The Toast’s previous coverage of trans* issues can be found here. This post was brought to you by “a fervent believer in the matriarchy.”
It’s the dipping point of a late July sunset, and my roommate (and hetero life-mate) Seth and I are walking to meet some friends at a bar. We are both wearing wonderful snapback hats and Seth’s hat has large, O’Keeffe-worthy flowers splashed all over it and mine is a distinguished sparrow gray that perfectly frames my new haircut, shaved so close on the sides and back that I can feel the sunset behind my ears. And we look so goddamned handsome that I want to link elbows with him and find a boardwalk to stroll down. I feel handsome because I’m wearing my favorite shirt too, the one where I can roll up the sleeves ever so slightly to show off the muscles that can now support my full body weight (I work out every other day now, and I can plank for two full minutes and I tell myself that this is metal as fuck because it is.) This peach plaid shirt cuts a fine figure—I like living my life in this shirt. And it just looks so perfect when I wear my binder underneath. I’m also wearing my binder, because of course I am. I’ve been wearing it every day for the last three months, and my body makes sense to me this way.
Seth and I pass the parking lot of a convenience store, but not before the back end of a car juts out in front of us; the man in the backseat has opened the windows just in time to scream. At me, because of course he’s screaming at me.
“GIRL! GUUUURRRRLLLL! BLONDAAAAAAAY!” He can scream and smile at the same time. He had something he really needed to share.
Among the many names/nouns/adjectives that have been yelled, cooed, barked, and typed at me in the past six months, this encounter is benign and I can laugh it off. I am still so goddamned handsome.
Earlier this evening, I walk to the corner store with Ryan, my other roommate, for beer and candy bars. I’m wearing my binder, my perfect sparrow gray hat, my old leather jacket, my scuffed boots. We pick up what we want, and I don’t like the cashier who’s on tonight. He always holds eye contact a little too long and calls me “miss” in that passive-aggressive tone one usually reserves for mothers and clergy. He hisses it at me every time I see him, and I never hear him say it to other gals in the store. I’m not a gal, and I think that’s his point. I don’t like assuming that; I don’t like feeling paranoid about a kid with a patchy neck beard misgendering me. I decide tonight that if he calls me “miss,” I’ll give him some shit about it. Not the river of shit I’d prefer, but enough to let him know I’m onto the fact that he’s a jerk-off.
“$18.55, missssssss…” He cuts his eyes at me, like a cat that climbs up your curtains RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU and looks back at you like, “Look how high I got!”
“You know, you call me that every time I’m in here,” I say evenly, handing him my card. He swipes it and drops eye contact, says kind of sniffily, “What of it?”
“Oh, nothing,” I say. “It’s just not something I hear often.”
He hands me back my card and he starts to laugh in a way that makes me nervous.
“Well gee, maybe don’t be a total bitch to complete strangers!”
If that sentence had been a snake it would’ve bitten me. He looks at me after he says it, kind of surprised, but mostly disappointed. In me. Look what you made me do. I am agog. And while “agog” is usually a cute look for me, I just leave. Ryan and I walk home in a near-silence that’s only interrupted by him saying to my back, “Jesus! What was wrong with him?”
Here’s the thing: this summer, men have really taken it upon themselves, sometimes in groups, to Tell Me Things I Need To Know And/Or Fix About Myself. Those sweet princes!
This isn’t a new phenomenon (thanks, Weird Sweaty Boy In The Chevy Corsica who made sucking sounds at me while I walked home from MIDDLE SCHOOL, you’re a prize piece and I hope no one ever invites you into their home for dinner or snacks or even if you really have to use the bathroom), but the sheer volume of instances from this summer is pretty staggering.
