I think I manage to tie it all in together.

[tyresias]

This ramble inspired by 2 posts in feminist on guidelines men should try to follow when in feminist spaces. I’m not going for a “pat on the back” for being a half decent guy. I’ve joined a few feminist communities but kept this mini-struggle of mine to those communities for male or trans feminist. Unfortunately I got very little feedback and felt the cisgendered males couldn’t quite understand my experience.

I have 2 main sets of experiences, one I would generally lump as “tomboy” and the other as a guy with a transgendered history. I mention this to hopefully explain my limitations. While I grew up understanding just how little “deviance” in female gender norms most people would tolerate, I did have the good fortune of having a mother who promoted/allowed (depending on the behaviour) her child to be “gender variant”. I don’t know what it’s like to be forced into a femme type appearance or denied most/all activities deemed gender neutral or typically male. It’s quite recent I can acknowledge that last part. I used to think that since I’d had lost count by age 6 of the number of times someone wanted to prevent me from doing something “male” or had my appearance labeled as problematic at best but more usually offensive, I knew the full extent of sexism. 
 I knew what it was like to be that thorn sticking out, with a continual crowd of people trying to smash it back into place. It’s the reason I still shake my head when someone says that it’s so much easier to be a tomboy than a tomgirl. People see more women wearing gender neutral clothing or doing activities previously assigned only to males and they think women have more freedom to blur the gender lines. So long as the worse thing to call a guy is a girl (sissy, fairy, mama’s boy, you throw like a girl), try being the girl. No one cares how masculine you look or behave. But having moved from there and gotten a fair amount of male privilege from passing I can take a step back and not get as defensive. I continue to thank my 1st girlfriend (we’re good friends now) for checking my (then) privilege within the dyke community that shamed her for being a femme. This isn’t an “anti-butchdyke” rant. It’s where I began to see the ways that women who did conform to the gender norms (in this case, it was someone who genuinely loves being femme, is aware of it being a stereotype and isn’t being forced into that gender norm) could feel just as uneasy as someone who had never fit in right.

Yesterday a female co-worker suggested I apply for her position. I asked her what had prompted her move and she explained that she was tired of our boss mistaking her for a secretary. I asked her why then she’d want me to take her job, I had no desire to be anyone’s secretary, and express puzzlement that she was doing anything secretarial-like, since she’s an analyst by title and that wasn’t her job description. As quietly as she could, you could tell hoping I wouldn’t hear it she muttered “Matt, you’re not a woman, he won’t expect you to do both your job and be a personal secretary.” And then a little louder “don’t worry, he won’t make you into his bitch.” I just blinked a few times so stunned by what I’d just heard. Sounding very genuinely concerned rather than accusatory I said “Wait… did you mutter he was treating you differently just because you’re a woman?” She reluctantly nodded, clearly assuming I’d deny it or label her as paranoid/wrong somehow. She said it was probably all in her mind and just to forget it. Instead I acknowledged what I’ve been too privileged to catch on was happening right next to me and listened as she vented. 

It took her a while to believe I genuinely believed her but I feel a great sense of satisfaction (yup, I can pat my own back just fine) that I was at least able to provide her with a chance to let all that built up frustration come out.

For me it was a another wake up call (far from the 1st) that I’m glad I continually get. When I’m stealth, while I do my best to check sexist crap guys will say when no women are around, I clearly miss the most subtle stuff happening when women are around. I used to be so in-tune and catch so much more stuff but the privilege that comes with being stealth, against my better efforts, blinds me to some of the sexism going on.

I still don’t believe I have as much privilege as a cisguy when I disclose (esp. not if I’m in an environment where I don’t have a choice about the disclosure eg government/medical institutions, when being intimate) so it can be hard for me to admit at times that I am getting privilege in spaces where I am stealth.

Something else that can make my head hurt is my relationship to homophobia. I remember being incensed when gay men said it was harder for gay guys to be out then it was for lesbians (and yes, most these dialogues are biphobic/monosexual-centrict). I was out all the time about my sexual orientation and often feared that some male ‘phobe would try to sexually assault me to “make me straight”.

That fear has merely evolved for me when in spaces where I disclose, because I’m aware of my genital status. But I must admit I’m closeted in most spaces about my queerness as a guy. It’s in part because I don’t know how to wrap my head around my feelings for men (trans or cis), I’ve just come to enough terms with them to not deny or fight them. But also because I hate it when my femininity is equated to homosexuality when I know it’s due to die-hard habits or mannerism from my former self.
[I could break off into a tangent of the traits due to my former self which I take pride in retaining and those I wish I could drop but can’t seem to yet. In the case of the later how my desire to change runs head first into my feminism/anti-sexist principles.]
But the other part is that I’m more afraid of being physically assaulted for being assumed as gay/queer  than I was being sexual assaulted for being read as a dyke. (That is to say in terms of frequency of the fear not that I view physical assault as more threatening to my being than sexual assault) And I’m terrified that while someone was physically assaulting me for being gay/queer the person would discover my medical history and go into sexual assault.
So despite all the TEACH workshops I do, how much confidence I have to always check people on their homophobic/sexist language at work, and in similar environment, I don’t come out or disclose about myself. I do it all as an ally to community. I even check queers (eg at a queer bar) on their transphobia as an ally. One beer bottle being pelted at the back of my head was enough for this tranny. You can ask cheerfulchaotic holding hands with a guy in public is hard for me. I’ve only done it a dozen times at the most since starting HRT.

I have no idea where I wanted to go with this but this is where it wound up. I mostly wanted to say that I am slowly getting better at checking my male privilege in spaces where I’m stealth and I find the process of realizing the sides of sexism I never experienced and deconstructing my privilege fascinating rather than a painful exercise as I had when I began to check my other sources of privilege 5 years ago.

Laura (the nurse at Sherbourne) asked me why I was doing the pamphlet. Someone else assumed it was due to the lecture at the last queer health matters on abuse done by FTMs unto their significant others but I had already began doing something like the pamphlet before than. Really it was a series of reflection I came to after breaking up with thisisamuffin. I took the time to do a basic mental exercise. I tried putting myself in her shoes and seeing how much information I could fine for supportive partners. All I could fine was the odd group for those who didn’t support (usually were flat out transphobic) but wanted to stay with their partners. thisisamuffin never had a hard time using male pronouns and accompagnated me to an appointment to learn how to give my shots before I could. But there were definite limits to her understanding and through this exervice I began to understand why. There is very little to nothing out there for those who have the name and pronouns down right. For every person who’ll blame any shade of anger on my part as “roid rage” there is someone who would have as quickly bounced on her had she remotely expressed unease around my transition and labeled her as transphobic (heck I can recognize I did). As a result partners can be left knowing what isn’t acceptable for them to do but with little to no space to express what isn’t fair for the FTMs to do to them. I still think it’s my right to decide who a partner or friend can or cannot disclose my medical history to but as a guy in ftmen explained to me, I think it’s imperative that the partner or friend be the one doing the disclosing if I have approved it, because they are the ones with the relationship/friendship to the person they’re telling. The exception being a partner or friend telling someone I don't know and will never meet and who that person trusts will understand the sensitive of the matter and not disclose it on to someone else. I do recognize a partner, esp. of a stealth tranny, has the right to discussion how transition is affecting them. But it has to be someone who will never my or my partner and I's life, in my case anyway. Each passing tranny has their own relationship to disclosing and stealthness.
The pamphlet will hopefully become a drop in a bucket of resources that will come but I wanted to do my part to try and give something for non-trans supportive partners to have as a resource.

This post public so thisisamuffin can read it (should someone tell her about it).