It’s a thought that often comes to me, when talking to cis people about trans issues. I was giving some (hopefully) wise words about transphobia in the media to DIVA magazine today – and felt it again.
Do you understand that I haven’t come from the space you inhabit to the space I inhabit? That for you to think of a false transitioning is nothing like my decision to live honestly, and help myself accordingly? My gender is as simple as breathing. It may not be as common as yours, but it is perfectly and sublimely and thoughtlessly natural. My body needed and needs a little help – that’s all.
Simple, but so fundamentally true.
Quite apart from that alien kind of gender constancy which cis-gender people struggle to grasp, I think it’s worth offering another thought too…
Although the pain and obstacles of getting to our place of truth is regrettable, we have an insight that they will never acquire:
No matter how long a cis-gender person lives .. no matter what they do or achieve .. they will never have had the experience of seeing what it is like to LIVE both human experiences.
Theirs is half a life, constrained to only know one gender as a native, and to only imagine the other.
I think I find that idea fascinating as a non-binary kind of person – having the experience of being treated both as a woman and as a man – but being neither of those things. A privilege of experience, certainly, if not always enjoyable.
I certainly remember being overwhelmed by it, when I came out – so many cis people, of both genders, felt that they could come to me for advice on what ‘the other half’ was thinking.
I just like Eddie Izzard’s phrasing – having been to both clothing areas…
DIVA should be capitalised, not italicised. I’m scandalised.
Actually, it should be capitalised AND italicised. Which it now is. Panic attack over…