Post by Ayla on Mar 25, 2016 9:09:52 GMT 8
transgender.wiki/why-the-transsexual-pathway-is-wrong-for-the-transgender-community/
The transsexual pathway has proven to be a complete and utter failure for the transgender community in all aspects, because in order for something to be a reasonable option it has to have what we referred to in the military as reasonable and attainable standards. That was based on the concept that everything had to be built around a standard that every military member could reasonably meet. The transsexual pathway fails to provide either reasonable or attainable standards for the greater transgender community. The transsexual pathway also fails another important military principle, which is that we don’t leave anyone behind. The transsexual pathway does exactly that, leaving large numbers of transgender people unable to meet unattainable and unrealistic standards of appearance.
Ironically, in the same way that the psychiatric and medical communities have long served as the gatekeepers in regards to who or who could not transition, the transsexual community operates as the law enforcement agency that polices gender within the transgender community. The transsexuals believe they, and they alone, define and set the standards of what a woman is, and what a woman should look like. And of course the transsexual community’s standards of what a woman is, or what a woman looks like is based entirely on doing everything necessary to successfully emulate the cisgender female binary. Which of course is not an attainable or reasonable standard for the vast majority of the transgender community. It’s also not an attainable or reasonable standard for me. And even more ironically, the transsexuals are the loudest and most vocal critics of the gatekeeper system.
When I began living as a woman just over three years ago, it forced me to come to terms with the differences between myself as a transgender woman and cisgender females. But the most striking thing that I learned was that I couldn’t talk openly about any of the obvious differences because they’d been banned and labeled as taboo subjects amongst my transgender female peers. The openly stated, but mostly implied reason I was given was that it would be harmful to others to have these types of discussions. I learned that I was supposed to constantly be on guard not to “trigger people.” What exactly are we afraid of? Why can we not have civil discussions about gender and gender theory without being labeled as traitors, or other people’s heads exploding? Why can we not allow the radical feminists to discuss or disagree with gender and the theories about it? Why do we brand members of the transgender community as gender-critical because they disagree with the majority? Again, what are we scared of? It begs the question: are we guarding the transsexual pathway and those that have taken it? I’m not. The transsexual community by and large hasn’t accepted me since transitioning. Why the hell should I fight on their behalf?
As part of my transition in my journey of going from being assigned male at birth, and being forced to live as a male, to finally asserting my right to live as a woman, I was advised numerous times by other transgender community members that I couldn’t do this alone, that I needed to have a therapist. So I hired one at what was supposed to be a reputable East Coast gender clinic. And I spent an hour each week for five months lying on the proverbial couch (it wasn’t that luxurious) and spilling everything, every dark little secret about my life up until then, and confessing every bad thing that had ever happened to me. But all I got in return from the therapist was something akin to reparative therapy, adult edition. Besides frequently misgendering me, she ultimately told me just prior to the court appearance for my name change that she had spoken to the head psychiatrist that oversaw the clinic (a person I had never met), and that they both agreed I wasn’t even transgender – that I just thought I was because of childhood sexual abuse. Needless to say, she couldn’t explain how or why other patients at the clinic that hadn’t been sexually abused thought they were transgender too, and I wasted no time in firing her.
After dismissing that first therapist with extreme prejudice, which was actually quite traumatic after having spent five months telling her everything about me, of course my trans friends continued to tell me all over again that I had to have mental health support in order to safely transition. So I obtained a second therapist. And to her credit, I have to say she was a much better person. And she served as the ear for the taboo questions that I wasn’t able to ask in transgender support groups, or ask my transgender female peers, which were essentially transsexuals.
