Return to Self: A gender affirmation learning resource

Nora:

One of the misunderstandings or myths that I've unfortunately had to experience is that people think that this is sort of like a performance. However a trans woman expresses herself, is under scrutiny. If she's too feminine, she's playing a stereotype. If she's not feminine enough, too masculine, well then she's not actually a woman.

If I have to speculate onto what it actually means to be trans, it's to reject these ready-made ideas of what it means to be a gendered person. I don't have to set myself rigid boundaries of what it means to be a woman because it's historically contingent. I can just be myself, and that's fine because I'm being myself as a woman.

You have to sort of free yourself from those expectations, and once you can, the latitudes of freedom that you have to be who you are, it's exciting. It's joyful.

Ari Heart:

Nora is describing something that everyone has to grapple with, but which impacts some people more than others. This is about expectations placed on us regarding how we present ourselves. We grow up with this idea that gender is something we can determine visibly. The size and shape of a person's body, looking at their clothing, their hairstyle, their mannerisms.

Many of these things that we associate with women and men are perceptible at a glance. And within less than a second, we have unconsciously assumed a person's gender.

But everything we call femininity and everything we call masculinity, whatever we say that that is, when we look at each of those things throughout time and across cultures, we see each of them change completely. For example, high heels, which we consider feminine today, were originally worn by men in European courts, and the colour pink until the '40s or '50s was considered a strong masculine colour for boys. There are almost infinite examples of things that we associate with one gender or another that means something completely different in a different context.

Meaningful trans inclusion relies on us generally understanding that we cannot, in all cases, perceive gender accurately from the outside. This is all one of the reasons why in the trans community, it's considered very caring and respectful to ask someone what their pronouns are. What it is is an admission that I can't tell gender by looking at someone, and here is an opportunity for you to tell me who you are. The more we can recognise people for who they are, the more free they are to be themself in whatever way feels right to them because they are not having to constantly consider what they look like to other people.

Nora:

Medical transition isn't essential to being trans. I am seeking medical transition, right? But if I was to say that's the only thing, it would be such a barren concept of what it means to be trans.

What has been more transformative for me in my transition has been a recognition of the world understanding me as being a trans woman - as being a woman. That's been a bigger quality shift in my life than just taking hormones. I could stop taking hormones today, and I would still be trans - I'd still be the person that I am.

Ari Heart:

What Nora is saying here helps clarify something that I think people really struggle with. There are many different choices that can be made as part of someone's journey. We can loosely categorise these as social choices, legal choices, and medical choices. But we don't need to know the details of what someone does or doesn't do as part of their journey, or why. The thing to understand, and which I think Nora really beautifully describes, is that the transformation happens not due to medical transition, but due to being understood as oneself. That is where the transformation is, and that is also where it can be witnessed - where we see people become more of themself, which is such a beautiful thing.

Andy Perfors:

One of the main messages I hope that people get out of this is it's not complex, and you don't have to take on a whole lot. Believe people when they tell you their pronouns and their name, try to follow that. And when I say believe people, I mean actually try to update your internal representation of them. The difference between that and just mentally going, "She. No, I have to say he! She. No, I have to say..." That's quite obvious.

Ari Heart:

Like what Fae said, “think of me as a woman, and then the pronouns will come”.

Andy Perfors:

Yeah, and then the rest will follow.

And I think people really worry about mistakes because that process of updating does take a little bit of time. Mistakes will happen, but also because they do make more mistakes because they're not doing the process of updating.

Ari Heart:

Yeah. Like, say you're a teacher, you teach. If you're in a class and someone uses they/them pronouns, if you were to be having a class discussion and you were to accidentally gender them incorrectly, and maybe you realised, or maybe they corrected you, what would you do in that moment?

Andy Perfors:

I think the best thing to do is apologise quickly and move on. It's not great to make a big deal out of it like, "Oh, I'm so sorry, everyone. Alex's pronouns are blah, blah, blah. You're so brave," or whatever. And the reason that that's a problem is the trans person just wants to be attending class and having a subject. We don't want that scrutiny. We want to be a normal person, and it's putting actually more burden on them to manage now your emotions and this complex social dynamic that has suddenly happened. And so what you really want to do is say… I'm going to misgender you now-”

Ari Heart:

Okay, go for it.

Andy Perfors:

“Ari, he was saying earlier that-“

Ari Heart:

Andy, actually, I use they/them pronouns.

Andy Perfors:

“Oh, I'm sorry, Ari. Ari, they were saying earlier, blah, blah, blah.”

That's it, right?

Ari Heart:

Great job. So one thing to say about that is I think it can be really good to say sorry, and then say it again. It can also be really good to say, "Thank you for letting me know," or "thank you for the reminder, sorry about that." Or just even, "Ah, thank you, Ari," and then, “what they were saying, they made a great point”, or something like that.

Andy Perfors:

Yeah.

Ari Heart:

And I think there's a different response if it's the first time that it's happened, or if it's the first time you're hearing of the person's pronouns. And if it's the second or third time it's happening in the same context or with the same individual, then maybe if it's in a public setting, doing the same thing, but then afterwards saying, "Look, I'm really sorry. I will have a think about why I'm doing that and really try to update my language."

And in no circumstance - and this is counterintuitive and I think it's one of the ways that I've seen mistakes made the most with well-meaning people - like, never justify your mistake, because whatever comes out of your mouth when you say, "I just did it because...”, will feel a hundred times worse.

Andy Perfors:

Yeah.

Ari Heart:

And you can also guarantee that that person has had this situation before. In fact, they might have had this situation on that same day earlier, and so the briefer you make that encounter, the better in many ways.

Andy Perfors:

Yes. So yes, you will find it somewhat awkward because it's new, and because it's that particular kind of new thing. Embrace the awkwardness. We're all awkward, right? And then you just... The more you practice, the less awkward it is.

Ari Heart:

And I would way rather hang out with someone who knows less about trans stuff, but is kind and willing to lean into learning, than I am willing to hang out with someone who wants to get everything right and is very concerned about being correct and not upsetting me. And that's not necessarily maybe everyone's point of view but that's how I see it.

Andy Perfors:

Language is a human invention.

Ari Heart:

Let's be creative.

Andy Perfors:

Yeah. Let's take some control over our inventions.

Ari Heart:

Mm-hmm.

Nora:

I did transition mid-degree, and it was scary. In my class, the tutor, I had had them before pre-transition. A lot of standard introduction stuff, right? Say your name, what are you interested in? “My name is Nora. This is the philosophic things I'm interested in. By the way, I've taken a bunch of classes with you, since then, I've transitioned”.

Thankfully, everyone was just really, really chill about it. It just made every other class fine. I could engage in the thing that I like - philosophy - and not have to worry about being trans. That recedes into the background, and I'm just doing the thing that I like.