Your penis is not a dowsing rod for uteri.

I bring this up because some douchebags who presume to write fiction will include woman characters who successfully disguise themselves as men, and then man characters will be Inexplicably Attracted, causing them to have a breakdown and wonder if they're really teh ghey!omgz. But of course they aren't! Because even though they couldn't tell at all, the person they are attracted to had a Really Real Uterus buried deep down underneath all those clothes, and that makes it heterosexual.

This is bullshit.

Dear "Straight" Man: Your sex drive does not magically know the True Sex of whoever you're looking at. If a woman is successfully passing as a man, albeit a pretty one, to the point where you would never ever question her sex, and you're attracted to her, then you're attracted to her as a feminine man. Period. If you're not attracted to her normally, but when she gets in a certain light she looks a whole lot like a woman and suddenly you're into her, then you're attracted to her as a woman. Otherwise, that inexplicable feeling you're getting is - as much as I hate to say it - just a little bit gay. But hey, good news! Being gay, bisexual, straight-with-exceptions or whatever you are is not a bad thing. It's not! It doesn't make you less of a man. It doesn't make you less of a human being. It just means that you sometimes like dudes.

Dear writers: See above.

In addition to the fact that you are essentially assigning psychic uterus-detecting powers to men's penises, this trope is deeply offensive because it implies that someone's biological sex is their "true sex" and always trumps the way they're presenting. This effectively de-genders all transgender individuals and undermines the validity of those who are attracted to them as their true gender.

Oh, and in honor of my asswipe family: no, the answer is not "pheremones." Pheremones play a role in attraction; they are not a fucking panacea. How do we know this? Because trans women whose bodies are currently fueled by testosterone have successfully attracted the attentions of heterosexual men who, upon finding out that the woman in question does not actually possess a vagina, throw a fit and kill her because she threatens their heterosexuality and masculinity.

Which is, in part, because assholes like you keep writing stories that perpetuate the "true sex" myth.

My body is not selfish.

One thing that I face as both a fat person and a trans person is the accusation that I am "selfish."

Being fat, I am selfish because I allegedly consume more food than thinner people (FEAR my 2000-calorie-a-day diet.) Being trans, I am selfish because I allegedly would like other people to pay for my "cosmetic" surgeries. (This is what I am accused of if I want my surgery covered by my medical insurance, as are my trans brothers and sisters in any country where this kind of thing applies.)

I'm not going to be nice: That's bullshit. I'm not selfish.

Firstly, yes. Okay. I eat more than a thin person of my height. Not because I'm a glutton; my fat body is not a living testament to my greed, contrary to what the assholes say. Because I have more body mass and I need more calories to sustain it. We're not talking huge quantities more. We're talking a few hundred more per day, or the equivalent of a single Famous Star burger at Carl's Jr.

Secondly, I get why you think transsexual surgeries are cosmetic. Because they're not "life-saving," right? Just like going to the doctor and getting a cast for your leg isn't life-saving (c'mon, it'll eventually heal on its own). Just like taking medication for your chronic pain isn't life-saving. Surgery to correct a serious birth defect is sometimes life-saving, but sometimes not. Laser eye surgery? Puh-lease.

I ain't saying that being trans is like having a broken leg or chronic pain or even a medically accepted birth defect. I AM saying that living in a body that doesn't fit my identity has a very real, detrimental effect to my well-being. I am saying that for me, having breasts, and for other trans people, vaginas or penises or whathaveyou, is traumatic on a daily basis, and it ain't because I'm too fucking sensitive, it's because I have to actually look at/touch my body periodically to maintain my hygiene and health.

Okey?

Being fat doesn't make me selfish, either. Even if you account that being fat causes me to eat more. Nobody slams bodybuilders for their 6000-calorie-a-day diets (that's 3x my daily consumption, FYI) - in fact, they frequently get praised for their dedication to their bodies. Plus their bodies are bigger than non-bodybuilders, so they take up more space and require bigger clothes. In fact, any body operating on testosterone is going to be naturally bigger and have a faster metabolism than a comparable estrogen-fueled body. Oh my god, men are selfish! We must put them on estrogen treatments IMMEDIATELY to reduce their food consumption so that there will be more food available for the poor, starving wimminz!

