What support?

There is an idea of what "supportive" means in the trans community.

Admittedly, I'm not super involved in said community (this post is not for explaining why, sorry), but I know enough about it to be satisfied with my knowledge. 

I currently have a "supportive" situation. What this basically means is that most of the people I know in person call me Tim and refer to me as male. This is not all-inclusive; some people still call me [whatever other name they knew me by], and a lot of people either don't call me male or "forget" and call me female.

The idea that you can honestly forget someone's gender identity bugs the shit out of me. For one, dude. My name is Tim. I do not know anyone that thinks of Tim as a girl's name. So, you'd immediately want to be like "Tim said his blah blah blah." Wouldn't you? I SURE WOULD.  (Admittedly, this isn't the best reasoning, because I hate reinforcing any type of gender stereotype or total binary, but if I have to find a way to make this "easier" for cisgendered people, there it is.)

This kind of relates back to my post about "becoming" male. Yeah, actually, I've always been male. As you all know. Thanks for playing, though.

I am currently enrolled full time as a music major. I don't play an instrument, really. I sing. This is...probably not new to anyone that actually reads this. 

My vocal range is countertenor, which is a term most of you won't know at all. You can check wikipedia if you like. For a mainstream countertenor example, think Adam Lambert. Generally, this term is used for classical music, although there isn't a lot of easily accessible countertenor literature that I've come across. (In contemporary music, you would consider this to be "tenor," but that's a little misleading.) 

This is all without hormones, of course. I do not - and will not ever - take testosterone. 

It does mean that I have trouble hitting anything below E3, which kills me on singing tenor literature sometimes. I've accepted this.

This range, for a woman, is known as mezzo-soprano. Countertenor is more or less the exact same thing. There's your music lesson.

Last semester, I came out as trans to more or less everyone, including the head of my department. While everyone has been very supportive overall, the only person that seems inclined to let me sing songs written for men is my actual voice teacher. The department head is still resistant to me singing male roles. She said that she's "not ready" for it, and that she thinks I'm not ready for it.

I don't know how I can be more ready than I am, considering the fact that I'M A BOY. I WANT TO SING MALE SONGS. What a freaking concept this is.

And I can't claim that I have the same rights as other boys, can I? Legally, that holds no sway. In the minds of people who are unused to "viewing me as male," this is somehow an affront to their sensibilities. Someone that you thought of as female, singing the man's part in a duet with a girl? JESUS WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO.

I feel like I've lost cohesion in this, so I'll stop now.

This semester, however, looks to be a repeat of the previous one. All I'm trying to do is fight for my right to be treated like all other boys. I want to wear pants. I want to sing tenor literature. This is not a hard concept, but apparently it's an uphill battle.

I'll be glad when I graduate and am done with this crap.

Apparently I'm at it again.

You may have noticed that I talk a lot about how biology doesn't define a person, and how a transman is not "becoming" a man. He is already a man.

I'm probably not going to stop doing this...ever!

Part of this idea that transpeople are choosing to change their gender stems from the very terminology used to identify transgendered people. FtM. Female to Male. MtF. Male to Female. Come on, seriously? Am I really the only person who sees what is wrong about this? I understand the terminology, okay. There's probably not a better way to do it. And it's five in the morning and I'll be damned if I can come up with a better term right off the top of my head. But there are a lot of stigma regarding transgendered people, and goddamnit we are perpetuating this wrongness.

I do not identify as "FtM" because I am not, and have never been, a girl. Oh, I tried to be. I tried hard. I wore a dress to prom. I still accept female roles at school, because I'm either a sucker or an idiot when it comes to that sort of thing. But I'm not a woman - I just play one on a stage. (Not for very much longer, either, but that's another story for another time.)

I am endlessly frustrated by the trans community. We are perpetuating the idea of biology defining you, which isn't really fair of us in regards to ourselves. We talk about "passing" as the correct gender. But what the hell does that even mean? What are we conveying with that statement? We are saying that a transman who binds his chest, cuts his hair, takes hormones, WHATEVER HE DOES...is...passing as a man.

I hate that idea. I'm a man whether I bind my chest, cut my hair, or take hormones. I understand that society is ridiculous and even when I introduce myself as "Tim" they look at me crosseyed if they think I MIGHT HAVE BREASTS.

