Thoughts on Affirming My Transness

I came across an interesting article today that gave four key affirmations for trans women who are learning to love their transness. If you haven’t done so, I encourage you to read the whole article here before proceeding, as I want to share my thoughts in response to this helpful article.

I strongly resonated with her opening questions to herself:  “Will I be loved if I transition? Will I have a community of support? Will people want to date, be friends, or hire me if I don’t look cis?”  As I have shared, the answers I have found are yes, yes, maybe (still haven’t really explored that), yes and…. well hopefully yes though at the moment no. These are very real, very personal and very poignant questions every transgender person faces as she or he (or they, or whatever pronoun they choose) makes the decision to embrace their identity. The question of acceptance ties very directly to our outward appearance, and in this the author explores some very pertinent issues.

We do live in the tension between rejecting false patriarchal visions of what it means to be a woman and the increased threat to our own safety and acceptance if we don’t. Most transgender women are not blessed with outward appearances that are going to get them on the cover of Vogue, or any other magazine for that matter. We are often painfully aware of how we don’t fit a feminine image, because our own minds remind us and even more society, both men and women, regularly reminds us. People reject us because we are clearly not “real” women nor “real” men (I speak at this point only from my own experience as a transgender woman, though I expect that transgender men face similar issues.) At the same time, many transgender women don’t want to fit into a particular mold of what it means to look like a woman. What it means for each of us to be a woman varies greatly, but the pressure is there to conform as much as possible to some social ideal of womanhood so that we might, hopefully, find acceptance and safety. It’s a terrible place to be.

However, on the positive side, we have the opportunity to help redefine society’s understanding of what it means to be a woman. Because we did not grow up as women (depending on how early we were able to accept our identity) we did not necessarily imbibe cultural expectations of womanhood. We have the potential freedom to express our womanhood in the way that best reflects who we are, and in this we join with cisgender women who are also fighting to liberate themselves from restrictive ideas of womanness. I personally like to appear more traditionally feminine. I like having my nails nicely done and my hair styled. I like to wear a dress or skirt and blouse, though I’m quite comfortable in my dance wear and at times a t-shirt and shorts. I’m quite fond of leggings! But I would never say to another woman, trans- or cisgender, that she has to follow my pattern if she is going to be a real woman. Nor do I accept other women or men dictating to me what I must or must not look like.

As I reflect on my own situation in light of this article I realize how very fortunate I am. I have the support of a strong community of people who accept and affirm me as I am. Most of my friends at this point are cisgender women who express their womanhood in a variety of ways. I appreciate the support and feedback many of them give me in choosing my attire, developing my facial look and in general fitting into a feminine image I am comfortable with. I also appreciate that none of them tell me I “must” look a certain way in order to be acceptable. They’ll tell me if an outfit doesn’t look good on me, and I appreciate that. But they won’t say that wearing it would make me less of a woman. In fact, I most appreciate my friends because they all accept me as a woman. The additional label transgender is not an essential part of how they perceive me or treat me. I recognize that not every transgender woman has this opportunity. In my ideal world, the label transgender would become unnecessary, because we would simply accept one another for who we are. We’re not there yet unfortunately. But I’m so thankful that my little corner of the world doesn’t choose to define me by a label.

So I will continue to define and understand for myself what being a woman means to me. And I will continue to welcome and cherish the other women in my life, both trans- and cisgender, for their open and unwavering acceptance and affirmation of me as a woman. I cannot adequately express how liberating this is. Thank you to all my dear friends!! And for those who are reading this who have transgender friends, be they male, female or fluid, I hope that you can offer them your full and unwavering support for who they are, regardless of what that looks like and how much or little that corresponds to the image others have of what they should be.