One of the more memorable discussions that I can still vividly remember was when I confessed to this second therapist that I felt as if I had been cast as the part of the Emperor from the short story The Emperor’s New Clothes, because I felt as if it was the same kind of experience. And I explained that I felt that way because I was now wearing women’s clothing, but nobody but my transsexual friends was actually recognizing me as, or treating me as a female. The mistreatment also extended far into the healthcare system. Everywhere I went people were calling me Sir, treating me downright meanly, or even reacting violently because I didn’t pass. And cisgender women were demanding to know what I was doing in their female spaces? Aren’t cisgender women supposed to play along and pretend that I’m their equal? Aren’t they supposed to care about me as another female and want me to be protected in female spaces just like they are? I’ve learned that cisgender women don’t care about me whatsoever for the most part. To most cisgender females I’m just a potential pervert in women’s clothing that’s been granted access to their restroom. My takeaway lesson: the transsexual pathway only works and is based entirely on cisgender females not knowing that I’m not one of them. That’s simply not reasonable or attainable for me, or trans people like me.
The transsexual pathway is failure as well when it comes to the topic of sex, because it too is shrouded in nothing but secrecy and problems for the transgender community. The obvious ones are the well-known topics of when do I tell him that I was actually assigned male at birth? Or, when do I tell him that if he marries me, that I’ll never be able to produce and give birth to children? In my case, I don’t have to worry about that, because I don’t pass. Guys that want to start families don’t hit on me for obvious reasons. It’s stunningly clear and the whole world knows that I have a biologically male body because of my nearly lifelong exposure to testosterone. But for me the biggest and most taboo discussion subject is and always has been that I refuse to believe that having genital surgery is going to do anything to make me into the equivalent of a cisgender female. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make myself believe it. So why would I get it? Surgically removing my penis and scrotum and using the sum of their parts to construct a vagina doesn’t make me the equal of, or the equivalent of a cisgender female. I don’t and won’t have periods, I don’t have a female pelvis, I don’t have ovaries and a womb, I can’t bear children, and afterwards I would be forever morally burdened to tell men that my vagina used to be just that, a penis. So once again it isn’t an attainable standard because the surgery isn’t widely available, it’s not financially viable for most of the trans community, not everyone can even get it due to existing health issues, and some of us can’t get past the moral issues and burdens.
The other problem for surgery on the transsexual pathway is the fact that it’s rooted in the Harry Benjamin principles of if you are attracted to men, then you can transition. If you’re not attracted to men, then you’re not really a women, you’re a transvestite. That’s the message sent to female identifying women like me by the transsexual community. And then it’s echoed and reinforced by the lesbian community, because they also refuse to accept me as a woman, even if I’ve had surgery. Let’s be clear: I’m not anti-surgery, it just has no visible and obvious benefits for me to get it, with the exception of gaining entrance to the transsexual club and being able to find women’s underwear that isn’t uncomfortable while having a penis.
Halfway into my transition I completely stopped going to transgender support groups because I kept finding that they weren’t really transgender support groups. Time and time again, and despite being billed as transgender support groups, I found these meetings to actually just be transsexual support groups, that were led by transsexuals teaching the transsexual pathway. And it was abundantly clear that I was expected to follow the transsexual pathway in order to gain acceptance within these groups. I often marveled at how many transgender women regularly showed up week after week claiming to pursue the path and practice the religion, but in reality it didn’t matter if they had actually proceeded any further down the transsexual pathway, they just had to reconfirm and profess their allegiance to it each week, and swear to be a devout follower of Harry Benjamin’s Transsexual Bible. If anyone stated otherwise and said they had no intention of getting surgery, they were quickly labeled as cross dressers and treated as men instead of being given the respect of being other women. The transsexual pathway clearly implies that it ends in surgery and if you fail to have it, then the transsexual pathway also clearly implies that you’re not really a woman. Therefore, once again, the transsexual pathway fails because it preaches an unobtainable standard, because surgery doesn’t make anyone a woman, or a female, only gender-identity does under the transgender umbrella. And gender-identity is the sole reason that I have a female designation within our legal and identity system. I’ve also been left to ponder just how many transgender women have had surgery just to become and stay members of the transsexual club, when in reality all they ever wanted was friends that would accept them. That’s why I went to support group meetings. I just wanted to meet and be around other people who were gender variants like I am.
