I was talking with some friends the other night about the new security xray contraptions at the airports and how it would feel weird to walk through one. To have the four people standing behind the monitor, the ones with the power to impede my progress, see that I'm a guy without a penis. Will they register that, or won't notice because they don't see a weapon? Or will they peer around the corner at me, like the people in the Social Security Administration office when I went to get my gender changed on my SSN?
The thing that upset the lady at the Social Security office, and what gets some people flustered when I tell them I'm trans, is that they can't but imagine what is in my pants. And see it as some sort of personal betrayal because all this time they were thinking I had a standard-issue penis down there. Gay, straight, it doesn't matter. I have even gotten asked by a total stranger if I had bottom surgery, and if I did, does my penis work. Is that really what being a man is all reduced to? Can I be a transman without people invading my body-space?
I was used to it, as a dyke; people asking inappropriate questions. Do you miss having sex with a man? How do you have sex? You didn't have a good relationship with your last boyfriend, did you? I usually replied to the tune of "if you don't know what we do in bed then you're girlfriend is probably really dissatisfied," and "if having sex with men is so good why aren't you doing it?" Sort of juvenile, I admit, but they didn't expect those answers so it was fun. As long as they weren't dangerous idiots I didn't mind a bit of circular logic.
There's a big difference between strangers imagining what you do when you are having sex and what appendages you may or may not have on your body. It seems way more personal to me. I'm sure that the conversation turning from an abstract act in someone's mind to my physical being standing there is a big part of it. And I know I'd rather have been born with a penis and it's sort of a sore spot with me, y'know, a little bit of tender subject. So I might be reacting a bit strongly on this one. As a dyke, I didn't care as much about the sex questions because I could just sneer at them or flip them off. I looked like a big dyke, pretty much all the time for over ten years. Nothing was hidden. This is a conversation that has to happen because there's something private and unknown being shared.
I do not want to be one of those guys who goes around whining about how messed up it is that I had to be born trans. I am very proud of my journey, glad for my experiences, and eager to continue to grow into the person that is me. However, it does stink that I can't wake up one day and poof! it's there. I am interested in seeing how the surgeries evolve and hopefully one day will be able to at least get something done down there. It's a lot to learn how to love yourself in this world regardless of gender or sexuality and I'm not going to let anything I can control make it even harder for me to slog through. I have chosen to be patient and to be here in the now with who and how I am.
All of that is well and good, but I still don't want to go through those xray machines in the airport. I would prefer it to be my choice when people around me know that I'm trans and I feel vulnerable when I do not have that choice.
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