The Trap of the Binary for Transpeople
Because you damned well better look like what you say you are!
My friend, Jay, doesn’t in any way present as a female person; she dresses like I do (jeans, sweaters, t-shirts, Doc Martens), and wears her hair cut like, well, a man’s. Anyone meeting Jay would assume immediately that Jay is a man but Jay identifies as a transwoman.
This creates endless consternation for many people, gay and straight alike.
We can thank our friend, The Binary, for all this head-scratching. If Jay identifies as a woman why doesn’t he, er sorry, she dress and talk and act like one? Even the most woke among us is carrying loads of archaic baggage around what women and men are supposed to look and act like. Even transpeople themselves quite often fall prey to these ideas of what constitutes the way their true identity should look.
Every transman I know (and I know more than a few) opts for facial hair. It’s the ultimate signifier that they are men. Many transwomen take their femininity to almost cartoon-like extremes, but even the most relaxed and at-home-in-her-skin would hesitate to be caught schlubbing around (like I do)bra-less, sans any make-up, wearing chinos, pullovers, and comfortable shoes. There’s such a strong societal expectation of what a woman should dress like, look like, sound like and the same for men that it’s almost a requirement for transpeople to fulfill that expectation.
And Jay doesn’t.
She has incited outright hostility from people of every orientation and identity for refusing to “look” like a woman. And this is very curious to me. A very vocal lesbian activist I know took such exception to Jay’s presence at a trans/women art space that she forced Jay to leave.
Who gets to say whether or not Jay is a woman? (Hint: not me or you.) And is Jay’s identity predicated on what she wears? Am I less of a woman for not dressing like one?
One of the reasons my partner loves Burning Man so much is that he can dress in cute little skirts and leggings and pretty scarves without anyone looking at him funny. Make no mistake, both of us are cis-gendered but we also both love fucking with the binary. We don’t dress or act the way we’re supposed to all the time. Ok, most of the time.
I arrived at the Miss Sobriety Pageant one year in a button-down shirt, my hair slicked back, knife-creased trousers and my favorite Gauguin necktie. My friend, Jeffrey, threw his arms around me and cried out “You came in drag!”
I keep hoping we can move past these gender expectations but it’s going to be a long, slow evolution.
Mind you, I’m not in any way throwing shade on how anyone dresses or presents themselves. I know many people who just feel more like themselves in four-inch heels and a tight little micro-mini skirt. You go for it! What I am saying is that no one should feel compelled to wear those heels or that skirt unless that’s what they want to wear. Furthermore, no one should think that they have to dress “like a woman” just so they can identify as one.
In the meantime we have Jay and we get to support Jay in her identity as a woman no matter how she dresses. Go, Jay!
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