So that begs the question: if gender-identity is the sole reason that I have a legal female identity, then what’s behind these insane expectations that my biologically male body should be able to perfectly emulate the cisgender female binary? How reasonable is that? How attainable is it? And if it’s unreasonable to teach young cisgender girls that they should ultimately grow up to look like swimsuit models (and keep that look despite having children), then why is it reasonable to teach young transgender girls that they should grow up to look like cisgender women? Has it crossed anyone’s mind that this is one of the key reasons these transgender kids are killing themselves?
“While this patient denied any history of undescended testes, she had been tucking for 9 years before her diagnosis. Tucking refers to the common practice of pushing the testes into the inguinal canals to reduce the genital bulge. As this creates an anatomical condition similar to undescended testes, we question if this practice could increase the risk of testicular cancer in trans women.”
One of the most disgusting and absolutely obnoxious practices I’ve learned of since of since joining the transgender community is the expectation that I will “tuck” my testicles, strap down my penis, or otherwise hide it’s existence. Sorry, I refuse to engage or participate in this lunacy. And in fact, I think it’s downright harmful. Even worse, I found myself faced with having get into a public argument recently with a transgender woman when she publicly stated in a news article comment that “all transgender girls tuck their penis.” What kind of message was she sending to our transgender youth that don’t? This is the exact behavior that has created the toxic concept of being ashamed of your genitals when you’re a transgender person. And it just fuels the expectation that transgender women should remove their penis in accordance with the standards set forth in the transsexual pathway. And until they do remove their penis, then it should be hidden, and they should be ashamed of it. Stop making transgender people ashamed of their genitals dammit!
“As a woman, I was still the brunt of the boys’ jokes,” Brevard remembers. “At least they weren’t laughing at a faggot. They were making fun of a woman. Out of gratitude and relief, I laughed louder than anyone. . . . In my desire to please, I scripted a role of subservience, inferiority, and anxiety.”
“Brevard’s multiple layers of self-loathing ultimately became even more oppressive than her heels and false lashes, but her loving mother (now deceased) kept her so grounded she might as well have been in flats and glasses. It was when the men finally stopped clutching at her that Brevard found her self-respect. “Distancing myself from the queer community,” she realizes, “I went underground to become part of heterosexual society. This translated into a denial of my transgendered history. To deny one’s history is to deny one’s self.”
One of the most absolutely amazing things about the transsexual pathway is that it’s been allowed to exist for so long despite having such a dismal graduation rate. I mean seriously, no other entity or institution is or would be allowed to exist when the results are so problematic. And even those that do claim to have graduated keep moving back home. There’s no better demonstration of this failure than sitting in a support group meeting with transgender women that profess to “just be females,” and claim “they’re not transgender.” Nevermind the reason they can claim to be females is that it’s because the legal system gave them that ability to do just that based solely on gender-identity and not biology. They can’t pass the biology test, and neither can I. The behavior is pure insanity but you’re not allowed to ask the question of: what exactly are you doing in a transgender support group if you’re not transgender and you’re really just a cisgender female? Nor can you ask: Why are you not at the Women’s Rotary Club meeting instead of here at the transgender support group with us? Or better yet on the Internet: Why are you writing in the Huff Post Queer Voices section and not under the women’s section? It’s because a beautiful aspect and built-in design of the transsexual pathway is the ability to depart at a moment’s notice and proclaim yourself to “just be a woman,” or declare that “you’re just really a cisgender female.” Why do I want friends that can suddenly morph into cisgender women and bail on me like this? Of course the even greater insanity of hitting the escape hatch button built into the transsexual pathway is in the thinking that by doing so cisgender women will embrace you as their female equal and peers. What do cisgender women raising their biological children have in common with me as a transgender woman? Nothing. I fathered a child, I didn’t give birth to one.
“For a long time doctors considered losing fertility as the price to pay for transitioning. Or they assumed that someone like Junior wouldn’t want to become a man and then get pregnant. When Junior started taking testosterone in 2007 he signed an informed consent paper acknowledging that he understood he might become infertile, but no one ever brought up freezing his eggs.”
