A Rant

Please note: I don’t want advice. I don’t want to be told that I shouldn’t feel this way. I don’t want to be told how I should feel. So if that’s what your reflex is, please abstain from the comments.

I just want to rant to sympathetic ears (eyes?). If you can relate and share in the ranting, by all means. But I don’t want to be rational right now so no advice.

I can’t rant about this on Facebook. Too many people from work on there and some of them are the ones I’m ranting about. I really doubt that any of them read this blog . . .well, I know one does on occasion because he’s mentioned it but he’s not included in the rant because he’s gotten it right from the beginning.

So, on the surface, everything is great at work with regards to my transition. Everyone accepted me, no one gave me a hard time, it was all love and rainbows. A bunch of co-workers even came ot my transition party. So, no harassment, no discrimination. One colleague even said that he thought that it was cool that if anyone in our department did manifest problems with what I am doing, they would be the one to be ostracised. Yes. What a nice, progressive lot.

And, yeah, it’s true that I really can’t complain about that overall vibes.

But.

Fuck.

After ALL this time, when are they going to get the damn pronouns right?!? I was patient for a long time. And lots of them do get it right. In many cases, I don’t know because I’m not there if people refer to me in conversation about work related things. When I’m not there to glare as mistakes, do they even correct themselves if they say “she”?

Anyway, what set this off? I got “she”d by three different co-workers today. Three. 3. Trois. Drei.

In one case, the person corrected herself immediately and moved on. Good move.

In another case, the person corrected himself after I gave him a look of death and said: “What?!?!” But I got that look of “Whatever, it’s not such a big deal, just deal with it.”

In yet another case, the person said “she” to a person I had just met, a relatively new employee who, undoubtedly had read me as male until that moment as 100% of people that I meet have been doing for MONTHS now. Can you say confusion and in need of explanation now?

That’s the thing. When they screw up and I point it out, they don’t even understand why it’s important. I’m the one who is seen as making a big deal out of it but they don’t even realise, or want to it seems, that it’s like they just stuck a knife in my chest, knocking the wind right out of me with their lack of recognition of my gender. And it’s even worse when it comes from someone that I had considered a friend. Someone who has always claimed to “get” me.

Well, if you get me so much, how can you not get that it IS a big deal when you consistently verbalise an identity that is no longer mine, by the same token demonstrating that you can’t see me for who I am?

Why do you NOT get that you complicate my life in relation to new people when you “out” me and force me to have to explain to the new person who I am? When you remove my power to disclose to new people when I see fit?

We, trans folk, are told all the time that we take it too personally when people screw up our pronouns. Most of us are understanding in the beginning, though. And yet after over a year, when people still screw up, you start to wonder.

I understood that when I still had a delicate girly face and a girly voice it was hard to read me as male. I was patient. I didn’t make a big deal out of it.

But christ, I have a fucking beard now. I have a deeper voice. My chest is bound so tight that sometimes it’s hard to breathe. I go through all this shit with the chest binding so that I can present myself to the world in a way that concords with who I feel I am and I’m the one that is taking it too personally, being impatient and making a big deal out of nothing?

In response to that I say FUCK YOU. You’re the one that is losing the privilege of knowing who I am. And I say privilege not because I think I’m any more special than anyone else but because I know that I’m as special as anyone else and that I have a lot to contribute to the lives of people that take the time to know me for who I am.

REMINDER of opening disclaimer:

I don’t want advice. I don’t want to be told that I shouldn’t feel this way. I don’t want to be told how I should feel. So if that’s what your reflex is, please abstain from the comments.

Life before transition

This post by Gender Outlaw and the comment by Genderkid made me reflect on the common portrayal of trans people as miserable, near-suicidal individuals who would not survive if they did not have access to physical transition through hormones or surgery. I understand that this might be t he case for some people. I’m sure that in some cases, transition is a life saver.

Argh!

Need to rant. As regular readers know, I’m not gung-ho on going stealth. However, I’m also not gung ho about having my trans identity being the first thing people know about me. As with my bisexual orientation, it’s the kind of thing that I don’t want to hide but I don’t necessarily want to wear on my sleeve either (I do wear a t-boy cuff but only people who know what that means think anything of it). If it comes up, it comes up and I won’t hide but that is contextual. And where, when and how I come out is up to ME and no one else.

Now, I’ve been patient with friends and co-workers, trying to get them to get the pronouns right. When it’s just us, I can tolerate the slippages somewhat, although I’m getting stricter about correcting them. But today, I just about lost it. I was outed in front of total strangers not once, but twice! The first time, a colleague was trying to answer a student’s question. I did not know the student. The colleague point at me and said: “Maybe she would know.” I was mortified. I’m being read as male 95% of the time by strangers so I have no reason to believe this student was any different. I was presenting as male. I look and sound male. And I had to say: “You mean ‘he’” much to the bemusement of this student.