(I will, someday, write a post about breast binding as it relates to me. But it is not this day. At least, it is not this post.)

It is insanely frustrating to not be recognized as male. To not be perceived as male. But I do not feel the need to pass for something that I already am. That would be like saying "today I passed for queer." No shit! I am queer! WHAT AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. TODAY I WAS MYSELF.

If anyone reads this, I will probably get a bunch of shit about people who are trying desperately to "pass." Look, I get that. God, do I ever get it. I am endlessly upset by people using the wrong pronouns.

I'm just saying that we're using the wrong verbs! I'm not passing so much as I am forcing society to view me the way I view myself. But that's a mouthful. And I'm not the terminology guru, by any means. I just...hate the terminology that is perpetuating the stigma.

The best part of this entry is that this is not what I meant to write about. Maybe I'll go do something else for a couple hours, and return to what I originally had to say, because it's important to me.

...I really need more people to discuss this with, instead of typing it all out on a screen, directed at everyone and at no one.

One day you'll see me for who I am, not not what I look like to you.

This entry is kind of an assortment of things, but since they're all more or less the same topic, I think I'll just go with it.

I got this from Genderqueer on Tumblr.



I'd be interested in watching the entire film.

I also saw a post on tumblr yesterday that said "I hope some day my parents are going to tell me how proud they are of their son."

My parents both tell me, on occasion, that they are proud of me. But my dad doesn't actually know about my gender identity, which is my fault for being a chicken. My mom is resistant to it, although she's working on accepting it.

But someday, I want them to both think this way.

I am proud of my son.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is, again, something found on tumblr.

I saw someone talking about gender swaps in fanfiction. I actually can't stand most fics like that, but that's really not the issue.

The conversation included something about how boys are not boys unless they have penises.

You know what? That ideology is a huge part of what is wrong with the way our society views gender. Gender is between your ears, not your legs. A man in a body that is perceived as female is still a man.

I know they didn't even mean anything offensive by it, and I'm pretty sure that very few of my internet friends outside livejournal and this blog have any idea what my views on the subject are. But that doesn't change the underlying issue.

I've talked, previously, about how my body is a male body regardless of how other people are trying to label it. That doesn't change the fact that, hey, I don't have a penis! I'm probably never going to have the genital surgery that many transmen have, because from what I understand about it, it's a little inadequate, and it's not something I think will work out for me. SO I am never going to have a penis.

But I am always going to be a boy.

Food for thought, I suppose.

"Becoming"

There is an idea that someone who is transgendered is "becoming" another gender.

If it says "F" on your birth certificate, for instance, like it (currently) says on mine, then you are considered female. Okay, cool.

So let's say that you spend your entire life feeling incorrect. That at the age of five, you tell everyone at school that you're really a boy. That you get made fun of for it, but you insist. So then you're just a five-year-old with an overactive imagination who watched too many stories with male heroes, right? Uh.

And let's say you grow up, being told that you're female, and expected to act a certain way. So you do it. You wear dresses, and makeup (sort of, for awhile), and you go to prom and you imagine getting married and you get a boyfriend and on and on and on.

But it's not right, and you know it.

Years later, you finally go back to what you'd been saying all along.

I am really a boy.

This is a super-condensed version, but obviously, a true story.

When you finally tell everyone - your family, your friends, whoever - they decide that you are becoming a man.

Well that's wonderfully philosophical of them, isn't it? We can be here all night, talking about what really makes you a boy or a man. Personally, I still consider myself a boy and not a man, even though I'm old enough to drink and all that jazz. It's just not a concept I've come into yet, and I'm fine with being just plain old Boy Wonder for awhile. Hell, maybe forever.

I digress.

The people around me are not being philosophical when they think that I am "becoming" male. They're taking it literally, but they're also entirely wrong.

I've always been male. I have breasts, because I can't just magically wish them away. They don't make me a woman. Gender is between my ears, not between my legs, but thanks for playing.

I'm sick of this mentality that states that trans people are "really" the gender that they were assigned which is incorrect. Actually, they're not! I am really a dude. Chaz Bono is really a dude. He did not become one, anymore than I am becoming one. We were already male, just, most people didn't realize it.

