The consequences of sampling bias

By Angus "Andrea" Grieve-Smith

I wanted to go into a bit more detail about something I've mentioned before: that the use of non-representative samples can cause problems down the line. To illustrate this, I want to examine the claims of health disparities that Emilia Dunham lists in her Bay Windows article.

1. Transgender people take more hormones and have have more surgeries than average.


2. Transgender people smoke at a 30% prevalence rate, and use other substances to cope with the stress from discrimination.


3. We’re more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, and more likely to live with HIV.


4. 61 - 64% of transgender people have been physically or sexually assaulted.


5. 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide.


6. All these percentages skyrocket for transgender people of color and low-income folks.


7. A startling 1 in 5 transgender people have experienced complete refusal of services from healthcare providers.


8. If transgender people aren’t referred to with correct names or pronouns or are treated with coldness, they may avoid the office.

Of these statements, only the last one is an existential statement. All the others are statements of prevalence or likelihood that are not generalizable without a representative sample. In my impression, some of them are more likely to be true of the entire transgender population than others. There are chains of causation from transgender actions to these disparities, and the chains are not all the same. Here are some possible causal chains. They are not the only possible ones, but they are the ones that seem likely to me.

First there are the inherent consequences of transgender actions: more hormones and surgery. If you're only concerned with transpeople who choose to take hormones and undergo surgery, then of course this is true. But if you believe that not all transpeople choose hormones or surgery, and you don't know how many do, then you have no way of knowing how great these disparities are.

Then there is harassment based on perceptible differences: physical and sexual assault. A lot of this has to do with passing - as one gender or another, not necessarily the one you prefer. The passing does not have to be total: a transperson can avoid a lot of harassment simply by avoiding being noticed. However, note that there is a feedback loop here regarding socioeconomic status: wealthier transpeople can afford higher quality hormones, surgery, hair removal or attachment, clothes, padding, cosmetics and training that can give them (us) a better chance of passing as the target gender.

There is also discrimination based on records or perceptible differences: refusal of healthcare service. There can also be housing, consumer and job discrimination, which can affect some of the factors below.

A transgender person has a number of potential reactions to the harassment or discrimination described above, including: avoidance of healthcare providers, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicide attempts. Out of fear of discovery, many transpeople engage in hidden sexual activities, where there is a greater risk of HIV infection.

Completing the vicious cycle I described above are the consequences of poverty, which may in turn result from discrimination: there is greater likelihood of harassment and discrimination (and the consequences that follow from that harassment and discrimination) and sex work (which increases the likelihood of HIV infection).

I know from personal experience, from friends' anecdotes and from online reading that these disparities do not affect all transgender people. Some people do not choose hormones, some do not choose surgery. Some never take publicly visible transgender actions, and others pass well enough, so they are never harassed or discriminated against. Some are able to deal with the harassment or discrimination they experience without resorting to depression, anxiety or substance abuse, or attempting suicide (which is not a judgment against those who are unable). Some are able to avoid unprotected sex. Some are wealthy enough to avoid the consequences of poverty.

Here's the problem with sampling: Dunham and other researchers have no way of knowing for sure whether they've oversampled from those who choose hormones and/or surgery; those who take publicly visible transgender actions; those who don't pass enough of the time to avoid harassment or discrimination; those who already have tendencies towards depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicide or casual sex, for unrelated reasons; and those who have lower incomes. After all, these are precisely the populations that public health researchers are more likely to come into contact with. Without representative samples, they can never prove that these disparities exist to the extent that they claim.

Now I want you to imagine that these researchers actually have been oversampling these higher-risk populations. On one level the consequences are minimal: if these are the populations with the greatest need, then it's just another way to spend public health dollars on the people who need them the most. But on the image level and the credibility level, there are problems.

I've seen on the Web and on television that some people have a stereotype of "tranny" that combines all these factors: a drug-addicted, unpassable, mentally ill hooker with bad plastic surgery. Some people use that stereotype to justify harassment and discrimination against transgender people, and some family members fight against accepting their relative's transgender feelings because they fear that this will be their fate. These kinds of unsupported survey results feed into those stereotypes.

