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adaminabarx · 8 months

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Thoughts on T-Slur Discourse

Who's allowed to say the t-slur discourse seems to be going on right now. Since I’m a 33y/o, non-passing, transexual woman who's been transitioning for about two years I might as well throw in my two cents.

Being a Trans Child in the 90s and 00s Sucked

I was born in 1990, meaning my childhood was in the 90s and my teen years were the 00s. When I was growing up tranny wasn’t even really a slur. Transitioning your sex or gender was so unthinkable that it was just never mentioned in any real capacity. I would occasionally hear about some “freak trannies” that actually went through with a “sex-change operation”. But that’s not me, I’m not a tranny, right? Doing something like that was for someone who was truly depraved and I’m not a freak. I was told I was a boy and that was the end of it. Why would I question it?

Now you might think that I grew up in some hyper conservative, evangelical household. But no, my parents claimed the opposite. They were super liberal (didn’t even vote for reagan in the 80s), we went to a unitarian-universalist church, everywhere I was surrounded by messages of love and acceptance and being true to yourself.

Yet even in this environment, tranny wasn’t a slur. I remember hearing my younger sister in her mean-girl phase saying that other girls in her grade looked like a tranny. Faggot was a slur and would get you in trouble, but tranny was just a light insult that people would casually toss around.

I knew of exactly one trans woman back then. She went to our church and transitioned in her 50s. I was in the youth group with her son and he fucking hated her for being a tranny. He just tried to pretend she didn’t exist. There was one time I got him alone and wanted to ask him some questions about his mom. As soon as he realized what I was getting at he started ranting about embarrassing and selfish it was for her to transition. How fucked up it is that he has to have a tranny for a mom. Keep in mind that this kid was misgendering his mom at every possible point in his rant.

I also remember one time my mom decided to talk about her on the car ride home. She spent the entire ride criticizing the way this trans woman dressed and talking about how she should have “at least” waited until her kids moved out of the house.

This was the attitude towards trans women at a Unitarian Universalist church in the most open, loving, hippy-dippy, liberal part of Minnesota.

Now I could talk for days about how the 90s and 00s were a traumatizing time to be a trans kid. But let’s fast-forward to the present.

I Don’t Pass

This isn’t me being self deprecating. This is a statement of fact. My testosterone-based first puberty did immeasurable damage to my body, mind, and soul. Every day I realize more and more that every facet of my being has been shaped by the trauma of having to go through a testosterone-based puberty and the expectations that come with it.

I don’t pass, I won’t have any chance of passing until I can afford FFS, BA, and various body contouring procedures. That said, don’t come at me with any platitudes about how I don’t have to pass to be valid. That’s not the point. The point is: not passing means I’m a tranny.

I see it in everyone’s face whenever I go out in public. Whether it’s going to the grocery store or hanging out with friends. When people look at me, they see a tranny. When people interact with me, they interact with me as a tranny. No one treats me like they treat women.

And it affects me! I *know* I’m a woman in my heart of hearts. But I don’t feel like a woman, I feel like a tranny. Everyone else sees a tranny so I see a tranny in mirror every morning when I do my skincare. I see my pronounced brow, my cleft chin, my pronounced jaw, the way my lips sit on my face. I see all the markers that people use to make the judgement that I was AMAB and now I’m desperately trying to be a woman.

Kate Passes Perfectly

The place where all this is the most pronounced is actually when I’m in the presence of another trans woman I know, for the sake of this writing I’ll call her Kate. Kate is one of my cousin’s daughter’s friend. She is a 17y/o trans woman who’s been out since she was 9, got on blockers shortly after, then started HRT at 14.

I met Kate at my cousin’s daughter’s graduation party. I had only been fully out for a couple months at this point. I didn’t really even want to go to this grad party, but my extended family and their friends are all “loving” and “accepting” and “open-minded” so I let my cousin convince me to go.