This obsession that biology is how to judge is absolutely ridiculous. Other cultures have more than just the binary gender. Not all other cultures, obviously, and many people are totally resistant to the idea overall. The idea that someone is really anything, based on an outsider's perception, is wrong.

No one can tell you what you really are, based on anything they know or think they know about you. You are really yourself.

I am really myself, regardless of how people judge me. I'm a boy who just happens to have breasts, until I can afford to get the damn things removed.

Biology does not define me. And it shouldn't define anyone else.

Overcomplication and Overanalyzation

I have a serious tendency to overanalyze almost everything almost all the time. I have always done this - read too much into something, or worried incessantly about how some minor happening will take place. I am almost never prepared for things to go well, because I've come to expect something of the worst out of people.

When I first came out to someone at school, I came out to my voice teacher. My voice teacher is male, and has always been very laid back and very accepting of pretty much everything that I've seen thrown at him. I felt like it was a safe space, in the practice room where no one else could see. I spent probably the first three weeks of lessons doing nothing but talking, ranting, raving, and crying. And he listened, and let me, and gave advice as best he could. Mostly just listened, which was what I desperately needed at the time.

After talking to him, the proverbial floodgates opened.

I have always known who I am, of course, and people have been calling me Tim for about five years. It's just, well. There are a lot of reasons that I didn't come totally out about it. Eventually I'll get to that in a post instead of pussyfooting around it, but yeah, that's not going to happen tonight.

Part of the reason, though, is overanalyzing.

The head of my department is a rather intimidating woman. I'm not the kind of guy who is easily intimidated, but there is just something about her. I've always known that she's totally open-minded and all, but I was just terrified to tell her about myself for reasons I couldn't even fully articulate.

It took me almost five months to tell her. After telling my voice teacher, I mean. And I spent days planning what to say, and agonizing over it, and thinking of "BUT BUT BUT" and explanations. Just this insane, neurotic, freaking out thing. It was like I was going to go sky diving or something, and everyone was telling me "NO NO IT'S TOTALLY SAFE DON'T WORRY. PEOPLE DO THIS EVERY DAY. IT'S THE RIGHT THING, YOU'LL BE HAPPY IF YOU DO." And I was like "NO WHAT IF MY PARACHUTE BREAKS AND THEN I FALL BUT I DON'T EVEN DIE FROM IT I JUST LIVE IN MISERY FOR THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS OH GOD." That level of ridiculous.

Finally, I told her.

It wasn't like I planned. I was irritated and felt hopeless that day. And I just could not take it anymore. Living a lie was just killing me, and that was way worse than the parachute breaking. It was like being caught on the wing of the plane, indefinitely, flapping along screaming, but no one could hear me over the rush of the wind.

So it just came out (no pun intended). I just told her.

And it was a great conversation, even though I was highly distraught for the majority of it. She was incredibly supportive, and remains such.

In the past two months, she's passed this info on to all the office staff (I work in the music office), and to several teachers and several people in the program. They all call me the correct name, and they're working on the correct pronoun. It's just something that happened because I told her.

I never asked or expected that she tell anyone else. I planned on doing it myself, much more slowly. But this is the best thing that could have happened. Not only do I have her support, but all the music staff have been amazingly supportive. I really feel like the whole building is a safe space.
Some people use the wrong pronoun and it makes me cringe, but most of them correct themselves, and they're dealing.

It's a process. Mostly a good one.

But it's not the end of me freaking out about telling people. I think I'd be more okay with it if I hadn't known any of them previously. But I've known them for two years, and only a handful of them really knew anything about me. I may be a performer. I may love the spotlight and the applause. But I'm a social recluse. Mostly because of gender dysphoria, but also because I just am. I like you all from a distance! But a crowd of you in person talking to me, uh, not sure if want! So you know.

At my other job, I am not out as trans to more than three people. However, most people know that I at least go by Tim, and not (stupid legal name). I asked, when I was hired, for a nametag with the right name. I didn't get one, and it's now been two months.

