“I didn’t put the hurdles there, it’s not my fault you’re gonna lose.”

Fifty trans hurdles

Five years ago, I started examining my privilege. I had just earned tenure, I had just finished a three year stint at a for-profit startup I had co-founded, and the best thing I could think to with my subsequent sabbatical was to just reflect on how I’d gotten so lucky. I brainstormed fifty privileges that I’d benefitted from, which included things like food security, clean water, great teachers, a white(ish) face, literacy, love, and leisure time. Enumerating these was really transformative for me; it showed me how immensely dependent my success was on birthright I hadn’t earned.

I was reading my list of privileges the other day, trying to cheer myself up after a rough bout of gender dysphoria, and stumbled upon this one:

Because I’m male, throughout my life I’ve been judged more by my accomplishments than my appearance

That made me laugh. Remembering myself five years ago as a closeted trans woman, examining my privilege, and my male privilege in particular, brought me great joy. Look what I’ve accomplished! I don’t hate my body nearly as much, I don’t hate myself nearly as much, and people finally know who I really am. It’s only been 9 months since I came out, but I almost can’t remember what it was like to feel so trapped.

Then, of course, I wondered: I clearly don’t have that particular privilege any more. In fact, by coming out, I’ve given up quite a lot of privileges, and replaced them with whatever we call the opposite of social privilege: disadvantage, inequality, burdens, hurdles. It seems every day I discover a new one and have to learn new skills for how to navigate them practically and emotionally.

After pondering this loss, I wondered further: would enumerating all of these hurdles be as transformative as enumerating my privileges? On hard days, it can seem like I’ve lost a lot, but perhaps by writing them down, I’ll be able to see that I haven’t actually lost that much. It might also remind me of how much privilege I still have and help me focus my energy on the trans people in the world who face even greater hurdles than me in a world designed for cisnormativity.

In the spirit of continued examination, here are fifty hurdles I’ve encountered in the last 9 months since coming out, followed by a reflection.

