Photo courtesy of Gay Times and Ted Eytan.
If you don’t know a trans person, I feel sorry for you. I don’t mean the trans people you see in the media, with perfect cookie cutter storylines and adherence to gender roles in a way that is palatable and digestible to cis audiences. I mean Real Trans People™, with messy and complicated relationships with gender, with their bodies, and with society as a whole. Trans people who are dysphoric, who aren’t dysphoric, who plan to medically transition, who don’t. There’s no one set definition of what being trans should look like, and more people need that reminder.
Take, for example, dysphoria, a complicated topic that means something different to everyone. On a base level, it’s the discomfort that comes with specific aspects of gender, whether it be body dysphoria or social dysphoria, that makes a person upset due to a disconnect between their experience and their actual gender. Similarly to the way body dysmorphia is a mental health disorder, dysphoria often leads to people being depressed or even suicidal, which is what makes gender-affirming healthcare life saving.
On a medical level, a dysphoria diagnosis is required by cis doctors in order to access things like hormones and gender-affirming surgeries. When you want to medically transition, you essentially have to prove that you’re “really” trans, most often by exemplifying instances in which you have felt dysphoric, uncomfortable, upset, or in pain due to your gender experience. They don’t care whether you experience gender euphoria, or comfort and happiness, in certain parts of your gender or gender experience. The approach is always, “living without this is killing me,” not “living with this would improve my quality of life.”
It’s not just doctors who require that trans people prove their suffering in order to have their identities validated; large sects of (predominantly online) trans people have cropped up in recent years, defiantly separating themselves from “transtrenders,” or people who they perceive to be “fake trans” due to an apparent lack of dysphoria or a tendency to like things aligned with their assigned gender at birth.
Here’s the thing: there’s no one way to be transgender. People are going to wear dresses and suits, and take hormones and not take hormones, have surgeries and not have surgeries, use neopronouns, keep their birth names, and decide their own identities and presentations. Trans people are going to fuck with cishetero society’s perception of gender! And to trans people who disagree: gatekeeping the lifesaving resources and support that we need to navigate a world that beats us down constantly won’t make cis people respect you more.
Getting their approval won’t make your transition go faster, it won’t give you increased access to resources, it won’t make you “one of the good ones” in their eyes. When trans people face persecution, the ones levying that bigotry won’t stop to differentiate between you and a “fake trans person.” The only way we can make a future that supports everyone is through solidarity, even if our experiences aren’t all the same.
I have had dysphoria my entire life. It dictates my day-to-day, determines what I wear and how I hold myself, and hangs over every interaction I have. And frankly, dealing with it is exhausting, and being able to begin defining my relationship with gender through euphoria has unironically saved my life while being unable to start hormones. So no, I will not be “one of the good ones” to be palatable for cis people. I’ve spent a decade under dysphoria’s boot, and I’m not about to let you try and put me or anyone else under yours.
