I watched a video yesterday that I found on Feministing. In the video, a woman named Kelly Corrigan read a tribute to her mother's special group of female friends and to the community of women in general. As one commenter correctly noted, this was a particularly white, suburban view of female solidarity, but it was no less true for being only one aspect of what exists.
I cried as I watched it, not only because it was a moving tribute but also because I am still outside such a beautiful circle. I have been welcomed by cis women of all kinds, gay, straight, and who-knows. I have been included, and I have been treated like any other woman. I will never stop being grateful for that. At the same time, I came late to this party. I don't have a circle of female friends with whom I grew up or that I developed in my youth and young adulthood. I don't have that connection to women's community yet.
Part of that is because, 15 years ago this summer, I moved across the continent and across an international boundary. I have tried to keep up with friends back east, and succeeded in some cases, but it's not the same as being able to meet up for coffee or a meal or to go to a movie or a club together. I'm renewing some of those ties through Facebook, but some of the wall-to-wall comments remind me that I did not grow up as "one of the girls."
I've made friends here, but I don't have any really tight bonds yet. And I certainly don't have a group to meet up with. I've thought about groups like book clubs. That might help. Now that I'm a woman, I find it less difficult to meet people and get to know them, but it's still not easy. It takes time. People are busy. People have had friends for a long time and aren't lacking friends as I am. I'm not giving up.
I can't really make up for lost time. What's lost is lost. I'm just hoping to make the best use of the time I have going forward, to learn whatever I should learn, to be the best woman possible. And I want to be a woman, not a trans woman, and certainly not someone who "used to be a man," even though technically that's true.
"Used to be a man" is an interesting and sometimes disquieting idea. I used to think hard-core feminists like those who run the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival were full of shit with this idea that trans women bring "male energy" into women's space. I think I now have a better understanding of what they're talking about. It's not about how feminine we look. It's not about how we dress. It's not even about how we speak. It's about attitudes and behaviour. Any two women might differ widely from each other in their attitudes and behaviour, depending on their particular life experiences, but they are likely to share some as well. And there's one thing that's generally true about their attitude and behaviour—they are not masculine.
Among trans women, even those of us who sucked at being men still have attitudes and behaviour derived from the fact that we were brought up as males. That's probably less true among those fortunate enough to realize their gender issues early in life, especially if they have had the freedom to express themselves as they wish from early on. But it's true of any trans woman who transitions as an adult. Even the most femme among us has male baggage.
However much we say we have always been women, however female our brains are in our mismatched bodies, we don't just drop that baggage when we start transition. Even if we have feminizing genitoplasty, the baggage doesn't just go away. It takes time to unlearn or to learn differently whatever we have already learned, and it's impossible to unlearn or to learn differently if we're not aware of what we need to change. It takes self awareness, and not only a lot of keen observation but also the ability to internalize what we observe. It's like how most everyone can hear someone's accent, but only some can reproduce what they hear. And some aren't even conscious of what their particular accent is like.
Even in the Before Time, my goal in life was to live a good life. Buddhism has an equivalent for good: skilful. I want to live my life skilfully, to execute it well. My desire for that goal has only become stronger with my transition. And part of that skill set is to live skilfully not just as a person but specifically as a woman.
So am I a woman? Yes. Do I have much more to learn? Definitely. Do I still have baggage to let go of? I'm sure I do, including what I am not yet aware of. I don't want to bring "male energy" into a room. I think I don't really bring very much. But it seems to me that all trans women have some, and some have rather a lot. I want to be myself, but I want that self to be welcome in women's spaces. Therefore, I will work on becoming the most skilful person and the most skilful woman I can.
(As you might know, I have ripped off a title yet again, but at least it's not from advertising this time. It refers to a speech that former slave Sojourner Truth gave before a women's rights convention in New York in 1851. If you've never read it, you might want to click on the link. It's very short, and it's powerful.)
