My series “Conversation with a bigot” documents not-quite-imaginary conversations, each highlighting a disprovable assumption held by those who have come to the false conclusion that “queer = bad.” Queer people endure the effects of this conclusion in all areas of their lives. I want it to stop.
Published: Part I, Abnormal and Unnatural; Part II, Pedophile; Part III, Promiscuous; Part IV, Marriage: One man, one woman, Period.
Upcoming conversations: Part VI, There’s no need to think. I feel instinctively this is wrong.
Before I begin, please understand that in order to address issues as broad as those in this series, I find it necessary at times to commit the sin of gross generalization. Let this statement serve as a comprehensive caveat, so you don’t have to keep seeing warnings about it.
Also, let’s assume the bigot in question is male; statistically, more men than women are uncomfortable (or worse) with the concept of “queer.” If you’d like to dive into some of the reasons for that, there’s an interesting study in the National Library of Medicine.
The bigot’s statements are in italics.
Bigot: You can’t just decide to be a girl one day and a boy the next.
Me: You’re right.
Um… huh? Whaddya mean, I’m right? You’ve disagreed with me on everything up to now!
You’re correct that no one can decide to be a girl or a boy. There can be decisions that need to be made, but that’s not one of them.
Okay, wisenheimer, so what are they?
The first decision is more of a realization. An epiphany. It’s one that’s really obvious for some trans people, and a painful process for others. It’s not one I’ve had to make, and I suspect you haven’t made it, either.
You lost me.
I’m cisgender. That means the body I was born into matches the gender with which I identify—that is, with who I know I am. There was never a realization for me. Oh, sure, there were a few playful times during my formative and teen years when I speculated about different ways of being. But at no time was I very far away from feeling like the gender I appeared to be. And if you’re cisgender (not that I’m assuming), it’s highly unlikely that you had to go through any kind of process to understand who you are, gender-wise.
[Sputters] Let’s get something straight right off the bat. I am not trans.
Thanks for letting me know. And since that’s true, can I assume it wasn’t a decision you made? That it’s just something you know?
You got that right.
Some trans individuals would say the same thing, that it’s just something they’ve pretty much always known. Others have gone through a more arduous process just to come to the realization that they’re trans, never mind the challenges that came after that.
Arduous process, eh? Kind of speaks to it being a decision. A bad one at that.
Seems to me the only decision in a process like that is whether the process is over, if that’s even possible. That, and deciding on a new name.
Yeah, that’s another thing. What’s wrong with the name their folks gave them? Suddenly that’s not good enough?
[Pause] You make a good point, Dolly. After all—
What did you call me?
Oh. I think I said “Dolly.” Is that a problem?
You know damn well what my name is!
How do I know?
I told you!
Exactly.
[Crickets; then:] It’s the name my parents gave me.
And how lucky you are that it suits you. But suppose it didn’t, for whatever reason, and you hated it and decided to be called by another name. But everyone around you kept calling you by the name you hated. The name you had killed. Your dead name.
I—I don’t think I can imagine that.
No joke. And I’ll bet you also can’t imagine what it would be like to know that you were in the wrong body. A body that’s the wrong sex. I have a damn good imagination, and I can’t quite get there.
Okay, but how do they know?
The same way you know who you are. The difference is that you figured it out by around the age of two, and it didn’t conflict with how everyone around you saw you. It’s not that easy for everyone. Let’s take the case of a child, around five maybe, and she knows there’s something wrong. She doesn’t know what it is. She can’t talk to anyone about it, because what would she say? It might go like this:
“Mommy, I don’t feel right. Something’s wrong with me.”
[Mom, feeling the child’s forehead] “You don’t have a fever, Larry. Is your tummy upset?”
It will go on like that until the child despairs of expression herself, and/or Mom assumes the child is trying to get out of kindergarten.
