The Mainstream Biological Premise
I recently had someone friend me on Facebook with no attached message, no mutual friends, using a pseudonym and a userpic that was a cartoon and not a picture of her. So I opened her page to see if could recognize something about her. Immediately I saw five little userpics in her friends box and I was fairly certain that all or at least most of them were trans women. That was enough for my lax security protocol and I friended her back. Then I was struck with an odd sense of how uncanny that was—how was I so sure that her friends were trans just from 50x50 pixel pictures?
“Trans-dar” has become second nature to me, to the point where I don’t even know what cues I’m paying attention to. That’s how interpreting cultural cues like gender usually is. A 5-year-old will tell you a person in a picture is a boy and when you ask why they might say something that sounds nonsensical like, “Because he has hair.” Adults can be just as nonsensical with the common, “Because he has a penis,” even though the person in the picture is fully clothed.
You might have heard some tips for spotting a trans person (almost invariably trans women) in a movie or TV show. They suggest looking at hands, feet, Adam’s apple, etc. However, cis (non-trans) women have Adam’s apples too, they just tend to be smaller and less noticeable. As for hand size, there is way too much variation among both men and women for that to be reliable. Rather than being cues one might notice, those are things that are more often used to confirm the assumptions people already make.
I was once in a writing workshop led by my ex during which, I came out as trans halfway through. One of the other participants spent the remaining half of the workshop looking me up and down and at the end told me that it “makes sense because of your facial hair and your big-man-hands.” I had never thought of my hands as big, and explained that they are actually smaller than my mom’s hands. Then my ex jumped in and pointed out that she had as much facial hair as me and she wasn’t trans.
The reality is that that woman wouldn’t have ever noticed those things about me if I hadn’t disclosed that I was trans. And if I had told her that any other person in the room was trans, she would have found or imagined the same things.
Many cis people seem to find comfort in pointing out ways in which trans people’s genders are not valid. If gender is rooted in unchanging biology, then a cis person can feel secure in their gender. However, when confronted with the reality that some people’s genders don’t follow that line they are forced to question what makes them a man or a woman if not biology—at least until they can “prove” that trans people’s genders are merely clever forgeries.
Mainstream advice suggests looking for biological markers of a trans person’s assigned sex, looking for some sort of hidden maleness of femaleness. This appears to a response to common cis psychological insecurities around gender rather than how people actually communicate and interpret gender.
“Trans-dar” has become second nature to me, to the point where I don’t even know what cues I’m paying attention to. That’s how interpreting cultural cues like gender usually is. A 5-year-old will tell you a person in a picture is a boy and when you ask why they might say something that sounds nonsensical like, “Because he has hair.” Adults can be just as nonsensical with the common, “Because he has a penis,” even though the person in the picture is fully clothed.
You might have heard some tips for spotting a trans person (almost invariably trans women) in a movie or TV show. They suggest looking at hands, feet, Adam’s apple, etc. However, cis (non-trans) women have Adam’s apples too, they just tend to be smaller and less noticeable. As for hand size, there is way too much variation among both men and women for that to be reliable. Rather than being cues one might notice, those are things that are more often used to confirm the assumptions people already make.
I was once in a writing workshop led by my ex during which, I came out as trans halfway through. One of the other participants spent the remaining half of the workshop looking me up and down and at the end told me that it “makes sense because of your facial hair and your big-man-hands.” I had never thought of my hands as big, and explained that they are actually smaller than my mom’s hands. Then my ex jumped in and pointed out that she had as much facial hair as me and she wasn’t trans.
The reality is that that woman wouldn’t have ever noticed those things about me if I hadn’t disclosed that I was trans. And if I had told her that any other person in the room was trans, she would have found or imagined the same things.
Many cis people seem to find comfort in pointing out ways in which trans people’s genders are not valid. If gender is rooted in unchanging biology, then a cis person can feel secure in their gender. However, when confronted with the reality that some people’s genders don’t follow that line they are forced to question what makes them a man or a woman if not biology—at least until they can “prove” that trans people’s genders are merely clever forgeries.
Mainstream advice suggests looking for biological markers of a trans person’s assigned sex, looking for some sort of hidden maleness of femaleness. This appears to a response to common cis psychological insecurities around gender rather than how people actually communicate and interpret gender.
so well written!!!
I get so tired of the pre-op or post-op question.
Pre-op / post-op is rampant in the community as well as outside (perhaps more so inside).
I was at a trangender social/support group a couple decades ago. There was one transwoman there who asked me, as each person walked in, "does that one have a cock and balls?" As if I would know, and as if it should matter.
I had a girl about 8 or 9 ask me once while I was out inline skating (hat, shorts, sports bra, no makeup, sweat) if I was a man or a woman. My answer was "Yes". She thought about that for about half a second then smiled real big, said "Cool!" and went on playing with her friends. There IS hope.
And my answer to the "pre/post/non" op question is always that I don't discuss my genitalia with anyone except my doctor and my sex partner - and they don't have a chance of becoming either one.
very well written!