1. I get misgendered. It’s less common than it was a year ago, but it still happens, especially with masks on, or when it’s just my voice. It hurts deeply every time, and people don’t even know they’re doing it.
2. I have to self-advocate constantly because people exclude me constantly. They write surveys that use gender exclusive terms like “male” and “female”, academic publishers won’t let me fix my name in publications, women who knew me as a men don’t invite me to women’s spaces because they still see me as men, and so on. This self-advocacy is so fatiguing, I often don’t do it, which only serves to reinforce my exclusion.
3. I get patted down in airport security. I traveled a lot this past fall before the lockdowns, and about 50% of the time, TSA agents pulled me aside, debated amongst themselves whether a woman or man should touch my chest and crotch, only to find the unexpected. The first time, I cried on a bench for 15 minutes, but the second time, I only cried for 5 minutes. Progress.
4. I get told to leave the women’s restroom. One woman at a Target hit me with her purse. This doesn’t happen as often now that I have longer hair and a larger chest, but it makes me feel like my safety in restrooms is dependent on how I dress, whether I wear makeup, and how I wear my hair.
5. I’m afraid to visit rural towns. I used to feel quite safe; now, even though I pass relatively well, there’s always that thought in the back of my mind: “If these guys find out I’m trans, will they hurt me? Refuse to serve me?” I was at a rest stop in southwest Washington state on a day trip with my wife, and there was a line to the restroom, all women not wearing masks and they scowled out me. Was it my mask or did they see my transness?
6. I wake up every day feeling like my body is fundamentally wrong. Hormones have definitely helped, and surgery would help more, but I’ll probably never escape that feeling fully. I just hope that some day it won’t be my first thought of each day, because it’s not a great way to start the day emotionally.
7. I struggle to enjoy photos from my past. I cherish my memories, but the few photographs I have of myself make me cringe. Well, I’ve always cringed at photos of me, but now I cringe more, which makes it hard to enjoy the memories they represent.
8. I’m never sure I can trust my health care providers. One provider is excellent, and very knowledgeable about the latest science on trans physiology, but when he’s unavailable—as he has been for the past six months—I feel like my doctors, PAs, nurses, and medical assistants are mostly clueless about trans health care, but often not willing to admit it.
9. I will always be misnamed. Printed books will always be wrong and many publishers will continue to refuse to fix my name. But even more frequently, physical mail, email, and endless marketing nearly always get my name wrong. It’s just too many places to erase and fix. It’s like getting punched in the nose every day.
10. I will frequently be misrepresented in television and movies. It’s getting better, but most of the time, trans people are seen for their transness, not as full people. I’m tired of being represented as a novelty and a token, and often worse, a joke.
11. I am constantly asked to speak for all trans people. In the past 9 months, I’ve been asked to serve on no fewer than forty panels, committees, and advisory boards, to represent “diverse” voices, as if one person can possibly represent the diversity of humanity. I say no to as many as I can, but it’s far more service than I’ve ever done—on top of all of the academic service I already do.
12. There are countless countries I can no longer visit safely. In some, I would be beaten, in others, I’d be imprisoned, and in others still, I’d be sentenced to death. There are conferences in cities in the past that I would no longer be able to attend. That’s too bad: I like traveling the world and experiencing other cultures. My reach is a lot smaller now.
13. People say dehumanizing things to me online. They use slurs, they call me a man, they call me a freak, and they say objectifying things about my body. It’s hard to be hated every day by strangers, and harder still to have to choose between defending myself—pointlessly—and just walking away and processing my emotions in refuge.
14. I assume people will be mean. It hasn’t taken long since coming out, but my baseline expectations have shifted from “strangers are generally nice” to “strangers harbor hate.” I’m fortunate to have a big community of nice people in which to feel otherwise, but I’m much more anxious to meet new people now, because I never know how I’ll be treated.
15. I’m not represented in politics. There are so few trans people, what are the chances that I’ll ever have someone fight for my rights with the passion that I would? Sarah McBride is running in Delaware, which I find hugely inspiring, but it’s going to be so long before that happens everywhere, if ever. Unless I represent myself.
16. If I ever want to fix my body, I’ll have to pay for it myself. If a women gets breast cancer and needs reconstruction, most insurance will pay for it. If a child is born with a correctable defect, most insurance will pay for it. But if I want surgery to correct what I view as a serious birth deformity, I’ll have to find a few hundred thousand dollars myself, because the public doesn’t think transness is real, or consequential to my wellbeing.
17. I’ll spend the rest of my life having to educate people. There will always be people who weren’t educated in school or by their parents or friends about trans identities, and so I’ll be asked to do the work. And if I don’t, the people around me will mistreat me. And if I ask others to do it, they’ll tell me they don’t know enough, and I should really do it myself.
18. I may not have access to the homeless safety net. I don’t ever want to be homeless, but if I am someday, as many trans people are, it will be harder to safely access shelters, health care, and food. Even though I think the chances of this are rare (I’d have to lose my tenured position and more), there’s a fear in the background that if my life fell apart, I wouldn’t even have the fragmented U.S. safety net to catch me.
19. I could lose my health insurance. The Affordable Care Act ensured that being trans was not considered a pre-existing condition, but conservatives are constantly trying to repeal it. Every time health care comes up, I worry that protection will be taken, and I’ll be left without insurance.
20. Journalists will misrepresent, misconstrue, or misunderstand trans issues. They do it all the time now, using offensive language, misgendering people, misconstruing trans rights issues, and rarely actually interviewing trans people and leaders about their perspectives. Trans journalists Emily Van Der Werff and Katelyn Burns are holding on tight to sinking ships.
21. My transness will tend to overshadow my professional accomplishments. They already are; people don’t ask me to speak about my research as much any more. They want to hear my story, or my thoughts on diversity, not about my discoveries.
22. Anti-trans bigots will yell “kill transgenders” at political rallies, reminding me that people aren’t just disgusted by me, they want me dead. I have too many nightmares these days about being murdered, disrupting my sleep, and creating a general sense of danger, even though I know I’m safe.
