I am considered undateable by the majority of my peers and contemporaries. Undateable because nobody actually sees me as a woman. They respect my pronouns, they believe and respect that I understand myself as a woman, but they do not see me as one. They see me as a non-male person who believes it is a woman. If asked, they would defend the intellectual, rational, and correct answer that, of course, Sera’s a woman. But they do not believe it.
From a distance, or in low light, I pass pretty well. I have a fairly slim body that was more or less androgynous to begin with, and my physicality and mannerisms are pretty much all neutral or feminine. With a conservative course of HRT, I am starting to fill out where I should. But up close, it becomes clear what people see.
Up close, straight men do not see me as a woman. They see me as a safe outlet for their latent homosexual fantasies, an outlet that would let them look doubleplusgood when they get caught out, because they could appear to be progressive by saying “she’s a woman, how dare you question that?” and they could also appear to be straight by sticking to that. So, in general, straight men see me as a non-male person who thinks it is a woman. No longer one of the guys, but probably never one of the girls.
Up close, gay women do not see me as a woman. They see me as a confused non-female person who thinks it is a woman. It’s fun to spend time with, it’s cute when it follows me into the bathroom, and it has a good fashion sense that’s fun to talk about, but it’s not a potential partner, because it is not a woman. No longer one of the guys, and so, not really threatening in any way. But definitely not a girl.
The few people who really do instinctively see me as a woman, intuitively, are all very close female friends. Maria and Hailee both have reacted with confusion when I complain about a trans girl-specific penis problem, and then explained their expressions afterwards by saying that they forgot I had one. Jenn, whom I was with for about six years, and who is still my very best friend, could not remember my birth name the other day.
I am, in this way, stuck. Between my own demisexuality and now comically high standards, and the extraordinarily narrow pool of people who both find me attractive and see me absolutely and always as a woman, the points of intersection are few and tiny. I feel like my worldwide dating pool is probably capping out around eight people. And that makes me sad. The irony is that I am not sad for myself.
I’m still who I am. I’m still me, I’m very happy and content with my self-knowledge, and my understanding of Seranine. I am a beautiful, kind, charming, compassionate, witty, and intelligent woman. I know this. But I wish that other people could see me as all of those things, too, and not just most of them.
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Sunday, March 15, 2015
A Now-Open Letter to Any TERF
I corresponded briefly with a girl who is, for lack of a better term, a TERF. She never responded to my last letter, which is too bad. I’m not going to post her reply to my previous note, which prompted this one, because it was a private Ask. But, I will share what I sent back to her with all of you, because I wrote it, and I think it’s important.
In her last note to me, she had essentially said that she very strongly resents males trying to define womanhood to her, and that women deserve a way to sort themselves by shared oppressions, and safe spaces in which to discuss issues specific to themselves. That, like other trans women, I am male, and that I (and other trans women) are trying to tell her that the word “woman” is not for her or other women to use anymore, but for us (trans women) instead.
Here, more or less, is my reply:
I agree, I also would resent males trying to define womanhood to me. I would resent anyone doing that. I don’t know what other trans women may have said or been reported to have said, but for my part, I am not interested in telling anyone that the word “woman” is no longer theirs. I am interested in bringing everyone’s definition to the expanded place that includes women like me. It is not a zero-sum game. Acknowledging that I am a woman will not make you less of one.
I am not a man who believes he is a woman. I am a woman who believed she was a man. I do find it ironic that your issue is with someone else telling you what your gender means in terms of fitting into larger society, but that that is the very thing you are then doing to trans women.
Trans women have quite a lot in common with cis women insofar as how society treats them. Yes, our childhoods were different. But I also don’t know any trans woman who would not give anything to be able to go back and have an even slightly more authentic-feeling girl’s childhood. If you are a cis woman, you cannot understand the hell that is gender dysphoria. You can sympathize, but you cannot empathize. It is something I would not wish on anyone.
So I again agree with you, we deserve a way to categorize ourselves by our shared oppression. Trans women have many experiences that distinguish them from cis women. The difference matters enough to be worth thinking of these two groups of people as two separate groups, in some instances. But they have many more things in common than they have differences, so it is more useful more often to think of them as one general category of people: women.