The other day, a girl in the office was talking to me and noticed I wasn't wearing my nametag. (This is half on purpose, and half because I lost the damn thing anyway.) She asked if I'd like one with TIM on it. Of course I said yes, she made it, and now I have it. Another lady that works there was like "Oh, and here I've been calling you the wrong thing this whole time, sorry!"

I, of course, did not expect it to be so freaking easy.

And now for the last example of this ridiculousness. Congratulations if you managed to read this far.

I am in the summer musical at school, playing a (very small) woman's role. I'm not super thrilled (that's another story, and probably not one I'll tell here anyway), but it's still a show and I was practically born to be on a stage anyway.

Thanks to the aforementioned head of the department, everyone in the cast knows me as Tim. (This started because she told the production manager, and he told the director, and the cast sort of just assimilated the knowledge that my name is Tim and that's all there is to that.) Most of them never knew me previously, or only sort of knew me, so it was easy to get that all out there. My name in the program, unfortunately, does not read "Timothy [last name]," which is really what it should read. It reads "Adrian [last name]" because my mother still can't accept the name thing and I'm trying to accomodate. I really should stop doing that, but I digress.

Of the people in the cast that do know me personally, two of them were aware that I'm really a boy previously. One of them was not. I really like this boy, and it's taken me two years to really get him to open up to me. He's socially very awkward, because he's on the Autistic spectrum. Interaction for him is not always easy, and after two years, he finally initiates conversation with me instead of me starting it.

The first day I was at rehearsal, he noticed the director calling me Tim and asked me why. I told him I was changing my name, and that was the short version. It wasn't that I was against explaining it, but a lot was going on and there were like twenty people within earshot. It just wasn't the time or place.

The other day, he sent me a message on Facebook and asked me why I was changing my name.

It took me half an hour to write a five sentence reply, because I was so busy freaking out about it. What if he thinks I'm not someone to be friends with anymore? What if he suddenly stops talking to me, fuck, it's taken TWO YEARS to get this far? WHAT IF THE WORLD EXPLODES BECAUSE OF THIS? And so on.

So I told him I was transgendered and a few more sentences.

The message I got in reply was "Oh, okay. I'll try to call you Tim, then. I might mess up sometimes because I've never known anyone that changed their names."

Maybe I should stop thinking of this as some HUGE THING I MUST OVERCOME. My mom's kind of pounded it into my head that "CHILD YOU ARE MAKING YOUR LIFE HARDER. I MEAN DAUGHTER. I MEAN SON. SHIT I CAN'T THINK OF YOU THIS WAY WHY ARE YOU MAKING YOUR LIFE HARDER. THIS IS GOING TO BE VERY HARD. HARD HARD HARD HARD." I'm sure it's not even her intention, but it's sort of a side-effect of her resistance to having a son instead of a daughter. (It's not even really a question of "instead of" since LULZ always been a dude, but you know.)

So I go into almost everything expecting UTMOST RESISTANCE.

Honestly, though. If I can't get acceptance from a bunch of slightly socially awkward music/theatre kids, where the hell am I going to get it at all?

Yeah, see. Time to try to relax and let life happen. Honestly, it's going to whether I'm wound up or not, so I might as well enjoy as much of the ride as I can, right?

Now to make myself believe it.

"Ladylike."

I am not, and have never been, a feminist.

I know that's probably considered to be one of the most awful things a transman can say. But it's just true. I do not fight extra hard for female rights, although I do suffer outrage at some things, and I'm aware that equality is beautiful on paper and a fallacy in practice. But I've found that feminism just isn't my cause. That's how it is.

That said.

I think that the way women are treated in public, like they need special handling in many situations, is ridiculous.

This is sparked for my absolute abhorrence for the term "ladies."

Unfailingly, if I go out with my female friends, we will get addressed as "ladies." This happens more often at restaurants than anywhere else, but the word is something that permeates all customer service existence.

I have never called a group of women "ladies." I don't know why I haven't. I know only that I have not - and will not ever. Why this is the norm of politeness, I could not tell you, but it makes me totally batty.

It feels, to me, like some kind of condescension. And I admit that I might be a little oversensitive about this particular word, but I know plenty of cisgendered women that are just as irritated by it as I am. They get their feathers just as ruffled.

