Transgender for Everybody

Welcome to What’s Helping Today, a newsletter about the everyday work of staying alive on earth — written by author and journalist Sandy Ernest Allen.

Some reading this will not know what it feels like to be trans — others of course do not need to be explained the feeling.

I myself have never known any other reality. I have been “trans” as far back as I can remember — long before I learned such a word as “trans,” long before I knew anyone else like me had ever existed.

My sense of my internal “transness” was there always, since earliest memories. I always felt the fact of having been mis-categorized. I dealt with the resulting confusion, awkwardness, isolation, pain.

During my childhood and into my adulthood, I said nothing about any of this, for the most part (having nowhere safe to express it). The couple of times I slipped up and mentioned my actual truth — to a gay friend back in college for example — I was very drunk and don’t remember.

Eventually in my twenties, I had greater awareness that other trans men existed. I still didn’t let this interrupt my commitment to never recognizing myself, let alone coming out. In hindsight, I felt too terrified to approach that precipice; I couldn’t imagine making such a leap.

Back in my late twenties I used to work in an office in Manhattan not far from the Museum of Sex, which had a long-running exhibit on the sexuality of animals — meaning both the act of sex but also the diversity and fluidity of animals in the sexual expression sense. I just liked going there and reading about the sex-changing clownfish and the gay rams and poly ducks and so forth.

For whatever reason — one I didn’t like thinking about — I just liked returning to this exhibition. I’d go there again and again. Like if a friend was visiting the city from elsewhere, I’d suggest we go. I’d again read about the variation that existed, according to science, amongst God’s creatures.

In retrospect it’s apparent: I was confirming that I indeed did exist. That I could. I was calculating, then: What now?

I was terrified.

My terror was to do with my society, which as you’ve maybe gathered, hates trans people. (This was over a decade ago; I’d argue these days that transphobia is just much more widespread, aggressive.)

Back then, I never imagined I’d come out — a self-protective choice. And yet being in the closet was killing me, the older I got. It took such endless effort, to deny my own truth all the time, to live at odds inside and out.

My impression is that many cis people do not understand this anguish. Again, I never knew anything else.

Trans people, we’ll sometimes use the term “egg” to refer to those who’ve not yet come out, who’ve not yet endeavored to let their real selves be known. We share our ‘egg cracking’ stories, about how or why we took some first step towards authenticity.

I’ve known trans people who are eggs, however unaware they seem of this themselves. I’m thinking of one trans person in particular I knew once who was closeted and knew it and was determined to remain there. They were angry; they were sad. They’d made this choice, again, self-protectively. And yet I observed: It had made them into a rotten egg.

We lost touch so I don’t know what happened. Sometimes I still fantasize of them eventually coming out.

But I also don’t judge what anyone else does, in terms of coming out or not. I know how many totally valid reasons trans people might have to never risk it.

I also know how much happier I got, when I made the choice myself. When I stopped the lying.

Nowadays: My only regret is I didn’t come out sooner. My only regret about top surgery is not having had it sooner. My only regret about starting T is not having started T sooner. I regret not allowing myself, younger, to experience such coherence, such embodiment, such potential joy.

I remember feeling trans as far back as preschool, as I’ve written about before. I dressed like a tomboy until about middle school. At that point, I began mimicking being a “girl” and then a “woman” even harder — a “straight” one — determining this camouflage was necessary to my survival. Given my circumstances, I calculated it wasn’t safe to come out even as bisexual let alone gay; I avoided detection by overcorrecting with feminine drag.

During my teens and especially during my twenties, I pretended to be whatever it was that people wanted to see, seeing me. I wore dresses and skirts. I wore heels. I wore bras, I wore makeup. I even got manicures. I dated straight men (sigh).

By my late twenties, working in Manhattan, going to the Museum of Sex obsessively, I labored to keep up this whole act. And yet, no matter how hard I tried: Some people inevitably discerned that I was faking.

