A Trans Concerns Venting Session

So, it's been about 6 months since I came out as transgender, changed my name, pronouns, the whole shebang. And, while I'm pre everything medically and in the eyes of the law I haven't yet changed anything (my legal name is still my birth one etc), finally being honest with myself and the people around me has been great for my confidence and mental well-being. That said, there are some things that concern me regarding being trans in the world at large. Not necessarily anything immediately changeable but I'm in a mood to talk about them anyway, to raise awareness. And to vent. Venting is a big part of this.

First, an anecdote. On Tuesday I was at the George (a gay bar in Dublin that has been screening each episode of Ru Paul's Drag Race Season 7 on Tuesdays, as it airs) hanging out with fiends, watching the show and some drag performances, just having a night out. We kind of acquired a hanger on, a slightly older guy (he's 25, we're all late teens/early 20s) and while he'd kind of outstayed his welcome we didn't want to be mean. I found out late on in the night that he hadn't realised I was trans, that he'd perceived me as a young looking cis gay boy. He'd been coming on to me and to let him down easy I told him that I'm more into girls (I'll get back to this fact). He jokingly tells me I'm in the wrong bar. 

Okay, the guy was drunk and harmless but what he said struck a chord with me. It's definitely something I've given thought to and something I'm conflicted about. To clarify things, I am bisexual. I am attracted to my own gender (male) and other genders (female and people who don't identify along the gender binary). However, I spent a very, very long time suppressing and denying my attraction to women. I was assigned female at birth, belonged to a fairly conservative middle class family, went to catholic and/or all girls schools for a very long time. I spent nigh on seventeen years rejecting every inkling that I might be anything other than straight. And so, when I finally came out as bisexual I decided I was going to explore the side of me that I'd so long pretended did not exist. I'd also just gotten out of a year and a half relationship with a guy, I figured I'd give men a rest for a bit. 

So, for about a year I lived as a queer woman (I first came out in January, figured out trans stuff in November). In that time I got heavily involved in the Dublin LGBT community, going to youth groups and making some truly wonderful friends. I'd found "my people". It was so strange to me to be in the presence of so many people who "got it". Feminism, queer issues, mental health things, people understood the struggles and could relate. This also happened to be the year I properly educated myself on feminism as well. Not in-depth necessarily, I've still to read many of the great feminist essays, but I began seeing the world from a feminist perspective. I started properly taking notice of the social rules and restrictions placed on people seen as female by society. 

And, while I was and continue to be bisexual, my relationship towards men as romantic partners changed. I was no longer comfortable with the typically accepted girl/boy dynamic as dictated by society at large (I do realise that some of this may be down to my not actually being a girl, but I'll make my point anyway). I couldn't imagine sitting back and expecting other people to make the first move, or having to be modest to comply with socially accepted norms. While those aren't things that women should have to do at all, regardless of orientation, I realised that much of this would be the expectation for cisgender heterosexual men. Whether they know it or not (and a great many of them do not, by virtue of never having to think about it) cishet men are fed these images of what a heterosexual relationship should look like. And every relationship has this underlying tension of how well it complies to the quote unquote "standard". I'm not saying every cisgender heterosexual man is in favour of this but under a patriarchal mainframe which establishes them as the indisputably dominant party every relationship that falls short of that is going to be a bit of a disappointment, if even on a subconscious level. It's like the "average man" you see in sitcoms and advertisements who's shown as quote unquote "emasculated" by his wife of girlfriend, despite her requests and desires being generally reasonable. Those images are far from real life but they send a message and a great deal of men feel their impact.

And so, as I settled into my little queer bubble, I became more and more aware of not wanting to leave. Of not wanting to have that concern of "am I going out of my way to make this relationship fit what we've been taught to expect" if I were to end up in another heterosexual relationship. Queer relationship politics, while not free of expectations (the butch/femme dynamic is a real pain in the ass, excusing the pun) in queer relationships it's generally easier to break with heterosexual or past queer community traditions. I found myself in a somewhat privileged position where I could choose to stay in the queer bubble and cast away the possibility of having any future relationships tainted by heterosexual male privilege and the expectations that accompany it.

And then I figured out I was trans. 

Ima make a maybe slightly controversial claim. Realising you are trans is like a Garden of Eden moment; you bite that bloody apple and you know things and you cannot unknow them no matter how much easier that would make things for you. You figure it out and it's like putting the final piece in a jigsaw puzzle you've been unwittingly working on your whole life, you suddenly know what the picture is and you can't pretend that you don't anymore.