The loss of reproductive rights and the inability to have children are another great failure of the transsexual pathway. Mostly everyone one is on board with getting transgender people hormones and surgeries, but essentially nothing is being done to preserve or protect our reproductive rights and abilities. The transsexual pathway has a built-in conflict of interest when it comes to having children. You can’t be a man and have a baby. And you can’t be a women and use your penis as a penis according to the transsexual pathway.
“Sorry, but if you have a penis and use it as a male during sexual intercourse, you are not a woman. Don’t try to change the definition.”
In fact, you’re not even supposed to have that penis. If the reproductive rights of cisgender women are threatened in any way the whole nation screams about it, but nobody says anything as young transgender girls and women lose their ability to have children for the sake of passing as the cisgender binary. How is this reasonable?
Another glaring and unsavory issue and failure with the transsexual pathway arises as reliably as the sun each time the bathroom wars heat up. It’s no secret that the transsexuals break ranks with the rest of the transgender community and either toss their less visually pleasant transgender female counterparts under the bus, or activate their cloaks of passing privilege and disappear. How is this helping us? It’ not, it’s purely divisive.
So what’s prompted me to write this? Well, as someone who’s actually lived as a transgender woman for the past three years, this is my actual experience and opinion of how the transsexual pathway not only works, but also of how I see it as being fatally flawed. And based on these lived experiences and observations, I’m speaking out. I’m also refusing to turn a blind eye as other members of the transgender community regularly commit suicide. We readily blame the radical feminists for being the cause of transgender suicides, but when they happen because of the transsexual pathway, we just wash the blood off the path and carry on as if nothing happened. As a community, we of course like to lay the entire blame for these suicides on the rest of society, but they don’t bear the whole blame, we share it. While the conservatives, the religious zealots, and the radical feminists bear the blame for the bullying and doing whatever they can to make transgender people miserable for merely being transgender, the transsexual pathway bears the blame for establishing unrealistic and unattainable standards for transgender men and women. And it needs to be exposed for how harmful and toxic it really is.
So what’s the answer? What can be done to replace the transsexual pathway and make the world a better place for transgender people? What standards are reasonable and attainable for the entire transgender community? I’ve spent the last three years thinking about this exact question, and the answer that I came up with is the non-binary pathway. I’m not a cisgender female. If anything, I’m a third gender, autistic, or a highly developed form of Intersex. And it’s not lost on me that the latter, the intersex community is no better than the transsexual pathway when it comes to the subject of being transgender, and welcome. It’s became quite clear to me that I’ll never be able to convince cisgender people that transgender people like me belong in their bathrooms or locker rooms. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I should actually have my own. I think I should also be fighting to create my own facilities in the same manner that disabled people in wheelchairs fought for accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And in the end, I’ve decided that I shouldn’t be claiming spaces that others have built and already claimed as theirs, which is what I keep getting accused of as a transgender woman in a cisgender female world. Again, I should be building and establishing my own. I should be doing things like working to change future building codes.
Why do I think like this? The answer lies mainly in my military background and training. I’ve come to think of the bathroom wars as being very much like the religious wars. And I can no more impose the belief that I belong in the private spaces of cisgender women on cisgender women than the U.S. Military can convince the people in the Middle East that the American way of doing things is better than their way. Or that Christianity is superior to Islam. But of course the not so well hidden problem in our war for transgender civil rights is that we’re the only ones that are actually dying for the cause. There’s no Christians, Catholics, Republicans, lesbians, or radfems committing suicide because of transgender bathroom rights. But there’s certainly plenty of transgender people committing suicide because of the unobtainable and unrealistic standards of the transsexual pathway and the bathroom wars. And when your people are dying, and you’re not winning, then you need to relook at how you’re fighting the war. While the military fires its generals and leaders for losing battles and making poor progress during wars, we as a transgender community can’t even use common sense in choosing our leadership.
