'Trans' Before 'Girl': The Third-Gendering of Trans Women
I have found myself considering often recently the stark difference in comfort I feel when hanging out with a group of trans women as opposed to any other mix of people. The way I unfold and stretch into a warm familiarity in the presence of my sisters in ways I didn’t even know were possible; the years I spent hunched in on myself, slouched and cramped into something smaller than I am. I’ve wondered about why this is, why I feel this pressure even amongst lifelong friends who have never once been anything but supportive of me and my identity. Friends who stand up for me to others and go out of their way to be affirming. Even in a room full of gender-freaks and capital-Q Queers, I am still shrink-wrapped in tight discomfort, like fitting into clothes that aren’t too big or too small, but cut in just the right way that you know they look wrong on you. I have realized it is because in all of these spaces, the queerness of my identity is more important than my identity itself. I am never just a woman, I am always a transgender woman. I am always ‘trans’ before I am ‘girl’.
I think this phenomenon is clearly related to the fetishization of trans women, but not because it is fetishizing in itself. I don’t hang out with the kind of people who would read the Trans Girl Pick-Up Guide, and yet I still encounter this feeling of separation, of reduction and simplification and otherness, on a near-daily basis. I think this and the fetishization of trans women have the same root cause, which is the third-gendering of trans identities. The reduction of trans women to genitalia is certainly one part of this, but there are non-sexual aspects as well that are based in the way we define transgenderism itself. As long as transgenderism is marked as the switch from one gender to another, often but not always from the “assigned” gender to the “chosen” gender, it implicitly distances those people from the very gender identities they are trying to claim. My womanhood is always predicated on the context of my previous “manhood”. My transition, be it social or physical, is always the foundation upon which my womanhood is built; I am always ‘trans’ before I am ‘girl’. In this why I am consistently third-gendered by those around me, made to exist outside of the binary (this is not to say that I believe or support the gender binary; I think we should do away with it entirely. The problem lies from the binary being enforced and stapled over, of creating categories that are made other because of their movement).
There are, of course, spaces and times where I do claim and celebrate this foundation, this otherness. I am proud of my journey into self-realization, and my queerness is an important aspect of my personality that I don’t try to play down or hide. My experiences, my beliefs, my actions and my desires, all are influenced by this part of my identity in ways I may not even fully realize. I am trans, and I am proud of that. But when I claim myself as a trans woman, those two words are given equal weight; they share the podium. I am trans. I am woman. I am me. In the presence of others, though, I can feel the latter being pushed to the back, like a celebrity being pushed behind their representative. A child being pushed behind their parent. My womanhood is to be seen, but my transness is to be heard. I think that the emphasis on queer identity can sometimes be a tool of ostracization from the self, rather than simply ostracization from others. Especially in the current social climate of precise identification and ‘queer solidarity’, people become focused on the queer identity, and not enough on the identity itself. It is only when I am surrounded by other trans women that I feel like I exist without caveat or precursor; when I am truly, uncompromisingly ‘girl’. I know more trans women than I can count, and yet I can count on one hand the number of times I have heard any of them refer to themselves simply as ‘a woman’ around others. Only when we are alone can it become implicit, an understanding rather than a explanation, and we can simply exist in our womanhood together. When we can just be a couple of girls, hanging out.
Hopefully you’ve noticed that throughout this I have separated the word trans from the word woman. This is on purpose: I think that the increasing commonality of “transwoman” or “transfem” as a single word is a large part of this issue, because it intrinsically links our identity to a modified womanhood, a modified femininity. We can never take off the context of our separation; of our previous identity. And of course there are trans women who do identify with that label, who want to claim that context and wear it proud, always. I fully support any transfem who does so, as her self-realization is the most important thing. This, just like everything else, is just my observations from the lens of my own experience.
I don’t know that I have a call to action here besides asking people to be cognizant of what they prioritize when talking with trans women. Separate the words. Remember that her identity is not just her transition. Remember that she is a girl, too.
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