Vernis & Sécateur

(Version française ici)

If, globally, the revendications for the rights of trans people start so spread slowly, there is some question which often comes back : "why ?". Why are there trans people ? Why are people unhappy with their biological sex ?

I can't answer to that. Some people do. I don't think they do it well. Usually they are psychiatrists who aren't trans themselves but pretend to know us better than we do, which seems logical since they also say we are mentally sick.

If I had to answer to this global question, I would probably come up with something like "it depends" or "because there are genders", and it wouldn't really be a helpful answer (though I actually like the second one).

However, I am not a psychiatrist but a blogger, which means I only have to talk about my egocentric self.

So the question will rather be "Me, in particular, why am I transgender ?".

It doesn't of course mean that it is a good answer for other people. It doesn't event mean that it will be a good answer for me in some years, since it is my opinion at this time.

So, why am I transgender ?

The reason can be summed in some words : "because I was raised to be a man".

It is not "because I was raised to be a man while I feeled a woman in the inside". While I can tell this sort of thing to a psychiatrist, it doesn't make it true^[1]. I wasn't born with some female "soul". The answer is just "because I was raised to be a man".

What I mean is, if I had a vagina and had been raised to be a woman, I think it would be pretty much the same. Not exactly, since I would be ftm (female-to-male) instead of mtf (male-to-female), but I think I woult still be trans.

It is not a question of my soul's gender or nature or whatever.

It's just that gender assignation sucks.

Whether I am forced to wear a dress or forbidden to do so is actually the same thing : I don't have the freedom to choose. Society decides that I have a penis and thus I must be a "he". Society decides that I have a vagina and thus I must be a "she".

Fuck them.

It's political.

It is not only political, because I really dislike being considered as a man, I don't just pretend it in order to be more subversive or something like that. But it is also political. Being trans' is a reaction to the gender coercition.

Of course, that's a theorisation. Sometimes, I just happen to think "ah, if I were a cisgender woman" or simply "ah, if only I didn't have this corpulence and this low 'passability'".

But, I think the real source of this is gender coercition. $$Or even, to be a little provocative, gender totalitarism. Totalitarism sounds extrem, but I heard someone explaining that the difference between a dictature and totalitarism is that dictature imposes its law, while totalitarism goes farther: it requires you to agree with it.

And this is it. The simple fact of not showing love for your assigned gender can cause discrimination, going from some disdaining looks to murder through refusal to hire you.$$ If I sometimes would like to be a "true" woman (instead of wanting to be a transwoman, which is the case most of the time), it isn't because I have a female brain, because my parents forced me to wear dresses when I was a child or because I am some homosexual who doesn't admit it. It is because I am not a man. Oh, yes, I am biologically a male, but all my adolescence and life drove mo to think I was no real man. I don't think there are many who are real men or women. It's just that maybe I was a bit less than others. I wasn't effeminate. I just didn't like this gender. And that was already a problem.

I could have lived with it, I guess. Honestly. I don't live that bad as a man: it justs upsets me, and sometimes a bit more, but I suppose I could cope.

Only, and it is there where it is political, I think I had a choice. Choice between living as a man, not really well but not desperately bad either - I could have compensate with food, movies, video games or prozac - and between living as a trans' with all the problems it can cause be it in the employment or with my family.

The trans' way had two significant advantages: maybe allowing me to feel better, and saying to this damned essentialist, binary system that it could go to hell.

I don't think I would have made the same choice if I hadn't be revolutionnary. It isn't two things I can completely separate.

I acknowledge that there are many trans people who made different choices, or didn't have one. I admit that some people can have felt being of the opposite gender since they were 4 or 5. But I don't think the "reasons" for all transsexuality should be reduced to this. My reasons are a bit different, but I think they are as worthy and legitimate as others.