Next, another colleague called me by my girl name in front of a guest speaker. Again, I was mortified. I had invited this guest to the college and, when giving him a meeting point, I had told him to look for a guy in his 30s with a spider on his left hand. Since I got no weird looks upon meeting him, I had no reason to think that he read me as anything other than male. So to hear me referred to with my girl name must’ve been very confusing. And it certainly was very frustrating for me.

All they ever say is “sorry/it’s normal/give us time/it doesn’t mean anything/it’s just a slip” but what they’re not getting is that everytime they slip in front of strangers, they are OUTING me or at least confusing the person I’m interacting with so that, suddenly, a run-of-the-mill interaction becomes question-laden for the new person and embarrassing for me. What am I supposed to say? Oh, people think I’m a girl? Oh, people confuse me for my twin sister? Oh, I used to be female and I’ve transitioned to male but people around me can’t adjust? How am I supposed to have a normal interaction after someone “she”s the guy they see in front of them or calls him by a girl name?

Back when I first contemplated transition, I thought that I would have to leave and start somewhere new. Not because I want to go stealth but just because I want to be taken at face value. Then I thought, no, it’ll be OK, they’ll get used to it and be able to adjust. But it’s not happening with the people around me who are unable to see me the way strangers see me. It seems many of them are unable to let go of the woman they thought they knew. I know they don’t mean harm but it’s a reflection of what they’re seeing when they see me: not a guy but a woman tring to look and sound like a guy. And I can’t help feeling hurt, embarrassed and frustrated by it.

I almost took a semester off for next term but now it’s too late. The deadline to apply has passed and I’m going to be stuck there for a whole semester probably being outed in front of students constantly . I think I’ll have to just walk around ad not look at anyone, not have any conversations with anyone but new students so that I don’t get the “she” and the girl name. Then I’ll be gone for a year in the sub-arctic and maybe when I come back I’ll be “man enough” or they’ll have forgotten the woman and just see me as a new person. I hope so because I can’t handle the idea of 30 more years of “she” until I retire.

I’m a boy, folks!

OK, the testosterone is working miracles. After nearly 12 weeks on T, I’m read as male 95% of the time, even when I have to talk. My voice is still very ambiguous but, combined with a masculine looking face, strapped breasts and male clothing, it’s gotten deep enough on most days for people to read me as male. Most strangers that I interact with (cashiers, etc) call me “sir” or “monsieur”. Kids that meet my son at the park point over at me and say “That’s your dad.”

Now, I spent the day at the LGBT community fair and was taken for a woman 5 times!!!! I spoke to some trans folks I know about this and a few of them mentioned that it’s their experience as well. For some reason, we aren’t read the way we present in LGB(T?) environments. WTF?!?  Am I not masculine enough to look like a queer guy? It was frustrating, but I gently corrected them and took the opportunity to inform a few new people of what a transmale is instead of getting angry. Most people were interested in learning about it so I guess, in the end, that’s a positive sign.

At the same time, there is a part of me that thinks it’s cool that we’ve come far enough that a woman can go so far into what has long been seen as masculine territory and still be considered a woman. It makes me happy that the world is safer for butches and other masculine but female-identified folks than it was during, say, the 1960s.

Scary stuff

http://dentedbluemercedes.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/uh-oh/

Please spread the word.

 

For anyone who thinks we do this just for fun . . .

. . . check out this link with a checklist of the things a transsexual person will potentially have to put up with for the rest of hir life. Luckily, I live in Quebec where some of these don’t apply . . . but the genital thing . . .already applies. *sigh* People are asking me questions about my genitals these days that they would never dare ask a non-trans person.

My name is Jacky

What’s in a name anyway? We get finicky sometimes over how our names are spelled or pronounced right? I grew up in the US with a French last name that no one could pronounce right and having to argue with kids who thought that they knew better than me how it should sound. Then, back in Quebec, I have frequently had to correct people who misspelled my last name (there are two common ways of spelling it here). However, it’s not until recently that I’ve realised what’s in a name, for me.

A dual existence

It’s getting more and more difficult to live a dual existence: that of being Jacky with all my friends, on and offline, and that of being “my given female name” in work contexts. Getting used to my chosen name happened sooner than I think and now, when having to sign my legal name on a work-related email, I feel like I’m lying, being an imposter.

I have to decide soon: am I going to just develop coping mechanisms for dealing with being addressed as “female name” for another year, 2 years? Or will I just face the music and come out everywhere? That, my friend, is my dilemma . . . and I have to decide real, real soon.