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.