Maybe it's that there is this idea of how women should be. Soft and genteel and all that jazz. Yeah, guess I wouldn't know much about that, would I? But apparently, neither would most of my friends.

I have manners, okay. I'm polite to the waiter, or the lady behind the cash register, or the girl who is honestly just doing her job and asking me if I need help finding anything, even though it annoys the crap out of me. I don't believe in rudeness for the sake of rudeness. Sure, I can be provoked into being rude, but that's not even the point.

The idea that all women must behave as "ladies" just ticks me off. That's like saying all women need to wear heels and skirts and makeup. No, actually, they do not. No more than all men need to wear pressed slacks and ties and have their hair cut above their ears. Diversity! What a magical thing.

I've noticed that when you go to a restaurant, men often just say what they want. "I'll have the steak (please is optional)." Women don't do that. They ask for what they want. "Can I get the steak (please is rarely optional)?"

Why? I really don't know.

Me? I've been known to do it both ways. However. If someone perceives me as female and I say "I'll have the steak," then I seem more forceful than a woman is "supposed" to be. They don't tell me that, but you can see it in their faces. Just one second of slight "I do not know how to react to you properly." And then it passes, because they're not sure what they didn't like about it, and they're back to "right away ladies" or whatever else they were saying.

This entry has no real point, and no real end. Just an expression of frustration, and something I've noticed more and more the older I get.

What's in a name?

It's astounding how much your name matters to your identity, isn't it?

Growing up, I never liked my birth name. It was a name that I never thought really suited me. I had what you'd call a "unique" name. As in, I've never met anyone else with that name in my twenty-some years of living. Not once.

I always got those comments, you know. "Oh, how do you say your name? WOW! That's so pretty!"

Yeah, it's not so "pretty" when you spend twenty years having maybe 2% of the population even consider saying your name right. Spelling it right. Remembering it without being corrected several times.

Through the past decade, I've gone through several names - some feminine, some androgynous. It doesn't seem like a big deal to people. I had comments before I came out as trans along the lines of "You don't like your name so you're changing it? That's stupid/silly. Don't do that."

Why the fuck not? I've never enjoyed my name. It doesn't describe me. It's never really describe me. It's like, in addition to having gender dysphoria, I've had name dysphoria. The names I went through stuck, but I shed them. Like a style, or a fad. Nothing was really descriptive of me, of the person I was, or of the person I was becoming.

When I moved states and started over two years ago (still not out as trans, stupid me), I chose a name that was androgynous. It could have been male or female. Naturally, people want to spell it the more feminine (and complicated) way. I chose the masculine spelling for a reason, but of course no one knew that.

I spent two years with this name that I liked, but that wasn't really me. I had been Tim to my friends since 2005. My parents did not know this. One of my parents still does not know this. I was convinced, however, that as a performer (and a woman), I could not conceivably be known as Tim.

Well, now it's a new decade and I'm not a new person, but I've got a new perspective. Part of that perspective consists of stop lying about who you are.

The show I'm in now marks the first time I've been in a situation where everyone unquestioningly calls me by my name. Tim. Most of them don't know it's Timothy, but I'd probably punch almost anyone who called me Timothy and wasn't over the age of fifty, or related to me. Hell, most of them don't actually know I'm transgendered, because this has to be done in baby steps, and suddenly telling a cast of Mormons that HEY one of your named roles is a dude in drag really isn't the greatest option ever!

But it doesn't really matter. I'll get to all of that as I continue this journey. I will. I'm working on it.

What matters is that someone I do not even know in the cast came up to me today and said, "Hi Tim."

No weird looks. No questions as to why. Just this unfaltering acknowledgement of my identity.

I never really knew that it would be so goddamned important to me to just be called the right thing. But it is. And this girl whose name I did not know until tonight proved it to me.

My name is so integral to my identity, in ways and for reasons I cannot put into words. Acknowledging me as Tim is acknowledging me as myself.

Thank you, chorus girl whose name I will not publish on the internet. You'll never know what a big thing you've done.

Transphobia in the GLBT "Community"

Many people think of the GLBT community as just that - a community. Even people who identify as part of said "community" make this mistake repeatedly.