Especially if anyone got up close (like in a salon, or if we were having sex), some other people would regularly seem to question my whole deal. They’d seem to notice I was an imposter.

(What was I actually? This I couldn’t look at, directly, like it was the sun.)

Whenever someone seemed to find me out, I’d fear inside being discovered — and my shame at not hiding myself well enough. Confusingly, when this happened: I’d feel a validation inside too — my true, hidden self pleased to have been spotted anyway.

This lasted until around when I turned thirty. At that point, about a decade ago now, I gave up the act. I let my shell crack.

Other trans people, they don’t feel “born this way,” as I did. Some trans people, this feeling just comes on later, or so I’ve heard others describe.

There’s no one way, no right way, to be trans.

If you’re not trans — if you’re cis — let me ask: What if?

What if you woke up one day and ‘felt trans’, what would do next? How might you react?

Does the thought of you someday ‘feeling trans’ scare you? If so, why?

Transgender for everybody. Often this president says it. His intention is presumably to frighten his followers. To him and his fascist pals, “transgender” is a slur. They feel trans people are mere monsters, sub-human.

Transgender for everybody: He pretends this is what “the left” wants, this is what Democrats want. As I have written about this for this newsletter before (and as trans people are probably aware): Both political parties scapegoat and dehumanize us. Republicans want us all dead.

And, on the other hand, most elected Democrats still faithfully repeat transphobic talking points (a latest example). Too often our supposed allies are very eagerly throwing us under the bus.

Transgender people, we constitute roughly 1% of the population. My guess would be that the actual figure is actually somewhat higher (given how popular transphobia is, given how many incentives trans people have to remain closeted).

But in general — actual figure notwithstanding — trans people are the minority, no doubt, by a lot. Cis people, people who feel accordance with their assigned sex at birth, whatever label one uses, such people are the majority, again by a lot.

Trans people, we’ll never win on mere numbers alone, is my point — one I’m often repeating. We need a preponderance of the rest of you to start being actively and loudly allied with us trans people, now. I see no other future in which trans folks have a chance of surviving.

People are so used to all the transphobia we all swim in, they barely register it anymore, is my sense. Transgender for everybody this decaying president blathers and our brainless mainstream press repeats it — uncaring, absent. My trans soul cringes every time I hear these horrific phrases the fascists use — “forceable transition,” “genital mutilation.”

We’re all drowning in this transphobic swamp. Trans people, we’ve just long had to swim like our lives depend on it.

Trans rights are human rights, maybe you’ve heard this slogan before.

Trans rights are human rights meaning: I’m allowed to exist in alignment with my inner truth, that ephemeral but essentially indelible knowing of my “self.”

Trans rights is about honoring that.

What to call that if not “biology”?

What to call that if not “divine”?

Trans rights meaning mutual respect amongst people. Basically what Christians named ‘the Golden Rule.’ It’s about not needing to know personally how every other human on earth feels, because we have such a great diversity of experiences (is the facts). It’s about nonethless knowing that every other human is human, deserving of our respect — whether or not we are similar or have gone through anything like what they have experienced.

I often think how in my second language, Spanish, there are two verbs for “to know”: conocer and saber. The former means ‘to know’ in an experiential, embodied sense. The latter means ‘to know’ as in from having read facts in books. Both are forms of knowledge, one isn’t better than the other, just different. In the case of “cis” versus “trans,” we are just attempting to communicate across that chasm, that great divide.

Trans rights are human rights meaning: Anybody could be trans, anybody can be trans. Again, there is no one way, no right way. Again, it’s only ~1% of us or so who feel this way inside, give or take.

Trans rights are human rights meaning: The point is we want all people to feel entitled to expression of their selves. The point is we want everybody on this globe to actually feel safe enough to express who they actually are, fully and proudly.

So, sure: Transgender for everybody.

The biological truth is: Humans are widely varied (including in the ’sexual’ and ‘gender’ senses), as is true across nature. There aren’t “two opposite sexes.” That’s an old fairy tale, however enduring, however comforting to cishetero people, still.

