Content Warning for transphobia, homophobia, slurs, and violence. I don’t normally use content warnings, but this essay is a bit different than what I usually put out.
You might have heard of hostile architecture. Hostile architecture is a design philosophy intended to limit “anti-social” uses of a space. It is primarily used to keep homeless people from sleeping. Armrests intended to keep people from laying on benches and spikes intended to prevent sitting are two of the most commonly seen examples in urban areas.
The structure of a society can be hostile, too. Unfortunately, it is a lot harder to see than the explicitly aggressive visual of spikes on a ledge. While hostile architecture has been criticized for intentionally making poor people’s lives suck more, the hostile structure of a society is often ignored by all but those who are hurt by it. When they speak out, those who don’t notice it are often reluctant to acknowledge it.
Everything about moving through my life is hard.
Certain examples of a hostile society are obvious. People shouting about how those “damn animal transsexuals need to get out of my state!” on public transportation, being called a tranny, and people in my family casually saying gay people need to be shot are unsettling enough. But those are just the most salient reminders of how every moment in my life is laden with exclusion and stress.
Pennsylvania now will let people change their gender marker on their government IDs to whatever they identify as. Great! But I’m scared to do so. What if I’m in a situation where I’m afraid to present as a woman? What if the gender marker discrepancy between my ID and things like my health insurance means bureaucratic delays or, worse, being forced to change it back? What about the alternative, where I check that little box that puts “M” on my ID, only to very explicitly out myself to anyone who needs it when I’m presenting as female?
I want to get my legal name changed, and I want to go on hormone therapy. Legal name changes can cost hundreds, potentially thousands of dollars in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, if my health insurance doesn’t cover hormone therapy (I only recently managed to get back on health insurance after several months without), that can cost above a hundred dollars a month in estrogen alone, and several hundred for the lab tests which are conducted in the first six months. I don’t have much money. The basic moves I’d have to make in order to fit in better with society—the actions which society practically demands of me—are hidden behind a terrifyingly tall wall.
Until extremely recently, you could only change the sex on your birth certificate in Virginia (where I was born) if you had a doctor-signed document saying you had a medical procedure that changed your sex, the implication being bottom surgery. This, thank God, is supposed to change September 1 of this year. However, this is still the requirement at the moment, it is still the requirement in many states, and bottom surgery can cost upwards of $20,000 in addition to downtime to recover. This is a massive hurdle just so I can avoid outing myself in any of the many situations when I have to present my birth certificate.
I exist in a world which relies on legal names. I get deadnamed by the Human Rights Campaign because that’s what’s on my debit card. Even “progressive” workplaces make use of legal names when it’s not legally necessary. They’ll ask for a preferred name and then never use it in their communications. I regularly see my deadname on the wall at work when they could easily use my actual name. The humiliation I feel every time a co-worker deadnames or misgenders me—the public reminder that I am different from everyone else in a way that makes some people have more trouble working with me—chips away at me day after day.
There are even subtler, even more pervasive ways which single me out as transgender, and therefore bad. Co-workers discussing how “males” are always a threat to “females.” People treat me more kindly when they perceive me as female, but, at best, stop when they realize I’m transgender. It’s isolating seeing men in my workplace be friendly to every woman there… except me, the only transgender woman.
It’s creepy for a guy to walk up to me and say “hey beautiful,” and hurtful when he realizes and walks away.
The narratives that flow around transgender people are harmful. The constant depiction of transgender women as prostitutes, dead, or both has led people to encourage me to not be transgender, as if I had much say in the matter. The idea that transgender women are disgusting, primarily perpetuated through media, has manifested itself as people making vomiting noises as I walk past them, as if I’m waste, garbage that needs to be put out of sight.
And God, the online discourse. I know once upon a time it was cringe to be affected by what happens online, but with the novel coronavirus crisis resulting in everything being shut down, I think we can finally acknowledge how important the internet is. Virtually daily I see some transphobic bullshit, sometimes quite awful transphobic bullshit. Unfortunately, if I want to remain in the online spaces I use, I often have to respond to it. Because I’ve found that I have to speak twice as loud to be heard half as much as a cisgender transphobe. My opinions are regularly, openly discounted on the basis of me being transgender, as if the set of possible identities are cisgender and biased. I’ve been told I’m too biased, I’ve seen people argue that transgender people are unreliable on transgender issues, and I’ve heard the point made that being transgender makes you hysterical.
I’ve had to become deeply, unreasonably informed of the science behind transgender issues just to get people to listen to me. Some people. In the past I’ve cited the statements of over a dozen medical and psychological organizations and nearly two dozen scientific studies to make the case for the efficacy of transitioning, only for some to respond with outright dismissal and slurs. Of course, those slurs were not accompanied with any science, but for a lot of people all that has to be said is that I’m a tranny and they are not, and so I should shut up.
All of this culminates in one grim finale, hanging over my head the fact that it is virtually guaranteed that should I die anytime soon, the disrespect will continue after my death. My family will not respect who I wanted to be in life. I would be buried in a suit and my gravestone will read a name I never asked for. A pastor who believes I am likely going to hell would preside over my funeral as people sang odes to the man they thought I once was. Who I am will be erased from history and be replaced with a lie.
At the end of the day, the majority of people would either find this information surprising, or doubt its accuracy, or say that this is more or less reasonable. Most people sit somewhere in that spectrum, and if someone is in that spectrum, the best case scenario is that they won’t notice when transgender people are being hurt. At worst, they’ll participate. And so I write and I write and I write, and I try to talk to people when I think they’ll listen, but sometimes it feels like an absurd, Sisyphean task. It feels like that when the federal government gives advice to shelters on how to discriminate against transgender women, or when state governments decide that transgender women can’t participate in women’s sports, or when another celebrity decides to share an awful article which will be lapped up by thousands who don’t know any better, or don’t want to know any better.
If you want to know why so many queer people are attracted to the left wing of politics, it’s because even now society is deeply biased against them. It should be seen as a massively sad thing that only just recently did it become illegal to discriminate against gay and transgender people in employment. Employment! We can actually work to put a roof over our heads and food on the table without constantly being afraid of being fired for trying to be happy, hurray! If that’s where we’re working from, there’s so much more that needs to be done! So, so much more. But no, trans rights have gone too far.
The structure of society feels designed to drive me away. To some extent, it is designed that way, but a large portion of it is because many people do not care if I or people like me suffer.