What if at some point someone does succeed in doing a representative survey, and finds that the drug-addicted, cigarette-smoking sex workers are a small portion of the transgender population, and that the average transgender person is a drug- and disease-free, well-adjusted, successful computer technician making $60,000 a year? What if all the transgender health money was actually better spent on overlapping programs that would serve the needy population just as well? I think someone might feel cheated, and I think there might be a backlash.

There's also the possibility that we might be missing out on some valuable information. What if we found that there were people who had the exact same background, and the exact same transgender feelings, but one group became drug-addicted HIV-positive sex workers and the other became successful computer technicians? We could examine the populations and see what made the difference between health and sickness. It might not be the obvious solution.

This is why we need representative sampling, and this is why you need to comment on the proposal and tell that to Secretary Sebelius.

Ohio License Doesn't Require Surgery, Just Insanity

It’s official. The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles’ no longer requires a letter stating a person has had gender-confirmation surgery, an amazing victory. Now people are able to correct their licenses gender marker enabling them safer, more accurate identification. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.

This past week I was sent the unofficial, pre-press printout of the new BMV form. I was thrilled, like a kid on Christmas. My head was swimming with the possibilities, not just for myself, but for so many others. I opened the PDF and started to read.

“To be qualified, the medical professional must attest that the transition is being conducted in accordance with World Professional Association for Transgendered Health (WPATH) Standards of Care. This change is only to be made as part of a permanent, full time gender transition.”

My heart sank. I could see the image of that laminated M disappear. I can’t get my marker changed because I don’t follow the standards of care.

Every six months I drive five and a half hours to Chicago to get my trans-health care because I refuse to be diagnosed with gender identity disorder. My identity is not mentally disordered. I refuse to be labeled as such simply because queer gender does not conform to what is considered normal. If you had the right doctor, you could maybe swing something, but good luck finding a doctor who’s willing to break out of the box. Remember, this is Ohio. Could I get a letter? Maybe I could, but in order to do that I have to bow to a system of standards that oppress me, that oppress my people. I don’t look like a woman, I don’t sound like one, and I don’t belong to the F marked on my license but that isn’t enough to get it changed. I have to be legally diagnosed as mentally disordered- I have to be certifiably “transsexual” and apparently I’m trans enough to count. I understand that GID is on the books, and as long as it is I shouldn’t expect our community to get anything but the bare minimum, and as a genderqueer I shouldn’t expect to get anything.

Diligent, amazing activists worked hard to make this change as comprehensive and accessible as possible, but as long as we are inside a system that supports the pathologization of gender non-conformity our community is still controlled and oppressed. We are all trapped in this system, and if we ever want these first steps take us anywhere, the system itself must be changed. My dear friend wrote about change happening from the ‘bottom up.’ To me, it isn’t just about grassroots activism; it is a statement that this is the bare-minimum. We started with nothing, now we have a something, but we have a long way to go. Other movements have left us out but we cannot leave each other. Any gender transgressor is in our community and deserves to fight and to be fought for. No genderqueer left behind.

x-posted MidwestGenderQueer.com
x-posted Amplify Your Voice

if it walks like a duck: sports and the regulation of female bodies

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck...it's a duck.

Substitute woman for duck, and one has illuminating insight as to what our culture finds appropriate femaleness, as well as the absence of wiggle room.

Just ask South African athlete Caster Semenya. Muscular body? Deep voice? Stellar athletic performance? Must be a man.

Top it off, Semenya now needs to take a "gender verification test."

News flash: gender is not a more sophisticated or politically correct term for sex. Sex refers to chromosomes and genitals, and gender refers to social performance. Therefore, a person whose biological sex is male may have a female gender performance.

This brings about another issue: how do members of trans communities participate in sports teams? I'd love to get some feedback.

The Colonic

Kilts and Cross-Dressing and Utah (oh my!)

Originally I was going to make my first post to the TGB a bit more of a commentary on GenderQueer identities: and then this came up and I had to share it with everyone…

Utah School Forces Student to Change out of Kilt

Basically, a student was forced to change out of a kilt because he was mistaken for a “cross-dresser.”