Intersex people exist, not as abnormalities — but as part of the human family. People like myself, whom we might call “trans” in my present society’s parlance, likewise, we’re not errors nor freaks, etc. Nonbinary people, asexual people, so forth: Nothing new. We’re all just part of the whole situation. We’ve been here and we always will be, too.

And yet: Many people cling to their boy-girl, Barbie-Ken fantasies, that simple lie that they learned as kids. Of course in many other respects, adults are able to evolve their understanding of reality as they grow up. Regarding gender, cis people can be stubborn and afraid to update their worldviews according to actual science and reality.

My hypothesis: Some cis people are afraid of trans people because they’re afraid of contemplating sex/gender itself and/or they’re afraid of turning inward perhaps, they’re afraid of themselves. Perhaps they’re just afraid of examining, personally and more broadly, the evil that is patriarchal rule and their own complicity and guilt or shame or whatever.

That’s my guess anyway. That’s my guess as to why someone like J.K. Rowling has become greatly and devotedly evil in the supposed name of ‘protecting women’ when it’s quite apparent she’s doing the opposite. That’s my guess for why many cis people would rather still enjoy Harry Potter than do something as simple as boycott it entirely and stop giving that billionaire bigot a cent.

When cis people get so rigid about enforced fake myths of binary sex/gender, my question is: What are you so afraid of? Besides, if the sex/gender binary is so natural, according to some, why all this effort to police everybody into two little boxes?

Like many, I watch with horror as in this country and others, hateful “leaders” attack trans people, trans children especially, with utter devotion — our healthcare, our bathroom access. How in even liberal places our supposed allies regularly just capitulate.

Years ago I had reported out a whole history of public bathroom segregation for the podcast 99% Invisible. Segregated bathrooms aren’t old; they’re quite new, actually, and just stem from white patriarchy, an effort to police women, yadda yadda.

tl;dl: There’s nothing “natural” nor real about pretending humanity can be divided into two “opposite” sexes nor that trans, nonbinary and intersex people don’t exist; such segregation is only about racist, patriarchal control. (The episode linked above is a great one; I hope you’ll listen if you haven’t before.)

And: I fear most cis people just still aren’t listening. I fear they’re ignoring this whole situation, however much in a fingers-in-ears lalalalala way. For example, I sense many cis people are resistant to even being labeled “cis.” They perhaps think of themselves as “just normal” or something.

This is not unlike how, a generation or two ago, many straight people resisted being labeled as “straight” or “heterosexual”, thought of themselves as “just normal” (even as entities like the federal government and NYT ignored, even encouraged, the mass death of queer people to HIV).

Straight people, white people, cis people, men — these are just the more powerful side of these respective binaries. Ignorance is a privilege. Those belonging to a more powerful side will frequently resist self-awareness or being labeled for what they are.

They resist seeing themselves in the picture because they don’t want to acknowledge which side they are on. They don’t want to acknowledge their own power. They don’t want to acknowledge their own complicity, often, their guilt and/or shame.

But let me ask it again for anyone cis or not-trans (or whatever) who’s still reading: What if instead of feeling “cis” inside, you felt as I do, “trans”? What if “feeling trans” was consuming all your energy? What if the act of protecting otherwise, guarding this secret, what if this was actually killing you, however slowly or quickly? What would you want? Would you want to live in a society that is this cruel towards trans people? Or would you want something better, for yourself?

Let me ask you this: What if your child were trans? What if your parent were trans? What if your sibling were, your best friend, your beloved colleague or neighbor? Would your thinking change then, about whether trans people should be allowed to exist?

Is it merely your fear of acknowledging just how bad the present is for trans people — is that what keeps you silent, still? The other day, as I ranted about transphobia online, some cis person complained at me that they felt stuck, basically, unsure what to do.