So there’s no resolution. And by a couple of years later, the child feels more and more pushed into a life that feels wrong. She’s expected to like rough sports (and maybe she does, but more likely she doesn’t); she’s expected to like mechanical toys instead of dolls and tea sets (and maybe she does, but more likely she doesn’t); then she’s expected to like girls (and maybe she does, but maybe she likes boys instead). The more she likes the things boys are expected to like, the harder it probably is for her to come into her epiphany that she’s really a girl. And if she doesn’t like “boy” things, she’ll be subjected to criticism and correction and confusion—hers as well as everyone else’s—and the more isolated she’ll feel, the more convinced she might become that there’s something wrong with her.
Okay, stop. So just tell me. What the hell is wrong with “her?”
Nothing. However, there is a disconnect. There are so many studies being done to examine the differences in brain form and function between men and women, between heterosexuals and homosexuals, and between trans and cisgender people, that I despair of quoting any one source. The research is easy; do it for yourself. But I’ll tell you what they’re finding.
The brains of adult trans individuals, in form and function, more closely resemble the gender with which they identify than the one they were assigned at birth.
I’m going to ask you to use your imagination again. What if I kept calling you “Dolly?” It’s a nice name. Some wonderful women are named Dolly. But it’s not your name. Your name is a typical “boy” name, and you tell me you’re not trans. But if everyone called you Dolly and asked whether you were buying a new dress for a friend’s wedding, and they expected you to use makeup and nail polish, and they expected you to like pink ruffles, and they encouraged you to style your hair in a feminine way, and they kept inviting you to go for mani-peddies with them…. Your face is getting a little red. Are you all right?
[Sputters a moment] So if some guy walks into a women’s bathroom in a department store, we’re just supposed to let him?
Sure, we can change the subject.
If a trans woman is not out, she will appear to the world looking like the man everyone thinks she is. She’ll use the men’s room, as she has all her life. Ask yourself if you really want a woman in there with you, a woman who is essentially disguised as a man.
If a trans women is out, she will have done everything she can to appear feminine. It can be challenging for an adult male body to appear female, so the trans woman is likely to have long hair (or maybe a wig). She’s likely to wear makeup and nail polish. Unless she’s physically slight or has had corrective surgery, she’ll probably wear clothing that’s colorful and a little billowy. You do not want to see this person in the men’s room. She’ll use the women’s room.
So if someone goes into a women’s room looking masculine, that could be cause for suspicion. But the most likely thing is that it’s a masculine-looking woman.
But—but that masculine person might be a male rapist! Or a rapist might dress up like a woman!
Male rapists who target women at random (in fact, any male rapist, really, but we’re talking about a specific situation) hate women. So no male rapist is going to get dolled up, learn to walk like a woman, hold his arms like a woman, carry a purse—do I need to go? He won’t do it. And as for the masculine-looking rapist, well…. Let’s say he doesn’t get caught. He doesn’t have to tell anybody anything about himself. If he does get caught, he will not—never in a million years—claim to be a trans woman. Or trans anything. He’d get ripped to shreds wherever he’s incarcerated, even if he’s locked up for a short period of time. And he hates women so much that the physical pain would be nothing compared to his emotional distress. No; he will never say he’s female.
So it isn’t trans people you need to be afraid of. A trans woman in a women’s room will have made herself appear as feminine as possible. A male rapist won’t do that.
Bottom line: Trans women who aren’t out have been using men’s rooms forever. Trans women who are out have been using women’s rooms forever. If all of a sudden male rapists think they can go into women’s rooms, it’s only because someone, for political reasons, or misplaced religious reasons, or gut-level, non-thinking, knee-jerk-reaction reasons, stirred things up and drew public attention to this fabricated danger.
I don’t think…. I don’t know what to think.
I’m glad you said that. Because thinking is what we’ll talk about next. So do your best to calm your lizard brain and engage your human brain before we talk again.
What’s a lizard brain?
You’ll see.
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I’m an inveterate observer of human nature, writing novels about all kinds of people, some of whom happen to be gay or transgender or bisexual or intersex—people whose destinies are not determined solely by their sexual orientation or gender identity. Check out my work on my website.