Forgiveness, I’m not certain what you’re saying here?
Nothing in your looks, gait or voice gave me the slightest indication that you were trans.
Thank you for the sentiment, robby!
Let’s allow me to backpedal here a bit, because I may have not been clear.
I said I love my crossdressing friends and I don’t mind drag, but I gave examples of how others are bothered by it. My comments on how drag may someday be considered equal to blackface don’t reflect my personal preference, but what I believe is likely to happen.
If you step back and break down what drag is, though, it’s a combination of things. Some drag performers definitely do not try to be gender illusionists - they use gender as a humorous vehicle, and often make a lot of crude sexual jokes and innuendo in their performances. Some are deliberately campy, and emphasize this with over-the-top outfits which are designed to create humor. And some of the drag performances I’ve seen have left me walking away feeling objectified and mocked.
There are other drag performers, however, who are truly gender illusionists as you say. They sing, perform, do cabaret, and are generally greatly playing down the “I’m a guy! Isn’t this funny?” aspect tremendously. This is more akin to what one would have seen in the 1960’s, maybe the 1970’s or later at times.
So this may sound like a splitting of hairs or even a “no true Scotsman” issue, but there’s drag, and then there’s, well, drag.
But even in the best cases, among the community I know, drag is more and more being considered to be rude and mocking. I do know however that transgender cultures are very different from country to country - it’s a big mistake which most, including I sometimes, make to assume that it’s a global family. I know for instance that TG in Australia is very different than in India than in Thailand than in Brazil than in England. It’s likely as well that drag, and the relations between the two communities also varies.
I’m not certain if attitudes are different across the US - I speak with or communicate with many TS persons across the US, and haven’t noticed a difference within the country. But I can’t speak for everyone, or anyone, of course.
Oh, OK, that’s really good then, because that was my intent. If I didn’t submerge and blend in, I feared loss of career, etc. It’s not something I could switch back and forth between. For example, outside of the Renaissance Festival, from 2002-2012 I think I dressed female all of 3 times. The reason I didn’t was twofold - first, clothes don’t make your gender, only your gender presentation, and I was hiding my gender. Second, I worried that too much of one life might bleed into the other, and a client, co-worker, or family member would start assembling the pieces.
I also spent a lot of time destroying my voice, because there were rumors I was “gay” when I started at work, due to my high voice. At a time in the early 1990’s where even the rumor of being gay could impact your career.
So you hide out until you are ready to put a gun to your head, after which point, well, who cares who knows at that point?
A few of my trans friends who are not out shock me when they show up in “boy mode.” Some have come up to me at the mall or the grocery store and said “hi,” and I’m like “um, do we know each other?” Once a tanned, macho man walked up to me and held out his arms to greet me, and I was backing away nervously when they laughed and said “it’s me, Vicki!” Someone who I knew as a crossdressing grande dame of a local bar. Some of us know how to be a chameleon.
I related the story of my first day at work as Una - but to summarize, even though I had told most of all my co-workers individually, many were shocked. All day long I had people stopping by to tell me how proud they were of me, and also to tell me “OMG, you don’t look anything like you did!” At least half a dozen people asked my department head “who that lady was” walking around the floor. One went to my secretary and asked in a nervous whisper if I had been fired, because there was a new woman working in my office. The security people, who I said hi to every day and sometimes chatted with, asked me for my visitor’s pass. I could relate more anecdotes, but yeah, I did a complete chameleon act from one to the other gender presentation.
Just to see if I can also post things relevant to the thread: here is an interview with a drag queen through which I can absolutely see how it could be seen as hurtful. This is really a very English form of drag, I think. He doesn’t mean it in a bad way, I think that’s clear. But he clearly describes what he does as comedy.
I didn’t see it as hurtful, personally.
I guess another thing to understand is drag performers suffer from “guilt by third-party association.” Like I said some bit earlier,
- Cisgender person sees drag show or an interview with a drag performer.
- Cisgender person assumes transsexual persons are the same as drag performers, in that we are doing this as “performance art”.
- …when in reality, we are risking our health, careers, families, friends, and even lives, being and living every single day as a our correct gender.
- Cisgender person then applies their mistaken belief to next transperson they meet.
- Hilarity ensues.
- Transperson resents drag performer.
- Etc.
What are baggers?
