Taking One’s Gender for Granted
An additional problem with the word “pass” is that it is typically only used in reference to a transsexual’s identified sex rather than their assigned sex. This gives the impression that transsexuals only begin managing other people’s perceptions after we transition. Consider that people will talk about the fact that I now “pass” as a woman, but nobody ever asks about how difficult it must have been for me to “pass” as a man before. Personally, I found it infinitely more difficult and stressful to manage my perceived gender back when people presumed I was male than I do now as female. However, once we start thinking in terms of whether a transsexual is being misgendered or appropriately gendered in accordance with their understanding of themselves (as opposed to whether they are “passing” or not in the eyes of others), then we start to gain a more accurate and realistic appreciation for the transsexual experience. In fact, you could say that most transsexuals have the experience of being misgendered throughout their childhoods and sometimes well into their adulthoods. The extent to which this constant misgendering during our formative years shapes our relationship with gender (and our own self-perception) cannot be underestimated.
Having only ever had a trans experience, it took me a long time to realize how differently I experience and process gender compared to the way most cissexuals do. For example, a few months after I had begun living full-time as a woman, a male friend of mine asked me if I had ever accidentally gone into a men’s restroom by mistake. At first, the question struck me as bizarre. When I gave him a perplexed look, he tried to clarify himself. He said that he doesn’t ever think about what restroom he is entering, never really notices the little “man” symbol on the door, but he always ends up in the right place anyway. So he was wondering whether I had accidentally gone into the men’s room by habit since my transition. I laughed and told him that there had never been a single instance in my life when I had walked into a public restroom—women’s or men’s—by habit; my entire life I have been excruciatingly aware of any gendered space that I enter.
Growing up trans—having to manage both the psychological dissonance between my physical and subconscious sex as well as the constant barrage of being misgendered by others—was a harrowing experience and one that caused me to dissociate myself from my own body and emotions. And while physically transitioning and living in my identified sex has allowed me to finally overcome my gender dissonance, I still struggle with an intense hypersensitivity to gender (and more specifically to gendering). Having never had an opportunity to learn to experience my gender as being unquestionable or second-nature (as my friend had), I still sometimes feel an awkward jolt whenever people refer to me as “she” (even though that pronoun is preferable to me). When I look at photos or videos of myself, I still can’t help but see the “boy” in my face or hear it in the sound of my voice, even though I haven’t had anyone call me “sir” in over five years. I feel assaulted and get extraordinarily upset whenever I’m watching TV or a movie and I’m blindsided by a joke or ignorant comment that dismisses trans people’s identified sex or refers to them in their assigned sex. And although I experience gender concordance these days, I still constantly dwell on gender, which, while helpful when writing a book on the subject, can often be unhealthy and exhausting.
My gender hypersensitivity reminds me of what a friend once told me about her relationship with money. She grew up in a family where money was scarce, and where fights regularly stemmed from the financial strain they were under. This irrevocably altered the way my friend relates to money. While most of us who have had a middle-class upbringing see money as simply a means to get the things that we want or need, for my friend it also carries an added emotional element. Even though she is now on more solid ground financially, she still feels undeserving when she receives money and guilty every time she spends it. It still preoccupies her and fills her with anxiety because she doesn’t feel like she can ever take it for granted—she understands that it can be taken away from her at any time.
My friend’s relationship with money reminds me of my own continuing insecurity regarding gender. Even though I have finally reached a point where I feel comfortable living in my own body, I often feel undeserving and guilty about it. And while everyone else around me seems to feel entitled to their gender to the point where they take it for granted, I always feel like mine can be taken away from me at any minute. And in a sense, it can (and often is) whenever somebody attempts to wield cissexual privilege over me.