Riddle me this: if I, as a female bodied, GenderQueer, masculine person was to wear a kilt (which happens frequently, I might add) to this school, what would happen? Would I be a cross-dresser, now that the principle is aware that a kilt is traditionally masculine? This is yet another example of the problems associated with having such a strict gender binary. We get these kinds of knee jerk reactions to any article of clothing that steps outside what society sees as normative.

On another note – I realize this is Utah, and, by default, a little conservative (not all residents, of course). That being said, I still find it amazing that “cross-dressing” is so openly criminalized in public situations.


...and for a comparative study in gender. James Bond (Sean Connery) in a kilt.

Thanks everyone!

Gender on the Ground

Recently, I have been talking with some folks about how pervasive the binary system of gender is and how it really impacts all of our lives. How most people see only male or female and when one is wearing those blinders, are encouraged to snap judgments and assumptions that may not accurately reflect how I'm feeling at the moment. For most people, this really doesn't matter and perhaps I shouldn't worry about it because I'm just being myself.

But I do.

I've reached a place where I've crossed that line from being mostly gendered male to mostly gendered female and please don't get me wrong, I'm fine with that. But that's not what others may be seeing. Now it seems, when I'm in public places, I need to wait for others to tell me who I am. And its a funny place to be, to have to wait for their cues, before I know mine. helen boyd put it at its simplest best, "you're going to be clocked as either male or female by everyone, even if they don't agree with each other. that's gender on the ground."

Now, our house has an open door policy, people are always welcome to just drop in. Many do, and most often, when a meal is being prepared. So it was no surprise that while my daughter and I were preparing breakfast, at six a.m. I might add, the phone rang and some friends who were driving thru town, called. 'Yah Tah Hey big sis, what's for breakfast', was what came from the phone.

So my friend shows up, with another friend of hers and I put down 2 more plates and put on another pot of coffee. 'Look what I found on the run', was her way of introducing her friend to me. For the past 6 months she has been coordinating the Sacred Run of the Continents and was in the process of returning home, her leave of absence ending soon. Her friend, who needed a ride home too, is a young runner, a member of the Paiute Nation and a Two Spirit. 'Thought the two of you might have something in common to talk about', she said. We did, and over the next few hours we shared a conversation that had my friend just gazing in astonishment.

Oh, we did talk about a lot, especially about how women's energy influences many of our ceremonies (in the next couple of paragraphs, when I use plurals like 'our', I mean it in the context of a pan-Indian or pan-Two Spirit voice. The specifics of our personal ceremonies vary culturally, yet many of the traditions are very similar). And one of the points he, a F2M, and I agreed upon is how strongly who we are, when we walk into a ceremonial place, is mostly determined by how we are seen by those in the ceremony. He and I have both shared those moments, when others decide our gender, roles and place and we have had to 'adjust' to accept their assumptions, or not. And over chorizo and coffee, the two of us sitting there, looking straight into the eyes of this women who thought she was so sure she knew who she is, as a spiritual women; with he and I knowing that we each were initiated into a world that we knew was not entirely ours hold and armed with that knowledge, we were able to make even her question the very essence, spiritual assumptions and absolute significance of something as 'cast in stone' as our friends' moon time.

So there it is, on both sides of my walk, the consequences of a grounded gender. Despite who it is that I think I am today, the binary persists with others continually defining me in their own view of who I am or think I should be. Its their own personal vision of who I am and it is their vision that shapes my reality. Again, I'm not sayin' that its a bad thing and generally I'm pretty OK with it, much of the time because what I want people to see me as aligns with their perceptions. But its those times that I'm not wanting to be who they see me as, that its particularly annoying.

Or dangerous.

But that's not why I'm bringing it up here, to rehash passing privilege or trying to redefine a middle road or to wear my culture on my sleeve. Lately, and more often than I'd like, I've been caught in these gendered places and being there can get quite surreal at times. It's an odd feeling that when you're out and about and doing your thing, that you need to wait for clues from others to see who you might be today. To them. At that point of time. And place.

Of course its bad enough when its just you, out and about. But I have a wife, and a daughter and in-laws, and my ma and family and old friends and new. Each one making me who I am. Whether anyone, including me, is in agreement or not, it doesn't matter.