I replied: Here’s some advice for cis allies wanting answers to this question … I also suggest listening to this episode about my attempted conversations across this divide. I unpack: What we can all collectively do about this deadly scourge, transphobia.

Briefly: Cis people, you’re immensely powerful here because you have the numbers and us trans folks just don’t. The fascists intend to kill us all; they’re very clear about this. Like so many of us, I live every day absolutely overwhelmed by the terror.

Cis folks: Burying your head in the sand may feel comforting to you — but it won’t save you, either. Trans rights are human rights meaning: How trans people are treated will matter when it comes to whether the rest of you have any rights left, too.

The tide of fascism is rising. Trans people, we’re merely one tiny, vulnerable, fairly defenseless and voiceless minority that’s being used as a test case — trans kids in particular are being killed first. Adults like myself are next.

As a canary in this coal mine, I’m sure angry as hell these days.

And I remind: There was a reason the miners saved the canary; they were also saving themselves.

Niemöller’s poem was a warning.

Let me ask it again: What if you woke up tomorrow, or one day, and ‘felt trans’ — and that ‘feeling trans’ was something you just couldn’t shake, for days and weeks and months and years after that, no matter what you did, what would you do then? Would you want to remain closeted? (Would you become a rotten egg?)

How long would you last, if you chose this? As you felt your truth versus the one society has put on you every time you heard your own name, every time you got dressed, every time you chose a public bathroom, so on? Wouldn’t you start to feel exhausted eventually?

Hence: Some trans folks like myself, we come out anyway. We come out despite all we risk. We might risk our jobs or our relationships. We might risk acceptance from our families or from our communities. We might risk our security.

I came out right after Trump got elected the first time, and as a student of psychiatric history, I identified him clearly as what he was. I was aware of what the Nazis had done to people like me.

We risk so much when we show our truth and yet we do it anyway.

We do it because living the other way was even worse.

Recently online, I asked trans people: What gives you hope? Many shared their answers. And several said versions of: My best day in the closet was still worse. Life on this side is incomparably better — even despite our terrifying present reality.

He wants to take away all our rights — your rights too — this president and his accomplices, these fascists. They want to take away your right to be trans, if you want to, if that feels right for you. Maybe you won’t want to ever — and this is fine.

But: What if this changed? Is this whole line of question too frightening to even go there, mentally? Is it that dangerous in your internal landscape? So much so, you’d rather shut the whole conversation down, meaning you’d rather that all trans people, myself included, no longer existed? (Again, what if your kid were trans, your parent, your friend, your colleague, your friend, neighbor — would your answer change?)

Transgender for everybody this president repeats it, meaning it to sound like some nightmare, a curse.

Transgender for everybody, to me it sounds like a dream.

Transgender for anyone who wants it. Transgender for anybody who so declares.

To each their own. You do you. Freedom. (Aren’t such things supposed to be deeply “American”?)

I live out here in a rural part of America — a blue state, a purple district, outside a small town. Am I safe at home? Or if I go run errands? Are my countrymen good or bad? Will my fellow Americans do nothing as trans people are exterminated, or will a sufficient quantity of my “allies” actually wake up — as trans folks suffer and cry for help?

I spend much of my time contemplating such questions.

Trans people ourselves: We don’t want any of this crap. We just want to live our lives. We want to do normal stuff, like spend time with our loved ones, like do our jobs, whatever we care about.

Trans people — if I may presume to speak for us all — we genuinely don’t care what the rest of you do, so long as you let us live our own lives in peace.

That’s all we want, truly. This whole anti-trans craze, this moral panic, is just bullshit, however annoying, dangerous, potentially deadly it is for us.

So let me say it again; let me now speak into existence:

Transgender for everybody.
Transgender for everybody.
Transgender for everybody.

Thanks for reading What’s Helping Today, a newsletter by me — author and journalist Sandy Ernest Allen. If you were forwarded this message, WHT is free; please subscribe here. If you like my work: Please consider tipping me via my Buy Me a Coffee. Your support is appreciated!