Transitional fossils 01
Or getting over internalized transphobia, part 1
Transition is a weird and massively misunderstood rollercoaster.
Not everyone’s transition looks the same as mine, so it goes without saying this is my story.
Not so long ago a transphobe made a few comments on some comments I made and some stories I wrote. I can’t be bothered to actually answer the bigot because they aren’t worth my time or attention. I can’t be bothered to hide their identity either so I won’t cover over their names or sensor anything.
This was in response to me saying Posie Parker is a “Karen”, which in my view is not a sex based insult.
Kitty Finesse is a transphobe and I don’t really care actually. They are a stranger on the internet that thinks I am a dude or is trying to insult me by implying I am a dude. I don’t know this person and I can’t think of a single reason their opinion is of interest or value to me. Looking at her comment the only thing I can come up with is “whatever”
In fact the only reason I even bothered getting a screenshot of this is because of the photo below.
Someone wanted a pic of my newest tattoo, this tattoo. It’s based on a painting called “The Birth of Hermaphrodite”.
As in big H, The Goddess Hermaphrodite, not an outdated term for intersex people.
Obviously I just covered my boobs a bit, took a pic of the ink and sent it off. Looking at the pic, I liked the way my boobs were shown and I took a few more to see how I felt about what I consider lewd pics.
My own feelings about all three of these images highlighted the intersection of several issues related to transness.
On one hand we have a cis transphobe policing the words of a trans person to enforce the idea that trans people are not the gender they say they are. Which is bullshit because I can find as many women posting “look at this Karen” as I can find men posting “look at this Karen”. I can find posts of men calling the manager and women saying “look at this Karen”. So it’s clearly not a “male habit”.
We also have a person who on some level thinks she is a feminist enforcing gender stereotypes on women. Whether you think trans women are men or women, the idea that there is behavior or speech that is unacceptable for women is the opposite of feminism in all respects. To me the idea that a woman’s gender and understanding of herself can be questioned due to her usage of terms or insults that someone doesn’t think are feminine enough or are masculine is sickeningly misogynistic. Before we get to the trans part of the comment, the idea that a woman is less woman because she said Posie Parker is a “Karen” is just misogyny. Posie Parker has made her entire existence complaining to the manager because trans people exist.
She has monetized her brand of transphobia with merch for fuck sakes.
Sorry Kitty, I really am struggling to take you seriously after that. Not because you are a woman, but because you’re a misogynist.
The other thing these images touch off is the internalized transphobia and self questioning trans people live with in a cis heteronormative society.
Let me explain.
The two pictures of me show a lot of skin, specifically they show a lot of my breasts. I think that I have nice breasts. In fact for a 44 year old, slightly overweight trans woman, I think I have killer boobs. They are a good size and they are nicely shaped and I was lucky enough I didn’t need implants to get here either. Anyone who likes boobs would probably like to look at my boobs.
More importantly though, I like my boobs and they, along with the body shape HRT gave me, feel sexy to me. I can feel sexy as myself, I can feel like my body is beautiful and desirable. Transition has allowed my sexuality to connect myself and my body. This is irrelevant to who is or isn’t looking. I don’t need external validation or appreciation of me. It’s certainly nice to hear people find you attractive, but that’s not what I am talking about. It’s the understanding of yourself as a single entity via which you can express many facets, one of which is your sexuality. In most cases that expression is for yourself and third party observers are incidental and not required.
I am not born in the wrong body, I am this body and I love myself.
Before transition I felt gross and ugly from head to toe. I felt men dress the way they do to hide themselves. I felt I had the wrong body. I was piloting someone else’s meat-suit and it wasn’t the model I was supposed to get. Several years of HRT and I have boobs. When I see them in a mirror or on a photo, I don’t see someone else’s meat-suit, I see myself and the beautiful, physical parts of myself.
So when I looked at the lewd topless pics I took of myself, the idea of posting them on Instagram flashed into my mind. You see, Instagram is a place I selfishly and self indulgently celebrate myself. I post an endless stream of selfies and it’s not for my followers, it’s for me. For so long I lived in someone else’s meat-suit and I hated it. So I am making up for lost time by taking as many pictures of myself as I can in as many flattering ways I can imagine because I love myself, finally.
So when the idea of posting those to insta came to mind, the second thought was autogynephilia. If we refer back to Kitty Finesse’s comment, you note the line trans women have to tread. Any action we perform, any words we speak, anything we do is evaluated for its femininity and if it can be labelled “masculine” or “manly” or “something a man would do” it is and our identity is cast into question.
If I view myself as “sexy” and I express it, then there is a transphobe waiting in the wings to say something shitty about me. Either I am an autogynephile or I am a groomer posting lewd content openly or I am a sex obsessed pervert acting like a woman.
You just can’t win with transphobes.
And we, us trans people, internalize this. We allow these creeps to ruin the celebration of ourselves with their bigotry and dishonesty. It’s dishonest because I can list hundreds of instagram accounts where cis women post naked pics. I can show you an endless stream of posts by cis women showing their naked bodies off and not one comment questioning their gender. It’s bigotry because it prescribes one set of standards for cis women and a different set for trans women.
And as trans people we internalise this insidious idea that we are different and must play by the rules the transphobes have prescribed. We allow ourselves to think that if we express even a dash of sensuality in public we are the depraved perverts Kitty and Posie think we are. We grant transphobes power over ourselves and our transitions. We become our own sensors and their law enforcement agency.
But I can win, because I don’t have to play the game with transphobes. I can win by just not playing. I can win by quoting the Dude himself: That's like, just your opinion man. I can take ownership of my own beautiful body and I can assert my femininity and post my boobs on my Instagram account.
So I am going to let the asteroid of self acceptance slam into my world and consign the dinosaurs of internalized transphobia to the fossil record.
Screw it, I am posting those pics to Instagram and Kitty Whatsherface can get bent, because sometimes women are sexual beings and some trans women have killer tits.