There was a time when my wife and I never had to even think about the qualifiers. She and I could just go out for a walk. Just a couple. Out for a walk. Now when we walk we have to be aware of others, waiting for signs from them, in order to see who they are seeing, to see if we can be who we are, or who we should be.

So while I was writing this stuff, I got a couple YouTube posts. I've known Georgie Jessup and Lisa Jackson & Girl Friday for some time, but to have them pointed out to me at just this time was truly a wonderful Coyote moment. Being able to watch both of them, for the first time side by side, I was just struck by their not making any bones about who they are. Right then. And watching them is perhaps the wrong sense, it was listening to them. The voice. Their voice. We all understand the power of the voice, as trans people. And there they are, singing in their voices. No hiding the the range, the tone, the depth. Their voice.

What is the gender of those voices? Are they male, female?

Me, all I hear is Lisa and Georgie. Two beautiful voices singing songs that resonate in my mind, my soul. Like the drum beat and the heart. A connection that goes back in time. And will always be there in the future. So, if you turn off the video and just listen, its there. You can really see it. Who they are. They are being themselves. If only for a moment, showing the elusive heart of a Two Spirit.

Sometimes I wish the world could be so blind and just listen to the our voices.

The Significance of Hair

Down in east Texas there is a little controversy brewing. Seems that the Needville Independent School District has a problem with long hair on boys. Worried that boys with long hair are a distraction, the school board thought it was in the best interest of the school to keep boys hair short. Oh, and I forgot, the long hair is on a Native American boy. Its being argued, by the parents, the their son does not need to conform to the hair on boys dress code for religious expressions reasons. Apparently, the just of the controversy is that in the school boards opinion the parents did not provide sufficient documentation that long hair on Native Americans constituted a religious expression. That is important because if it is a religious expression then it is a protected expression under the Native American Freedom of Religion Act and would open the door to the boy wearing long hair to school.

Of course, the father that passed on his oral history to the school board documenting long hair's religious significance and apparently oral histories don't carry any weight. If it ain't in print and authored by a respected anthro, it just can't be true. Of course, as a child, I remember sitting with the elders and listening with ears wide open, to the hysterics that they made as they recalled the 'sacred traditions' they gave to the anthros. And its amazing how many of them are still in print! Yes, its always the expert opinion of the majority whose voice carries the authority to define the minority. Sound familiar?

But of course, for me, that wasn't the real issue, whether long hair was a religious expression or not. No that was just their reason for closing the door on a loophole. The real problem as I see it is the asumption that only long hair on boys is distracting, able to disrupt the educational environment, hinder the ability of the students subjected to the presence of the boys long hair, to learn.

But for some reason it is not a distraction for the girls to wear long hair.

Clearly its a gender issue, a re-enforcement of the binary. Boys wear blue and girls wear pink. I wonder at what length the Needsville school board declares a girls hair is too short? That it becomes a distraction. Or if a girls hair is ever so long that it too becomes a distraction. Or if it is even a matter of concern. I didn't see any mention of girls hair length in the schools dress code. So there it is again, that an unwritten oral history can't be documented; laughing at the audience, catching the school board with its own lack of written word. I don't know, maybe I've got it wrong, because what to I know about gender, or hair.

The summer that I turned 14 my Abuelito said to me, 'Mijo, it is time that you should start wearing your hair long, to say who it is that you are.' Part of a boy's right of passage. And I really embraced it, because I could go back home with my hair long. Because it was the 60's, I never had to defend the cultural significance of my long locks or wonder how they may have disrupted the education process. In fact, Sen. Dawes would have been proud to see how well I assimilated, how easily my hair was lost so many, many times over with the rest of the long hairs, protesting against conformity. But that summer I also knew that my Abuelita understood the significance of my long hair, that the time was right for me to be taking those first steps into adulthood, because when I was getting ready to return home she honored my adulthood with a gift. A bean pot, given to girl's, at puberty.

And so it sometimes is, my euphoria over my long hair was short lived, not because of something some one made me do or because I didn't want to have long hair. It was because, in the winter of my 15th year that my great, great aunt passed. So I cut my hair. And that was the last time I cut my hair. For the next 30 years of my life, my hair became my strength. It has been said that the length of ones hair reflects what one has learned. I understand this and one of the most important things that I learned was embodied in that hair. As long as his hair was long she could walk in his shadow.

