Cassandra Today

About noon yesterday — the Transgender Day of Remembrance — I posted this on Facebook:

Today is the Trans Day of Remembrance.
Today we mourn our dead.
It is not a day of trans awareness or trans visibility or even trans advocacy.
It is a day of trans grief.
Allies, please respect that.

My friend Kim, who is perhaps the staunchest trans ally I know, asked in response (gently and compassionately, as is her way):

So, help me. As you know I’m an ally. Is an expression of love ok? Is sharing a sentiment like your comment, with our LGBTQ employee group ok? From an educational perspective?

My reply follows. It’s a Facebook comment that somehow morphed itself into something that is part essay, part self-therapy.

To your questions, yes, yes, and yes.

I’m referring to—to cite an extreme example—a public TDoR observance I attended that included speakers advocating for gay rights, as well a couple of politicians who, as politicians are wont to do, took it not as an opportunity to stand together in mourning, but as an opportunity to toot their own horns about what great allies they are etc.

I’ve seen allies try to lead the planning process.

I’ve seen the Day of Remembrance turned into Trans Week of Awareness And Education on one campus.

And none of those is a Bad Thing® in itself. What bothers me is losing the centrality of the meaning of this day.

I personally feel the day very deeply—those are *my people* who were killed, whose names were read. And it’s *my people* who live in fear of being on next year’s list.

It’s a time for us to face the truth of the hatred that too many people feel for us. And for me, it’s a time to contemplate the apparent miracle of my own privileged post-transition life, where I’m statistically unlikely to be physically assaulted, much less killed.

In large part, it’s a day for us, for my people, to unflinchingly face together the reality that is trans life, even that it includes the possibility of being killed by someone acting in blind hate.

On this day, I don’t need to hear all you’re doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again; I just need to be held and understood. On the other 364 days of the year, then—yes, please, do tell me about all the work you’re doing for us.

But on this day, as we open ourselves to the deep emotions that come with encountering the deaths of our people, please treat it as a day of grief and mourning. That’s what it is.

I have no way of knowing whether any of my comment-cum-essay-cum-self-therapy helped to answer my friend’s questions. But she did “Like” my comment with a heart emoji, so I believe I did touch her in some way.

A friend messaged this question to me:

“Set me straight—am I confused—aren’t all transgender people gender dysphoric in that the gender physically born with is not the same as how they feel and identify?”

This is my response to the question.

It was pretty recently that I read my first article about people who are trans but don’t experience gender dysphoria. For those of us who follow the DSM, the idea is startling, because the medical model of trans has been and still is based on the old trope of “trapped in the wrong body”.

It’s true that many trans people can describe their experience as being trapped in the wrong body, of feeling dysphoria (unease / dissatisfaction / distress) regarding their bodies as compared to their gender identities.

But there are plenty of other trans people who are OK with their bodies, to varying degrees. An example is a trans woman who doesn’t have genital surgery, not because of financial or medical reasons, but because she simply doesn’t want it — she doesn’t need the surgeon’s knife because she’s secure enough in her gender identity and willing (even glad) to live in her body as it is. Another example is a genderqueer or non-binary person who’s undoubtedly trans (they certainly weren’t assigned nonbinary at birth!), yet is not dissatisfied with their body.

The DSM5 says “gender dysphoria diagnosis involves a difference between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender, and significant distress or problems functioning.”

Notice that distress is considered an essential element of gender dysphoria.

To be trans, though, is simply to have a gender identity differing from the gender assigned at birth (usually assigned on the basis of one physical characteristic).

Nothing about distress in there, so nothing about dysphoria.

And to be fair, the American Psychiatric Association begins its Gender Dysphoria web page with this paragraph. Note especially the “may be” and “sometimes”:

“Gender dysphoria involves a conflict between a person’s physical or assigned gender and the gender with which he/she/they identify. People with gender dysphoria may be very uncomfortable with the gender they were assigned, sometimes described as being uncomfortable with their body (particularly developments during puberty) or being uncomfortable with the expected roles of their assigned gender.”

Sam Dylan Finch, a widely read trans writer, identifies as a genderqueer gay boy, although when I first encountered his blog he identified as simply genderqueer, with no reference to the male/female gender binary. He published an article in Everyday Feminism about why it’s problematic to insist that gender (or body) dysphoria is a necessary part of being trans.

While he details six reasons why, they’re all manifestations of a principle that’s part of any social justice worldview: When someone tells you their lived experience, believe them and learn from it.

Especially if they’re part of a marginalized group.

Especially if you’re not.

A friend posted the following on Facebook:

Tell me about something that completely changed the course of your life, for better or for worse.

Challenge accepted. This is the result.

My parents lived in Albany, NY, and I was attending Michigan State University. The summer after my second year, I got a junk job in Flint, where my then-girlfriend lived. After she dumped me, I stayed with some nomadic hippies in Flint for a while, then went to visit a school friend at his family’s summer cottage.

After a week or two, his mom figured out that I hadn’t told my parents where I was; meanwhile, my ‘rents were panicking because they couldn’t get hold of me at my now-former apartment in Flint (no cell phones in 1970). The two sets of parents talked, and I was sent home to face the music.

Mom and Dad made it crystal clear:

I would not be going back to Michigan.
I would be living with them.
I would be getting a job in Albany.
I would be going to school in Albany.

All of this, until I “learned some responsibility”.

After a week or two of the new regime, I had to make a quick trip back to Michigan State, to pick up the possessions I had left in dorm storage at the beginning of the summer, and bring them back home.

Returning to Michigan State and East Lansing felt like coming home. I stayed overnight with friends. After much talking late into the night, I did what I had to do. I went to a pay phone, called my parents, and told them I wasn’t coming back, that I was going to stay in Michigan, because I wanted to.

Dad hit the roof. Usually careful to keep control when he talked to us kids, this time he barked, “You get your ass back home right now!”

“No,” I said.

And just like that, I left home for good.