Dear Ryan Cassata, Good For You, But Getting Misgendered Ruins My Fucking Day
It ruins my fucking day to be misgendered. And when I don’t have the courage to correct the person misgendering me, it feels even worse.
I’m 35, in the middle of transition, and when it comes to “passing” as a teenage boy, honey, that ship sailed 10 years ago. I use anti-wrinkle cream like the best of them, but life happens and sunglasses aren’t completely magic. And furthermore, being perceived as a teenager when you have a college degree and a 401K, is awkward and horrendously inconvenient.
Pre-transition, as a “woman” in various male-dominated industries throughout my job-having life, and as one who did not conform to gender roles, I was already othered. I was already rarely taken as seriously as my peers. And as someone who is not very large and tends to dress “young,” I was already infantilized. All the fucking time.
So maybe you’ll understand why I had to go on T. I went on that shit so I could grow up and get out of this Peter Pan bullshit, you feel me? Probably not. In fact, I don’t see how you can possibly relate to me, because you had the immense luxury of being fully supported by your parents, financially and emotionally, and because you got to be famous and be on television, and because you got to transition when everyone else your age was going through Puberty V1.0 anyway.
But at the least, due to being in those positions of influence, you had an opportunity to truly speak up for the trans community…and when you basically told me that I could be a man as long as I believed in myself and that my social dysphoria is essentially curable if I just believe hard enough, you blew it, dude. You blew it bigtime.
Good for you if it doesn’t bother you to be misgendered! But it bothers the shit out of me and often leaves me in a fog of disconnected numbness for at least a day. Because when people call me “ma’am,” what they’re saying is that my desperate attempts to reverse the further feminization of an aging AFAB body, are failing. No amount of believing in myself as a man, will ever change how much it crushes me to walk out of my goddamn house in my best FTM Passing Tips™ bullshit outfit and hear “HELLO, MA’AM, HOW ARE YOU?” It’s horrendously invalidating.
I challenge you to examine the language you use when you speak at length of your own experience as if it should apply to everyone, yet make no mention of the privilege you’ve had by transitioning young with supportive parents, or of the fact that getting misgendered can easily equate to violence or even death, among many trans people. I challenge you to check in with us in ten years and see if it still doesn’t bother you to be misgendered…because you might find that as you age, it will.
Your stance on the effects and necessities of HRT for trans people, is obnoxious and holier-than-thou in a way that’s mad insulting to those of us who have to pass for safety reasons or because we would prefer to- god forbid!- be treated like adults and not children. No, not every trans person “needs” to be on HRT and if they choose not to be, it doesn’t make them less trans. But that’s not all of us, and it would be fucking great if maybe next time you write all about how lucky you are and how easy this has been for you, you could keep that mind.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep injecting that T into my leg every week. And when people misgender me, I’ll make them put a quarter in a jar and then at least I’ll have enough money for laundry, right? Or do I just have to believe in myself a little harder?