Of course, when I talk of life's events I often speak in context movement along a circle of life. In our teachings the circle suggests there is neither a beginning or an end, a right of wrong, morning or night ...... male or female. At any given point of time, or place, or action, it is accepted that regardless of which way one goes, one can always get back.

This year my brother passed and I cut my hair. A moment on my circle. I've had to think about this more than I like because as much as I can rationalize his passing, he still is my brother. Was my brother. So I cut my hair to honor his life, gave of myself, for all he gave for me. See, my brother was the first in my family that she came out to. At his wake a friend of my brother came to me and said, 'Remember when you first came out, well Karlo really got it. he said, 'You know, my family has changed, really changed. When you only have a brother, you sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a sister. I guess I'll find out."

So this time I think I'll keep my hair short. The circle has come around. She's much stronger now and he is walking in her shadow. And my bean pot is well seasoned.

Today, Adriel started kindergarden, his hair in braids.

Just an update, 22 Jan. 2009. A Federal District Court ruled that the Needville Independent School District’s policy violated state law and the U.S. Constitution by punishing the American Indian kindergartner for religious beliefs that require him to wear his hair long.

Sometimes it's the little things...

Someone once aptly described privilege as the luxury not to have to think about things. Like the way most men are blissfully unaware of the safety concerns that are reflexive for most women venturing out at night. In a far more minor way, I had a reminder last Friday about how being gender variant means not being able to take things for granted.

It was insanely hot for May here in the Bay Area, with record-breaking heat near 100 degrees. So it would've been nice to wear sandals to work because they would've been cooler than shoes and socks. One nice thing about working for a tech company is that the dress code is extremely casual and although a guy in sandals is a bit casual even in that environment, a lot of people were wearing shorts or sundresses that they wouldn't normally have worn because it was so damn hot.

There was just one issue: I've got painted toenails.

Unlike a lot crossdressers who "underdress" I don't wear nail polish because of the feminine symbolism, I wear because I like how it looks. To paraphrase (our patron saint) Eddie Izzard, it's not women's nail polish, it's my nail polish. I guess in that regard I'm just a metrosexual gone too far.

Now most of the company knows I perform as a drag queen, and a smaller number number know that my presenting myself as a woman is more than just for stage, it's also to express a part of myself that society deems "feminine." So it wasn't likely that my co-workers would freak out. Besides, my toes were an almost-sort-of-manly shade of bronze, and outside of work I've got no problem with walking around in sandals and shorts exposing my shaved legs and painted toenails.

But still...

There's always the not knowing how people will react, and if nothing else, I had a lot to do that day and just didn't feel like dealing with the conversations that might result. So I put on my shoes and went to work. It's trivial in the scheme of things I know. But it's another one of those subtle remainders about how I've forfeited my "straight" card now that I'm embraced being a gender variant guy.

Divided by a common language

During one of my first forays out in public while crossdressed, I was walking down the street in San Francisco when an extremely flamboyant gay man flounced up to me and shouted out, "Hey Mary, you're looking fierce! Work it girlfriend, work it!" (Yes I still remember the exact words.) Now he probably thought I was extremely drab drag queen, since I was dressed the way an ordinary woman of my age would've been, and undoubtedly he meant well and was trying to be friendly. But I was absolutely mortified. It had taken close to three decades to work up the courage to go out of the house while crossdressed, and consequently up to that moment I'd been ecstatic that not only had I not been beaten to death by sticks, but that -- although I was getting the occasional stare -- for the most part people seemed not to notice the guy in the dress in their midst. That confidence was crushed in an instant. I fought back the tears and just tried to get the hell away from him as fast as possible.

Ironically, I've since discovered that it's LGBT spaces, ones that usually thought of as "safe spaces," where I'm most likely to get "read." In part it's because LGB are simply more aware of trans people, but I think a big part of it has to do with the fact that when it comes to how people think about "being out," the LGB and T communities are like two nations divided by a common language (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde).

