Gender-Conformity FAIL
In honor of Transgender Awareness Day, I’d like to take this opportunity to come out of the closet.
I am a supporter of transgender rights. First, I support the existence of transgender people. The gender binary—where everyone is slotted into either “male” or “female” roles, with societally approved modes of expression and activities—is false. It does not describe reality, no matter how much certain religions talk about the sacred eternal nature of the gendered soul. Being transgender is not a disease, it is not a perversion, and it is not a disorder.
Second, I support the equality of transgender people. In many states and jurisdictions (including my own) it is still legal to fire transgender people from their job or evict them from their homes simply because of their gender identity or gender expression. Trangender people are many times more likely to be murdered than a cisgender person, and they are also far more likely to be poor, unemployed, depressed and homeless.
I would also like to come out in another sense: I am transgender. I do not consider myself exclusively male or exclusively female, and I never have. It’s time for me to be open about that. Some days, sometimes, I feel very masculine; some days, sometimes, I feel very feminine; and most of the time I feel pretty androgynous. Sure, I usually wear what our society deems “male” clothing, and I have a “male” haircut and hairstyle, and people use the pronouns “he,” “him” and “his” to describe me. But a lot of that is me trying to cover up who I really am: a person with a fairly fluid, non-traditional gender identity.
What is your gender identity? What are your thoughts on transgender issues? Will you come out today as an ally or as a transgendered individual?