23. I’ve lost family. There are numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins that won’t talk to me anymore. I don’t know if that’s because I’m trans, or because of my politics, or both. My community of unconditional love and support is smaller than its ever been.
24. Politicians will endlessly debate whether I deserve equal rights. And to secure those rights, I’ll have to spend time, money, and emotional energy demanding them, because few others will on my behalf.
25. Colleagues in my academic community I thought were allies will aggressively defend the status quo at my expense. It’s hard to be part of an academic community when even a few people are fighting so hard to exclude me. In one case, it led me to not attend a conference that I’ve attended every year for 15 years.
26. Underwear doesn’t fit quite right. Let’s not elaborate on this one :)
27. My shoes won’t be as cute. I wear a women’s 12, and most shoes for women max out at 11. I went through several months of ordering them anyway, cramming my toes into them. I asked Birkenstock if they’d make a 43 in a cute sandal, and they said, “No, most women don’t have feet that big.” I’m a woman with feet that big!
28. I don’t feel safe outside at night. I used to feel pretty safe; now I’m quite sure I’m not, both because I’m finally seen as a woman, but also because if someone were to try to rape me, I have a much higher chance of being brutally beaten or murdered. And in many states, a trans panic defense works, even in cases of murder.
29. I’ll face hiring discrimination. I like my job, and don’t have plans to leave it, but if I ever have to, or I seek an administrative job, it’s hard to imagine that I’ll be invulnerable to anti-trans bias. There are almost certainly places I would no longer be hired.
30. As I age, I’ll struggle to find find trans-inclusive assisted living. It’s hard to imagine it ever existing, but even if it does exist, it’s hard to imagine it will be abundant. My range of living options will be small, and I’m afraid the burden will fall to my family.
31. If I ever rent or buy again, I’ll face housing discrimination. I can try to keep my transness a secret, but my wife and I would still face anti-gay bias. Our options for who to rent or buy from have shrank.
32. If I ever go to jail or prison, I would face dehumanizing horrors. Loss of hormones, poor health care, being placed in a men’s prison, being rapid and beaten. This might be the one case where prison is an actual deterrent to me committing crimes. Of course, I’m more likely to be arrested and experience police violence too, which makes it feel unsafe to protest.
33. I’ll have access to fewer mental health professionals. I hinted at gender dysphoria to one earlier in life and she called me an abomination. To avoid this, I’ll always have to filter my options down to therapists who explicitly mention being trans-inclusive.
34. If I ever want to foster a child, I probably won’t be allowed. I love children so much. I decided to stop at one, but if I’m ever in a position to care for a child, I’m pretty sure I’d be denied. And that’s so sad, because I’m a really good caregiver!
35. I’ll forever be dependent on a paper trail of name change documents. Even in the best case scenario, where I can change everything, there will likely be cases where I have to link my former and current legal name. Feeling so legally dependent on a piece of paper is bit terrifying.
36. When I walk into a store, I’ll always wonder if I’ll be refused service. It probably won’t ever happen, but it does happen to people, and it creates a pervasive sense of suspicion of bigotry. It’s hard to resist a sense of victimhood when the hate is real and pervasive.
37. I’ll stumble upon headlines about trans hate crimes every day. The vast majority of these are against trans women of color, and as someone who passes as white, my risks are low. But reading about them every day reminds me of the pervasive hate that I know lingers in the world, making me feel extra attune to passing.
38. I never know when a federal executive order or policy interpretation change will eliminate my rights. In this White House, it’s happened 32 times in the past three years. I can hope that the next president reinstates them, but I never know when they’ll disappear again.
39. People keep trying to take away my right to pee safely. I don’t know where they want me to pee. On the street? On their feet? I don’t think they want me to pee. I don’t think the want me to be.
40. There will always be a something separating me from cis people. There’s only so much I explain about what it feels like to be trans, and this will always other me to a degree. And even if people aren’t thinking that, I can easily get trapped in a cycle of thoughts that they are, which makes me feel awkward, gaslit, and uncertain about my standing in social settings.
41. I’ll never have a girlhood. This comes up more often than I expected. I always wonder about that childhood I never had, but people are always asking about gendered experiences in my childhood, and I have to choose whether to not speak up, or tell them about the joys and traumas of my boyhood.
42. I’ll never menstruate. I know, all the menstruators out that are wondering, “Why the hell would you want that?” I don’t think I actually want it, but I do feel like I’m missing a big part of being a woman. (Also, if I did menstruate, I’d probably have a tampon when women as me for one in the restroom.)
43. I’ll never be pregnant. I first started grieving this when I started puberty. I’d always imagined as a child that there would be a way. I’m 40, and there won’t, and so there’s a part of life that I’ve always longed to experience that I never will. Not all women desire pregnancy and biological motherhood, but I’ve never been one of those women.
44. I’m insecure about my voice. I’m reasonably happy with my voice, but as a voice I’ve constructed, it takes maintenance. That means caring for my voice, warming it up, and not overusing it. I find myself in meetings sometimes thinking, “I have something to share, but my voice isn’t great right now, so maybe I won’t.”
45. There are so many trans people I’ll never get to know are trans because they’re hiding. There’s so much community to build, but it’s hard when it’s still so unsafe to be out. When I pass, people don’t even know I’m trans! We’re ships passing in the night and we don’t even know it.
46. I’ll probably never be able to sing. I never really liked singing anyway, but in social settings where I’m expected to sing, it’s really hard to sing in my chosen voice without thickening my vocal folds and feeling really dysphoric. So I don’t and people wonder why I’m not singing. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the confidence of MJ Rodriguez!
47. I’ll likely never pass with short hair. Short hair is so convenient and cute! I don’t think I have the face for it and really don’t want the pain of misgendering that would come with it. I do like my shoulder-length waves, as annoying as they are sometimes!
48. Sex will always be…unique. Let’s just leave it at that.
49. Depression is always at my door. With all the things on this list, how could it not be? Hurdles takes a toll.
50. I’ll spend a lot of my time talking about being trans. Not because I want to, but because I have to, to preserve my rights, ensure my community is educated, and defend myself. There are other things I’d like to do, like my research, read books, take vacation, play games, be a parent. But sometimes, instead of those things, I spent an hour writing self-advocacy things like this.

