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the idea that trans men were socialized as women. I’ve always identified as a transguy, the trans connected to guy, because my experience as a man is influenced by the years I lived as a girl. I know it’s different for everyone, but I’ve come to realize that I never had that experience. To say that I was socialized as a woman is inaccurate; because I’ve never really had that experience.

This comes up a lot when others consider trans men a “different kind” of man or assume that because of our female upbringing, we are less misogynistic than our cis counterparts. They wrongly presume that because we are female-bodied, we experience life like a “traditional” (heterosexual, cis, femme) female and that this experience translates into a more understanding position. For me, and for many of us, this simply isn’t true. I’ve had to fight against my own misogyny, caused both by the desire to be seen as “manly” and by scorn towards the gender that wrongly embraced me.

I don’t know what it’s like catcalled, because it’s never happened to me. I don’t know the fear of walking alone at night, because I’m usually the one who is feared. When I speak, others listen to and respect what I have to say– and I recognize that these are privileges that most females don’t have. For all intents and purposes, I was socialized as a man; I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman.

I will admit that I am often mistaken for a butch lesbian, but even that doesn’t carry the same value as being perceived as a “traditional” woman. In my limited experience, butch lesbians are given much of the same respect that men recieve– they are seen as knowledgable about sports, vehicles, and traditionally masculine things while being sheilded from sexual advances. The descrepency comes in dealings with sexuality, where butch women become the gay minority. For me, even when I was perceived as a woman, I was treated like a man.

My sex does influence gender; as a female I have to navigate the medical community in much the same way that a woman does. But my sex does not inherently make me more knowledgable about a woman’s experience or more understanding to women’s issues. My sex influences my gender in much the way that my race or sexuality do; certainly, they play a role in my gender, but no more a role than anything else. I am not a blackman, but a black man. Not a queerman, but a queer man. And no longer a transman, but a trans man.

Quick Hit: Hir

I discovered this video a few months ago and have been watching it regularly since. I find the piece amazing because it’s so complex– “I’m here” or “I’m hir”? I don’t usually get through it without crying because it describes my high school experience so perfectly.