Warning! This Label May Be Dangerous to Wear

So let me get this out of the way before you read any further. You should know whom you’re dealing with after all. I’m a post-op trans woman. I should also add I’m Jewish, asexual, progressively independent and an atheist. It might also help you to know that I’m a parent, educator, novelist, student and artist. If you’re interested, I’m also a spouse, sister, daughter, niece, aunt and cousin. And if you pushed me really hard, I’m sure I could go to my list of labels and find more that appropriately describe some aspect of me.

But let’s be honest. Most people are going to stop after the first label. After all, being a post-op trans woman is probably the most unique of my labels. I should say are the most unique labels I have, because there are two parts to that one.

The first part makes me an object of interest, having had “the surgery.” But post-op requires further definition because if I said I was a post-op woman, there are many different operations that women have, so some might be confused. They might think I was recently released from the hospital after having a tumor removed or, perhaps, a hysterectomy. So I need to narrow that down, clarify the label a bit more.

The second part places me into a slightly less defined, but still interesting category, as I choose the simple “trans” over transsexual or transgender. For me, it is a simpler bit of language that accurately describes this one aspect of me and doesn’t hold the political charge of the longer words. I prefer a more neutral label.

I could tell you I’m not a transsexual because I have crossed over from one sex to another and no longer have any sex to trans, but don’t tell my doctors that. They still want to define me by that label and make it difficult for me to get blood tests covered by my insurance company which would love every aspect of my health care to be defined as something related to me being a transsexual so that they could collect money to cover me and not actually provide any coverage.

I could tell you that when all is said and done, transgender will be applied to me and I don’t really care one way or another, but I don’t use it for myself because it is, to me, a political term. It serves its purpose for those who need a catchall. If someone uses it in relation to me, I don’t stamp my feet, hold my breath and throw a tantrum. I don’t even correct them. It doesn’t matter that much.

Now some have told me that after some time, I will probably drop the “post-op trans” label entirely, and just be a woman. And I’d like to be clear, I am a woman, but I will never just be anything. While I will let the post-op slide away because it’s extra, unnecessary verbiage to most and I only include it now because of how recently I put that label on and how immediate it is in my life, I believe I will always wear the trans label.

I will always wear it because I am the paternal parent of my children. I will not wear the label of “the other mom” because I do not like the implication of it. I certainly have a more maternal aspect, but to my kids, I will always be Daddy, even if they have a different name for me now, a somewhat less masculine label for that most masculine of identities. I wear the trans label so that when I deal with others in relation to my children, they know who I am and what role I play in their lives.

I will wear it because I refuse to erase my past. I lived a lot of years passing as a man and to deny that would be to say that part of my life was unimportant. This is not true. There is much in my life that I take pride in and wish to remain as part of my personal and professional history. I will not wear the “stealth” label.

I will wear it because as a successful trans woman, and I define success personally and professionally, I help educate non-trans people that we are not just the Springer side show, but real people who have an important issue in our lives that we have to deal with, but it is not our only issue, not the only thing we have to deal with. That we wear a lot of other labels as well and should not solely be defined by just the one.

Some have wondered why I am willing to wear the trans label so openly. But I don’t. I wear it the same way that I wear all those other labels and will be happy to talk about any of those things that define me should they come up, meaning that much as anyone else in the world, as any other woman with a lot of labels, I don’t hide them away so much as I simply don’t feel the need to broadcast them all the time.

I mostly just live my life as a parent, educator, novelist, artist and student. As an atheist, asexual, progressively independent Jew. As a sister, spouse, daughter, aunt, niece and cousin. As a person who is, among many other things, a post-op trans woman.

(originally published in Frock Magazine)