Being groomed to be oppressed from birth is probably the single greatest difference between your childhood and mine. But, sadly, it does not take long before the publicly out trans woman experiences the vast majority of daily misogynistic microaggressions and more minor sexual assaults, the kind that are still incredibly damaging, but too common to take the time trying to report when, most likely, nothing will come of it anyway.
I was groped on the street in December. I have my pepper spray, and I’ve been keeping myself prepared to deal with a direct physical assault of any kind. But I was not prepared for someone walking the opposite direction to just reach out and run his hand along my crotch, across my thigh to the outside of my leg, and then just keep on walking, never breaking pace even slightly.
I had never in my life experienced anything remotely that vile. I think I was in shock, because I was so confused by the unexpected nature of the assault. I ended up getting on my bus and going to school anyway, because it was finals week, and I could not be late. But it did some very real and lasting damage. I could not focus for at least a week. At all. I was hypervigilant for over a month. I am far more uneasy around unfamiliar men than I was before that, and the catcalls that were previously just annoying are terrifying, now.
I had involuntary and grossly intrusive thoughts that disgusted me, and left me feeling like a disgusting sub-human for having them. Sometimes the thoughts would also arouse me, which made me feel even more disgusting, because all of it was out of my control. All of it. These thoughts would just show up, and destroy hours of my life because I could not focus on anything else when they arrived. Perfect timing, right at the start of finals week. My therapist tells me that all of that is normal in response to sexual assault.
It was barely three months since I was out publicly as trans. Three months. That’s how long it took for someone to sexually violate me. Yes, it was a very minor assault, as sexual assaults go. But people who have never experienced one at all have no idea the kind of deep and lasting psychological damage even a minor sex assault can have. It really does not take long before the trans woman is living the same day-to-day experiences as any other woman of her ethnic background and social status.
Except that sometimes, people call her a man.
So, I’ll leave you with this question. Who decides what you are? Are you what you say you are, or are you what other people call you?
In her last note to me, she had essentially said that she very strongly resents males trying to define womanhood to her, and that women deserve a way to sort themselves by shared oppressions, and safe spaces in which to discuss issues specific to themselves. That, like other trans women, I am male, and that I (and other trans women) are trying to tell her that the word “woman” is not for her or other women to use anymore, but for us (trans women) instead.
Here, more or less, is my reply:
I agree, I also would resent males trying to define womanhood to me. I would resent anyone doing that. I don’t know what other trans women may have said or been reported to have said, but for my part, I am not interested in telling anyone that the word “woman” is no longer theirs. I am interested in bringing everyone’s definition to the expanded place that includes women like me. It is not a zero-sum game. Acknowledging that I am a woman will not make you less of one.
I am not a man who believes he is a woman. I am a woman who believed she was a man. I do find it ironic that your issue is with someone else telling you what your gender means in terms of fitting into larger society, but that that is the very thing you are then doing to trans women.
Trans women have quite a lot in common with cis women insofar as how society treats them. Yes, our childhoods were different. But I also don’t know any trans woman who would not give anything to be able to go back and have an even slightly more authentic-feeling girl’s childhood. If you are a cis woman, you cannot understand the hell that is gender dysphoria. You can sympathize, but you cannot empathize. It is something I would not wish on anyone.
So I again agree with you, we deserve a way to categorize ourselves by our shared oppression. Trans women have many experiences that distinguish them from cis women. The difference matters enough to be worth thinking of these two groups of people as two separate groups, in some instances. But they have many more things in common than they have differences, so it is more useful more often to think of them as one general category of people: women.
Being groomed to be oppressed from birth is probably the single greatest difference between your childhood and mine. But, sadly, it does not take long before the publicly out trans woman experiences the vast majority of daily misogynistic microaggressions and more minor sexual assaults, the kind that are still incredibly damaging, but too common to take the time trying to report when, most likely, nothing will come of it anyway.
I was groped on the street in December. I have my pepper spray, and I’ve been keeping myself prepared to deal with a direct physical assault of any kind. But I was not prepared for someone walking the opposite direction to just reach out and run his hand along my crotch, across my thigh to the outside of my leg, and then just keep on walking, never breaking pace even slightly.