More Beautiful You
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Great post Véronique. It's funny you should write this, it's part of the disconnect I have with the greater "Trans" community in many ways. It's also oddly enough, part of the disconnect I have with some of my natal friends.
Through whatever constellation of events, not the least of which is having had very supportive women in my life when I was younger, including my Mom, I never really developed the male baggage to have to fight to overcome. Added to my ten year marriage to a guy that shall we say could have stood to be much nicer to me, I have if anything too much female baggage. So it's a strange place for me.
Especially in oddness like MWMF. I can see both sides of the coin perhaps too clearly. And while I loath some of the modern hysteria over terms like "herstory" or "Womyn" and like other such nonsense, I really feel connected to the desire to keep more masculine energy out. Likewise, I simply don't understand embracing TransMEN and serious leather biker types who might as well be men for all the difference it makes for many of them at MWMF. It's such a terribly slippery slope, I often think it better for me to remain silent and be thought a fool.
Far as I'm concerned, you are way more female than two of my close female relatives who came from the factory with OEM indoor plumbing. What you'd no doubt find amusing is they'd agree.
Spock of Vulcan once said "A difference my dear doctor that makes no difference, IS NO difference." And he had a good point. We all, each of us, has our own unique and complex history (or herstory) as any other. Quite often it's missing the trappings of the generally understood set of parameters. The aforementioned two natal relatives both grew up either intentionally, or accidentally lacking in female relationships, interactions or history. Their lives were very male focused. They had plenty of friends who were boys, but very few boyfriends. They are excepted in men's circles as one of the boys, but are outsiders in women's space. It's odd, but they don't ever really give it much (or any) thought.
I grew up outside men's (boy's) space, always outside looking in. I had many friends who were girls, but no girlfriends. I was, I can see now in retrospect, for all intents and purposes included all those years ago, but my own profound sense of wrongness got in the way. I couldn't accept myself, so I couldn't realize the acceptance I had.
Now, I accept myself, and the people in my life do as well. In the end it had so much less to do with gender than it did freedom, and my own ability to accept who I am.
The past is just that my dear, the past. The future has yet to be written. Give yourself permission to be who you are and let go of the rest. You're doing great, and you'd be amazed how little a difference those differences in your past make.
An old Zen Koan says "Put no distance between you and where you are."
In some ways, you and I are both exceptions to a lot of things that are typical about trans women. In this case, however, I'm more typical than you are. You're the exception when it comes to "male energy," when I know I have even though I wasn't much of a male. The exception does not prove the rule. The rule must be proved on its own. But I do think the rule stands, with some exceptions. I should never write the word "all." :)
I think I'm fairly female, but I do think that I, like most trans women, have some of that "male energy" to let go of. It takes time to dissipate, and it doesn't just go away on its own. You have to know it's there, and you have to get away from it. Some have it easier than others. I feel pretty fortunate in that department.
You are a woman don't let yourself tell you different. We all are women we come in different colors and sizes but all in all we are all the same whether we are born natural or with science. I love you sis.
Hi sis. I am a woman, and I'm still becoming a woman. Since I didn't have the benefit of growing up female but instead grew up more-or-less male, I still have plenty to unlearn, learn, and relearn. It's all well and good for any of us to say we "feel" like women, whatever exactly that means, but what really counts is when we live like women, fully and completely. Bisoux à toi, ma frangine!
I found this an interesting post, and I hope you don't mind me adding something? As a transman, who once was treated as a woman, I do know that I still bring some "female energy" to situations. Actually I hate it, but I know I do, even though I feel totally male. It comes from being treated as a woman in the past, and now I fight everything that's potentially female about me.
Saying all that I know many, many bio men that give out a damn sight more "female energy" than I do.
Great blog.
It makes sense that the energy thing would work both ways. One question, though -- do you get called out for bringing "female energy" into a male space? I bet that happens less often than the reverse.
LOL about cisgender men and female energy. :)
No, I don't. In fact I have more issues with men feeling uncomfortable with my masculinity. It makes them feel insecure. Teenage boys tend to hate me.
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