Phew. I hope that wasn’t too dire to read. It wasn’t dire to write; it was actually cathartic. It shows me that most of these things are not devastating inequalities. Rather, they’re a hundred paper cuts a day, and while I’ll always be in a bit of pain, I’ll always be healing, and I’ll always be defending against more, they probably won’t kill me.

But there are so many things to be grateful for too. Most of the fifty privileges on my list from five years ago still apply, aside from the few that concerned gender. And that means that I’m safe, healthy, and secure in ways not only most trans people are not, but most people are not. And most importantly, I get to be me and learn to love myself. Unlike the things on the list above, my lifetime of self-loathing was an existential threat that came close to killing me.

And beyond those really basic human needs, there are so many other joys that few others ever experience. I know what it’s like to be treated as a man, as non-binary, and now as woman. I have the sense of empowerment that comes from refusing to accept the body I was born with, and changing it. I get participate in a community of trans people who have little choice but to commit to love and justice, which is the warmest and fuzziest hug one can have. And the love that I have for myself isn’t one I was given by others, but one I gave to myself. The courage that’s taken is something that gives me courage in every part of my life.

Of course, if you asked a different trans person for their list of hurdles, you’d get a different list. As I’ve said in past posts, I’m about as privileged as a trans woman can be. I don’t face homeless, I don’t have to sell my body for food, I don’t face HIV risks, I don’t live in an anti-trans home, I have secure job, and I experience hardly any racism as a white-passing person of color. There are so many things that keep me safe, healthy, and happy, that most trans youth and trans people of color simply don’t have. While a lot of my energy needs to go to caring for myself, most of what I have left needs to go to fighting for trans justice for the most oppressed and marginalized in my community. After all, if we can create a world in which they can be safe, healthy, and happy, anyone can be safe, healthy, and happy. I hope you’ll help!

#BlackTransLivesMatter