I have a friend who recently announced that she is transgender. Now in her early 20s, for several years she was out as a lesbian, but set her sights on straight women who were unattainable and eventually broke her heart. (She is a beautiful girl, and even though physical attraction is not the most important thing in life, I think it is worth noting, because this is a person who has decided to become a man and deny herself the feminine beauty to which she was born.) She developed really strong crushes, most of the time did not even approach them and let them know what her feelings were, and spent her time alone, pining over these young women. The only reason I know this about her is because I noticed her sadness and basically called her out, saying “I think I know what is going on here. Are you okay?”. The reason that this was so obvious to me is because I have been there myself. The first time I ever experienced love as a teenager, it was for a girl I was very close friends with. She was beautiful, and I was entranced by her physical appearance, but also by her personality. Any time I would call her on the phone, my heart would beat out of my chest, and when I would see her, I would actually get weak in the knees. I would find excuses to talk to her, and became friends with her by mirroring her personality to a very large extent. At my young age, it didn’t matter whether or not I was being true to myself, because I just wanted to be near her. As an adult, I can honestly say that if transition had been available at that time, I might have pressured my parents to allow me to do so. However, after seeing what my trans friends have go through, and how much of a distraction focusing on physical appearance can be, I am deeply thankful that that was not an available choice for me. Not transitioning enabled me to focus on who I wanted to be on the inside, and to develop into a successful human being, gender aside. (You can read more about my personal feelings involving feeling “male” in my post titled, “Praying for a penis”.)
Over the past year or so, my friend has become completely obsessed with trying to pass. She binges on YouTube videos, signs up for FTM dating sites (although she has not transitioned), and abruptly abandoned the clothes that she used to wear in exchange for exclusively “men’s” clothes. I’ve seen her spend countless hours looking at herself in the mirror, imagining her body as male, trying to figure out the best way to pass.
There are many reasons that these choices strike a chord with me: One, who gets to decide what “men’s” clothes are, and why is it so important for her to choose them? Can’t they just be clothes? Why does “being a male” mean that she can no longer wear the clothes that she herself used to love? Another thing that seems sad to me is that when she goes out in public, instead of just enjoying her life and the reason that she has decided to go out, her reason for leaving the house is to see if she can pass. She has developed a very affected gait, swaggering around the way that she thinks that men walk. Sometimes, she forgets to do it, and for a second I see the person she was for the first 2 1/2 decades of her life, and it is a thing of beauty. The fact that she thinks she needs to do this at all just to be accepted by society is, however, heartbreaking. I have referred to what I feel is a very conservative climate, pressuring NGC women to transition, rather than being who they are, and when I see her deliberately changing who she is and becoming a stereotype, it is very sad. Why can’t she just walk however she walks and not feel compelled to imitate men? Why won’t society let her?
I will admit that when a lot of my friends told me that they were trans, my first reaction was unconditional support. I felt like any choice that they wanted to make regarding their bodies was theirs to make, and my liberal brain screamed something like “fight the power”. I told my trans friends how much I supported them, how beautiful they were, and how I couldn’t wait to see what they would look like with their new bodies. But then I started thinking about it. REALLY thinking about it. I questioned the duplicity of a society that appears to be so accepting of homosexuality and transitioners, but is actually sending the message that if you feel inside your brain that you are the opposite sex, you must therefore change your body to match. I think it is because most people, however accepting, do not want to deal with the fluidity of sexuality. They want to look at a person and know things about them by their appearance, rather than accepting that we do not come from cookie cutters, and have many different brains and personalities, regardless of body image.
That being said, the purpose of this post is not to criticize trans people, but to examine why physical appearance has become so important. This current obsession with pronouns and physical appearance leaves little room for inner growth and reflection. And suppose a person does transition and successfully “pass”? Does that change their moral compass, core values, or personality? Will “passing” make them better partners? It seems that while many people could be growing inside, this physical distraction might be preventing them from developing as humans. While focusing on “passing”, are they missing life?
I still feel like a male a lot of the time, but avoiding the trans trap has allowed me to focus on who I want to be as a person. Instead of bowing down to society’s pressure to present in a way that makes it easy for THEM, I chose ME and focused on how to be the person I want to be on the inside. When I see how little time “passing” leaves for self-reflection, I wonder if putting this pressure of physically presenting on hold would actually be a relief to my trans friends. My hope is that they would become free from worrying about whether or not their bodies “match” their brains. My body matches my brain perfectly. Because it’s MINE. What people think is no longer important.
Please feel free to respond to this post, and ask questions, as well as to answer any of the questions I posed in this post.
