TransGender day of visibility
Posted on my internal blog at my (corporate) work in a moment of bravado.
Today is the Transgendered day of visibility. So in the spirit of that, I am blogging to be part of this visibility. For what it is worth, my identity is GenderQueer not TransGendered*, but I’m not one to quibble over fine distinctions when people world wide are talking about visibility of a minority.
I know most people go ‘huh?’ at this, gender isn’t something that figures large in your life. You are “Whatever” and need think no further. Generally life splits into two camps, those who never talk or have to think about gender, and those who endlessly talk about the gender constructs and social dimensions. The first usually never get challenged when they walk into a toilet or changing room at the gym.
Transgendered (or Trans or GenderQueer) is not about sex, biological plumbing or the like. This is about identity- and how that identity impacts on your life. I’m lucky, I’ve chosen fields of work where the way I look and the way I dress isn’t challenged or inspected too closely, so for the most part the gender issues don’t come up. I’m also unusual amongst my anarchist GenderQueer peers, to have a (fairly) well paid full time job in a corporate environment is to stand out amongst people who can only get minimum wage jobs because they don’t look ‘right’, don’t act ‘right’, or had to leave education early due to bullying because of the way they looked.
How does my identity impact me, and you?
For myself, I don’t mind awfully which pronoun you use for me. I do use female pronouns however I’m used to being called ‘Sir’ in the UK. So if we’re in public and someone calls me ‘Sir’ don’t act surprised, shocked, or offended on my behalf- you possibly mentally tagged me as ‘Sir’ until I started speaking (as my voice is seriously femme at times). I’ll cope, and generally laugh about it.
If someone walks into the toilets or gym changing room, and you think they are in the wrong one, don’t make a big fuss or do a loud challenge, just say ‘Hi’, and if they have made a mistake they will blush and leave. Otherwise they will smile and continue on.
Don’t make assumptions about gender. You ‘read’** gender everyday. You look at someone and a part of your brain says ‘Boy’ or ‘Girl’ or ‘Not sure’ unconsciously. We tend not to think about these things until we have to. Look at people on the bus or train on the way home and listen to what your brain does. Then turn it around, what makes you one or the other (or neither, or both). Try not to stare too hard at people, or they will start edging away from you.
If your brain says one thing, and the person’s name says another, run with the name. The feeling is called “Cognitive dissonance” and the right thing to do is use the pronouns etc from the person’s name.*** Don’t get too flustered if you get it wrong once, just get it right next time. If you have problems getting it right, apologise, it’s like mispronouncing people’s names, apologise and make an effort to get it right.
And remember, gender can be an awful lot of fun! Playing with something so integral to core identity can be a real laugh.
So welcome to the annual day of TransGendered visibility.
(It is traditional that any conversation on gender have foot notes)
* Transgendered can be used as an umbrella term; Transsexual is someone who is changing their gender using surgery and hormone treatment, Transgender is used sometimes for people who identify as one gender but may not have surgery or take hormones to change their appearance, GenderQueer tends to be used by people who don’t go for this whole binary gender thing. This is only a summary and a google search will open the whole ‘What label’ can of worms. There is a difference in UK Law, Transsexuals are protected under the current Equalities bill, Transgendered and GenderQueer are not.
** Reading gender is a queer theorist way of saying look and label with a gender
*** I understand Finnish has no ‘He/She’ which makes this a thoughtful process when speaking English.