I had never in my life experienced anything remotely that vile. I think I was in shock, because I was so confused by the unexpected nature of the assault. I ended up getting on my bus and going to school anyway, because it was finals week, and I could not be late. But it did some very real and lasting damage. I could not focus for at least a week. At all. I was hypervigilant for over a month. I am far more uneasy around unfamiliar men than I was before that, and the catcalls that were previously just annoying are terrifying, now.
I had involuntary and grossly intrusive thoughts that disgusted me, and left me feeling like a disgusting sub-human for having them. Sometimes the thoughts would also arouse me, which made me feel even more disgusting, because all of it was out of my control. All of it. These thoughts would just show up, and destroy hours of my life because I could not focus on anything else when they arrived. Perfect timing, right at the start of finals week. My therapist tells me that all of that is normal in response to sexual assault.
It was barely three months since I was out publicly as trans. Three months. That’s how long it took for someone to sexually violate me. Yes, it was a very minor assault, as sexual assaults go. But people who have never experienced one at all have no idea the kind of deep and lasting psychological damage even a minor sex assault can have. It really does not take long before the trans woman is living the same day-to-day experiences as any other woman of her ethnic background and social status.
Except that sometimes, people call her a man.
So, I’ll leave you with this question. Who decides what you are? Are you what you say you are, or are you what other people call you?
Saturday, March 14, 2015
I Have Panties that Fit
I went to Aerie the other day. Really, I went to the mall with my friend to try this crêpe place, which was underwhelming. But, while we were there, I saw that there was an Aerie store. Since the only three pairs of underwear that I own that actually fit me right now are Aerie, I went in.
I asked the salesgirl if she could help me in the dressing room area with something kind of embarrassing. It occurred to me on the way back there that if there was ever a time for someone to be like, “oh god, this dude in a dress is gonna attack me when he gets me alone back there,” that would probably have been the time. To her credit, she did not demonstrate any behavior that indicated she felt anything like that at all.
She also remained very professional and helpful when I told her what my problems were (being trans, and having only three pairs of panties that fit, all indirectly from her store), and while she gave me an answer — a pretty solid guess on cut and size. I bought seven pairs, with their 7-for-$27.50 (or something like that) deal, got them home, and tried one on, and it fits, hallelujah.
So, I’ve gone from three pairs of panties that I can actually wear, up to ten, and that is much, much nicer. The end.
P.S.: I love Aerie forever now.
I asked the salesgirl if she could help me in the dressing room area with something kind of embarrassing. It occurred to me on the way back there that if there was ever a time for someone to be like, “oh god, this dude in a dress is gonna attack me when he gets me alone back there,” that would probably have been the time. To her credit, she did not demonstrate any behavior that indicated she felt anything like that at all.
She also remained very professional and helpful when I told her what my problems were (being trans, and having only three pairs of panties that fit, all indirectly from her store), and while she gave me an answer — a pretty solid guess on cut and size. I bought seven pairs, with their 7-for-$27.50 (or something like that) deal, got them home, and tried one on, and it fits, hallelujah.
So, I’ve gone from three pairs of panties that I can actually wear, up to ten, and that is much, much nicer. The end.
P.S.: I love Aerie forever now.
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Jason Was Dead
There’s a thing called “dead-naming” in the trans community, which is making use of a trans person’s birth name after they’ve rejected it (usually by selecting a new name of their own choosing). This is, naturally, a very rude erasure, but I have been going through some things lately that got me thinking about the choice of words for this concept. “Dead name.”
When I was born, my parents named me Jason. Jason was a miserable, miserable person. As anyone would be who not only had no idea who they were, but also did not realize that that was the problem in the first place; that every struggle they had with mental health and self-esteem and relating to other people stemmed from that. Jason spent basically his entire life from some point in early puberty until August 12, 2014, wishing for death.
He would see news of people’s deaths in horrible tragedies. 9/11. School shootings. Theater shootings. Helicopter crash. And he would feel even more horrible. Why was he still living, when all these people who wanted to live were dying? Why couldn’t he somehow trade places with them at the last possible second? Why couldn’t they be alive, very confused, but alive in western Washington, while he could finally be free? People with families and futures and hopes and love, dying, for nothing, while he was living for nothing.
It was not technically death that he wished for, though. He wished to not continue living the way that he was living. Every day was an agony so severe that he had largely become numb to it, and every other sensation. Being unable to conceptualize a life that was so completely different from that as to be an acceptable condition in which to live, he most often said that he hoped he would die. Every day. Literally, every single day.
