Keep your labels to yourself please.
Trans folks are everywhere. You just don’t know it.
I mean, it’s true.
Storytime
My ex-spouse, who is a queer, brown, gender non-conforming person, worked with a straight white male who was a complete pain in their ass. They felt he was potentially racist, seemed to pick on them, and he was generally way more of an asshole than he needed to be.
They worked together for years. We always wondered why this straight white male worked for this super queer and QPOC organization. Like, WHY?
Did he just need a job?
Was he gay? Gay white male? Eh — maybe???
We grew comfortable not knowing why he worked there. Also we never asked him. So. Poo on us.
He was later in an accident and passed away. His death was out of the blue and caught everyone by surprise.
Only after his death, did it become clear to us that he was a transperson. He had transitioned long ago in the dark ages (like before cell phones, ok?)
We had no fucking idea. In a building filled with queer and trans folks, we had no idea. Like it never even occurred to either of us.
So yeah, he was a straight white male, but not in the ways that we had presumed.
Assuming makes an ass out of me, uhm, a lot.
It’s not a binary
You cannot look at someone and label them as simply trans or not trans. That’s the whole point. It’s not a binary, goddamnit.
Louder for the folks in the back? IT IS NOT A BINARY. IT IS NOT ONE OR THE OTHER. I’m screaming that into a void. It feels good.
You think you can tell.
I think I can tell.
But we can’t. And we shouldn’t.
And to those of you for whom it matters so much one way or the other — that’s not curiosity — that’s a fucking problem right there. Take your transphobic ass to your therapist and unpack that, please.
Tween boy or lesbian?
I spent a lot of time earlier in my life playing a game in my head categorizing folks into a) boy or b) girl.
It was one or the other, there was not a third group, or an ‘other’.
No c) All of the above or d) None of the above e) I can’t tell selections.
Looking back on the fact , I feel like a real asshole.
I suppose was trying to find people “like me.” And I could. I did. But they didn’t all fit in the same b) category as I did. How confusing for a young kid.
Who in the actual fuck made this crazy world?
A passtime while people watching— I spy a person who could be either a 12 year old boy, or a lesbian of any age with a cute haircut and no boobs. which is it. ( Yes those are the only two options that exist in my mind.)
Then, from afar away I’d place my mental bet. I think that’s a kid.
And then be blown away when in actual visual inspection range, I can see that this is actually a foxy older queer. Lesbian? Who the fuck knows.Queer. Most def. But how can I tell?
How can YOU NOT TELL?
Look. LOOK.
It’s 2022 and transfolks appear to be coming out of the woodwork like some new fangled genderbreed.
It’s all the rage.
It’s an outrage. Depends on what beliefs you do or do not hold dear — trans folks are here.
Here’s the kicker — they always have been. You just didn’t know.
You didn’t have trans tiktok or mainstream TV and movie characters, high profile actors and athletes transitioning openly. So this kind of stuff wasn’t even on your radar. But now, there are gender neutral bathrooms in schools, and in certain states there are ONLY gender inclusive bathrooms. What a novel fucking concept.
Bathrooms. Just a potty for folks to do their business.
Takeaways and Tips!
- You think you can tell who is trans and who is not and you absolutely CANNOT do that. You can try. Sometimes you’ll be wrong, so why even bother.
- There’s little point at this stage of the game anyway, right, because nomenclature and designations are changing, non binary and gender fluid people exist and it’s not just the confines of labels like Lesbian, Gay, Trans anymore.
- You see a person, they’re a person.
- They don’t fit into whatever categories are hardwired into your ‘people scanning and labelling’ brain.
- Instead of freaking out and trying harder, looking harder, thinking harder, raging against the opposition to the binary, just … don’t.
- Don’t worry about how they identify or how you feel you want to identify them and go mind your own business somewhere.
And go get some therapy. Please.
