Hi
I recently joined mumsnet in order to post some of my thoughts on another thread that was active on this site at that time. After I did so, I received, from many of you, really positive, encouraging feedback. After I did so, I received no negative thoughts from any of you. And for that, I want to take this opportunity to thank you all.
The reason why I've decided to create this thread is to expand on what it means to me to be transgender, and to share with you all my concerns in regards to issues that are being discussed currently in the public sphere. I want to say right now that my thoughts relate to my own experiences as a biological male who identifies and presents as society would dictate a biological female to present.
First of all, I want to make it clear that while I am transgender, my own thoughts in regards to being identified as such do not sit well with me at all, to the point that I actually want to "revoke" my trans identity. For what this "identity" is seemingly intent on becoming is something that I can no longer identify with. This creates somewhat of a "catch 22" situation for me in the sense of how do I actually go forward and identify myself if the label that was once most suited to encapsulating who I am no longer has any resonance with me?
The only answer I've been able to come up with in response to that question is that I have to formulate my own identity, and in doing so only hope that others can understand what that identity may be. At the time of writing this post, I've failed in that regard. For no matter what word I use, others will already have a preconceived idea of what the word that I may end up using actually means. And so it remains difficult for me to be able to correctly and succinctly express to others who I am and how I wish to be regarded.
I'm going to start by providing an analogy. An analogy that I personally think encompasses the issue that every single transgender experiences. An analogy that gets right to the heart of the very meaning behind identifying oneself in terms of the gender presuppositions that are put on every single one of us.
The analogy that I'm going to use, somewhat aptly, somewhat ironically, relates to the word "binary", and what it means in computer/mathmatical terminology. That is, "1" and "0". For the sake of this analogy, let's say biological females equal "1", whereas biological males equal "0". For the sake of this analogy, there is nothing in between. No 0.5. No 1.5. Only ever "1" and "0". Now let's assume that in the case of a transgender person who was born male, all they have ever known is 0. Yet they don't feel happy as a 0. The only other alternative that is open to them in order to escape their own unhappiness at being 0 therefore is to become (or at least identify as being) 1. Yet they have no experience of what it actually means to be a 1. All they know is that being 1 allows them to escape from their actual identity of being a 0.
What I am getting at by using this analogy I hope is clear to everyone here. To bring it down to a personal level, if I am not happy being male, then the only other alternative open to me is to identify as, express myself as, a female. And the only way I can do that is to push away my male identity and present as female, using signifiers that society and culture dictates are traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Such signifiers being pronouns, clothes, body shape, societal roles, etc.
It's for this reason that I believe so many transgendered people, after transitioning, remain unhappy. For while they may have "escaped" the gender that they can't associate/identify with, the gender to which they have escaped to doesn't resonate with them either. When the only option from escaping from "0" is to become "1", then it's only after becoming "1" that they will then know if "1" is actually what they really needed to become. Put simply, there is no guarantee that that actually is the case, and the only way to find whether it is or isn't, is to experience both.
This leads me to a conclusion that I can not escape from. That conclusion being, a transgender person is simply unhappy being with and of themselves. And that is a frightening thought, and I say that as a transgender person myself.
The only comfort I can garner from this is not to identify as either a 1 or 0. As either male or female. Not something in between, just simply as neither. To put it succinctly, not feeling like a man doesn't make me a woman. To put it even more succinctly, how can I possibly say that I feel like a woman if I've only ever been a man?
Yet this is what you will hear transgender people say all the time. I can only conclude that I, and others who have said such a thing, simply have no idea what such a comment actually means. All I can ever say is that I'm not happy being male. And I can see now that the idea that "not happy being male" must therefore somehow equate to being female is an incredibly offensive thought process to have to those that actually are female.