When I arrived it was all eyes. Just a sea of eyes making judgmental glances. And… Like… How could they not stare!? Here I am, a 32 year old tranny dressed in a gaudy black and white outfit wearing what she *thinks* is low-key makeup. Everyone was “nice”—no one actually pointed and went “look a tranny!”—but no one treated me like a woman.

Then at some point Kate came up to me, introduced herself, and immediately told me that she was trans. I didn’t believe her, I thought she was a cis girl setting me up for some cruel joke. But she wasn’t, Kate is just a sweet young woman who was assigned male at birth. Growing up with access to information and positive representation she was able to advocate for herself and avoid the trauma that would’ve come with a testosterone puberty and male expectations.

Being around Kate was shear agony. Nobody, and I mean nobody, misgendered or stared at Kate like a tranny. Here is a young woman living the life I should’ve had. The life I would’ve had, if I had access to less cruel representation. The technology existed when I was her age, I could’ve had this life.

I didn’t have to be a tranny.

Every interaction I had at this grad party was tainted with the fact that I was a tranny. Whether it’s people asking invasive questions; or being way too interested in me; or the classic “he—err, i mean she” pronoun fuck up; or when they smile at me like I’m a homeless man begging for change while they’re loaded with cash and have no intention of parting with a single dime. Even Kate’s interactions with me were because she saw that I was a tranny and wanted to come relate.

That’s not to say I didn’t have any fun, I got a free lunch and I had a couple interesting conversations. People are generally fun to be around and talk to even if I am the token tranny. But I couldn’t stay for long, while being a tranny is better than being a man, it’s still just so hard to bear.

Anyways… About That Slur

So what am I even trying to say with all these ramblings about my trauma? That not even passing transexuals are allowed to say tranny? That I’m the arbiter of who gets to say tranny?

Well, yeah I am.

And also no I’m not.

I mean, I can’t control people and dictate what words they say or what they think. Whether it’s a bigot calling me a tranny freak on the street or one of my extended family members muttering it to themselves when I commit the unforgivable sin of being a little cringe in my 30s.

All I have is my judgement. Take Kate, I can say with quite a bit of certainty that the word tranny has hurt me and stunted my growth more than her. I don’t want to discount any bullying that she’s gone through. But she’s not going to have to go through the horror of watching her body go through changes that are just simply wrong for her. The horror of being held to male expectations and dissociating away her teens and 20s.

So if Kate ever dropped the t-slur around me, it better be in the context of something truly poignant. Anything less and I’ll get pissed. On the other hand, If I’m talking to another trans person of similar age and transition history then I’ll probably be the one to start spouting off “tranny this, tranny that” and end up getting called out.

So when I see people that are non-binary and attractive in the manner that is expected of their assigned gender at birth start talking about reclaiming the t-slur, I don’t want to associate with them. I don’t care if they’re technically “allowed” to say it. Whether or not I confront them about it they lose my respect.

But why should you care about my respect. In all seriousness, you probably don’t. I don’t have any kind of following. And well, I literally just admitted to using conventional attractiveness as one of the measures for whether or not someone can say tranny! I clearly have a lot of self-worth issues that I need to unpack. But it’s true, and if that makes you lose respect for me then so be it. But I suspect that a lot of people hold similar values, even if they don’t want to admit it.

So, where does this leave us? I don’t know. I don’t have any real answers. I’m just some tranny, trying to figure out her life one day at a time. If you really want some kind of prescriptive advice, I’d say: read the room; say what you wanna say; and when (not if) you fuck up, listen to the people who are having feelings about it with empathy.

As for me, I think the real reason why this discourse is so touchy for me is because I want to eventually get to a point where it would be gauche for me to drop the t-slur. One of the few things that keeps me going right now is the fact that there are surgeries that can help me look less like a tranny.

I guess that’s what gets me about this discourse. It feels like there’s a contingency of people that just want a t-slur pass. When it’s a word I want so desperately to get rid of.

#transgender #reclaimed slurs #t slur #t slur reclaimed #transexual #trans experience

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