It's about fifteen minutes before my first class starts, but I just had to write this.
A bunch of people in the geek scene at my school - yes, we have a geek scene and yes, I am in it (actually, a lot of trans people are geeky or nerdy, simply because geek and nerd "culture" is pretty accepting of misfits on the whole) - were talking about weightlifting.
My (cis male) friend Jordan: You can lose like twenty to thirty pounds in three days with weightlifting.
A cis girl named Elena who I kind of know but not really: Noooo! My mom and I tried that and we just bulked up.
Jordan: Well you have to run afterward.
Elena: It's different for you. You're a guy. We have different genetic...you know...
Jordan: Genetic codes?
Elena: We just end up looking like...like he-shes.
Me (annoyed): He-shes?
Elena: Yeah, you know, they look like a guy when they're really a girl. Or they look like a girl when they're really a guy.
Me (pointedly): You mean they're transgender. (sighs, disgruntled) I have scholarship stuff to work on.
And then I left, knowing that if I spent one more moment around this girl, she'd end up making even more micro-aggressions and I'd lose my temper and scream at her.
To clarify, I think it was rather obvious that I'm genderqueer. I have an awesome new androgynous pixie cut that can look masculine when I want to look masculine, and feminine when I want to look feminine. The jeans I was wearing were relaxed-fit boyfriend cut, a style beloved by many in the genderqueer community for its androgyny and ability to minimize leg, hip, and butt curves. My graphic t-shirt (it has a tent logo across the chest and the words chat room underneath), which was layered over a sports bra and three tank tops, came from the men's section, and I had the sleeves on my hoodie rolled up because I'd heard it helped to distract from breasts (I don't have a binder, but with all the effort I put it, those things damn well better have at least looked like large, well-defined pecs).
I mean, sure, a lot of the geekier girls at my school tend to go for a more tomboyish style, but most of them don't actually have any real desire to not look like girls. They just don't care what other people think. None of them looked like me, actively trying to make their hair, bodies and faces look more masculine on some days but liking dresses and jewelry and makeup on others.
Now, on with the post as I explain what is so wrong with he-she - though in a fair world, I wouldn't even have to.
Trans men are not women. They are men. Regardless of what is between their legs or what they are trying to conceal under binders, hoodies, undershirts, whatever, they are men. They are hes. Trans women are not men. They are women. They are shes.
And above all, trans people, whether binary or not, are people. We aren't he-shes. We're not liars or pretenders or monsters - we're just ourselves. We have our own identities, our own experiences, our own lives. We expect that to be respected. We deserve to be respected. Our rights, our humanity, our safety...those things aren't up for debate.
But when cis people use transphobic slurs or refuse to respect our pronouns or out us without our permission, they're saying, "I don't respect you. I don't consider your identity valid and even if I've only just met you, I know you better than you know yourself. And even if I do know you, I still don't respect you. I don't consider your privacy or feelings valuable, even if I'm related to you."
And that's not cool. So. Cis people, let's lay off the he-shes, transvestites, shemales, and trannies, mmkay? Because while you may not understand our identities, they are just as valid as yours.