I’ve taken my stand, developed my battle plan, and given up my title of transgender woman. Yesterday I changed my identity to non-binary feminine.
The transsexual pathway has proven to be a complete and utter failure for the transgender community in all aspects, because in order for something to be a reasonable option it has to have what we referred to in the military as reasonable and attainable standards. That was based on the concept that everything had to be built around a standard that every military member could reasonably meet. The transsexual pathway fails to provide either reasonable or attainable standards for the greater transgender community. The transsexual pathway also fails another important military principle, which is that we don’t leave anyone behind. The transsexual pathway does exactly that, leaving large numbers of transgender people unable to meet unattainable and unrealistic standards of appearance.
Ironically, in the same way that the psychiatric and medical communities have long served as the gatekeepers in regards to who or who could not transition, the transsexual community operates as the law enforcement agency that polices gender within the transgender community. The transsexuals believe they, and they alone, define and set the standards of what a woman is, and what a woman should look like. And of course the transsexual community’s standards of what a woman is, or what a woman looks like is based entirely on doing everything necessary to successfully emulate the cisgender female binary. Which of course is not an attainable or reasonable standard for the vast majority of the transgender community. It’s also not an attainable or reasonable standard for me. And even more ironically, the transsexuals are the loudest and most vocal critics of the gatekeeper system.
When I began living as a woman just over three years ago, it forced me to come to terms with the differences between myself as a transgender woman and cisgender females. But the most striking thing that I learned was that I couldn’t talk openly about any of the obvious differences because they’d been banned and labeled as taboo subjects amongst my transgender female peers. The openly stated, but mostly implied reason I was given was that it would be harmful to others to have these types of discussions. I learned that I was supposed to constantly be on guard not to “trigger people.” What exactly are we afraid of? Why can we not have civil discussions about gender and gender theory without being labeled as traitors, or other people’s heads exploding? Why can we not allow the radical feminists to discuss or disagree with gender and the theories about it? Why do we brand members of the transgender community as gender-critical because they disagree with the majority? Again, what are we scared of? It begs the question: are we guarding the transsexual pathway and those that have taken it? I’m not. The transsexual community by and large hasn’t accepted me since transitioning. Why the hell should I fight on their behalf?
As part of my transition in my journey of going from being assigned male at birth, and being forced to live as a male, to finally asserting my right to live as a woman, I was advised numerous times by other transgender community members that I couldn’t do this alone, that I needed to have a therapist. So I hired one at what was supposed to be a reputable East Coast gender clinic. And I spent an hour each week for five months lying on the proverbial couch (it wasn’t that luxurious) and spilling everything, every dark little secret about my life up until then, and confessing every bad thing that had ever happened to me. But all I got in return from the therapist was something akin to reparative therapy, adult edition. Besides frequently misgendering me, she ultimately told me just prior to the court appearance for my name change that she had spoken to the head psychiatrist that oversaw the clinic (a person I had never met), and that they both agreed I wasn’t even transgender – that I just thought I was because of childhood sexual abuse. Needless to say, she couldn’t explain how or why other patients at the clinic that hadn’t been sexually abused thought they were transgender too, and I wasted no time in firing her.
After dismissing that first therapist with extreme prejudice, which was actually quite traumatic after having spent five months telling her everything about me, of course my trans friends continued to tell me all over again that I had to have mental health support in order to safely transition. So I obtained a second therapist. And to her credit, I have to say she was a much better person. And she served as the ear for the taboo questions that I wasn’t able to ask in transgender support groups, or ask my transgender female peers, which were essentially transsexuals.
