Sunday, July 5, 2009

I am not my surgery!

This is a story about terminology.

Transsexual, transgender, transgenderist, crossdresser... Sometimes I think we do such a great job of dividing us into successively smaller and smaller boxes. The only thing we're succeeding at by putting people in little boxes is building walls between us all.

Why do we need these walls? Why do we feel this perpetual need to label ourselves into nonexistance? This box is "right" and that box is "wrong". Any box that isn't my box is automatically invalid. From inside my closet, your closet doesn't exist.

Does anyone other than me see the total futility in this kind of mentality?

My gender identity doesn't match my biological gender. My gender presentation doesn't match my biological gender. Does this make me less transgender than, say, the FtM with topsurgery who ops out of full SRS because the results are sub-par? Does this make me less transgender than the fully post-op MtF, complete with facial femininzation and breast augmentation?

I think not.

I refuse to let society dictate which box I place my check mark in. I'm certainly not going to allow the trans or LGB communities dictate that for me too. I am not my surgery, and my surgery (or lack thereof) is not what makes me the person I am. My genitals do not make or break my identity.

If you don't want me to judge you based on what's taking up space in your Levi's, don't judge me based on what is or isn't in mine. Society says my birth certificate, my drivers license, my legal documents must be checked M or F. What kind of people would we be if we followed the will of the government like lemmings?

Happily I will buck conformity and express Gender Anarchy. Burn down the closets, break the walls, and leave the boxes to U-Haul, because the isolation you are putting yourselves in is self-imposed. Break the shackles of gender conformity and just be you for a change, regardless of people's opinions, looks and gestures. Toss them a few colourful gestures of your own.