When it does happen, I try to actively refuse thinking about it in any framework that would place the burden of legibility entirely on my shoulders. Many of these encounters are so public, and necessarily so: when you’re speeding past my walking body on the sidewalk, you can say what you want to me—at me—I cannot catch up to you. What would I do, if I could? Proximity is key here, but for you, it’s important only in its flexibility. You have to be close enough to let me know I’m being looked at, and you have to be far enough away to end the encounter on your terms. This intimacy is violent precisely because of its one-sided flexibility–I don’t get to restrict access, I get to be accessed.
I know that my body invites commentary, almost as if the cat-caller needs to shout so loud in order to make my body legible—if he can say something about it, that’s a step toward locating my body in a rubric he’s familiar with. But when it’s happened to me this summer, I just wanna be like, “Dude. IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE TO ME EITHER, and you’re not helping.” What frightens me the most is the palpable shift in proximity. At this point, you don’t have to be in a car to feel confident in your capacity to Tell Me Things I Need To Know And/Or Fix About Myself. You don’t have to be walking by me on the street or passing me in the bike lane. You can be behind the counter, selling me my beer. But you know, you can actually get closer than that. If I could place the people in my life in a set of rotating, undulating concentric circles, there’s just as much bullshit in the inner rings these days. I don’t draw lines of equivalency between the different types of bullshit I’ve encountered—watching a dude in a truck push a tongue through his split fingers at me is far different from a pair of hands pushing my forehead into a wall. I don’t want to flatten out the variations. Things just feel especially close now. I feel bound, funnily enough.
I love my mother, and I’m lucky that I do. Because I love her, I cherish her and I try to listen to her and I forgive her, even when she puts water in her ice cream (but SERIOUSLY THAT IS NOT A THING MA, PLEASE STOP PRETENDING THAT “Water makes it crunchy!” IS ANY TYPE OF VALID EXCUSE FOR THIS BEHAVIOR. ALSO WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.) When I first told her that I’d starting binding, and was beginning to think about what “trans” might be like for me, she came over to my house and reacted in a way that made sense to me. I answered the door; she noticed my binder; she winced. She came inside, and asked to borrow one of my shirts (she had to change for a concert because she’s a singer AND a lawyer AND how baller is that) and we talked for a bit about my binding and she mostly said, “I love you. I don’t care about the rest of it.” I believe that. But there are other things behind that conversation that are getting closer to me now.
I’m Facebook friends with my mom. Usually, this is fine! She reposts a lot of cartoons from the New Yorker and memes about being an Italian mother. This afternoon, I scrolled through my feed on my phone and saw that she’d posted what looked like an X-rayed picture of a ribcage, ostensibly female, twisted and pinched into an hourglass figure. The picture was attached to an article, titled “Vintage X-Rays Reveal Shocking Extent of Corset-Imposed Body Deformation.” My mother’s caption: “a word to the wise (you know who you are and I share this because I love you.)”
Just below her, I saw that my mother’s husband posted this article first. His caption? “Food for thought about forcing your body into a shape other than what it actually is.”
And there it is again! The snakebite! Binding is actually not at all like wearing a bone corset from the 19th century, but THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR CONCERN. I didn’t even have to ask you!
The circles move and fluctuate, and proximity is important, but only if it can be flexible for you. You can get close enough to me to let me know I’m being looked at, and as for being far enough away? Well, that part’s optional, right? Hasn’t it always been?
I try to remember and acknowledge the difference, the degree, the proportion of stuff like this: it feels intimate, and aggressive, and small.
I am still so goddamned handsome.
Tags: gender, lgbt, the trans* series, trans* issues
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You are, indeed, quite handsome.
adjusts sport coat, tips top hat, polishes cigarette holder
thank you!
Anyone that rocks a top hat is alright in my book. Also, sports coats for everything.
Haha this was going to be MY comment, but then I got distracted by work (which, what?).
Why, why do people feel like they own other people’s bodies? Like if your body is aberrant or well, just not male, people feel they have the right, NAY MORAL OBLIGATION to tell you what to do with it.
