Revolution

Trigger warning: transphobia.

The other day, I was in a conversation on social media about my identity on a post I had made telling people why using incorrect pronouns for me indicates an underlying unwillingness to see me as anything other than the binary gender I was assigned at birth, and saying that if I'm out to someone and they continue to misgender me, I will therefore interact with that person as little as possible. A well-meaning cisgender (adjective meaning "someone who identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth") person commented, saying essentially that maybe I shouldn't turn my back on people who don't know any differently. I responded with, among other things, the following:

I am asking for something revolutionary here: a departure from a binary mentality. I recognize that that is difficult for many people -- it was difficult for me too. But the difficulty cis people have in trying to understand me is not comparable to the pain I experience when people who I'm out to refuse to change the way they think about me because it's difficult for them.

I usually shy away from thinking of my identity as a revolution in and of itself, because that makes me uncomfortable. Why should the simple act of being myself be anything unusual, or an act of violence? Yet my identity is a challenge to the Western, white-male-centric notion of the gender binary, and because of centuries of immersion in this binary thinking, it's difficult for a lot of people to understand me. Even my family doesn't use my pronouns (except for my mother -- I could write an entire post on the things she's taught me and given me).

Trans day of visibility was March 31st. My social media was flooded with posts from my trans friends. I participated in a selfie thread posted by one of my nonbinary friends with the rule "no cis people." However, lack of visibility is not the problem. Trans women and transfeminine people are already visible and are being persecuted for their visibility. Visibility also expects trans people to look a certain way; if we don't fit certain (cis-focused) beauty standards, if we don't look cis or present androgyny in the way that non-trans people want us to, then we are ignored. We are not revolutionary simply for existing. We are not resilient just because we continue to exist in the face of people who tell us we don't exist.

Over spring break, I was in Rome. For a few days, for fun, I swiped right on everyone I encountered on Tinder. (I'd included in my bio the disclaimer "not here to meet anyone but am down to flirt".) Among the gems:

Oh look, cancer on two legs

What the heck is non binary? then, when I told him, Haha that's bullshit, you're lying to yourself and mentally ill

And this exchange:

him: Hey gurl me: Not a girl him: ?? me: I am nonbinary him: What? I think you was born with pussy! Ahaha

So what, just because some boys have invalidated me online, now I'm strong? I'm brave for enduring that? I think the heck not. The way I see it, I don't really have a choice. Sure, I could live in the closet and be miserable for my entire life and not have an opportunity to help make the world a better place for future generations. But coming from a survivor of trauma, that sounds traumatizing and lonely. Not all trans people are safe being out. Not all trans people have support from their parents. I am lucky. I am privileged. And I must use that privilege. And using my privilege, being out and loud about my identity and loud about respecting and accepting and fighting for the rights of trans people, that is not strong or revolutionary or brave.

The university at which I have been a student for almost three years is a Vincentian university. Saint Vincent DePaul was a French saint committed to service. He asked his followers a question which has become the Vincentian mission: what must be done? Until trans people no longer need to be visible, until asking people to discard binary ideas of gender is no longer seen as revolutionary, until men stop telling me I don't exist, activism is not a revolution. It is what must be done.