You now have the burden of knowing,
learn to lift brah

And it kind of sucks. I feel like I'd had it easy up to that point being bi because there was no huge moment of "you are not attracted to men and you can't change that ever" that may have come with being a lesbian. This was a moment of "Oh shit son, your life is going to be complicated and hard and the most choice you have now is between Continue to lie to everyone and feel like shit forever or Come out and deal with that forever." Biphobia is a real thing and it's shit to have your sexuality constantly dismissed as not real, a phase, or attention seeking but there is an element of "straight passing" and choice that monosexual people (people who are only attracted to one gender eg. gay men, lesbians, straight people) simply don't have. I'd been, frankly, a little spoilt by the choice fate had afforded me and it has come back around to bitch slap me for it. 

But it is incredibly unlikely that I'll ever date a heterosexual man again, so that's something.

We're finally getting to the original point of this rant. I'm in a strange position. I'm stuck in between. Because I now find myself in the position of a bisexual man who has an aversion to dating men for privilege reasons, a privilege that I will likely enjoy someday later in my transition. I don't currently pass well enough (on a consistent basis) to fully have male privilege. However, when I'm on testosterone and my voice breaks and I eventually inevitably try to grow a beard, it'll probably apply. And that's both exhilarating and terrifying to think about. 

Because I'm already cracking down on myself mentally for abusing my privilege, even just doing things I'd have done before I bit the trans revelation apple. Like, my mum was cooking an omelette and she was about to add hot bacon to the egg mix in the bowl instead of pouring the egg mix over the bacon in the pan (putting the hot bacon in the bowl of beaten egg would start to cook the egg around it, compromising the structural integrity of the whole omelette when then poured into the pan, because some bits would be more cooked than others) and I tried to explain this to her and the thought occurred to me "Are you mansplaining?" (For the record, I maintain that she was doing it wrong and I was within reason to explain why) But it was weird because my doing the very same thing before transitioning is just me being my pedantic, annoying self but now it's coming from a place of privilege and I can't change that. 

I get that I'm over-thinking a lot of this but the fact remains: if I start properly passing, making my life easier and lessening my gender dysphoria greatly, I start being perceived as a mostly heterosexual man, will all the bells and tassels attached (figuratively, actual bells and tassels are expensive as fuck). My mindset regarding cisgender men, while now extending to gay men as opposed to straight, is still an inhibitor because to my mind there is still a privilege and perspective gap. 

And as far as dating is concerned, I have some interesting options. I try my luck with straight girls, try to pass, fake familiarity with privilege I've only recently acquired, make friends with straight guys who have no idea how good they have it and hide my trans history at the risk of not being accepted

 OR 

become that dude at the gay bar trying to pick up girls, hang out with the people I probably relate to most right now: queer women and trans people but be acutely aware of the fact that the community will have changed for me. You're in the wrong bar. 

Fun fact: When looking for gifs and pictures for this blog
I generally search "X action gif" look through
 the results, then search "David Tennant X action gif".
What can I say? The man has a great face 

But there are no bars for people in my situation, not really. This is a big question for the trans community: "Does the T really belong in LGBT?" I might write a full piece on m feelings on the subject at some point, of which I have many, but I'll say this for the moment; In an ideal world, trans people would be equally accepted in the queer community to lesbian, gay and bisexual cis people but that is far from the case. Many of us get involved in the queer community under the assumption that we are queer cis people, as I once believed, being trans isn't so common that people jump there when they're having identity qualms. (Disclaimer: many trans people are gay, meaning that they'd have been seen as "straight" before coming out as trans. I'm not sure of the numbers exactly but many trans people I know are sexually fluid because they see the arbitrary nature of gender. But attractions are still attractions, can't change em yo) The way the vast majority of us figure out our identities is through the queer community, we find our people, only to be left feeling like we're out of place if we begin passing as our real genders. I feel like there is definite value in trans people continuing to be a part of the LGBT community but mindsets in the community need to change big time. 

So basically I'm in a weird place. I don't pass well when I'm speaking (which I do a lot and loudly) but my end goal is to do just that. I'm still figuring out how I feel about that. There is no doubt in my mind that I am male, which makes all of this that bit more confusing and scary. None of my transition has involved permanent changes yet but simply knowing feels like the most permanent thing imaginable. I realise that this is the case for absolutely everyone but having to deal with "This is who I am. This is my life and I can't change it" is terrifying. 

I am not ashamed of who I am. But the night is dark and full of terrors, so many of which exist exclusively in my own mind.  