I hate everyone.
just dapper as all get-out.
thank you thank you! I’m buying some bow ties soon, too.
This is a phenomenal and wonderfully affirming article. Thank you.
I don’t draw lines of equivalency between the different types of bullshit I’ve encountered—watching a dude in a truck push a tongue through his split fingers at me is far different from a pair of hands pushing my forehead into a wall. I don’t want to flatten out the variations. Things just feel especially close now. I feel bound, funnily enough.
Damn. Just damn. Thanks so much for sharing this. (and can you have your mother call me and explain that ice cream/water/crunchy thing because, no, stop it.)
p.s. your bio is awesome.
SHUCKS
thank you!
also! in regard to the ice cream crunch concept, Mama has tried to explain the nuances of this phenomenon to me with the patience of a saint for years. bless her heart, it’s just beyond me.
You are very welcome!
I’m sorry — there were so many great things about this piece, but maybe my only action item is that I will have to go home and try putting water on ice cream.
(I was already pretty good on not insulting people to their faces and or using language that makes them uncomfortable…)
Is it like how when you make a root beer float the root beer sort of freezes into a thin tiny crust on the surface of the ice cream and turns it into crunchy-smooth perfection? If so, why replace perfectly good root beer with water? THE QUESTIONS JUST KEEP COMING.
p.s. you sure are handsome!
“You have to be close enough to let me know I’m being looked at, and you have to be far enough away to end the encounter on your terms. This intimacy is violent precisely because of its one-sided flexibility–I don’t get to restrict access, I get to be accessed.” THIS IS SO GOOD. So well-put and just spot-on.
“Food for thought about forcing your body into a shape other than what it actually is.”
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK.
I have more rage than I can safely contain today.
So maybe you should post to YOUR Facebook some stuff about the dangers of constant and/or extreme diet and exercise with THAT EXACT SAME CAPTION.
All I can think about is how many women (and men! people!) wear Spanx without eliciting comments. Or even control top pantyhose for goodness sakes.
And bras, y’all. There is no way I would look like this if I didn’t corral the ladies into “a shape other than what they naturally are.”
“Food for thought about forcing your body into a shape other than what it actually is.”
I bet your mom’s husband doesn’t say this to people who wear bras or spanx or HIGH HEELS.
This is very good, thank you for writing it.
On another note… it’s the WATER that’s responsible? My family has always poured milk over our icecream and I love that crunchy texture. I thought the milk specifically was responsible. But yeah, milk does contain water, doesn’t it? Maybe it will work with the vegan stuff too.
THIS IS A THING THAT PEOPLE OTHER THAN MY MOTHER DO?!?! ENTIRE FAMILIES PARTAKE IN THIS RITUAL?
this is breaking news for me and now i have to write her a protracted apology for mocking her for decades
also, thank you!
Ha, I love this piece but want to talk ice cream as well. Is this the same kind of crunchy you get with root beer floats? I always thought it had something to do with the carbonation, since the root beer gets all fizzy at the same time the ice cream gets crunchy. I can maybe see pouring milk on ice cream. Water might be a bridge too far. It just feels… wrong somehow.
see, when my mama explains it to me, it’s just so much easier to assume she’s lying through her beautiful teeth about the whole thing. that’s how I approach most things I find dubious. I should probably also add that I was the type of child who pulled a Will Ferrell a lá Elf when I had to visit Santa.
“you sit on a throne of lies.”
Suspicious children are the best children! We must stick together because we can’t trust anyone else.
I came here to say this exact thing!
I think it’s the liquid in the water/milk/rootbeer freezing into tiny ice crystals on the ice cream, while also melting it a little? Maybe? As long as you have a liquid with a relatively normal freezing point and some relatively frozen ice cream, it should work. I think.
I think that’s exactly what happens. So you get a three-textured dish: a core of regular ice cream, a crystallized crust of frozen ice-cream-and-liquid (though I’ve only used milk, not water), and the liquid faintly flavored with ice cream.
