
Transgender Pride
By Jessica Xavier
"I can only fight because I've learned to. Being a man one day and a woman the next isn't an easy thing to do." ---
Bernadette, from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Back east, on the 'right' coast, pride day season is upon us, and if you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. Indeed, the notion of 'gay pride' may seem very strange to you. If you are homophobic, you may think that gay pride is patently ludicrous, an oxymoron even. The big parades in the center of major cities, with their colorful floats, Drag Queens and Dykes on Bikes - it's all too much, you say. It's just crazy - all these aberrant lifestyles on display for all to see - and also risky. Aren't these people jeopardizing their jobs? What if their employers see them? And besides, the media will just zoom in on the drag queens and the leatherfolks, further exacerbating the poor image that sexual minorities already endure. No thanks, you say - count me out. I mean, what's the point?
Bernadette's quote from Priscilla certainly rings true for me. I have had to learn to fight, to resist, to defend myself and others like me simply because I was born into the wrong sex. And by just living my life, I have become a transgendered warrior, struggling to survive in a hostile environment. The irony here is that the worst of the oppressors I've had to face was my own body, coupled with my refusal to accept the truth of my existence - my own transsexualism. But better late than never. Today I can embrace my reality, my body, my self - because I have triumphed over my own internalized transphobia. I have lived to tell.
While lacking a choice about who I truly am, I do have a choice on whether to celebrate it or not. Pride is a funny thing. Too little of it and we become empty shells, but too much of it and we become boastful and ego-centric. It's been said that "pride goeth before a fall," but what if you've already fallen? Or what if you've been knocked down, trampled, and had your face rubbed in excrement? Although I now know what pride is, I must confess a greater familiarity with its converse, shame, and I suspect that you too, my dear readers, might be equally familiar with it. Ours is a gender arrogant yet gender ignorant society. It punishes those who transgress against it's heterosexist gender norms, such as its insistence on only opposite sex partners, and on gender roles and expressions congruent with sexual anatomy. To be born different into this culture is to be a target of shame. To grow up different and be called deviant is to be ashamed. To come to believe it yourself is to live ashamed.
Given the dominant culture's hostility towards diversity of all kinds, to reject its pervasive shaming of sexual minorities is very, very difficult. I struggle with it every day - indeed, my transactivism may just be a coping mechanism for it. It was only after a long personal struggle that self-acceptance finally came to me as a gift from my higher power, without whom I would not be here today. I now understand that who I am is who I have been all along, and that I can be no other way. But is that fact of my existence alone enough for me to be proud of who I am?
I can empathize with Candace Gingrich, for I too am an Accidental Activist. When I started to 'get involved,' I thought I was simply 'doing the right thing.' I started by identifying certain needs within our local Washington, DC transgendered community, like becoming the new Treasurer for TGEA and doing more outreach presentations. It was only by chance that I went to a meeting of the Host Committee for the 1993 March on Washington, and my subsequent volunteer work with them literally changed my life. For the first time in my life, I came into contact with members of other sexual minorities who were proud of who they were. Although I didn't know it then, many of them also were finding their own pride by working for the March.
With the noticeable exceptions of Phyllis Frye, Leslie Feinberg and Riki Wilchins, it seems to me that we transgendered are largely clueless when it comes to teaching pride within our own community. Looking back, I feel very fortunate that my naive efforts to do the right thing have allowed me to work with many wonderful gay, lesbian and bisexual activists, many of whom have become my heros and heroines, my role models, and my good friends. Working side by side with them was very therapeutic in dealing with my own shame, as was all my outreach work. Having outed myself over a hundred times before groups of strangers in outreach presentations, I can tell you that this type of confession is indeed good for the soul. But there's still more to pride than just the absence of shame.
It seems to me that all too often, we trannies become obsessed with all the mechanistic details of becoming the women and men we know ourselves to be. With our eyes on the prizes of transition and surgery, we become completely fixated on the myriad details of our physical transformations and in so doing, we miss the point completely. It is not who we are becoming but the becoming itself that makes us who we are. To continue my existence on this planet, I had to overcome half a lifetime of denying my transsexuality, and then successfully transition genders while scrimping and saving for my surgery. After all that, I chose not to assimilate but to live my life openly as a transsexual woman, which meant I had to work very hard to keep my jobs. That is a lot of adversity for one life! The many hardships that any transsexual endures build a strong character, a keen survival instinct, an appreciation for living on the very edge of human experience. Is that not something to be proud of?
And those of you who are MTFs and don't transition or desire surgery - you too must deal with a lot of adversity. After bravely owning up to the truth of your own existence, the woman within you must learn to co-exist with the bread-winning family man, the loving husband, the caring father, and all the other roles you must play to make your life work. That's a nifty trick, and not too many other men could pull it off. But you do. Is not that something to be proud of?
And there's even more to our pride. Besides dealing with the complexity and conquering the adversity in our lives, all transgendered people possess a special uniqueness, for to be a changeling is a mystical experience. We transgendered have existed since the dawn of time, on every continent, in every culture and in every race on earth. We have been the shamans and healers of earlier civilizations who have respected and honored us for our unique difference. After all, we transgendered understand far more completely than anyone else those twin mysteries of the human race, male and female; and that wisdom is our gift to impart to the non-transgendered. Sadly, ours is a culture that doesn't appreciate our gift - indeed, it even persecutes us for possessing it. But throughout human history, cultures have come and gone, while we transgendered have remained - thus it is our culture that must change, not us. And as fate has it, the imposing task of educating society and changing public perceptions about us has fallen to us, to this transgendered generation. Us. And only a proud people can succeed in the face of such a daunting challenge.
Surviving and thriving in a hostile culture, bestowing our gifts to those who will appreciate them, all while supporting and sustaining each other through the dark times - these are the pillars of Transgender Pride. Against all odds, by our own defiance of heterosexist gender norms, we continue to bear witness to an extraordinary human experience. In living these amazing lives, we struggle mightily to understand our selves, to be heard by our loved ones, and to be accepted as fully human, as we fight the greatest of all oppressors - our own shame. It is our passionate struggle to triumph over our shame that defines us, not just as a sexual minority, but also as a proud people, worthy to join our gay, lesbian and bisexual cousins in celebrating our own special uniqueness. That is what we celebrate on Pride Days, and that celebration keeps us all strong, united and proud, until that time when the culture changes, and we all can feel that pride each and every day of the year.
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