He would wake up, and his first thought would be, “oh. I guess I didn’t die in my sleep last night.” He would try to make new friends, because on some level, he understood that he needed them, but he hated himself so relentlessly that he was perpetually confused by having made any new friends, every time it happened. He would try to find girls to date, but even when things went somewhere, he would find a way to sabotage them, and hate himself while doing it.
When Jason realized who he was, that he had always been she, it was as if a great cloud had lifted from her ecosystem. Not a fog of pure water vapor, but a polluted, murderous miasma of soot and carcinogens that made breathing a chore, and not an affirmation of being alive. A cloud that was slowly but surely sucking all the life out of joy, and all the joy out of life. It cleared as if beneath a sunburst.
And yes, some things about her changed. But she was, at her core, still the same beautiful, charming, funny, intelligent, and compassionate girl she had always been. The only real difference was that she refused to beat herself up, she refused to hate herself, she refused to reject herself. She immediately loved and appreciated who she was, all that she knew about herself, and was eager to learn more, to fully discover who she could be.
Jason was born dead, for lack of a better way of putting it. His parents literally gave him a name for a dead person, someone that would’ve been happier stillborn. Jason was a shell for Sera, a protective husk that she needed to hide in to survive when she was little. To hide from everyone, including herself. The Jason Construct just kept running for far longer than it should have. I suppose it was well-built.
I made many friends at Everett Community College, mostly through theater and improv classes. But lately, over the course of the last six months or so, many of them have disappeared on me. Never with a word of explanation, and often after having been very supportive of me and my transition, my revelation about my actual identity. They will unfriend or block me, without any warning, without any sign that there has ever been any problem between us. In milder cases, perhaps they stop inviting me to events, whether because they themselves do not want me around, or because some formerly mutual friends might be made uncomfortable if I am there. This is, I feel, just a precursor to joining the others, and cutting me out altogether.
In one case, a very very close friend blew up on me with this bizarre and completely unfounded rant about how I was freeloading off of taxpayers, because I am using the G.I. Bill. It felt like a kick in the face. I explained, as calmly and non-aggressively as I could, why that concept of things was completely baseless and wrong, and then told them privately how hurt I was by their comments, and that I really needed them to acknowledge that they’d been terrible to me, and were sorry about it. I got no response at all. Nothing but “Seen.”
They ended up being one of only two people that I cut out, after I concluded that someone who could treat me so horribly, but fail absolutely to acknowledge it in any way at all was not really someone who loved or respected me as much as I deserve. Not because I’m so amazing, but because I’m a human being.
The fact that all of these phantoms had been so supportive up until the very moment they cut ties is baffling. It’s also very painful, and mildly crippling. I call them phantoms because they are still in my life, in some way. I hear about them from people who are still friends with both of us. I am left without any explanation at all, but also without the finality of death. These people whom I love were not taken away from me. They have, en masse, willfully decided that I am not worth loving. That I do not deserve their time or their respect. And I cannot make sense of that, especially now that I love and respect myself.
I still love them, so this is very confusing. Now that I am finally happy, now that I have self-respect, self-esteem, self-love… NOW is the time that they don’t want me in their lives anymore? Was I only tolerable when I cared so little for myself that I would put up with nearly anything? I can’t get my head around people wanting me in their lives BEFORE I knew who I was. Surely the non-stop wry cracks about how I hoped I would die on my way home that night were more exhausting than almost-daily pictures of my smiling face in a new outfit on Facebook. How could that not be the way of things?
I have made some new friends. I have reconnected with some old friends. Maybe this is all for the best. People who liked me miserable and dark and in constant need of attention do not like this new me, who is basically happy, usually emotionally bright, and, while she does indeed love attention, does not have a ravenously insatiable need for it as she did for most of her life.
But it still hurts. And I still miss them. Every. Single. Time.
When I was born, my parents named me Jason. Jason was a miserable, miserable person. As anyone would be who not only had no idea who they were, but also did not realize that that was the problem in the first place; that every struggle they had with mental health and self-esteem and relating to other people stemmed from that. Jason spent basically his entire life from some point in early puberty until August 12, 2014, wishing for death.