In the gay and lesbian communities it's usually presumed that being out is a Good Thing, and anyone who isn't is someone who's quivering in the closet. At the extreme, anti-assimilationists condemn those who are "straight-acting" for not being visibly queer, and milder forms of this thinking are behind the disrepect bisexuals often get for supposedly being "unwilling to commit" and "closeted when convenient." But in the T communities being "visibly out" has far different connotations. Over at the My Husband Betty forum, we've had a serious discussion about what we've half-jokingly called the "rules of engagement" -- i.e. if someone sets off your transdar, do you greet them as one of the tribe? In other words, do you overtly or subtly try to see if they're trans too. It's an issue gays and lesbians faced during the long years of needing to be discrete, and they evolved numerous subtle ways to identify each other without the straight population knowing what was going on: whether it was wearing red ties, asking if someone was a friend of Dorothy or mentioning you'd read "The Well of Loneliness." (Sometimes it wasn't subtle. Crossdressing (in part or in full) to signal one's homosexuality goes back at least as far as the "Molly houses" in the early 1700s.) All these were ways of trying to (safely) communicate to others who one really was.

Trans people have the same desire -- but the difference is that we usually want to be seen as the gender we're presenting ourselves. So for transsexuals being "visibly trans" means being seen as a trans woman or trans man, and for crossdressers it means being seen as a "guy in a dress," rather than being simply being seen as women and men. "Passing" (or as I prefer to think of it: "blending in") is something that most trans people -- at least those who aren't gender queer -- have usually thought about a lot during some point in their life. In fact, some people obsess over it. (Ironically it's often those who are most likely to blend in -- those of us with bodies that fall far outside the statistical norms for the height and build of our desired genders end up just having to make our peace with that.)

Now there's some very logical reasons for wanting to blend in. The first is one that LGB people are familiar with: safety. Being visibly gender variant means being a potential target, and not just from transphobes -- homophobes don't bother to inquire about my sexual orientation (If they would they've find out I prefer women.) The few times I've been harassed, people didn't yell "tranny," they yelled "faggot." Plus, higher percentages of trans people are victims of hate crimes than the LGB people -- at rates as high as 16 times the national average (a figure all the more striking because many jurisdictions still don't report hate crimes against trans people) -- so it is it any wonder we seek to avoid attention? Even if there's not a safety issue, constantly being an object of curiosity can just be wearying. Sometimes I just want to have an ordinary, boring day.

Another big reason -- one that lesbian and gays don't experience -- is how your identity is too often disrepected when you're "visibly trans." Transsexuals often are treated with double-standards when they're perceived as as trans men and women. As Julia Serano talks about in her excellent book "Whipping Girl," trans woman who act "too masculine" are accused of really being men (or at least of having "male energy"), and those who act "too feminine" are accused of aping women -- "unenlightened" women at that. Likewise, it seems like the current fetishization of trans men (most famously by Margaret Cho, who's bi) in some lesbian circles stems in part from trans men being perceived as deliciously masculine without the icky side-effects of being, well.. you know... actually men. (I can only imagine how these same folks doing the fetishizing would react if a similar disrepect was shown towards their own sexual identity as is shown in the implicit assumptions about trans men's gender identity.) As a crossdresser, I can tell you that the reception I get in some lesbian circles can be downright chilly, while gay men just assume I'm one of the boys.

Finally, there's a serious emotional component as well. I'd venture the most staight-acting "virtually normal" LGB people still would like to be do things such as be able to mention their partner when people ask about their weekend, or to be able to put their partners' picture on the their desks. In other words, to be seen as the person they see themselves as. Trans people want that too. I see it close-hand with one of my best friends, who transitioned a few months ago and who's thrilled that she's met new friends who see her simply as another women. But when we're "read," we're seen as not who we want others to see ourselves as -- just as I was on the street corner -- and that can be emotional devastating.

Now don't get me wrong. These days I'm both regularly out in public, and fairly publicly out -- most of my company knows I perform as drag queen. (Yes I went from fleeing attention to seeking to be the center of it -- after those long years in the closet there's something extremely liberating about that.) Some of my co-workers also know that I also crossdress off-stage to express a part of myself that society deems "feminine." I'm on various online forums for trans people and I see how being closeted eats away at people -- particularly the vast numbers of crossdressers (probably ten for every transsexual) who make up the "dark matter" of the trans spectrum. I dearly wish my peers could step free of that closet.