One of the more memorable discussions that I can still vividly remember was when I confessed to this second therapist that I felt as if I had been cast as the part of the Emperor from the short story The Emperor’s New Clothes, because I felt as if it was the same kind of experience. And I explained that I felt that way because I was now wearing women’s clothing, but nobody but my transsexual friends was actually recognizing me as, or treating me as a female. The mistreatment also extended far into the healthcare system. Everywhere I went people were calling me Sir, treating me downright meanly, or even reacting violently because I didn’t pass. And cisgender women were demanding to know what I was doing in their female spaces? Aren’t cisgender women supposed to play along and pretend that I’m their equal? Aren’t they supposed to care about me as another female and want me to be protected in female spaces just like they are? I’ve learned that cisgender women don’t care about me whatsoever for the most part. To most cisgender females I’m just a potential pervert in women’s clothing that’s been granted access to their restroom. My takeaway lesson: the transsexual pathway only works and is based entirely on cisgender females not knowing that I’m not one of them. That’s simply not reasonable or attainable for me, or trans people like me.
The transsexual pathway is failure as well when it comes to the topic of sex, because it too is shrouded in nothing but secrecy and problems for the transgender community. The obvious ones are the well-known topics of when do I tell him that I was actually assigned male at birth? Or, when do I tell him that if he marries me, that I’ll never be able to produce and give birth to children? In my case, I don’t have to worry about that, because I don’t pass. Guys that want to start families don’t hit on me for obvious reasons. It’s stunningly clear and the whole world knows that I have a biologically male body because of my nearly lifelong exposure to testosterone. But for me the biggest and most taboo discussion subject is and always has been that I refuse to believe that having genital surgery is going to do anything to make me into the equivalent of a cisgender female. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make myself believe it. So why would I get it? Surgically removing my penis and scrotum and using the sum of their parts to construct a vagina doesn’t make me the equal of, or the equivalent of a cisgender female. I don’t and won’t have periods, I don’t have a female pelvis, I don’t have ovaries and a womb, I can’t bear children, and afterwards I would be forever morally burdened to tell men that my vagina used to be just that, a penis. So once again it isn’t an attainable standard because the surgery isn’t widely available, it’s not financially viable for most of the trans community, not everyone can even get it due to existing health issues, and some of us can’t get past the moral issues and burdens.
The other problem for surgery on the transsexual pathway is the fact that it’s rooted in the Harry Benjamin principles of if you are attracted to men, then you can transition. If you’re not attracted to men, then you’re not really a women, you’re a transvestite. That’s the message sent to female identifying women like me by the transsexual community. And then it’s echoed and reinforced by the lesbian community, because they also refuse to accept me as a woman, even if I’ve had surgery. Let’s be clear: I’m not anti-surgery, it just has no visible and obvious benefits for me to get it, with the exception of gaining entrance to the transsexual club and being able to find women’s underwear that isn’t uncomfortable while having a penis.
Halfway into my transition I completely stopped going to transgender support groups because I kept finding that they weren’t really transgender support groups. Time and time again, and despite being billed as transgender support groups, I found these meetings to actually just be transsexual support groups, that were led by transsexuals teaching the transsexual pathway. And it was abundantly clear that I was expected to follow the transsexual pathway in order to gain acceptance within these groups. I often marveled at how many transgender women regularly showed up week after week claiming to pursue the path and practice the religion, but in reality it didn’t matter if they had actually proceeded any further down the transsexual pathway, they just had to reconfirm and profess their allegiance to it each week, and swear to be a devout follower of Harry Benjamin’s Transsexual Bible. If anyone stated otherwise and said they had no intention of getting surgery, they were quickly labeled as cross dressers and treated as men instead of being given the respect of being other women. The transsexual pathway clearly implies that it ends in surgery and if you fail to have it, then the transsexual pathway also clearly implies that you’re not really a woman. Therefore, once again, the transsexual pathway fails because it preaches an unobtainable standard, because surgery doesn’t make anyone a woman, or a female, only gender-identity does under the transgender umbrella. And gender-identity is the sole reason that I have a female designation within our legal and identity system. I’ve also been left to ponder just how many transgender women have had surgery just to become and stay members of the transsexual club, when in reality all they ever wanted was friends that would accept them. That’s why I went to support group meetings. I just wanted to meet and be around other people who were gender variants like I am.