He would see news of people’s deaths in horrible tragedies. 9/11. School shootings. Theater shootings. Helicopter crash. And he would feel even more horrible. Why was he still living, when all these people who wanted to live were dying? Why couldn’t he somehow trade places with them at the last possible second? Why couldn’t they be alive, very confused, but alive in western Washington, while he could finally be free? People with families and futures and hopes and love, dying, for nothing, while he was living for nothing.
It was not technically death that he wished for, though. He wished to not continue living the way that he was living. Every day was an agony so severe that he had largely become numb to it, and every other sensation. Being unable to conceptualize a life that was so completely different from that as to be an acceptable condition in which to live, he most often said that he hoped he would die. Every day. Literally, every single day.
He would wake up, and his first thought would be, “oh. I guess I didn’t die in my sleep last night.” He would try to make new friends, because on some level, he understood that he needed them, but he hated himself so relentlessly that he was perpetually confused by having made any new friends, every time it happened. He would try to find girls to date, but even when things went somewhere, he would find a way to sabotage them, and hate himself while doing it.
When Jason realized who he was, that he had always been she, it was as if a great cloud had lifted from her ecosystem. Not a fog of pure water vapor, but a polluted, murderous miasma of soot and carcinogens that made breathing a chore, and not an affirmation of being alive. A cloud that was slowly but surely sucking all the life out of joy, and all the joy out of life. It cleared as if beneath a sunburst.
And yes, some things about her changed. But she was, at her core, still the same beautiful, charming, funny, intelligent, and compassionate girl she had always been. The only real difference was that she refused to beat herself up, she refused to hate herself, she refused to reject herself. She immediately loved and appreciated who she was, all that she knew about herself, and was eager to learn more, to fully discover who she could be.
Jason was born dead, for lack of a better way of putting it. His parents literally gave him a name for a dead person, someone that would’ve been happier stillborn. Jason was a shell for Sera, a protective husk that she needed to hide in to survive when she was little. To hide from everyone, including herself. The Jason Construct just kept running for far longer than it should have. I suppose it was well-built.
I made many friends at Everett Community College, mostly through theater and improv classes. But lately, over the course of the last six months or so, many of them have disappeared on me. Never with a word of explanation, and often after having been very supportive of me and my transition, my revelation about my actual identity. They will unfriend or block me, without any warning, without any sign that there has ever been any problem between us. In milder cases, perhaps they stop inviting me to events, whether because they themselves do not want me around, or because some formerly mutual friends might be made uncomfortable if I am there. This is, I feel, just a precursor to joining the others, and cutting me out altogether.
In one case, a very very close friend blew up on me with this bizarre and completely unfounded rant about how I was freeloading off of taxpayers, because I am using the G.I. Bill. It felt like a kick in the face. I explained, as calmly and non-aggressively as I could, why that concept of things was completely baseless and wrong, and then told them privately how hurt I was by their comments, and that I really needed them to acknowledge that they’d been terrible to me, and were sorry about it. I got no response at all. Nothing but “Seen.”
They ended up being one of only two people that I cut out, after I concluded that someone who could treat me so horribly, but fail absolutely to acknowledge it in any way at all was not really someone who loved or respected me as much as I deserve. Not because I’m so amazing, but because I’m a human being.
The fact that all of these phantoms had been so supportive up until the very moment they cut ties is baffling. It’s also very painful, and mildly crippling. I call them phantoms because they are still in my life, in some way. I hear about them from people who are still friends with both of us. I am left without any explanation at all, but also without the finality of death. These people whom I love were not taken away from me. They have, en masse, willfully decided that I am not worth loving. That I do not deserve their time or their respect. And I cannot make sense of that, especially now that I love and respect myself.
I still love them, so this is very confusing. Now that I am finally happy, now that I have self-respect, self-esteem, self-love… NOW is the time that they don’t want me in their lives anymore? Was I only tolerable when I cared so little for myself that I would put up with nearly anything? I can’t get my head around people wanting me in their lives BEFORE I knew who I was. Surely the non-stop wry cracks about how I hoped I would die on my way home that night were more exhausting than almost-daily pictures of my smiling face in a new outfit on Facebook. How could that not be the way of things?
