I came out as a transgender woman today to my second-level boss. \u00a0He\u2019s generally supportive, which is good. \u00a0He\u2019s on the same page with me on questions of strategy and logistics, and has indicated that he\u2019ll happily sign off on whatever needs to be signed in order for me to transition at work next month.<\/p>\n
Then, inevitably, he asked The Question. \u00a0The Question is almost always asked in the context of coming out as trans or discussing being trans. \u00a0At least he made an effort to surround The Question in work-approriate phrasing: \u201cSo, are you going to be taking a lot of leave soon? \u00a0For\u2026 um\u2026 the surgery?\u201d \u00a0I don\u2019t mind being asked about leave; I very much mind being asked about my future plans for my penis by a person that has no reason to care.<\/p>\n
The reason I\u2019m calling it The Question (Capital T, capital Q) is because this one question is what defines being trans in mainstream narratives. \u00a0When someone identifies themselves as being transgender, somehow all propriety is thrown out the window and it becomes reasonable to ask a subordinate what they plan to do with their genitals. \u00a0The Question doesn\u2019t just come from the ether, independently descending into the mind of the overwhelming majority of people who interact with trans people. \u00a0It\u2019s culturally-seeded; because so much of transition is framed in terms of an \u201coperation\u201d or \u201cthe surgery\u201d in mainstream culture, it\u2019s seen as something that\u2019s worth asking. \u00a0Until someone has had some sort of surgery, they aren\u2019t \u201creally\u201d a man or woman, because when it comes to society\u2019s view of trans people, it\u2019s all about the genitalia, to a scary degree of obsession.<\/p>\n
Where does the seeding come from? \u00a0We have a perfectly timely example of that today: Piers Morgan aggressively putting his feet in his mouth after his interview with trans activist Janet Mock. \u00a0Piers kept referring to Mock by her birth-assigned name, and indicated that she \u201cused to be a man.\u201d \u00a0The show\u2019s banner boldly proclaimed that Mock \u201cwas a boy until age 18.\u201d \u00a0Why 18, you ask? \u00a0Well, that\u2019s when she had surgery, and therefore \u201cbecame a woman.\u201d \u00a0The same thing happened to Laverne Cox when interviewed by Katie Couric several weeks ago, so it\u2019s not as if there wasn\u2019t a recent discussion of how this is a problem.<\/p>\n
This kind of discussion is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be trans. \u00a0Janet Mock was never \u201ca boy.\u201d \u00a0Laverne Cox was never \u201ca boy.\u201d \u00a0I was never \u201ca boy.\u201d \u00a0As trans women, we all were designated male at birth, were told that we were boys, and never told that the reason we felt different was because sometimes the sex assigned at birth is wrong. \u00a0There\u2019s a deeply rooted assumption in our society that someone is cisgender (that is to say, not transgender; their gender identity is consistent with their designated sex) unless they\u2019ve proven otherwise. \u00a0How does someone prove otherwise, what question can we ask someone to prove that they\u2019re really not the sex that was chosen for them at birth? \u00a0Well, there\u2019s always The Question.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t be mad at my boss. \u00a0He doesn\u2019t know any better. \u00a0When I politely pointed out that asking that kind of question is rude (though gave him kudos for doing it within the context of a work-appropriate question), he understood and we moved on (which makes him a paragon of reasonable response to criticism when compared to Piers Morgan). \u00a0The problem is that he *should* know better. \u00a0There are plenty of trans people who are more than happy to educate the public on gender identity and what it means to be trans. \u00a0However, once those people get access to a mainstream audience, the mainstream narrative they\u2019re trying to fight grabs ahold and won\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n
Until mainstream media, both fictional and non-fictional, gets better at covering trans people as entire people, rather than taking a laser focus on genitals and The Question, it\u2019s going to keep coming up. \u00a0It\u2019s the only narrative people have been given as how to react to someone being trans, because it\u2019s the only narrative they\u2019ve been given.<\/p>\n
Related Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n http:\/\/unpitchable.tumblr.com\/post\/60909278485\/i-have-a-penis-for-now-but-my-sex-is-not-male<\/a> – unpitchable<\/a> – Samantha Leigh Allen, \u201cI have a penis (for now) but my sex is not male.\u201d<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.entirelyamelia.com\/2014\/02\/04\/ally-piers-morgan-ass-never-man\/<\/a> – totallyamelia<\/a> \u201cHow not to be an ally. \u00a0Or how Piers Morgan is an ass. \u00a0Or, no, I never was a man.\u201d<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.bustle.com\/articles\/7727-im-a-transgender-woman-and-this-is-what-its-like<\/a> – Parker Molloy, \u201cI\u2019m a Transgender Woman, and This is What It\u2019s Like\u201d<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2014\/01\/07\/laverne_cox_artfully_shuts_down_katie_courics_invasive_questions_about_transgender_people\/<\/a> – Katie McDonough, \u201cLaverne Cox flawlessly shuts down Katie Couric\u2019s invasive questions about transgender people: \u2018The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people,\u2019 the actress explained to Couric.\u201d<\/p>\n http:\/\/papierhache.wordpress.com\/2014\/01\/08\/on-genitals\/<\/a> – papierhache<\/a> – Kat Hach\u00e9, \u201cOn Genitals.\u201d<\/p>\n http:\/\/storify.com\/keris42\/natalie-reed-speaks-truth-on-stories<\/a> – nataliereed84<\/a> – Natalie Reed, in a series of tweets on the power of narratives to shape culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I came out as a transgender woman today to my second-level boss. \u00a0He\u2019s generally supportive, which is good. \u00a0He\u2019s on the same page with me on questions of strategy and logistics, and has indicated that he\u2019ll happily sign off on whatever needs to be signed in order for me to transition at work next month. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guidance"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5pI5m-3D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emily-esque.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}