RIGHT.

You get what I'm saying? It's not okay to say I'm selfish for needing more seating space that a thinner person could be using. It's not okay to say I'm selfish for eating more food.

But when it comes down to it, it's not my greed you're really against, is it? It's my nonconformity. It's my being fat or trans that really bugs at you and gets stuck in your craw. Otherwise there'd be a lot more hate (and I ain't saying there isn't hate, just that there's less of it) against people who get benign tumors removed and people who "bulk up" to unrealistic proportions for movie roles.

Quote of the Day

A comment on the Womanist Musings post "There Are More Sites Of Oppression Than Gender":

I'm a WOC, and when I look at gender in movies,I don;t get to neatly parse out where gender ends or race begins. Cos they exist simultaneoulsy. Cos yknow, WOC EXIST.

Intersectionality. It's a tough one. It's easy to get it into our heads that we can break down the ways that we are oppressed into easy-to-categorize boxes, but you can't. Just like I couldn't leave a comment (on a post about class privilege) about my class disadvantages without mentioning all of the non-class factors (religious beliefs, education, gender identity, etc.) that have a very real impact on how desperately I need the money for my own safety as well as how much money I will have to spend for it.

Intersectionality means that we are more than the sum of our parts. A black woman is not just black + woman; she is a unique individual that suffers a unique set of stigmas and stereotypes. For instance, she may be expected to erase her race from her hair for the sake of beauty - something that neither white women nor black men are expected to do. Likewise, a trans gay man is not just gay + man + trans. People may assume of him, if he has a vagina, that he wants to be the "bottom" in a sexual relationship. This isn't something that happens to cis gay men OR to trans straight men (though it happens frequently to trans and cis women).

Intersectionality is one of the hardest facets of oppression to learn, because you can't just learn the rules for each category of oppressed persons and then stack them up like Dominos to figure out what each person is suffering from. Which I think is the point - an identity isn't just a list of labels. It's a melting pot that uses all of the ingredients put into it to create a person, and a set of stigmas for that person, that will taste similar in some ways to those who share ingredients but also has a taste of its own.

That may or may not make any sense.

I do not understand this "two spirit" thing.

Please hear me out.

We began reading the writing of Native American two-spirit people with no other intent than to educate the self. The main one - we'll call him William - understands the importance of learning about the experiences of TLGB people who are not white, because how else could he be an effective ally? Even to himself, how can he protect himself if he cannot protect his brothers and sisters and brother-sisters and sister-brothers?

So we read with an open mind, and we do not understand.

This page outlines the basics of a two-spirit movement (you might call it Two-Spirit 101.) William would call it the Two-Spirit Movement, but it would be impractical and ridiculous to assume that every Two-Spirit person everywhere is united with all the others. But it explains the basics. The self grasps these. They are parts of a different culture, but they fit into the tapestry of human experience.

This is a post from one two-spirit person about something that happened in her day-to-day life. (William offers his apologies if he left out part of the pronoun.) We understand the need to talk about these things with someone like ourselves; no one else ever truly understands. It's not a hard concept to grasp.

But we've heard that a two-spirit person will often refer to themselves in the plural. As if they are truly two persons, male and female.

And we wonder if there really are two persons.

William is willing to believe this is so. It's his writing you've read on this blog. He is the social activist, the humanist. His fingers write this post. He refers to himself in the third person this time because Nicolas is speaking.

Nicolas does not understand this at all. Nicolas is furious that someone would try to appropriate the identity of someone who has two persons within them in this manner. Do you know what it's like for him? He's not even his own person. William is trapped in a life that does not fit his gender. Nicolas is trapped in a life that has no room for him. Most days he is completely silenced because there's nothing being done that needs his attention. Every day it's William this and William that. He sits there quietly, so quietly that it makes the self wonder if he even exists. He's less than half a person. And yet he is a person. He's a person with thoughts of his own and a will of his own and every day he takes backseat to someone who just happened to claim this life first and wastes it every day playing video games and doing crap that has a snowball's chance in Hell of taking their life anywhere. So I want to know - me, Nicolas, the other man in William's head who never comes out because it might UPSET PEOPLE if they knew there were more than one of us in here - I want to know if you know what that's like. Duality ain't nearly as fun as you kids seem to think it is.

