Separate Ways, Worlds Apart?

(Oh God, how have I sunk to using Journey songs as post titles?)

When am I Wendy, and when am I not? It used to seem so easy; if I wore women’s clothing and makeup, I was Wendy. It was easy to talk of being in “Wendy mode”—the external trappings of femininity sort of flicked a switch in my brain and let the suppressed thoughts and feelings loose. Now it doesn’t seem so clear.

It was a little more than 15 years ago when I first formalized the internal male/female split in my psyche by naming the feminine part “Wendy”. It’s been a useful contrivance that allowed me to compartmentalized my conflicted feelings into two different identities, each somewhat separate. But the two identities were never really separate in that they shared the same brain, the same body, the same memories, etc. There has been some integration of the two, especially in recent years, in different spheres.

Physically, of course, I only have one body, and I have certainly sacrificed some of my masculinity in order to be able to more easily slip into Wendy mode. It began when I decided to shave my legs during the wintertime months when I could conceal it easily. These days, I shave my legs all year round and do other periodic body hair removal. Last week I took it to another level by beginning laser hair removal on my face. I pluck my eyebrows (to a certain degree) and use women’s face creams, moisturizers, etc. I have long hair, though thanks to age plus testosterone my forehead is too high and my hair too thin for it to look very good in a feminine style. I almost always have painted toenails and I usually have on one or more articles of women’s and/or unisex clothing. And I have noticed that my speech and movement have become somewhat more effeminate; I have never been what you’d call a macho man, but I used to actively try to suppress any hint of femininity in my behavior much more than I do now.

In my mind, I’m also more androgynous. I used to police my thoughts as much as my actions to try to block out anything I thought of as feminine, particularly as an adolescent. Now I’m much more comfortable letting my thoughts roam where they will without trying to suppress them on the basis of gender appropriateness (whatever that means). I have left behind much of my cultural upbringing and am now much more tolerant of diversity, more conscious of white male hetero privilege, and much more in sympathy with progressive and feminist values. What’s more, my gender dysphoria seems to be on the increase. It sometimes causes an internal cringe if people refer to me as a man; on the other hand, I don’t feel entirely comfortable calling myself a woman, either. I usually use gender-neutral language to refer to myself. And in the nexus between the mental and the physical, to look at myself in the mirror and see an overtly masculine person is somewhat painful, so that I often avoid looking at myself at all.

In the social sphere, I used to keep my masculine and feminine personas completely apart. No one knew both sides of me, and that’s the way I wanted it. But the two worlds seem to be slowly merging. The first person to really know both sides of me was the woman who became my wife; now that circle has enlarged to include many people at my church. I find that having two personas is the most awkward in the social realm, and I’m still learning how to best navigate that seldom-trodden path.

I have always tried to present either 100% male or 100% female to others, but in reality the line has blurred. One of the things I’ve learned about being transgender is that you can’t have it completely both ways. To increase my comfort level with myself I’ve had to relinquish some of the appearance of masculinity and move toward the feminine, and the movement hasn’t ended yet. The increased gender dysphoria, the creeping feminization of my appearance, and a desire for more and longer continuous social experiences as Wendy, are indicators that I’ve got more gender exploration and transformation to discover.

Birth Defect?

So I was reading Facebook posts this morning when I saw someone comparing being transgender to having a birth defect. This (cisgender) person was sympathetic and trying to use this analogy to cast being transgender as a medical problem that is no more immoral than being born with a cleft palate. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve seen this analogy; in fact, I’ve seen it promoted on various web sites, forums, and in person, almost always by transsexuals. I can see how people who have intense feelings of being “born into the wrong body” might consider the body parts that don’t fit their gender identity to be wrong or defective. Still, I find the analogy disturbing.

As I see it, using the word “defect” casts us as people with a problem that needs to be solved. I understand that some do, indeed feel that way, that if only they are able to get hormonal and surgical treatment to make their bodies conform to their gender identity, they will be cured—they will be “normal”. However, I certainly do not feel that way. Admittedly I have never identified as transsexual, and my gender dysphoria is perhaps less intense. My body, imperfect as it may be, has never been repulsive to me, nor have I ever felt distress at having male parts or not having female parts. I don’t feel like I was a mistake or that I am defective.

In keeping with my somewhat stubborn and rebellious nature, I don’t think the problem is me, but rather with the way our society views gender. In short, I think the two-gender system is defective, not me. The idea that there are two and only two genders, that they correspond exactly with two and only two sexes, and that each gender is associated mutually exclusive characteristics, behaviors, appearances, and tastes, is patently false. If it were true, there wouldn’t be any transgender people, or intersex people. Instead, humanity is fantastically diverse in many ways, and a strict two-gender system doesn’t accurately reflect that diversity. So why are we trying to shoehorn everyone into those two genders, and calling everyone who doesn’t fit defective? We should expand our gender classification system to take this diversity into account. Other cultures have or have had other genders besides male and female, so why can’t we?

Yes, I know—easier said than done. Our whole society seems to be built on the two-gender system, and dismantling or changing it would be a massive paradigm shift, a sea change, in fact. But long-term, I think it’s the best way forward. And a first step on the way might be to stop seeing transgender people as defective people, but rather as simply “different” people. Diversity is good.