I have almost finished She's Not the Man I Married, Helen Boyd's second book about her life with her transgender husband, Betty. It's a very interesting, informative, and sometimes amusing book. Once upon a time, I would have been completely taken in by it, got totally enthusiastic for a while, and gone off in a new direction. These days, I know so much more about how I feel and what I want. So the book doesn't throw me off course. It does, however, give me food for thought.
Boyd deals with something toward the end of the book that I don't think comes up often enough for trans people, especially trans women: socialization. It takes effort and skill for a trans woman to find a suitable style of dress and presentation, but in the end it's not that hard. It's mainly about careful observation, of others and of ourselves. The kind of female socialization that genetic women grew up with, however, is a lot more difficult to come by.
We can't go back and grow up as girls. We've spent our lives being treated as males in a society in which treatment of males and treatment of females is still very different. I imagine that some trans women rejected being gendered early on, but that still probably didn't change the way that others treated them, even if they got the added "benefits" of being shunned or teased or beat up. We know nothing of the survival mechanisms that women come up with over the course of their lives.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel pretty clueless on this front. I lack a lot of typically masculine traits and behaviours, but having been reared male, I'm sure I make certain assumptions, have certain sensibilities, and look at the world as someone brought up male, however sensitive a male I might be. I've learned a lot about the externals of female behaviour from observation, but how am I going to look inside to know what women have actually been through? Can't be done. It's no wonder some "womyn-born-womyn" types get resentful of MtFs and accuse us of play-acting.
As well, those of us who aren't genderqueers or purposely pushing the envelope have fewer options. We need to be within a smaller range. If a women acts "like a man," she'll be characterized as such. She'll still be thought of as a woman. But if a trans woman acts "like a man," that's a dead giveaway of her genetic (and social) origin. We want to be our "real selves," but our real selves lack the necessary information to be our real female selves. At least some of our innate behaviour will betray us.
The only way to learn what being a woman in this world is like is through experience. I have to hope that going full time, or even part time, will provide a crash course in womanhood, and that I can get reasonably up to speed before too long. I imagine, however, that the learning process will go on for as long as I live.
More Beautiful You
58 minutes ago
Posts
7 comments:
All learning processes go on as long as you live ... if you do them properly.
I've thought about the same issue... it's true, we didn't get that socialization, but there are genetic women who never had much female socialization outside the home, either. Some don't learn much more than you or I did. In a lot of ways, we fall within range of female more than we realize.
Chrissie -- Yes, but I hope I can get reasonably up to speed before too long. :)
GirlInside -- In some ways, I think you're right about female socialization. Some women, especially if they are not gender-normative, aren't much better off than MtFs when it comes to knowing how females are expected to behave. But they were still brought up as girls, in a society that doesn't usually let you forget that boys and girls are different. I can't pretend to have had that experience. I can only start learning from now on.
I think it's important not to try to pretend you're something you're not (not that I'm suggesting you are).
It's vital to try and still be 'yourself' regardless of how you were brought up. I find that a lot of learned behaviour can be unlearned simply by just relaxing and being more myself than I've previously allowed to be (that's allowed by myself I mean!). Just apeing female behaviour for the sake of it could easily produce a parody. (I could quote examples but I won't)
Just being around women and reacting to them in a natural and empathetic way is probably the most important thing ... after all, that's how they did it! OK so we have had less time to get into it than they did, but that doesn't mean it can't settle in fairly quickly if your observant and relaxed - though both together can sometimes be a challenge :-)
The thing is, anything seen as unfeminine, even if a lot of genetic women do it, is seen as proof that you aren't trying hard enough, and anything feminine that's different from before is seen as trying too hard.
I think Chrissie is right in that you should spend as much time around women as possible. I do that anyway and always have, even when I was little--that's probably where I learned my feminine cultural traits.
Chrissie -- it's not so much about behaviour. It's more that, at this point, I can't see the world through the eyes of someone who grew up a girl and went through everything women go through. There are subtle but real differences in how we see the world that stem from that. Trans women might not even know they have these differences until they're either pointed out or become apparent in some way.
You're right that we have to be ourselves. We just have to be open to whatever lessons the crash course will teach us.
GirlInside -- I already spend a lot of time around women, and I'm very observant. :) But as I said to Chrissie, it's less about behaviour and more about the way GGs see themselves, perceive how society views them, and how those factors shape who they are. TGs don't automatically have that, no matter how many girls we hung around with.
Justine - you say you (we) can never see the world the same as someone who was brought up a girl. And that's right. Nor should we even try I think, that is outright fakery and bound to be spotted, even if it's not you're not being tru to yourself or anyone else by doing it. However much we would like too, we can't say "when I was a girl..." in casual conversation.
I noticed this particularly acutely a few months ago when (as usual) I was excluded from the feminine chat going on and (as usual) got a bit down about it. Then I realised they were all talking about babies and pregnancy.
There are just some things we can never have in common with someone born female. It's sad, it's annoying, it's slightly depressing. But it's also unavoidable. Pretending you had a crush on that cute guy in the year above you at school just as you were starting your periods fools no-one.
Post a Comment