But it's still tricky at times. For the reasons mentioned, the consensus over at My Husband Betty was that one not let on that you think someone might be trans, and even dropping hints that you might be trans (like gays and lesbians of yesteryear) could be problematic -- since the only people who would get the hints would know that they set off your transdar, that they didn't blend in. It's also a widely-held belief in the trans communities that two trans people together are far more likely to get "read," (and three trans people together even more so), so there's an additional factor that the other person may react badly because of their fears about that. All of which is tragic in a way, because it leaves people isolated. It's not for nothing that people who disappear from the trans scene after transition call it going "deep stealth" -- and some of these folks who do quietly dip their toe back into the trans-world feel a fair amount of anxiety about their past being discovered, in part because they may not be out to their partners. These are problematic issues, and that's something the trans communities need to deal with.

However, these "rules of engagement" are, for better or worse, the rules most of us intuitively play by, and they can be hard for LGB people to grasp -- particularly since their own gender-bending (whether it's being a full-time nelly or butch, or whether it's just for play on Halloween or at a Pride parade) is often done in part as a statement about their being gay, lesbian or bisexual. Likewise, these rules are often misunderstood as being somehow ashamed of who we are, instead of recognized for what it is: just wanting to be seen as the person you see yourself as, and simply being able to live your life in peace. The difference for trans people is that not being "out" doesn't inherently mean one is "closeted."

Probably the best advice that came out of the discussion also was the simplest -- if someone sets off your transdar, just approach them and get to know them the way you would with any other person. If they're comfortable acknowledging to you that they're trans and they feel it's relevant, they'll do so. If the guy on the street corner had complimented me on my outfit and asked me about my day in the way he would've done with someone who was born female, would I have guessed that he probably had read me too. Yeah, probably. But I would've gone on my way with a smile on my face instead of tears on my cheeks.

Update: Now also cross-posted at Bilerico.

Princess Amygdala

How do we know with transness that there isn’t just something in the brain that’s mistaken? I don’t mean that in a bad way. I say that from the position of someone whose body was gender variant due to a hormone imbalance. When I see people’s before/after photos, I see FTMs who are physically quite feminine (i.e., normatively physically gendered), with no excess body hair, few large jaws or big hands, who get regular periods, etc. Likewise with MTFs: pre transition can be quite masculine, with very male skeletal structures, musculatures, a lot of body hair. I see such externally “gender normative” bodies I’m even jealous, though of course there are trans people whose bodies are gender variant, in various ways, too, who have ovaries or testicles that don’t function right, or make too much of the “wrong” hormone, etc.

It’d certainly be simpler if trans people all had physical evidence of their gender variance but obviously that’s not the case. All people who have physically gender variant bodies due to hormone imbalance are not trans, either, of course. But when I read that a lot of FTMs have PCOS like me, that makes perfect sense. Or when MTFs have gynecomastia or no body hair.

Here’s what got me wondering: I was diagnosed with PTSD, which is when this one part of your brain, the amygdala, keeps telling you you’re in danger when you’re not. It sends the adrenaline rushing through your body but because you’re not actually in a ‘fight or flight’ situation it just backs up, becomes an anxiety disorder. It’s not fun to have, & there’s no quick “fix” for it at all. But basically your brain - this one speedy part of it, the amygdala - is really just mistaken. It’s wrong. Somehow it goes on hyperdrive, & messages that should be sent to your rational brain go instead to this part that’s about having an immediate response (not necessarily a rational one).

So I’ve been thinking that maybe whatever it is in the brain that tells a person their gender is just wrong. For whatever reason. & I’m not positing a reason, or insanity, or mental illness, or anything like that: maybe just one part of the brain got an insufficient hormone wash or something. It could very well still be biological or genetic as far as I’m concerned.

With PTSD, some people get it when they experience trauma & some people don’t. Even in the same situation, the same risk to life & limb. & They don’t know why some amygdalas are quick to go into hyperdrive & others keep functioning normally. So in some ways there’s a genetic or chemical predisposition that can be “triggered” by trauma. Basically, no one who doesn’t have PTSD knows that they’re predisposed to it until they’re exposed to trauma & then they find out. There is no cure for it, except anti-anxiety meds and deep breathing and yoga and things like that - something more like maintenance than a cure, per se.