To sum up, this is totally A Thing, and I did it often in childhood—and once in a while as an adult, when we have not-great ice cream around.
Yep! As a kid, I used to freeze slices of banana, put them on a plate, and pour a bit of fruit juice over them. The juice froze and made them crunchy.
I am familiar with the crunchy texture from root beer floats, so I think it’s just the very cold ice cream freezing some of the liquid. Water seems like a gross option; don’t back down on that.
Yeah, the liquid should start out tasting good/compatible with ice cream. Milk, soda, beer, etc.
“Snakebite” is a very apt description of the surprise + pain combo of a cruel remark. Great piece!
Here’s hoping that your mother comes around to more of her initial “I love you. I don’t care about the rest of it.” and less of the FB concern-trolling.
Also, may I concur on how handsome you are? SO GODDAMNED HANDSOME.
YOU MAY CONCUR! Thank you!
all of these nice comments will have me strutting around like cock of the walk for DAYS! I’m gonna be insufferable
Insufferable and handsome? OH NO THERE WILL BE SUCH SWOONING
Concern-trolling is such a good term for those comments which are like “I really just want to make unsolicited comments on your life/body but to make it look acceptable I’m going to pretend to be concerned for your welfare.”
Oooof. So much of this is amazing. ALL OF THIS IS AMAZING. I think the hearts in my eyes started exactly here: I can feel the sunset behind my ears, because oh that’s lovely, and my crush was fully cemented here: I feel handsome because I’m wearing my favorite shirt too, the one where I can roll up the sleeves ever so slightly to show off the muscles that can now support my full body weight (I work out every other day now, and I can plank for two full minutes and I tell myself that this is metal as fuck because it is.) I agree with everyone else, you are so dapper!
And this made me say curse under my breath at my desk: “This intimacy is violent precisely because of its one-sided flexibility–I don’t get to restrict access, I get to be accessed. ” because ugh it gave me shivers.
ETA: Also I like your tattoo!
thank you so much! I will quote these excerpts to anyone that I wish to hold in my thrall
and i’ve got that tattoo design on top of both my arms! they’re page designs from Zadie Smith’s On Beauty because she’s a veritable menagerie of perfect
Zadie Forever.
Paula Poundstone joke! Paula Poundstone joke! Someone else has watched Cats, Cops, and Stuff!
OMG MARRY ME
paula was one of my earliest gender role models
i mean, the TIES
Phenomenal post. I can’t speak highly enough about your voice. And that voice is what matters. Keep using it to open conversations. You can’t solve all the stupid out there, but maybe people can learn, and collectively we can lessen those snake bites.
Oof, so much of this is familiar territory. It never ceases to amaze me how entitled many people feel to comment on the gender presentation of other people.
My mom is mostly great, except for not consistently using the right pronouns for me 9+ years after I asked her to make that change. But she also bought me awesome beard-grooming toiletries for my birthday last week, so I can’t really figure her out on this.
Thanks so much for sharing. <3
She just wants your beard to have some intentionality behind it!
thank you for reading it!
I love my mama to pieces, and I’m so thankful that I can have these particular conversations with her at all, but yeah, there’s still always going to be a need for us to keep talking about it. that, and her deplorable ice cream habits.
This is just, I can’t even with the amazing that is here.
Whew.
Well written. Well said. Well fucking done.
I wanted so badly to give your mom the benefit of the doubt about the wince, because she’s probably had mammograms or otherwise had her mammary tissue smooshed flat and it HURTS, so maybe she was responding to the pain of handsomeness? But then that Facebook post knocked all the wind out plus a little extra. Poof.
Also niceglassescutehaircuthelLOthere.
Oooof. That hit in the place where feelings hit when they are very recognizable and also not fun at all. After about 7 years and through the power of being a pushy fucker I generally don’t have to deal with this type of stuff from family (any more). It’s also meant that I haven’t really had contact with a couple of my relatives in probably 5 or so years. So…. yeah. There’s that.
