On gendered behaviour, feminism, and gender as emotion
You know that trans narrative. “We always knew she was a girl because she played with dolls while her brother was playing with trucks.” Trans folks are pushed to justify their gender in a way that cis people never are, most notably by the medical community. We are taught to do this, in a way that cis people have never been, even when it’s not necessary.
It felt awful to be asked by doctors to explain why I thought I needed treatment, and “I’ve been feeling awful about gendered parts of my body for several years” is never enough. I had to give details in a way that a man with gynaecomastia never would, and because I was not a trans man but a nonbinary person I also had to justify why I didn’t want testosterone treatment. I found myself recounting the time I refused to leave the house in a dress just around the time I hit puberty. Why my mother felt the need for me to wear a dress was not questioned, but my desire to not wear a dress became the subject of serious scrutiny.
At the same time, feminists are fighting a very important battle for cis women and cis men that seems entirely conflicting. Women don’t have to be feminine or submissive. Little girls don’t have to play with dolls, and boys can love cooking and dancing. When cis girls are encouraged to pursue sciences, a trans girl’s love of engineering is seen as evidence of her manliness. And why would you want to be a woman, when your body and your behaviour match up?
Most humans can probably accept the idea that what we do is not who we are. Gay men have wives and children, I can pass as not-autistic in a pinch, and so on. Women (cis and trans) can be butch and men can be femme. Anyone can be both. The myth that 80% of “trans” children grow out of it is based on studies in which playing with toys that don’t match your birth-assigned gender was enough to qualify you as trans, so it’s clear that dysphoria is quite a different thing from rejecting gender norms.
So how does that fit into the trans narrative? And what is gender?
“So if girls can act like boys and still be girls, the same is true for you. You’re nonbinary when you’re in heels, you’re nonbinary when you’re in a tux. A woman is a woman with or without her uterus. Lots of trans and nonbinary people don’t want or can’t have hormones or surgeries, so it’s obviously not required for being so. In light of all of that, how do you know that you’re nonbinary?”
No one has ever asked me in this way, but I feel the questions. When you’re the subject of inquiry from doctors, the government, and everyone you meet more than once, you start to build an idea of a collective feeling, the accumulation of every curious mind into one voice. And it’s asking, “what is gender? How do you know yours is nonbinary?”
That voice asks other questions unrelated to gender in the same way. You see it reflected in books and movies and the questions children ask adults. I’m coming to see that there is another question that is very nearly the same. “What does being in love feel like? How do you know when you’re in love?”
The usual answer is “being in love is indescribable. When you feel it, you just know.”
I just know that I’m nonbinary. It explains everything, but if you asked me to I couldn’t explain it. Knowing your gender after years of not even realising you were strange, it puts everything into perspective.
So I’m coming to think of gender as an emotion, like being in love.
“I’m sorry, but you weren’t successful in your interview this time - you’re in love, and one of the other interviewees isn’t, so we think they’ll fit the role better.”
“Welcome to the store! Over here is the section for people who’re in love, and over there is the one for people who aren’t. We do also have a section upstairs for those who’ve loved and lost, because we know how it can be good to have something a little wider at the shoulders.”
If I tell someone I’m in love, they accept it without question. I imagine if I was sitting with a group of friends and I told them I was in love, they would affirm it and be happy for me. If someone questioned my feelings, they’d be challenged: “how would you know? You can’t tell them what they’re feeling! It’s their experience!” I am respected, my feelings are taken seriously. It’s assumed that I will make major life choices based on my being in love, like moving in with someone, marrying them, maybe one day having children, etc.
If I tell someone that I am nonbinary, I am often met with skepticism - especially online, where challenging me carries fewer penalties because there are so many people and none who see the exchange are likely to care about me. I am told in various ways that I am my birth-assigned gender - a weird example of it, but still a woman, and a traitor for rejecting that womanhood. I am criticised for not embodying a gender I never chose, that was forced upon me before I could even focus my eyes, by people calling themselves feminists. “You are one of us, whether you agree or not! Now, be better at it!” I have been told that I am mentally ill, that intersex conditions are evidence that sex and therefore gender are binary, and that I will likely regret my transition. I have been called “that” by a lead clinician in a gender identity clinic. People argue about whether my pronouns are grammatically correct, or try and fail to avoid pronouns altogether. (Imagine someone repeatedly telling you that whether or not you are married to your husband is a matter of public debate.)