Someone who tries to “bag” (screw) a transsexual person for the thrill of it.
I’m sure Una will answer this, but I’ve got a take on this myself. I’m a cisgirl who somehow or other has gained an internet reputation as being sympathetic/an ally for transpeople. I have spoken to dozens of them on line that were fully out, several dozen more who “confessed” their secret to me then swore me to secrecy (the fact I actually do keep my trap shut about other peoples’ business might be why I seem to hear this sort of thing from folks).
Absolutely every single last one of these transgender folks, every single one, from deep in the closet to fully out, have expressed a deep, deep, and serious fear of violence. All of them. It’s even more pervasive and deep than the fear of rape among ciswomen, which is also pretty damn near universal.
Which makes me sad. 
I keep hoping that society will become more tolerant.
Side note: I used ‘screw’ to differentiate the very predatory sense behind the sex for a bagger versus a more reciprocal kind of attraction/relationship/interaction. No dismissive tone was intended.
Una - thank you for starting this thread - I’ll probably pass it on to a friend of mine who is having a lot of difficulty with personal gender issues.
It’s difficult not to think of the person I knew 20+ years ago as “him” (especially since we went out a few times), and we’ve been out of touch for awhile - I gather they prefers a non-gendered pronoun at the moment (based on skimming their Twitter feed) and while it makes my teeth itch to be non-grammatical, I just want my friend to be happy.
What are some ways to be supportive for someone who feels asexual/agendered?
Thank you for for the book suggestions (and to the other poster who suggested titles also) I appreciate the resources.
I was struck by this:
I’m constantly somewhere between bemused and horrified that the males in my life have NO FUCKING CLUE about this massive difference in living, and I have universally failed in explaining what makes my “awareness” different from “living scared” or “being paranoid.” From what you’ve posted here, I have a feeling you have a bit of lifelong awareness yourself, as being afraid of parents, and being small, ostracized, and beaten at school will tend to do that to a person.
How do you help someone without that background learn to gain that awareness? How do you teach that to someone?
As a much less important question, you’ve mentioned several times that you are (and other transgirls/women are) much less strong now than you were - is that due to hormones or lifestyle or ?
That is a very difficult situation for me to understand, even though I felt asexual for a while. I’m not certain I’m qualified to give the best answer, and our language is not naturally suited towards genderless pronouns (oh I mean you can keep using “one” or “they”, but it starts to sound awkward and contrived in common speech.) I guess many of the things done to support a transperson would apply - use the proper gender and give them your moral support, let them know you care, and be there if they need help, and if they are being bullied or harassed - call someone, do something, report it.
Somewhat - before transition, some people would note I sat carefully in places like restaurants, near the door, back to the wall, and I would watch people as they came in, always look out when walking to my car in the parking lot, etc. It kept me safe a lot of the time, especially on trips to foreign countries. Like when a pretty German girl simply walked up to me once smiling, I knew immediately something was up, and prevented myself from being mugged by her two male friends who were coming up behind me. And a time I played cat and mouse with someone stalking me in the Paris Metro.
After transition, on the hormones…I not only did not magically gain an innate female sense of situational awareness, I lost much of what I had. I’ve had a few close calls with aggressive men who really wanted me to come somewhere with them (I posted about one bad incident). I’ve also been told I give off female body language which says “come here, I’m interested,” and I’m trying to fix that. And as I said, I’ve been sexually harassed on the job now thrice.
The first step is to teach them that such a thing exists. So many transwomen just haven’t thought it through, and it comes as a shock to them. The next step is getting them to take the warnings seriously, and the only way that comes about is by talking to others who have “been there.” Or via hard knocks of just having negative experiences. Next you have to teach them how they avoid getting into trouble, by role-playing, practice, and demonstrating by doing if you are out with them. Finally, you have to teach them “what do you do when things get out of control”, and here you get into an area of basic verbal deflection, attracting attention, even self-defense.
Hormones. I often use the Cat Litter Metric as an example.
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Before I started fencing, I struggled with a 20-pound sack of cat litter using two hands, and it was almost impossible to pick up a 40-pound sack with all my strength.
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After a year of fencing, I could pick up a 40-pound sack one-handed and carry it around with me. I could even “curl” it.
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After 6 months on hormones, a 40-pound sack was difficult to move with two hands, but I could.
