Labels. They can either bring you down or make you powerful.
The third option would be that they fall out of use, and become boring and forgotten.
The fourth would be they are used too often. And when everyone shares the same label, what's the point?
The word "transgender" won't be gone anytime soon, and when it is it won't sink into any boring or quiet oblivion. I think that's plain to see for most people. But considering visibility--since this, the thirty-first of March, is the official day of visibility for transgender folk--most of us, our goal is to stand out, not as spectacles, but as examples of humanity. We take what we are, wear our label proudly--with either quiet warmth or lots of sass--and show everyone, not that we are the same as everyone else, but that everyone else is the same as us.
Because we are the personifications of the really tough questions nobody wants to face.
Face them. Face us.
As for us trans hers and shes, and zes and zirs and thems. Whether or not you pass--I'd rather say "blend in" because I just hate that word "pass"--in the cisgender culture is not what this is about. The very fact that you exist as someone who stood up and challenged the status quo means that you represent a truth some-too-many people don't want to be true--and that's why they kill and abuse and legislate and try to stamp us out and undermine our will and our presence.
Tell me why so many gay people do drag.
Tell me why I meet straight guy after lesbian girl who tell me--and countless other trans women I know--I am so fine, and so gorgeous, and so beautiful, and ask me out; and then have to come to grips with something inside when I tell them I am transgender. Tell me why this happens. Tell me why I have to protect myself from their insecurities and their failure to acknowledge a simple truth.
Show me a single real person who has never once thought about what life might be like if they had been born a member of the other sex.
To want to understand is human.
To be transgender is human.
Spitting out more labels...
In the gay community: The "twinks" and the "bears"--feminine and masculine males--are two opposite sides of the gender spectrum, but the same sex.
They are transgender.
In the lesbian community: The "bull dykes" and the "lipstick lesbians" are, respectively, masculine and feminine females.
They are transgender.
In the vast straight community there are "pretty boys" and "metrosexuals". There are straight "crossdressers". There are the "rugged", "macho" males. And straight females can be "glam" or "high maintenance" or so many other shitty labels. And lets face it straight women have been clearly challenging the status quo for their gender since the 60s--I can't even think of any masculine labels for them except maybe people assuming, mistakenly, that a woman who doesn't dress feminine is automatically a lesbian.
Either way, there are masculine and feminine straight people too, and not all of them are masculine males and feminine females.
They are all transgender.
Straight men can think a "twink" in drag looks cute because he's feminine. Why not? Does it make him gay curious? The real question is this: Why is that even a question, when you really think about it? Why can't a female decide she is a man, and live his life accordingly without other people's judgement? And why can't that straight man decide who is woman enough for him without soul searching and the baggage of another label?
In fact why can't we all just realize we are all humans? And we all love who we love? And the labels are confining and don't really matter?
So in the end we're all transgender. Get over it. But if some of us have to stand out and take on that label for those of you in doubt to realize we're all human, then Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility, I suppose.
No really. Happy Trans* Day. :)