I don't know if this has been interesting, enlightening, boring for the probable heterosexual cisgender majority of you reading this. Well done for getting to the end. Have a cookie.

Embrace the Madness (even when the future is uncertain and you're scared) 

(Also, I realise I've done three posts in a row on queer issues, with the referendum coming up it's kind of been on m mind a lot. I'll hopefully be doing a film review or something more lighthearted soonish)  

An Open Letter the Garden Variety Homophobe

Dear homophobes,

Yes, I mean you. 

You who believe that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people should not have the same rights as you, a straight cisgender person (Housekeeping: cisgender means "not trans". I'll also be referring to LGBT+ people as "queer" because it's an umbrella term and less clunky to type). 

What's that you say? You're not a homophobe? But you don't think queer couples should be allowed to get married? That... makes you a homophobe. I don't care if you don't like the word, I don't care if you are offended, I'm merely calling a spade a spade. This particular spade wants to dig a hole, put queer people into it and leave the rights they ought to have as adult human beings outside that hole and out of reach. You, my friend (and I use the word "friend" as loosely as possible) are a homophobic spade. 

Level of dedication to this blog entry:
MS Painting a homophobic spade
You're welcome

There's been a lot of talk about protecting children. That you don't have anything against queer people, you just don't want them influencing your kids. Well, my naive summer child, what if I told you that your kids have been and will continue to be, for the rest of their lives, influenced by queer people? 

What if I told you that, at least once every couple of weeks, we queers emerge from our underground glitter orgy caves, don our "normal person" masks and stroll around, undetected. We talk to you. We might serve you coffee or wait your table. We might offer you financial advice or sell you your tv. Maybe we're in government, or the school system, or the police force. We might, god forbid, be babysitting your kids, at your own request.

Sure, some of us have the traditional marks of the flaming queer: fashion sense and hand flailing for the men, "edgy" haircuts and tattoos/piercings for the women. But at the end of the day, how can you be sure we're not just hipsters? How can you be sure we're not bisexual, hiding our queerness behind genuine attraction to members of the opposite sex? How well do you know your best friend? Can you spot a bisexual who sticks to straightness to avoid the stigma, or a bisexual who happens to be in a monogamous opposite sex relationship? Can you ever really know another person's latent desires?

Statistically speaking, two or three people in this photo are queer, if not more
We just lurk in our "normal person" costumes ready to strike.

You can never know for sure.

We are everywhere and that always has been and always will be the case. We've just stopped pretending quite so much. You were, as a child, unwittingly influenced by probable hundreds of queers and look at how aggressively, defensively straight you turned out. 

"But if the children know that queer people are a thing, they'll want to try it. You're pushing the homosexual agenda!" you say?

I ask you, when you learned about the existence of queer people, did you want to try it? If, in the unlikely event that you did, did you like it? No? Congratulations, you are a heterosexual! If you don't want to have romantic and/or sexual relationships with members of the same sex you can't really do much about it. The same goes for homosexuals. The "gay agenda" wants people to love who they are naturally inclined to love in a safe, consentual environment. 

I mean, sure, we could try to convert as many straight people as possible to our cause by insisting that they date same sex partner after same sex partner until they find one who they can kinda sorta tolerate and bear to sleep with on a semi-regular basis until they settle down and stop having regular sex altogether... but you guys already do that so well in reverse, we wouldn't want to steal your thunder.

On the subject of kids thinking it's okay, though, I do have a few, more serious words. Ten percent of children are queer. Not "will grow up to be queer", not "will choose a queer lifestyle when they're old enough". No, ten percent of children are queer. Statistics say that they will first realise this somewhere between the ages of nine and twelve years old. They'll keep it bottled up for the next five to eight years, on average coming out around the ages of seventeen and eighteen. Many queer children suffer lasting mental health issues thanks to having to keep this secret for so long. Feeling like a freak. Feeling unwanted and doomed to a life of pain and suffering. Many of them would rather take their own lives than grow up and have to face themselves as they are. 

Why, you ask? Why do these children feel like this? Because of you, my homophobic friend (again, take that word loosely). I'm going to google "10 year old child" and bring up some pictures. These could be queer kids, they could not. I don't know. But I don't want to cause any children unnecessary pain.

I even searched for some specifically Irish kids because I thought I'd bring it closer to home 

(though interestingly, this is the search result for "Irish 10 year old" versus just "10 year old")

Would you personally bully any of these kids? Call them names? Hurt them physically? Tell them they don't deserve happiness? No, of course not, you're not a fucking monster. 