I won't apologize for that.

But William would like to remind you that he doesn't know what it's like for you, and he's not going to assume that it's not the way you say it is. He's a good kid. Sees the best in people for as long as he can. So when he gets the opportunity he'll ask someone. I will. Because the only way to understand is to educate myself, the lesson I've learned time and time again.

And please remember that Nicolas is in here, too. He may not say much, but it hurts him to be ignored. It hurts him that I (William) would rather stay safe than admit to the world that he exists. That's not what he wants. It's not what either of us want, and since we are the same person I feel his pain almost as acutely as he does. But William can put it away after a while. I get to be the one out most of the time, so I can forget what it's like to be shut away. Nicolas never forgets, and the next time I hear from him he will remind me. I'm scared of Nicolas, scared of losing control of my life, but Nicolas is scared of only one thing in the world and that's being forgotten.

That's what it's like for this person to have two spirits (if that's what you call them). Maybe someday I'll introduce the third, but he doesn't feel like coming out right now.

It hurts when you misgender me.

Trigger warning: dysphoria, misgendering, descriptors of fatness

Okay, "duh." But I need to rant. More than rant, I need to educate. I need to write this in the hopes that at least one cisgender person will read it and come to understand why trans people get so upset when they are misgendered, why we're not always as patient as we should be with your adjustment period. It's not because we're selfish or inconsiderate - at least, not for all of us. Sometimes it's just because it hurts.

I have dysphoria. Every day I look at my body and remember that it's not the way it's "supposed" to be. My hips are too big, my belly too round, my face too soft, my voice too high. I look at my physical traits and I see "female," and have to remember that everyone else is looking at me and seeing "female," too. I also have to deal with the feeling that certain of my body parts do not belong on my body. Have you ever hated some part of your body so badly that you wanted to tear, cut, burn it off? Imagine what it's like not only to feel like it doesn't belong on your body, but to know that anyone who sees that part will start to make assumptions about you that completely contradict your own identity. Someone who is fat knows a little about this - the torturous sensation of walking into a restaurant and feeling like you've gained a hundred pounds as soon as everyone looks at you, or instantly losing your appetite as soon as someone sees you eat (even though you're still hungry). Now add to that the pressure of everyone who sees that part of your body assuming that you prefer certain colors, certain clothes, certain sex partners. The misery of being forced to obey a set of rules because of that body part when that body part doesn't even belong to you in the first place.

In my case, compound that with the pain of being unable to remember what your life was like before that body part was there, so that even your dreams and imagination are tainted with the feeling of that alien thing (or things) living on your body.

I am in the closet. The people I know in meatspace who know my true gender can be counted on three-fifths of one hand. Every day someone calls me "she," addresses me by my girl name, and/or refers to me as a girl. I don't feel like a she or a girl, I don't consider anything I am or do to be female, and yet people keep referring to me this way. I don't know if there's any way that I can explain to a cis person what this feel like, because cis people aren't usually as acutely aware of their feelings of gendered-ness, and have never been in a position to understand what it feels like to be thought of as a different gender. I will try to explain what it is like, and it should be fun because you get to use your imagination.

Imagine that you woke up one day in what seems to be an alternate Earth. It's not very different - in fact, it's so close to your own that you didn't realize there was anything wrong, at first. You live in your own house, the people around you are your own family, and all of your friends and co-workers and teachers and everything else are exactly the way you remember them.

The only thing different is you. You first noticed it when you looked in the mirror. The reflection is sort of familiar - at least, xe looks like xe could be a family member of yours. But it's shorter than you remember. A little bigger in the shoulders, longer in the face. The nose is much too small, your breasts (if you have them) are a cup size bigger than they should be. Or your penis is a half-inch bigger in diameter. And you're clearly wearing a different clothing size.

