Not All Transitions Have the Same End Goal
By: Stella Luna, They She
Tags: Communication, Family, Relationships, LGBTQ, Transgender

Not All Transitions Have the Same End Goal

Cis people, please learn that not all transitions mean having “the surgery,” and stop calling it that!

Most of the time, for both of our faults, I and my father don’t really talk. Ever since I’ve come out as trans, we have periods of silence, superficial peace, and then the dreaded “trans talk” which starts the whole cycle over again. Unfortunately for me, we skipped from silence to the talk, and as I lied on my squishy comforter, I wasn’t feeling very… comforted. I’d been on HRT for about a month at that point, and since I’m lucky enough to be on his insurance, he saw it on the bill and asked me about it and my gender identity. Or, should I say, he tried to confirm his suspicions that I wanted to be a woman and was lying to him about being nonbinary so I wouldn’t confirm what I think is his worst fear.

Photo by Arteum.ro on Unsplash

“I call it like I see it,” says my dad, the phone tinnily spitting out the words I’m grateful I didn’t have to confront in person. “It just seems like, even though you say you’re not, that you want to become a woman. It appears that you’re doing everything in your power to not be masculine, and trying to be perceived as feminine.” I honestly was in shock. I know I sound like a dramatic, entitled trans person (which I suppose I am to a certain extent) that expects everyone to understand every nuance about the trans community and will shame them publicly if they don’t. However, let me just add that I’ve come out to him over 5 times and have explained the difference between gender and sex in relation to myself and other people 3 times. It’s this cis-conception (ba dum tss) of what transitioning is and what being trans means that makes me frustrated and honestly, pitying if anything.

Just because someone is presenting more femininely and doing feminine things, it has no bearing on their gender identity. I explained to him in the simplest and somewhat problematic terms a hypothetical about someone who is a woman, but dresses masculinely, looks masculine, and has all masculine hobbies. I asked him “if this person was a butch lesbian,” (I didn’t throw cis in because it may have made it more confusing) “wouldn’t you agree that they’re still a woman?” He did agree, but like a lot of cis people, he just couldn’t apply it to being nonbinary. He assumed that every transition is the same, with the person jumping from one binary letter to another: MtF or FtM.

Photo by Frederick Medina on Unsplash

A transition doesn’t necessarily have an “end goal” of looking cis, changing one’s genitals, or even taking any hormones. I went through this right after, trying not to lose my patience. Basically, I said, “Some people might just change pronouns. Other people might choose to undergo hormone therapy, and some might want surgeries. Transitions don’t necessarily involve all of the components that could go into a transition, since it’s about feeling comfortable. I’d feel comfortable on HRT.” Basically, after this, he just implied that because I wanted to go on feminizing hormones, I wanted to be a woman and that’s that, despite my protestation.

The thing that annoys me about conversations like this with some cis people, besides the standard questions like “well what surgeries do you want?” is the tone of the conversation. So many people say “I’m just trying to understand,” but don’t listen to any of my explanations. I can understand that my first explanations of my gender were vague and confusing, ranging from “I don’t know” to “I’m just somewhere in the middle, I don’t know” (which is honestly perfectly valid). What many people seem to do is just try to get you to admit that you conform to their own preconceived notions. Since my dad, for example, believes that transition and trans people are only binary, he doesn’t take into account my hour-long explanations about the differences between sex and gender and how nonbinary people… literally exist. Instead, it’s like he’s waiting to speak, ready to springboard off my last sentence and ask a thinly veiled question that implies that I’m lying to him about being NB and that I just want to be a woman. It’s this unwillingness to understand that I either don’t think he gets and don’t think he cares about.

Transitions are not linear, and even if I did “want to be a woman,” it’s none of your business unless I say it is. I do give him credit for doing some trans research, but it obviously seems like he hasn’t done enough if he would rather wait to prove me wrong about my own identity than listen to my authentic experiences. It’s an extremely vulnerable topic that I’m basically desensitized to at this point, but regardless that vulnerability should be respected. If you’re going to interrogate me about my transition, you need to actually listen to me and other trans people when we dispel your ill-informed and outdated misconceptions about my community.

I don’t have some nefarious “endgame” of being a woman, and even if I did, why is that an issue? Gender is not something that’s cut and dry or even needs to be understood by someone else. I already specified what pronouns I want to be referred to with, and that should be enough until the next time I change it again (if I decide to do so). It saddens me because I really do want to have a better relationship with him. I don’t think our relationship is unfixable like a lot of other people, but seeing his discomfort at not understanding me and how he tries to force his own misconceptions onto me instead of actually being open to communication is what hurts. I just wish that instead of focusing on what kind of “trans agenda” I have, he’d just focus on not needing to understand and instead put that energy into actually trying to have healthy communication with me.