But, by perpetuating the idea that openly queer people are somehow detrimental to the upbringing of children, or that children should not learn about queer relationships until they're at least eighteen is harming children. I don't know if any of the children depicted above are queer. I pulled them straight from google. But they could be. And at ten years old they're just starting to figure it out. They're seeing pictures of straight people everywhere. Every book they read, every film they watch, every open couple in their life experience is a flashing neon sign saying "You are not normal. You are different and you don't know why". "Sheltering" children from the reality, that queer people exist, is not stopping them from becoming queer, it's just adding unnecessary obstacles to the road to figuring out who they are.

I grew up like this. I'm a nineteen year old, bisexual transgender guy. I went to a catholic primary school followed by a protestant all girls secondary school (for 3 years) then a "technically Presbyterian but fairly secular" mixed school for the remainder of my secondary education. I was never taught about queer people. I knew I liked both boys and girls from the age of maybe five or six (romantically speaking). I avoided girls where I could because I was scared. This was easy enough for the first three years because we had boys in our class. I played with them. I had schoolyard crushes. It was all fine and dandy because it seemed straight. It wasn't, but it seemed it. Then the boys left. And so began a long period in my life where I knew I liked girls but didn't want to admit it to myself and kept myself from forming substantial friendships because, god forbid, I might fall in love. I had friends in the younger stages, sure, but age twelve to sixteen, the peak time for teenage sexual and romantic feel feeling, I was friendless and hopeless and scared all the time. Things got better when I moved to a mixed school because I could make male friends and pretend to be exclusively straight (which was actually gay because I'm trans but I didn't know that at the time so we'll ignore it). 

Regardless, the Irish education system's lack of queer acknowledgement put me and countless others like me in a position of fear and distress which lasted years and had an effect that can still be felt in my life today. I was never explicitly bullied as much as ostracised and beaten down by my own insecurities and feelings of "you're a freak and everyone will hate you forever". Many are not so lucky. 

It is homophobic attitudes that keep this the norm. Remember those kids from a couple paragraphs ago? The state is bullying them. Or teaching them to beat themselves down. Not to mention that kids, queer and straight are constantly subject to homophobic bullying from other kids. Which is fun because it means straight kids then associate childhood bullying with an oppressed group to which they don't actually belong, meaning they resent queer people for something they never actually did to them. A homophobic system is effectively a homophobe-creating machine. And you accuse us of recruiting the youthes. Worst part? In many schools teachers can't intervene and stop homophobic bullying thanks to religious school policies forbidding mention of queer issues.

This is likely coming as a shock to you, homophobe. You are usually the one thinking of the children. One of the common responses given by parents when asked about the possibility of their child being queer is "I wouldn't want them to be queer because their lives would be harder because of it."  

What if you could change that? You could make that less the case by supporting queer children. By abandoning archaic notions of "the gays trying to convert your babies" or "teachers becing forced to teach about gay sex in schools". Sex ed is lacking in general in this country, you really think we're going to jump straight from "let's pretend sex isn't a thing until they're sixteen" to "Okay, first years, here's how gay sex works"? Homophobia hurts everyone. Your children, be they queer or not, will suffer from the atmosphere created by homophobic attitudes.

And you can maintain that you're not homophobic all you want, it doesn't make a shred of difference. If you treat queer people as some kind of threat or corrupting force in this world you are hating a group that is already hate by so many so simply being themselves. We queers have heard it all before. It hurts but we're used to it. We just hope that we can slowly open peoples' eyes to who the real enemy is. The enemy is not you, homophobe. You were made this way by other homophobes before you, and they homophobes before them. The enemy is fear and hatred. The enemy is believing that queer people are some inhuman things, existing only to make your life complicated. The enemy is believing we can't change this system of prejudice for the better. 

It isn't easy, changing long held views. I don't know if this will reach anyone who needs to hear it. In all likelihood it'll be read by people who already believe in equality and they've only read things they already agree with. If it gets around maybe it will reach someone, who knows? Share if you think this might be useful. 

Baby don't hurt me. Don't hurt me
No more

And I know this is the second post in a row on this blog about queer stuff. I just haven't written on here in a while and with the Marriage Equality referendum coming up I'm getting into a lot of online debates over this anyway, thought I might assemble my thoughts in a somewhat articulate fashion. This may have been the first blog entry where I've mentioned that I'm transgender. That's fun. For those of you who didn't know, I'm a boy. Took me 18 years but I finally figured it out. I go by Felix now. I'll update the main description eventually. 

Stay strong, friends. We've made it this far.

Embrace the Madness