Every year, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) is celebrated on 17 May, marking the day in 1990 the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from the Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. IDAHOBIT is a celebration of the diverse experiences of people in the LGBTQIA+ community while raising awareness of the continued discrimination and challenges faced. This is a day to listen to and learn from queer folk and their experiences.
As part of our IDAHOBIT celebrations, we are passing the mic to Dean, 20-year-old Creative Arts student and YACSA young member to taking this time to listen to him on parts of his experience. We’ve also put a little glossary at the bottom of this post if you need it!
Hey there to all my guys, gals and non-binary pals! As you just read, my name’s Dean (he/him pronouns) and I’ll be your host for this special IDAHOBIT article! Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my story and what I have to say – hopefully you’ll learn something you didn’t know before, but I’d be happy even if this is just a new perspective for you.
Let’s start with where I fit into all this: I’m the ‘T’ in LGBTQIA+. I’m a transgender man (which from this point on I’ll abbreviate to ‘trans’). For me, that means I was assigned female at birth but have since transitioned to male to better align my internal and external states of being (i.e., my sense of identity with my body).
That being said, whenever possible I prefer to use the phrase ‘guy/man/dude of trans experience’ because I find it prevents my identity from being tunnel-visioned by my transness – my identity exists beyond that. For example, the further you read, the more you’ll come to notice that I’m a painfully meticulous person. I’m not even 200 words into this and I’m already discussing the nuances of my label.
My transition history perfectly fits the stereotypical binary trans narrative. I was aware of the disconnect between my body and identity from a young age, but I didn’t learn to put how I felt into words until I was around 15-16. I came out to an accepting family and community, lived socially as male between then and the start of my medical and legal transition at 18, and now I’m here.
Now I know I’m skipping over a lot of details here, but that’s because the skeleton of my experience as a white, middle-class, able-bodied person, living in a loving community with access to appropriate resources is one that has been told many times over. My transition has been, and will continue to be, a miracle. That’s not to say it has been a perfect, linear journey with no issues – having to transition in the first place isn’t fun or something you do on a whim, it’s a matter of survival.
The combination of privilege, luck and timing produced a significantly more positive and streamlined outcome than the experiences of the vast majority of those in the trans community. A minority within a minority, if you will. So rather than detailing a timeline for you, I want to redirect our focus outwards.
In the five-ish years I’ve been living as a man with trans experience, my relationship to gender and the way I interact with it in my life has evolved beyond anything baby me could’ve ever imagined.
Remember how earlier I said that my transition fits the stereotypical trans narrative? Read that back slowly and consider the wording of that sentence. In this context, to ‘fit’ is to fulfil a particular role, but it lacks autonomy and applies a neutrality to the whole notion of my identity.
There’s no consideration or room for trans happiness in the stereotypical trans narrative, and that’s on purpose. However, there is always room for the opposite. We don’t see trans joy but instead, this graphic depiction of trans pain and misery – the trauma of being trans in a cisnormative world. The ‘trans narrative’ we’re so accustomed to hearing has instilled in us, cisgender and transgender people alike, that a trans person’s ultimate goal is assimilation. It can’t be anything more because a trans person’s existence is merely tolerable. This narrative wasn’t made by trans people; hell, it wasn’t even made for trans people.
But the fact that it’s ‘stereotypical’ means that it works, and unfortunately it works very well – it worked on me. I was adamant that (to which I’d now replace with ‘conditioned to believe’) blending into our binary, cisnormative, heteronormative society would be the pinnacle of my manhood. For at least the first two years of my transition, I focused solely on ‘passing’ as male, integrating into male culture and rarely, if ever, being perceived as female. I don’t remember when I achieved that goal, but I distinctly recall the realisation I had soon after:
“Wait, hold on… this is it?”
It was anti-climactic; I’ll say that much.
I had come to the end of the trans narrative. I was surviving, but it wasn’t enough to fulfill my sense of being. Again my relationship with gender had been thrown into question and I was off on a sequel of self-discovery. On this journey there have been two perspectives that have significantly uprooted and redefined my understanding.
I was surprised by how empowering it was to discover LGBTQIA+ history. In retrospect, it only makes sense. Prior to this, I hadn’t seen any representation of myself beyond my whiteness. I’d had no exposure to LGBTQIA+ history until my first year of university. I had no idea what the Stonewall Riots were up until that point. Let that sink in for a second. As LGBTQIA+ person, I had no knowledge of the revolution that triggered the fight for my community’s rights that I’m still fighting for today. I’m trans and didn’t know that trans people were, and remain, at the forefront of this. Not only that, I had to search for it myself, which is a near-impossible task when your community has had to balance being actively erased but just visible enough to survive. Having this information more accessible to us and the general public should be non-negotiable. It’s a matter of visibility, of equality, of dignity and of safety.
The bittersweetness of recognising the failings of the Western binary was also a major source of affirmation for me. It destroyed my understanding of gender that had been strangled by this binary up until this point. There are Indigenous cultures across the world, including First Nations cultures in ‘Australia’, that recognise gender beyond two boxes. I can vividly remember how my fascination with this descended into betrayal. The fact that gender diversity had existed in such close proximity to me left me infuriated with my experience. I’d gone my whole life fighting for a different gendered experience when the only reason either exist is oppression, and as a result of this, I’m outcasted from my own community.
My own culture had failed me. I still stand by that to this day, but it no longer threatens the existence of my gender experience. My understanding gives me power over it and the only thing that matters is my comfort in my own gender expression. It is the primary reason why I’m as stable in my identity as I’ve become – if binary gender doesn’t exist, then I have no reason to care for gender roles and expectations.
I want to leave you with somewhere to go, whether you have resonated with my experience or just want to learn more, here are some of the people I have learnt from. Visibility for me has been the difference between surviving and living, and diversifying your own social media feeds is an easy start to shifting the trans narrative to a celebration of transness and gender diversity.
· Alok Vaid-Menon | @alokvmenon
· Chella Man | @chellaman
· Schyuler Bailar | @pinkmantaray
· Indya Moore | @indyamoore
· Nevo Zisin | @nevozisin
· Rain Dove | @raindovemodel
· Matt Bernstein | @mattiv
· Munroe Bergdorf | @munroebergdorf
· Miles McKenna | @themilesmckenna
FYI Glossary:
Cisgender- often abbreviated to ‘cis’ refers to someone who’s gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth.
Transgender- often abbreviated to ‘trans’ refers to someone who’s gender identity doesn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth.
Gender binary- the classification of gender into two distinct categories, male and female.
Cisnormativity- the assumption that being cisgender is the norm and that this is more valid than any other form of gender identity.
Heteronormativity- the assumption that being heterosexual (straight) is the norm and that this is more valid than any other form of sexual orientation.
Words by Dean Plesa