So maybe transness is something like that? Something like a predisposition that’s triggered by something environmental?

& Of course I’m not positing that transness should be “treated” any differently than it is now. Not being able to locate the “cause” of something doesn’t mean it’s not real. I’m also not trying to imply that transness is a kind of trauma; I’m just letting you all know what things I’m thinking about caused me to wonder this way.

(you may write all this off as the ramblings of a post-traumatic in an empty apt for the first night my lovely betty is away, & who is cursing being one of those people who has a fucked up amygdala. i’m not going to get any goddamn sleep tonight, i don’t think.)

About 20/20

I'm still thinking about the 20/20 show that was on a few weeks ago about young kids coming out as trans.

& The thing I can't quite get past is how many people who are gender variant grow up to be gender variant but okay with the sex they were born. A gay friend of mine called after the show was over & asked, "So what's the difference between them & me?" because he went through most, if not all, of what one of the young MTF expressed. He did drag for most of his childhood, expressed the desire to be a girl as a child, and had a hard time dating guys who didn't want to date a queen. I didn't have an answer for him. I don't know what makes some of us gender variant & some of us trans.

But I do know that talking about my own gender variance causes some trans people to decide that I'm trans, which is exactly what worries me. Were I younger and expressing my gender variance, & someone told me that meant I was trans, I'm not sure I would have had the ability or perspective to say, "No, I'm not." I'm not sure my friend would have been able to do that, either. But both of us are quite happy being who we are, passing in & out of stages in our lives where our gender variance was expressed, hidden, or naturally waned.

There is a part of me that, like the director of The Gendercator, that is concerned that all gender variance is disappearing into transness, and that diagnosing gender variance so young will only affirm the binary, that our choices will become Mr. or Mrs. Cleaver, or even some 21st Century version of them.

Yet there is another part of me that says it's great kids can at least say something, or that some of them can, to some of their parents, & that they don't get kicked out of their homes or forced into therapy for doing so. That's a good thing.

The other reality - that so many gender variant children grow up to be gay or lesbian - is also a concern. Homophobia is so huge, so unspoken, and it concerns me that most parents would rather have a daughter than a nelly, a son rather than a tomboy. While of course they might just step from homophobia into transphobia, I suspect that plenty of these parents will opt for raising their child stealth - with no one knowing their child is trans, and so will sidestep transphobia and homophobia - and the awful fear of gender variance - altogether. For some it will be too tempting to disappear into gender normalcy. & Of course, some would say, that's a GOOD thing; everyone has the right to feel normal about their gender. I just don't agree. I think instead people should be more conscious of gender, & the ways that gender delimits who we allow ourselves to be.

But mostly I'm still uneasy about early hormone use.

The cause for my concern surprises me the most, because what worries me is the child's decision not to procreate. I'm surprised because I'm happily child-free and a Zero Population Growth type; the fewer reasons people have to have children the better, as far as I'm concerned.

But being who I am, I also know the astonishment people express when I say I'm happy not having children. We all know how much late-breaking couples will spend on fertility drugs in order to get pregnant at age 41. That is, having children seems to be a basic, undeniable component to most people's happiness, and raising children gives many lives meaning it might not have otherwise.

Going on hormones at a young age means the child or teenager gives up the ability to procreate, & that is a huge thing to give up. More than one trans person has told me they're quite pleased they didn't transition younger precisely because it gave them the chance to have children. The thing is, I'm not sure that a 15-year-old can know, necessarily, whether or not they might want children in the future. I knew that I didn't, and that never changed. But for others, it does; teenagers are notorious for growing up & changing their attitudes significantly, after all.

These are not easy issues, any of them. I don't envy any parent with a gender variant child. At some level I distrust parents, for the most part, as I suspect most would want to keep their child safe, above all else: safe means fitting in, dealing with the world as it is, and not changing the world to make it safe for those of us who don't fit in. Plenty of us, I'm afraid, would not be good at being gender normative men OR women, whether we transition or don't.