So that begs the question: if gender-identity is the sole reason that I have a legal female identity, then what’s behind these insane expectations that my biologically male body should be able to perfectly emulate the cisgender female binary? How reasonable is that? How attainable is it? And if it’s unreasonable to teach young cisgender girls that they should ultimately grow up to look like swimsuit models (and keep that look despite having children), then why is it reasonable to teach young transgender girls that they should grow up to look like cisgender women? Has it crossed anyone’s mind that this is one of the key reasons these transgender kids are killing themselves?
“While this patient denied any history of undescended testes, she had been tucking for 9 years before her diagnosis. Tucking refers to the common practice of pushing the testes into the inguinal canals to reduce the genital bulge. As this creates an anatomical condition similar to undescended testes, we question if this practice could increase the risk of testicular cancer in trans women.”
One of the most disgusting and absolutely obnoxious practices I’ve learned of since of since joining the transgender community is the expectation that I will “tuck” my testicles, strap down my penis, or otherwise hide it’s existence. Sorry, I refuse to engage or participate in this lunacy. And in fact, I think it’s downright harmful. Even worse, I found myself faced with having get into a public argument recently with a transgender woman when she publicly stated in a news article comment that “all transgender girls tuck their penis.” What kind of message was she sending to our transgender youth that don’t? This is the exact behavior that has created the toxic concept of being ashamed of your genitals when you’re a transgender person. And it just fuels the expectation that transgender women should remove their penis in accordance with the standards set forth in the transsexual pathway. And until they do remove their penis, then it should be hidden, and they should be ashamed of it. Stop making transgender people ashamed of their genitals dammit!
“As a woman, I was still the brunt of the boys’ jokes,” Brevard remembers. “At least they weren’t laughing at a faggot. They were making fun of a woman. Out of gratitude and relief, I laughed louder than anyone. . . . In my desire to please, I scripted a role of subservience, inferiority, and anxiety.”
“Brevard’s multiple layers of self-loathing ultimately became even more oppressive than her heels and false lashes, but her loving mother (now deceased) kept her so grounded she might as well have been in flats and glasses. It was when the men finally stopped clutching at her that Brevard found her self-respect. “Distancing myself from the queer community,” she realizes, “I went underground to become part of heterosexual society. This translated into a denial of my transgendered history. To deny one’s history is to deny one’s self.”
One of the most absolutely amazing things about the transsexual pathway is that it’s been allowed to exist for so long despite having such a dismal graduation rate. I mean seriously, no other entity or institution is or would be allowed to exist when the results are so problematic. And even those that do claim to have graduated keep moving back home. There’s no better demonstration of this failure than sitting in a support group meeting with transgender women that profess to “just be females,” and claim “they’re not transgender.” Nevermind the reason they can claim to be females is that it’s because the legal system gave them that ability to do just that based solely on gender-identity and not biology. They can’t pass the biology test, and neither can I. The behavior is pure insanity but you’re not allowed to ask the question of: what exactly are you doing in a transgender support group if you’re not transgender and you’re really just a cisgender female? Nor can you ask: Why are you not at the Women’s Rotary Club meeting instead of here at the transgender support group with us? Or better yet on the Internet: Why are you writing in the Huff Post Queer Voices section and not under the women’s section? It’s because a beautiful aspect and built-in design of the transsexual pathway is the ability to depart at a moment’s notice and proclaim yourself to “just be a woman,” or declare that “you’re just really a cisgender female.” Why do I want friends that can suddenly morph into cisgender women and bail on me like this? Of course the even greater insanity of hitting the escape hatch button built into the transsexual pathway is in the thinking that by doing so cisgender women will embrace you as their female equal and peers. What do cisgender women raising their biological children have in common with me as a transgender woman? Nothing. I fathered a child, I didn’t give birth to one.
“For a long time doctors considered losing fertility as the price to pay for transitioning. Or they assumed that someone like Junior wouldn’t want to become a man and then get pregnant. When Junior started taking testosterone in 2007 he signed an informed consent paper acknowledging that he understood he might become infertile, but no one ever brought up freezing his eggs.”
