December 19, 2019
What did you do?
I think the correct question is “What didn’t I do?”
I’ll bite. What didn’t you do?
I didn’t practice my voice. I didn’t give up dyeing my hair. I didn’t stop dressing like a mess. I didn’t do all of those things that are supposed to help you get by in the world without all that added baggage of being trans.
I didn’t try to pass.
I didn’t try to be a woman.
I didn’t want to. I want to be a trans woman. It’s not masochism. It’s not appropriation. I don’t think so. I think it’s living true to myself. I think it’s being honest and saying that who I am involves being trans, and that ignoring that would be doing myself a disservice.
“I was not Madison,” you said. “I am not Matthew. I can’t deny his existence, though. He was him, and to erase that, to toe the party line and say I’ve always known that I was Madison, would do a disservice to him.”
Yes, but it goes beyond that. I’m not saying simply that I was not a woman and then either at some point did become one or that, at some point, will become one. I’m saying that I live in that liminal space between. I can’t be anything other than what I am. I can’t live anywhere else.
There’s a lot of talk in your circles about internalized transphobia. That sense that one should hate this aspect about oneself and try to get away from it. Have you not just internalized some sort of trans euphoria? Have you not simply bought into the sense of being different for being different’s sake?
Are you playing at being devil’s advocate?
Yes.
Why?
I want you to justify yourself.
Why?
Because it’s important that you be able to explain yourself.
Why?
Because if you can’t, how can you say you understand yourself?