In truth, the GLBT community is divided. Gays and lesbians often band together, but even they can get weirded out or totally transphobic when it comes to interacting with transgendered people. Drag queens are one thing, but actual oh my god transpeople throw off their groove.

There's a boy at my school who is very flamboyantly gay. A few weeks ago, I heard him describe something as a "hot tranny mess" and I was a little appalled. That same week, I'd heard him get very offended when someone made a slightly racist remark. So racism is totally offensive, but saying "hot tranny mess" is totally acceptable? Wow.

You'd think that gay and lesbian people would be among the first to accept transgendered people. You'd be wrong.

At the beginning of the year, I went to the Gay-Straight Alliance meeting at my college. I figured that was the best place to begin to look for acceptance. Boy, was I wrong!

During the course of that meeting, I was told that I am heterosexual because I like boys, even "if I become male."

There is so much wrong with that statement. With that outlook.

I am not going to become male. Why? Because I am already male, regardless of the fact that I have breasts. Sorry to disappoint you, but I am not a girl and I never have been!

Secondly, I am a boy that likes boys. That makes me homosexual. And I've had a long hard road, here, so let's not label me something else that I'm not, okay? Okay.

I was also told that, instead of performing in drag as a woman, that I should be a drag king!

I was shocked into speechlessness. These people, who were supposed to be part of some imagined community, just did not understand. I can't be a drag king. Boys are not drag kings. I had mentioned that I've performed in shows as a girl, effectively making me a drag queen, and this is the response that I get?

I've found that the gay community is just as uneducated and transphobic as the straight community. It seems to me that there is something so inherently wrong about this. I honestly thought those of us who are looked down upon for our sexualities and gender identities were supposed to stick together.

I look forward to the day when there really is a community, and we can all at least try to understand each other. I hope such a day can really exist.

Some days it's hard to keep the faith.

"Equal" rights

I've been thinking, lately, that there is a difference between demanding equal rights and just demanding attention. So many people out there - myself included - are constantly lobbying for equal rights. Equal rights for minorities. Equal rights for women. Equal rights for gays, lesbians, transgendered people, and everyone in-between.

It gets messy when you start thinking of "equal rights" as "special treatment."

This year, I came out as transgendered. I've known for a long time, although the discovery and beginning of what people refer to as "transitioning" are for another time, and possibly another place.

Coming out was a huge ordeal, but before I actually did it, I kept telling myself the same things over and over again.

I don't want special treatment. I just want to be recognized as male, and allowed the same things as other boys.

This involves a standard within music performance expectations that all but requires women to wear skirts or dresses and pantyhose. Nevermind that I seriously think that pantyhose are the single most uncomfortable clothing article ever invented. I kept thinking, again and again, that "the other boys don't have to wear skirts. Why should I?"

In all fairness, why should a woman be forced to wear a skirt if they don't want to? Men get to wear pants and ties, and women have to wear dresses and heels and makeup and pantyhose. Yeah, talk about unfair.

I didn't think I was asking for a whole lot. The ability to dress like the other guys seems like a tiny thing to anyone who hasn't been in a situation like mine, I'm sure. But it was everything. Nevermind that I don't bind my chest every day (again, another story). Nevermind that only my close friends have been calling me Tim for the past five years. Everyone else has had a different name - and I've gone through several - that they know me as. Hardly anyone had any idea what my real gender identity was.

But all I could think about was how much I hated myself every time I put on a motherfucking pair of heels.

Once I came out, the director of the program I'm in (I'm going to refer to her as Ursula for reasons known to me and irrelevant to you) and I reached an arrangement. I got pants and a tie like all the other men, except in one number where the character I was playing was distinctly female. But I also got eyeshadow and painted nails.

Does this count as special treatment? It's hard to say, isn't it.

I look at it as "not being any different from a gay man that dresses in drag." Which, you know, is what I am anyway - a gay man that sometimes pretends to be a woman on a stage.

I'm at a point where I no longer want to play women on stage, but I will if it's the only way to be on a stage.

There's an argument here about crossdressing, invalidation, and general ignorance that I've encountered, but it's late and I've said most of what I set out to say.

Coherence in writing these kinds of things used to be a stronger suit.

Everything changes.