“My new haircut, shaved so close on the sides and back that I can feel the sunset behind my ears. And we look so goddamned handsome that I want to link elbows with him and find a boardwalk to stroll down. I feel handsome because I’m wearing my favorite shirt too, the one where I can roll up the sleeves ever so slightly to show off the muscles that can now support my full body weight”
^ This is my favorite feeling in the world, that fresh-haircut so-handsome feeling. Perfect amount of breeze on the ears.
What did someone earlier in the comments say? “Gendercousin”? Hi gendercousin. Thanks for being on The Toast. <3
Very handsome, excellent tattoo and I am so fucking impressed that you can plank for two minutes! And you perfect new haircut description which is giving huge longings for short hair again, especially getting the nape of your neck buzzed clean with the electric razor.
“You have to be close enough to let me know I’m being looked at, and you have to be far enough away to end the encounter on your terms. This intimacy is violent precisely because of its one-sided flexibility–I don’t get to restrict access, I get to be accessed.”
I get this as well, but not because I’m Trans, but because I’m gay….or I look gay….or I look like I could be gay. Either way its really confronting…..and threatening. I wish I could brush it off as their problem, but it instantly makes me feel unsafe. What if they come back? What if the next person to do that stops and attacks me?
I don’t dress ‘flamboyantly’ (not because I don’t want to, I would love to) I dress so as to deflect attention. And yet, still, it happens.
And I live in the Inner City, in a very open minded area.
They want stunt to us, and turn us into human bonsai’s, emotionally stunted freaks like them.
I’m so sorry that this happens to you — you specifically, and you all, plural. I hope you know there are others of us who have your back. I send you internet hugs if you want them — anytime you need to draw upon the bank of internet hugs, know that it is full and waiting for you.
HELLO YES HELLO (ノ・∀・)ノ
OMG I TOO DID NOT DO SEAM FINISHING. The insides of mine were a hot mess. I drafted only underbust patterns so I escaped a lot of the trickier drafting and tailoring. My boning also busted through the ends and poked me. I think, perhaps, a corset with no bells and whistles is less complicated than you'd think, so that's why people try it, but then it actually all adds up to loads of parts which can go wrong.
I too haven't sewn for a while, though it is more of a lack of a sewing machine. I miss it. What things would you sew for yourself if you could learn how?
Really though, if you love a human who wears a binder, shouldn't your greatest concern be, loved human, is your binder comfortable? Does it fit well? Does it make you feel as awesome as you are? If the answer to any of these questions is no, how can I help you make it a yes? But certainly none of those questions is appropriate to a public forum.
Yes. Absolutely yes.
*glamorous hairflip*
Good work, historian friends!
Yep! As a kid, I used to freeze slices of banana, put them on a plate, and pour a bit of fruit juice over them. The juice froze and made them crunchy.
“He can scream and smile at the same time. He had something he really needed to share.”
This made me laugh so hard, just had to say that.
YOU ARE ALL SO LOVELY AND I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE BREAKFAST FOR ALL OF YOU SOMEDAY
Thank you for sharing this with us! I also had a lot of crappy encounters in the streets of Buffalo this summer. When I feel safe enough, I have been calmly telling people that what they said to me wasn’t “very polite.” (Can’t decide if my usual middle finger is a better approach though! I suppose I could combine them….)
UGH TAILORED COATS
LONG BEAUTIFUL TAILORED COATS WITH FULL SKIRTS AND IMPECCABLE SLEEVE HEADS
Also ideally the fabric would be handwoven, of wool I spun myself; I am choosing to interpret "if you could learn how" as "if you had all the time and resources necessary". My skills are numerous and they are ALL unmarketable! This would be less true if I had more sets of hands and/or more hours in a day, though.
Perfect. Thank you.
Very well written, and very insightful. Thank you for sharing.