I have many MTF (male-to-female
transitioning or transitioned) friends, and
we've often joked about how we feel like ships
passing in the night on our journeys to the
opposite ends of the gender spectrum. And
wouldn't it be great if we could just pair up
for our surgeries and exchange body parts, ho ho
ho. And I've heard nontrans people talk about us
as if that is exactly how it's done! But the
fact is that although we share a similar
journey, many of the assumptions MTFs and FTMs
can make about each other are way off base, not
to mention how far afield the assumptions of
nontrans people can be!
I'm going to repeat four generalizations that
I've heard MTFs make about FTMs. Please
remember, I'm talking about MTFs and FTMs as
classes, not referring to specific individuals,
to whom generalizations may not apply. My goal
is to broaden our collective thinking, not to
divide us.
1. FTMs have it easier because it's
socially acceptable for them to wear men's
clothes before and during transition.
On the surface this is true. However, what
looks like women's privilege has its drawbacks
for FTMs. As nontranssexual women can attest,
there is as much social pressure to maintain
femininity as there is for anatomic males to
maintain the masculine pride of the men around
them. And any woman who expressed her masculine
side as a girl will confirm that there is always
a point at which "tomboy" behavior is also
ridiculed and forbidden. The fact that women are
socially permitted to wear men's clothes (to
varying degrees) serves to render female-to-male
transsexuals (and some cross-dressers)
invisible.
Ultimately this invisibility makes
understanding and self-acceptance more difficult
for the transman, because his desire to express
himself as a man is confused with
lesbian-feminist and/or androgynist politics.
And in a milieu where masculine appearance is
praised while masculine behavior and feelings
are ridiculed, the mixed message works to drive
FTM feelings underground, which does not make
things easier at all.
2. MTFs have to adjust to taking
lower-paying jobs, while FTMs can look forward
to better employment opportunities.
I was stunned when I heard this one. Most
FTMs are just not prepared to become captains of
industry. Also, many FTMs go through periods of
unemployment and career redirection during and
after transition. If their transsexualism is
known, FTMs are subject to the same prejudicial
treatment as MTFs. Jobs are gender-typed; this
applies no less to pink-collar and white-collar
jobs than to blue-collar jobs. There are
masculine and feminine management and
communication styles. Taking hormones doesn't
immediately change your socialization. Classical
male socialization is often more successful in
corporations where people are expected to be
aggressive and competitive. People who are not
raised to play male hierarchy games often
unconsciously put out the signal that "I'm #2."
The very skills which made a pretransition FTM
successful in business -- qualities like
cooperativeness, enthusiasm, a "can-do" attitude
-- may work against him as others begin to
relate to him as a man, interpreting him as weak
or lacking leadership qualities.
There is also the education factor: Men who
grew up as women in the '60s, '70s, and even
'80s were not uniformly steered toward
occupations in which they could find later
success as men.
3. All FTMs want is a big dick.
Most men, whether they become soldiers,
psychologists, or accountants, have learned that
some of the worst insults are to be called a
woman or a girl, to have it said that you have
no balls. Genitals are certifiers of gender, but
they are not the center of it. Sure, most FTMs
have accepted the sexual symbology of the penis
and would love to have a good-sized one that
worked perfectly, but we are aware of the
limitations of surgery, and most of us come to
be aware of our masculinity in a deeper, more
spiritual way.
I am dismayed that whenever I read about
transpeople in mainstream publications there
seems to be a fascination with genitalia and a
lack of interest in the social construction of
gender that we all experience, trans or
nontrans. This is not to say that I don't think
there is something biologically based about
transness, but the fact is that regardless of
its roots, our transsexual process is largely
concerned with the social ramifications of our
actions. Relationships to family, lovers,
friends, employers, the mechanics of changing
identification papers, medical records,
employment history, dealing with how
out-of-the-closet to be at any given time,
dealing with being "read" or "clocked" -- these
are the ongoing issues of our lives. Surgery is
only a step along the way. Yes, a giant step,
but once that step is behind us we still have to
live in the world.
What's in my pants is on my mind only a small
percentage of the time. OK, sure, when it's time
for sex my cock can be the center of the
universe for a little while. But it doesn't
govern my life, nor has any transman I know
given his penis (or his desire for one) that
much credit for making him a man. Many FTMs, in
fact, lead very happy lives without having any
genital surgery. Having a small penis, or even
having no penis, does not prohibit us from
having relationships and pleasuring our
partners, nor does it keep us from being a
man.
4. Testosterone is evil.
Anti-male sentiment among MTF people, whether
cross-dressers or transsexuals, is not
surprising, but it still makes me sad. If it's
expressed with enough vitriol, it can also make
me downright angry. Testosterone isn't what
makes a man a jerk, any more than estrogen makes
all women sensitive, politically-correct saints.
This kind of absurdity doesn't serve anyone.
I've had too many conversations with MTFs who
presume that FTMs want to be the kind of man
they either couldn't be or were afraid of being.
What makes anyone think all FTMs want to be (or
would be) that kind of man, anyway? FTMs have a
different experience of masculinity,
particularly since we usually don't go through
the macho one-upmanship training that
characterizes the experience of boys in our
culture. Because we come to our consciousness of
our masculinity from within a female body, our
sense of maleness is not so fragile as that
which might be experienced by a boy with a
feminine gender identity. So please don't
project your concepts of masculinity or
femininity onto us. We very likely didn't
experience the kind of femininity that MTFs are
seeking or feeling, either.
And by the way, an excess of testosterone in
anyone's system seroconverts to estrogen, so it
may just be estrogen that causes all that anger
and mood swinging that people want to blame on
testosterone anyway!
We are all individuals on a similar journey
of self-discovery and creation. We are not
mirror images of each other, and we do not
simply covet each other's sloughed-off organs
and rejected hairstyles. MTFs and FTMs have much
to offer each other, and we need to learn more
about each other. We need to be able to stand
together when the nontranssexual world oppresses
us. And we need to be able to recognize and
respect each other's genuine differences.