And so we come full circle. I feel that my transition and my neutral name and pronouns are an expression of my gender. But these things are external, and behaviour doesn’t make you a man or a woman or a nonbinary person. A woman who’s had a double mastectomy to survive cancer is still a woman. A man with a hormone disorder is still a man. My behaviour and my body are not proof that I am nonbinary.
If you move in with someone it doesn’t mean you’re in love.
It’s strange how when it comes to being trans all the assumptions are mysteriously forgotten, as part of the pattern in which we are seen as alien. Usually when someone behaves in a particular way it’s an effect, no? Emotion inspires action, that’s how it is to be human. And for gender it’s no different: we feel a gender (or no gender), and we express it - like wearing masculine clothes and having feminine body modifications like pierced ears and avoiding strongly gendered social cues altogether. This is true for trans and cis people alike.
I also feel gender dysphoria, which I don’t fully understand. It used to be a lot worse, an eternal dissociation from my body, and changing my body and name and pronouns made me feel a lot happier and less numb. When the whole world and your own body disagree with your own experience of your gender for every moment of every day, it breaks you. Doctors are sometimes willing and able to help.
And many people feel gender euphoria, where there’s no discomfort, but expressing your gender in spite of your birth assignment brings you such joy and quality of life that you’d be a fool or self-punishing to deny yourself that. (When you’re in love, the world tells you to act on it. Tell them! Say yes! Take a leap of faith, it’s worth the risk. Love is euphoric.)
We know that a single action can be an expression of a lot of different feelings. Maybe I marry someone because I’m in love with them, but maybe I do it for the right to work in a particular country. My nonbinary gender inspired me to express it by cutting my hair short, but this woman has a pixie cut too. Women are more strongly encouraged to pursue feminine crafts like knitting, but before the 1500s knitting was guild-led men’s work. My skirt could mean anything. There’s a very good chance it just means I like to wear skirts.
Things get sticky when people assume a cause from the effect. You’re wearing a dress so you must be a woman. You love ladies and you keep your hair short and you’re into mechanics, so you’re not trans enough to be a real woman. You had sex so that means you’re in love with them, right?
So much oppression uses gender, and sometimes gender gets the blame. If there were no gender, women would automatically be equal to men, right? If there is no gender, there is no gendered oppression. It’s like trying to prevent crimes of passion by eradicating love.
Like any emotion, it’s affected by things in your environment. I second-guessed my nonbinary gender until I had top surgery, and when my chest was flat I finally lost all doubt. It was like my body was telling my mind that I was a woman when my mind knew the truth, and I had to change my body to stop that signal. This idea that gender is always and consistently tied to one’s anatomy makes things difficult for genderfluid folks - but I know that I am more or less in love with my partners at different times for various (sometimes unknowable) reasons. Some people have never fallen in love. Imagine that every time you were angry as a small child your mother told you that this feeling was called “happy”, how that would mess you up; no one named my gender where I could hear it until I was 25.
So, what can I say?
- Gender is an emotion, a feeling. Some people don’t feel it. It can be a vital, fundamental experience that should never be denied you by anyone else.
- The feeling of gender can be affected by external things - your body, the way people treat you, other feelings you’re having at the same time…
- People can help you to name your gender, but there is no way they can possibly know it on your behalf. It’s not just immoral or rude to do so - it is impossible.
- Gender dysphoria is painful and life-disrupting and should be taken seriously and treated by doctors.
- Gender euphoria is incredibly important - we need to live by pursuing good feelings, not just by finding ways to escape bad ones.
- Some people have neither of those things, and still feel gender, and it should be respected - see the first bullet point.
- Behaviour is gendered by people. The gendering of behaviour is arbitrary and shifts over time.
- We have no way of knowing exactly what someone is expressing with their behaviour, or whether it’s even connected to their gender at all.
- Disrespecting someone by debating the validity of their self-expression is never okay.
This has been an extremely long ramble of thoughts that finally came together and connected themselves up this evening. If you’ve got this far, I salute you. o7
