Let’s start when I was a kid or a teen. Thing is, I was feeling bad with my gender identity, but not that bad, if you see what I mean? I wasn’t very good with being a boy or, even worse, a man, and I didn’t like my body. But I never felt like “a woman” or something like that.
I have always been very shy, and never have socialized much (as a boy or a girl) and I think it did play an important role in my relation with male privilege. Many typical things constitutive of “boyish” identity were quite out of reach for me.
Now I am reluctant to say that I was shy because I was trans’ (I certainly didn’t feel like that at the time) because I feel like it’s reinterpreting the past a posteriori. It might also be the contrary: being trans because I am shy, since I don’t think I would have transitioned If I had be able to fully socialize as boy/man. Or maybe it’s just quite independent, though linked.
This being said, I think I had some male privilege. Maybe even the fact that I didn’t socialize as a boy, because I escaped “reality” through books, tv and videogames, has something to do with male privilege. On the other hand, I don’t think I internalised it much. There again, I am reluctant to say that I had a complicated relation to male privilege because I was going to define as trans 10 years later. On the other hand, there again, maybe it is the other way around: I ended up being trans because I wasn’t able to identify with male and internalize male privilege.
But I don’t think transitioning was the only possible outcome of my life. True, as child/teen, I don’t think I was ever integrated to “boys” club, even if there are periods where I did make some efforts ; b ut I could deal with that. As a young adult (18-2x), I did it by being a complete geek with a very neglected look. There were times when I was a bit less neglected and tried to be more “masculine”, e.g., having beard or sideburns (I was quite fond of that) and actually chosen clothes. (Strangely, I was the more masculine just before I decided to transition. And I realized that my supposedly masculine boots took a new dimension when associated with a skirt, but that’s another story.)
I think that, in the absolute, I could have lived like this. I didn’t see transition as a matter of life or death (I have been quite depressive at a time, but that was after I decided to transition, seeing all obstacles rising in front of me).
What started to make me change was when I started activism (which was in 2003, because of the war in Irak and also, in France, a reform of the age of retirement). I soon became involved in a tiny trotskyst group which quicly entered the LCR, Revolutionnary Communist League, which you may or may not know because of his popular spokeperson, Olivier Besancenot. Activism forced me to meet people in real life and not “escape” through fiction, and of course it also made me think about lots of stuff.
Particularly, I was very interested by the feminist and LGBTI issues. I remember a feminist formation about how the differences between men and women were socially constructed and not innate. I don’t know how to put it, but it felt like it was very important to me. And transgender was presented like an example of that, that you were not a man or a woman according to the form of your genitals.
(A parenthesis about feminism and transgender. In the groups where I went, which were not women-only, and were constituted of young people (I think it is of importance), transgender was always seen as a very positive, subversive thing. I have observed in english blogosphere many radical feminists think the contrary, and it is also probably true in France (though I never actually saw it theorised here, at least not in the same way), but I only encountered anti-trans feminism long after, so at this time I really felt included in feminism.)
I think my encounter with feminism was very important for my decision to become trans. And by “feminism” I also include LGBTI issues, and particularly lesbian and trans ones. In particular, the affirmation of some lesbians to be lesbians because of political decision, by “choice”, was important for me.
I know for some people it is everything but a choice, but when I became trans’, that’s how I perceived it. As a way to say that I rejected patriarchy and didn’t want to be a man anymore (if I was one either). Now I don’t want to say it was a “pure” choice, a “pure” political decision: but there was a time where I thought there was two possible ways: continuing being seen as a man, albeit in an “alternative way” (it was clear for me that I could never be a mainstream heterosexual man), like being a punk, a fag or something like that. Or try… being “trans”, that is, not really identifying as a woman but more or less seen as one.
Now, I don’t mean that I became trans only by “feminism” ; but I think that without feminism, the obstacles to transition (losing social status, the fear, but also the internalised transphobia) would have led me to “stay being a guy” (even if, maybe, ten or twenty years later I would have realised I couldn’t cope with it anymore and would have transitioned, but it’s hard to say).
I don’t regret my choice, because I feel quite happier now, even if I went through faaaaaar more shit during the two years since my decision than during the rest of my life. And I identify as “trans”, and “transgender” (though I am questioning myself about the “modifying my body” part).
But sometimes, I feel like I am not completely legitimate because, though I certainly didn’t fit completely in male gender role, I don’t think I ever had the level of “dysphoria” other trans people had. So when I try to speak as a trans person, which I think is important for visibility and fighting cissexism, I speak with my voice, but I wonder if people won’t see it as representing all trans people, which of course I can’t pretend to be. And it’s not always obvious to understand the intensity of what other went through since I didn’t experience it, even if I make efforts.
This is why I am sometimes a bit confused on where I stand in the cis/trans definition. Because, well, yes, I can understand a cis person who doesn’t fit well in gender and actually I feel closer to this kind of “some trouble but not complete ‘dysphoria’” than most experiences described by trans people. And I can understand also that they don’t like the term (even if it is ‘cissexual’ and not ‘cisgender’).
(The fact that I don’t think there is a clearly determined line doesn’t mean that I am against using the terms, but I feel more at ease using it for a population (like “cis people don’t have to worry about XXX”) than at an individual level.)
Now, I was asking myself some questions, like “am I really ‘trans’ ?”, “were my reasons for transitionning wrong?” and such, but the truth is, I don’t think that’s very important, actually. I know some transsexual people would say that I am not a “real trans”, but I don’t care much. My reasons may have been wrong, but even that isn’t important. The thing is, I think I am quite happier this way, and I don’t think I could “detransition” at this time. I couldn’t be a cis man. Maybe I could be a cis woman, but… well, technically this might prove difficult.
So, well, I don’t say this is gonna be for life, and maybe in some years I’ll “de-transition”, but for now, I guess I’m going to keep being (more or less) trans for some more time.
(Thinking about it, when I was at the beginning of puberty, there was a time where I sort of saw my body as “girly”. But it was completely frightening me, and I was afraid that e.g. would grow breasts and be “gay” (yes, I know, the stoopid confusion). Similarly, when we were playing “let’s pretend to be cowboys/cops/bandits/…” I often wanted to be a girl. But I interpreted this more as fetishism or perversion. In my blurred memory, it doesn’t look very much as a desire to be a woman at that time, but well, maybe I’m wrong and it shows I am actually a “real” trans, after all)
(Updated the 2008/10/02 in order to add more information about childhood)