The loss of reproductive rights and the inability to have children are another great failure of the transsexual pathway. Mostly everyone one is on board with getting transgender people hormones and surgeries, but essentially nothing is being done to preserve or protect our reproductive rights and abilities. The transsexual pathway has a built-in conflict of interest when it comes to having children. You can’t be a man and have a baby. And you can’t be a women and use your penis as a penis according to the transsexual pathway.
“Sorry, but if you have a penis and use it as a male during sexual intercourse, you are not a woman. Don’t try to change the definition.”
In fact, you’re not even supposed to have that penis. If the reproductive rights of cisgender women are threatened in any way the whole nation screams about it, but nobody says anything as young transgender girls and women lose their ability to have children for the sake of passing as the cisgender binary. How is this reasonable?
Another glaring and unsavory issue and failure with the transsexual pathway arises as reliably as the sun each time the bathroom wars heat up. It’s no secret that the transsexuals break ranks with the rest of the transgender community and either toss their less visually pleasant transgender female counterparts under the bus, or activate their cloaks of passing privilege and disappear. How is this helping us? It’ not, it’s purely divisive.
So what’s prompted me to write this? Well, as someone who’s actually lived as a transgender woman for the past three years, this is my actual experience and opinion of how the transsexual pathway not only works, but also of how I see it as being fatally flawed. And based on these lived experiences and observations, I’m speaking out. I’m also refusing to turn a blind eye as other members of the transgender community regularly commit suicide. We readily blame the radical feminists for being the cause of transgender suicides, but when they happen because of the transsexual pathway, we just wash the blood off the path and carry on as if nothing happened. As a community, we of course like to lay the entire blame for these suicides on the rest of society, but they don’t bear the whole blame, we share it. While the conservatives, the religious zealots, and the radical feminists bear the blame for the bullying and doing whatever they can to make transgender people miserable for merely being transgender, the transsexual pathway bears the blame for establishing unrealistic and unattainable standards for transgender men and women. And it needs to be exposed for how harmful and toxic it really is.
So what’s the answer? What can be done to replace the transsexual pathway and make the world a better place for transgender people? What standards are reasonable and attainable for the entire transgender community? I’ve spent the last three years thinking about this exact question, and the answer that I came up with is the non-binary pathway. I’m not a cisgender female. If anything, I’m a third gender, autistic, or a highly developed form of Intersex. And it’s not lost on me that the latter, the intersex community is no better than the transsexual pathway when it comes to the subject of being transgender, and welcome. It’s became quite clear to me that I’ll never be able to convince cisgender people that transgender people like me belong in their bathrooms or locker rooms. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I should actually have my own. I think I should also be fighting to create my own facilities in the same manner that disabled people in wheelchairs fought for accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And in the end, I’ve decided that I shouldn’t be claiming spaces that others have built and already claimed as theirs, which is what I keep getting accused of as a transgender woman in a cisgender female world. Again, I should be building and establishing my own. I should be doing things like working to change future building codes.
Why do I think like this? The answer lies mainly in my military background and training. I’ve come to think of the bathroom wars as being very much like the religious wars. And I can no more impose the belief that I belong in the private spaces of cisgender women on cisgender women than the U.S. Military can convince the people in the Middle East that the American way of doing things is better than their way. Or that Christianity is superior to Islam. But of course the not so well hidden problem in our war for transgender civil rights is that we’re the only ones that are actually dying for the cause. There’s no Christians, Catholics, Republicans, lesbians, or radfems committing suicide because of transgender bathroom rights. But there’s certainly plenty of transgender people committing suicide because of the unobtainable and unrealistic standards of the transsexual pathway and the bathroom wars. And when your people are dying, and you’re not winning, then you need to relook at how you’re fighting the war. While the military fires its generals and leaders for losing battles and making poor progress during wars, we as a transgender community can’t even use common sense in choosing our leadership.
I’ve taken my stand, developed my battle plan, and given up my title of transgender woman. Yesterday I changed my identity to non-binary feminine.