To go with this slightly-familiar-yet-somehow-alien body, everyone you know keeps trying to tell you that you're a different person. They call you Tracy or Jackie. They keep asking you about hobbies that you're supposedly into and have never liked. Your closet is full of clothes in styles that you hate and when you ask for new ones they take you out to buy more of the same and when you tell them you want something different they look at you like an alien, and you just feel like the person they say you are is the alien.

Does it make you crazy? Every time one of your family members addresses you as Tracy, do you die a little inside? Do you learn how to build model trains or play the saxophone, even if you hate it, because that's what everyone expects of you? As time goes on, and you learn to play the role that everyone says you fit, do you start to question yourself and wonder if you're really the person you think you were? Sometimes, when you're not feeling the dissonance too hard, you think maybe you really are Tracy and your other identity is a fancy you cooked up one day. Then your aunt buys you one of Tracy's shirts for Christmas and can't understand why you recoil from it like it's a snake. You tell one of your friends what has happened, and xe is sympathetic but convinced that you've always been Tracy and you're just going through a phase of discomfort as you try to figure out your identity. Xe may even ask you, "But how do you know you're not Tracy? You never acted like someone else before." You can't convince xem that you're not "figuring out" anything - this is who you are, you're just the only one who's realized it.

The worst part is when you are surrounded by people who are talking to you and about you almost non-stop for hours. Be it family gatherings, work, wherever. None of them know who you really are, because you don't know anyone who would believe you. They go blathering on about you like they know everything about you and every time they make a comment about something you did or something you like you cringe because they're completely wrong and you can't correct them without showing yourself as a freak. Sometimes you feel like the identity that they've assigned to you is more real than the one you remember - but at those times, you don't feel more like Tracy, you just feel like nothing. Like you don't exist at all and you're nothing but a ghost forced to act out a fabricated life.

Many people don't realize it, but a person's feeling of gender is a fundamental part of their personality, like their taste in clothes and hobbies. The feeling of gender that cis people have matches the gender that has been assigned to them, which makes the fact that they do feel gendered less obvious. However, the signs are there. Many cis men and women, when asked, will tell you that they love belonging to their gender (though they may not understand exactly why). They may become fond of their sex characteristics, to the point where women treat their breasts almost as a set of secondary lifeforms (a man may have a similar relationship with his penis). Some men will lovingly grow and craft beards to express their masculinity, while some women view the act of plucking facial hairs to be an expression of their womanhood and would not shave if they had half a beard. (Full confession: my aunt feels this way.) Moving into the transgender umbrella, there are a variety of butch women who are nonetheless very proud of their womanhood, and crossdressing men who are nonetheless secure in their masculinity, indicating without doubt that the feeling of gender is innate even when the rules are bent. The end result of this is that someone calling me "she" is as devaluing of my identity as someone calling you Tracy or Jackie.

Now, I'm not making the claim that people who misgender me on accident are really disrespecting my identity. I understand that people make mistakes. But let me explain the following:

At any time, unless I am alone or in a space consisting of nothing but people who acknowledge my gender perfectly, I am living in almost constant discomfort. The space between the times when I am actively being misgendered is usually occupied with wondering when the next incident is going to happen. It's painful, like spending my life walking between bees' nests; I can stay as far away from them as possible but in the end I know that I must keep moving and that, when I do, I'm liable to be stung at least every few minutes and as soon as the last one stops aching another one is liable to hit. And each of these instances chips away at my feeling of self - because it is very hard to maintain that feeling when no one in your life is reinforcing it. Take away the activities and rituals that I use in my daily life to remind me of who I really am, and I may forget entirely (in fact, that is how Nic was born.)

I wouldn't liken an accidental misgendering to a bee sting. More like a friendly slap on the shoulder that you didn't realize was a little too hard. I can usually shake those off. But when I've been misgendered steadily for days and my skin is sore from stings, the pain is much more acute - and even more if I wasn't expecting it from you. The end result is that sometimes I may lash out unreasonably.

I'm not saying that's right or that I don't owe you an apology if it happens, but maybe now you understand a little better why it might happen. Thank you for listening.