stealth - serious moral and ethical ambiguity

I was at a trans men's forum today and it was really weird and not what I'm used to from Group at all. A lot of what I heard today was guys saying that they don't identify as trans, don't identify as part of the queer community, won't go to the parties, etc. 

I'm not one to pick at the way people live their lives because I hate when people do that shit to me. I understand that there are reasons for a person to be stealth, and that they might just not identify as part of the queer community and that's fine. It's safety issues, it's emotional reasons, various aspects of people's experience, etc. And the fact that once you're "done" transitioning you won't bring it up unless someone else does. 

We as white middle class queer people consider our community to be primarily queer people. Some of us (no assumptions) left our neighborhoods and families a long time ago. We've had the privilege to move out of our old communities, and the resources to find our new ones. Our gender expectations are generally less strict than those in working class people of color communities. We have more options. We have subcultures. Queer studies departments. Radical bookstores. The list goes on. So a lot of that is a cultural difference.

But what I really can't wrap my head around is how detached they are from the rest of the trans community and how unaware they are of what goes on with us. I heard some of "I don't understand all these new identities and what all these words mean and don't care to." Not understand is fine but not care is just fucking ignorant and offensive. Of course I would never give criticism at a support group-like setting so I didn't say anything. (I was also largely outnumbered.) But these guys need other people to understand who they are, especially during their transition so what the fuck are they doing saying I don't care about what these words mean? It's so hypocritical and unappreciative of everything the queer community is doing for them. If everybody had that attitude they wouldn't even be sitting in that room.

In my opinion, the thing we trans people need the most is visibility. I feel like my biggest problem being trans is that most people don't know that people like me exist, and therefore don't know how to deal with me and how to respect me. People don't understand who I am. So I choose trans-friendly living and working spaces. Not everyone can choose where to live and work but hanging out in a group of people who don't understand who you are sounds awfully stifling to me.

I did not like the way these guys looked at me and Tyler when we were holding hands. That did not make me feel comfortable. That did not make me feel like we were in a safe space. I also didn't like how many assumptions they made and how little room for diversity they had in their trans community. Excuse me for not behaving like a heterosexist douchebag?

This just makes perfect sense: You grow up a black lesbian. You transition. You become a stereotypical man who can't even interact with a pre-T transman like he's a fellow man, and can't handle two trans guys together. Totally fucking logical isn't it? I got absolutely nothing out of that forum other than it being an interesting anthropological experience. I've been in straight spaces where I felt less emasculated. 

anger

A lot has gone on since my last post so here it is in summary:

1) The artist formerly known as Sarah is now named Tyler.

2) Tyler got queerbashed on 9/27. They were in Union Square with two of our friends and this asshole pushed Tyler and they fell and broke the nerve in their tooth, needing a root canal, which our awesome dentist did for free. Today Tyler found out that they might have fractured ribs, which sucks on several levels.

3) I'm in the middle of some kind of falling-out with one of my best friends. But if she's so stubborn that she can't even handle me calling her out on her fucked-upness then maybe she's just not a good friend.

And now for the ranting because that's what I do best. Let's talk about anger for a minute. I've been feeling pretty angry lately, for various reasons. I'm angry because my stupid co-worker is too chickenshit to just say the word "he" when referring to me. Ricky this, Ricky that she sounds like a fucking alien. I'm angry because Tyler's ribs are fractured and not gonna heal for months, just because some asshole hates gay people. I'm angry because a cis male friend of mine went to the trans partners group and Tyler came home and told me he made everyone there uncomfortable. And then I told another friend and she said that I'm policing. I'm not fucking policing, I'm defending my partner and if other people are too chickenshit to take that kind of thing into their own hands then they shouldn't take it out on me and accuse me of policing. I'm angry because Tyler's brother is being ignorant and giving them shit for changing their name.

Oh wait. Fuck. Shit. I forgot! I can't believe I forgot! People who are perceived female are not allowed to feel anger! I am putting too much "negative energy" into the cosmos. Perhaps I should go meditate and chant something in Sanskrit. 

I realized something today that I don't think gets talked about too often, and I'm not sure if other guys have this same problem so I'm gonna put it out there. I think that my anger does not get taken as seriously as a cisgender man's anger, even by people in the queer community. Whenever I say something that expresses anger, many of my female-identified friends criticize me for policing, or emitting evil rays of "negative energy," or shut me down one way or another. The men in my life don't treat it the same way - if I express to a male-identified relative or friend that let's say, I feel like fighting someone, or something like that, even though they would discourage me from doing so, they would at least sound like they understand where I'm coming from. I can just tell from the things they say and the ways they say them that unlike my female-identified friends, they don't think I'm ridiculous. I think that this is because the men in my life can identify better with how I feel. (I'm being general about the genders - there are some angry women and obnoxiously pacifist men)

Again, this is a gross generalization, but I think that people who were socialized male have had their angry feelings and behaviors checked, talked about, and most importantly, "accepted" as part of them being boys. Boys even get to fight in a structured way, to get it out of their system. But when a girl exhibits the same angry behavior, it's not understood in the context of her gender but rather as an isolated incident, and is dealt with differently. Girls also don't have the comfort of knowing that that's a pretty common way for people of their gender to behave. They feel ashamed about it, and boys don't. Ideally, a healthy man grows out of it, and has control over his angry feelings and doesn't go around saying "I'm gonna hit that guy" every time someone pisses them off. (ideally being the key word here)

I have pretty serious levels of anger and urges to fight people, but I did not get to deal with those issues the way cisgender men did. And that's why I can sometimes sound like a teenage boy. I'm not saying that I can't be checked; I'm just saying that there's a good reason why I'm like this and that I'm not crazy. And that's my big revelation of the day. Good night.