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After 12 months on hormones, I was unable to really move a 40-pound sack without picking it up and dropping it after a foot. And the 20-pound sacks are now impossible to pick up one-handed.
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After 18 months, the 20-pound sacks were a chore with both hands.
Past that point, things seem to have stabilized. This is despite my now being up to 8-12 hours of hard exercise per week (fencing, tennis, and dancing).
If it were me - I see a couple of options happening -
a) ask the person how they want to be referred to - I’m pretty sure “it” is right out.
b) don’t use a pronoun at all - just use the person’s given name or nickname - might be awkward at times, but its never wrong*
c) if you screw up the pronoun due to ‘still getting use to it’, etc - talk to the person and let them know that - it is still difficult for life long friends to adjust as well - doesn’t mean we don’t accept/love/support - muscle memory and all that.
*obvious exception, 3rd person reference that may inadvertently advertise a fact the individual doesn’t want known - in which case, refer to (a)
A friend of mine identifies as genderfluid and uses ‘they/them’ pronouns, and we had a bunch of conversations about gender neutral pronoun use at a queer youth conference last year. And, counter-intuitive as it seems, point (c) is the opposite of what they wanted their friends to do.
My friend said “It’s just calling attention to the fact that you misgendered me and making me feel worse about it.” They explained that the “It’s hard for me to get used to this, I make mistakes, but it doesn’t mean I don’t support you” talk isn’t telling them anything they don’t already know - they’re well aware that even well-intentioned people will screw up sometimes. As long as it’s clear that you’re making a real effort to use the right pronouns, if you slip up, they’d prefer you to say a quick “sorry” and move on. My friend feels that the big apologetic speech is more for the benefit of the person who screwed up and wants reassurance that they’re not a bad ally - the person who was misgendered does not want to have a big conversation about how confusing their pronouns are.
Other non-binary people at the conference seemed to feel the same way. There were skits about “what to do if you screw up a pronoun” that gave the same advice (as well as skits about “questions you shouldn’t ask” and “bathroom etiquette” and so on).
The other advice in the quoted bit is good - basically, just use the name and pronouns they’ve told you they prefer, and if you don’t know what those are, ask.
Disclaimer: I live in Australia, so it may be different in the US - as Una mentioned above, there are cultural differences, it’s not a global family. Also, I’m cis and don’t have personal experience with this, just repeating what my friend said.
Genderfluid, genderqueer, and agender persons are relatively new in terms of visibility in the community, and even many transpeople don’t really know the conventions. I will note that on a personal note, I sometimes run into a minor bit of hostility from genderfluid and agender persons which is entirely unneeded. Some of them will do things like show up en femme with makeup, wig, fancy dress, and then yell at people who call them she, her, miss. I remember one incident, where an agender person made no friends at all by doing that and then yelling “Don’t arbitrarily assign a gender to me based on my clothes! You don’t have that right!” Um…I just don’t even know what to say.
right - all I meant with (c) was to communicate with the person - I was not intending to imply a ‘big speech’ as much simply correcting yourself and not just ‘ignoring’ the mistake (and that of course, depends on your relationship with the individual - their reaction, circumstances, etc)
While I would like to count Una as a friend, I also don’t have any personal friends that this comes up with (that I am aware of - so, maybe I have a few) - this thread has certainly helped me to learn alot - it hasn’t changed how I treat individuals like Una - I have always endeavored to be respectful of all people - it has helped me to understand a bit more about the issues transgendered people face, so that I am better equipped when the situation does occur.
Right - it seems some individuals want to make an argument instead of friends - I am going to assume duck if it quacks like one , until I have enough information to realize its a goose dressed like a duck that prefers to be a kitten (or something like that… )
Once you get to know a person, THEN you can look past the outward appearance (clothes, wigs, mannerisms) and be more accurate - but otherwise, all we have is what we ‘see’ to work with.
It’s not limited to agender people by a long shot. Even I have been attacked by transgender activists who didn’t know I was trans. I remember one firebrand who I met, and I apparently said something about how “a lot of transgender women feel that way,” and I received a lecture on why the hell did I, a cisgender woman, think I had the right to talk about the trans community, and who did I think I was, etc. :smack: When she stopped to take a breath, I told her the Way That Things Are. Much embarrassment on her part, and now we’re friends.