I have made some new friends. I have reconnected with some old friends. Maybe this is all for the best. People who liked me miserable and dark and in constant need of attention do not like this new me, who is basically happy, usually emotionally bright, and, while she does indeed love attention, does not have a ravenously insatiable need for it as she did for most of her life.
But it still hurts. And I still miss them. Every. Single. Time.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Roller-coaster
Wheeeee!
In the past week, I have:
No electrolysis, today, by the way. We are trying an experiment that started this week, where I will see her every other Saturday, instead of every Saturday, but for two hours instead of just one. Should result in the same ultimate clear time for my facial hair, but save me a lot on gas and commute time, and free up every other Saturday for me entirely for homework or whatever.
In the past week, I have:
- Met and recorded a very talented and professional musician for my Portfolio Prep class,
- Been misgendered at a bank while tired and short of patience enough that I had to literally run out of the place to cry in the privacy of my own car,
- Been asked where I got my amazing blue gradient tights by a stranger at the VA hospital, after being complimented on my outfit all day,
- Gotten my permanent disabled rate ORCA (transit) card while people gave me looks that said “you aren’t disabled enough,”
- Been asked if I would be interested in joining a photography project as a model,
- Lost (another!) one of my best friends for reasons unknown (again!), and
- Gotten to feed horseface and assface carrots while their owner smiled approvingly, and said, “they’re just big pets.”
No electrolysis, today, by the way. We are trying an experiment that started this week, where I will see her every other Saturday, instead of every Saturday, but for two hours instead of just one. Should result in the same ultimate clear time for my facial hair, but save me a lot on gas and commute time, and free up every other Saturday for me entirely for homework or whatever.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Right Out of the Oven
When I got to the VA Primary Care Clinic this morning, this wrinkled old white dude shouted, “SMILE!” at me. Nobody’s ever done that before, although I knew it would happen, eventually. I turned in his direction before I’d processed what he said, because I had heard a loud noise (him barking at me). Once I understood what he’d said, a split second later, my face showed my irritation with him before I turned back to what I was doing. As I was looking away, I saw him turn to an equally old and white comrade, and say, “she doesn’t wanna smile.”
I didn’t have the time or the energy to get into it with him right then, but I did resolve, next time, to say something back. I’ve come up with a canned line that I think will work, something along the lines of, “oh, I’m sorry, sir, we’re all out of smiles, but I do have this fresh middle finger for you.”
I didn’t have the time or the energy to get into it with him right then, but I did resolve, next time, to say something back. I’ve come up with a canned line that I think will work, something along the lines of, “oh, I’m sorry, sir, we’re all out of smiles, but I do have this fresh middle finger for you.”
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Playing "What If?"
I often daydream about the life I never had, the life I should have had, as a young woman, as a girl who knew she was a girl from the moment she even perceived gender in any way. But I realize that it’s fantasy, that my life would not have been magically delicious if I’d figured this shit out sooner; that I would’ve been a young woman, yes, and that I would also have had all the same joys and successes that any young woman can have; but that I would also have made many of a young woman’s mistakes, and suffered many of the abuses that young women suffer.
I’m incredibly lucky to have realized my dysphoria when and where I did, at the age that I was (that I still am). I have a patience and perspective that I could never have had if I’d realized when I was 8, for example.
I’m not at all suggesting that it’s better to start transitioning later, just that there will always be difficulties, and there will always be things that are easier, whenever we are talking about multiple periods within a lifespan. You are responsible for your own happiness. You can focus on what the world owes you, what you know you deserve, but will never be given, or you can focus on what’s good, or maybe even better, about the way things actually are.
I’ve discovered that the more I allow myself to feel grateful for the positive aspects of my transition, the more positive aspects I realize there even are.
I’m incredibly lucky to have realized my dysphoria when and where I did, at the age that I was (that I still am). I have a patience and perspective that I could never have had if I’d realized when I was 8, for example.
I’m not at all suggesting that it’s better to start transitioning later, just that there will always be difficulties, and there will always be things that are easier, whenever we are talking about multiple periods within a lifespan. You are responsible for your own happiness. You can focus on what the world owes you, what you know you deserve, but will never be given, or you can focus on what’s good, or maybe even better, about the way things actually are.
I’ve discovered that the more I allow myself to feel grateful for the positive aspects of my transition, the more positive aspects I realize there even are.
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