National Geographic's American Transgender

So, I looked up transsexual separatism on a google search. I could definitely use some more information about it and so I’m just going to offer an opinion based on my own experiences and leave it up to you and other readers to form your own opinions about it.

My basic understanding of it is, that transsexual people have very specific needs, including legal and medical, which are often overlooked in the LGBT movement and side skirted in many conversations in some transgender spaces. Specifically, I am thinking about certain theoretical conversations that go on in the genderqueer community and people who identify as transgender but do not pursue body modifications.

As someone who got into a certain trans community identifying heavily as genderqueer and not at the time pursuing or showing a huge interest in body modification, there was a lot of frustration I had about accessing resources. First of all, people assumed that I was going to do medical transition when it was something I was still trying to make up my mind about, independent of other peoples opinions. Second, people implicitly told me that they would only take me seriously as a woman identified person if I did medical treatment, including certain feminists who managed women only spaces. There was also a frustration that many resources available for trans people was only about medical transition. The invisibility felt high and I was mad that the dominant representation of the trans community was of transsexuals, primarily transsexual women.

I’ve since learned that there was something crucial I was missing in my perspective. While my frustration and sense of invisibility were very real, I think I misplaced anger on transsexual women for being dominant, when I believe that transsexual women are often not in control of the visibility they receive. While before starting hormones and also passing, me being transgender was sometimes interesting to people but to many it was also unremarkable, which was frustrating. Now I feel like everyone I meet is really surprised to find out I’m a transsexual woman, and often they’ll have a ton of questions. They’ll either ask me if they’re not feeling too intimidated, or they’ll ask my friends. I get asked to do interviews regularly by my college’s newspaper or research projects. I’m absolutely fascinating. It doesn’t help that I’m an artist and that through dance my body is always a spectacle. While before, my transgender identity could be overlooked, now it’s something that most people have to come to terms with in one way or another. This hyper-visibility is one that shows how different I am from the rest of society and the many different ways I don’t fit into legal and medical systems. Anytime I have to do anything bureaucratic, I can see the person hesitate over what names and categories should be used for me. I don’t really have a solid option of fitting into a box right now, even if it was one that misrepresented me.

I think it’s important to recognize this hyper visibility as violent. I get outed to people routinely. I can see people not recognize as an entire person, but only see me as a transsexual woman. Transsexual women, particularly of color, are the ones who are recognized most often on the Day of Rememberance. Sure passing is an illusion, it’s a conditional cisgender privilege, but it sure helps a lot of transsexual women survive. So does explaining our genders in a binary way. I don’t believe my gender to be binary, but when I’m coming out to a straight cis guy who is hitting on me, I would much prefer to explain everything in binary terms and as a medical condition but it’s often the only way that they will begin to see it. In many ways, transsexual women who have been so marginalized by society don’t have the privilege of identifying in non-binary ways and being affirmed by our communities and allies.

I can see this as something being frustrating for transgender communities to see. I know transgender theory, and for the large part, I think it tries to create a gender fantasy that isn’t the reality that many of us face. I still consider myself genderqueer, but I feel uncomfortable in genderqueer spaces bringing up the fact that I have a real desire to pass as a cis woman sometimes because of my saftey or that I will often times explain myself in binarist terms to cis people. I’ve always viewed genderqueer as more of a perspective, but I feel like many people get caught up in the idea trying to represent genderqueer through certain dress styles and dogmatic language uses. In a lot of ways, genderqueer spaces are not designed to include the struggles of transsexuals. Things we face as transsexuals are often directly against the dominant ideologies of genderqueer communities.

So back to transsexual separatism…

I definitely think there is a lot of work that needs to be done to make the representation of transgender people to not be just that of transsexuals. I also believe that transgender person that de-values trans woman should also learn to disidentify from much of the transphobia they portrayed in the media and Day of Rememberance. The high rates of murder and violence are enacted on the trans* community evenly, but located primarily trans women of color. Tranny jokes are about trans women. I think it’s interesting how there are certain transgender radicalists, who might have read a book or two on transgender theory or identify as post-gender, but cringe at seeing transgender women in their spaces or having a voice in the movement.

From what I can see, transsexual separatism is an attempt to re-focus conversations and resources in trans communities back to helping transsexuals obtain legal and medical rights. When the deaths of trans women of color are often martyred by transgender communities but still given the least amount of voice in transgender spaces, I do believe that something needs to change. The discrimination that transsexuals face is real, and any transgender person that argues passing is morally wrong has a ton of privilege that allows them to occupy that position. I believe that the most gender radical act a person can do, is to help those in the community that are discriminated the most.

I also don’t believe that transsexual separatism is the the best tools we have. I am thinking of Audre Lorde’s essay, "The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House". I don’t believe that separatism will accomplish the goals we want. While many transsexual people are rightfully angry that transgender spaces de-value their experiences, I think that there needs to be more conversations and acceptance of various transgender identities. I think that instead of building a movement on the basis of separatism, we need to build a collective understanding and support for one another. We need to stop judging people’s experiences or the perspectives in which they understand it. College education in gender theory certainly affects the ways in which transgender people understand their own identity, but this shouldn’t stop us from forming alliances with others who have not had access to this and it certainly shouldn’t be cause for us to de-center them from our work as activists.

I think that at a certain point we need to take a step back from the activism we partake in, and remind ourselves it is not about or for us as individuals but as communities. So if you identify as a trans activist, understand that your experiences only describes a small part of the community. If you haven’t already, spend some time really getting to know various parts of the community and listen with open ears and open hearts. Even if their perspective is totally different than yours, taking some time to form community and a sharing space will do a lot more good work than you think. I think that once we learn to stop judging first, and instead prioritize building a loving home, we will no longer need to have discussions about transsexual separatism.