I was recently quite unkind to someone on Facebook. A total stranger who was being unkind to a transgender woman. And, boy, did I do a very good job of making him angry.
First of all, I am a firm believer that people choose their own gender identity. I, a person who identifies as a gay cisgender male, do not get to tell anyone else who they are. I was born with a penis, and therefore have been addressed as a man all my life. I’ve had the luxury of mostly feeling like my insides match my outsides.
Others do not have that in their life. And I do not get to determine otherwise for them. I don’t get to walk up to someone wearing a specific type of clothing and tell them they are a man or a woman. I don’t get to tell nonbinary people they have to ‘pick one,’ like the local leader of a queer advocacy agency told me bisexual people need to do. (That subject is another blog post entirely).
I firmly believe that gender is different than genitals. This obviously isn’t how it used to be, where penis meant boy and vagina meant girl. It’s very recent, and it can be scary and confusing for people. I don’t know that I fully understand it myself.
But I don’t need to understand in order to accept.
I don’t understand what it’s like to be shot, or stabbed, or have my nose bitten off in a bar fight (Idaho is basically Florida, but upside-down). But that doesn’t mean I’m going to tell them that, because I haven’t experienced it, their experience doesn’t matter. That it’s somehow not real, or not valid.
I don’t understand what it’s like to be a mother. But I’m sure as hell not going to tell a mother any experience she has is just a fluke, or try to offer her advice on how she can do better. That would be presumptuous.
What I will do, apparently, is think it’s a good idea to give some jerk on Facebook a taste of his own medicine. (Spoiler alert: THIS DOES NOT WORK).
So, Dr. Rachel Levine is a transgender woman. That is her fact and her truth, and I am not going to take that away from her. I can’t. Furthermore, I don’t want to. I want her to be happy. I basically want everyone to be happy, unless their happiness comes in the form of making others miserable, or poor, or dead. In which case, fuck their happiness.
I want to make it clear this is all my fault for following national news on Facebook. I don’t after this incident, as I’m really done dealing with awful people I don’t know. I have a fantastic community of support in my Facebook friends, and I don’t need to ugly it up by giving recognition to hate.
So, I comment on the post about Dr. Levine being appointed by President Joe Biden, and say something along the lines of, “I’m happy for her, and I’m sorry she has to deal with so much hate.”
The comments I got in reply all focused on the following two thoughts: “You mean IT,” and, “he’s a man in a dress.”
First of all, it is incredibly dehumanizing to not even recognize a person’s humanity. It is bullying, and it’s hate speech, in my opinion. (Facebook doesn’t think so, but whatever).
As for the second comment, I began referring to the men who commented with this statement as women. “Okay, ma’am.”
I lost my cool. I took ugly things that men have said about women and posted them as though I believed them, though I was being facetious the whole time. That doesn’t make it okay. To any woman who read those comments, I am sorry. I absolutely did not mean those things. I should not have used degrading language to women to try and make my point.
But I did. He got upset, and I used the deplorable line of, “Calm down, lady. You must be on your period.” He called me ignorant, and I told him I was smarter than him because I was a man. Typing those things made me sick, and it makes me sick to repeat them now.
But I totally recognize the thing that makes me the sickest about all of this is that it caused me trouble. See, I had forgotten to make my employer private on Facebook. And he looked at my profile, saw one of the jobs where I work, and said he was composing a letter and including screenshots of the disgusting comments I was sending.
I’m a marketing assistant. I hope to do more than that one day. But I became completely terrified (and I still am slightly afraid) that I’m going to lose my job because of those comments. Taken out of context, I sound misogynistic. I am aware. I was saying misogynistic things.
I commented twice more, still trying desperately to maintain my self-perceived high ground. I said I was sorry he felt so bad that I turned his type of language around on him, then commented again to make it clear that I did not mean the horrible things I said, but that I was using that language to make a point.
I reported his comments as bullying, and was shocked that Facebook removed some of them. They didn’t remove the one where he was threatening to get me fired, however. Because that’s okay, but calling a man ignorant is not. Especially a white man. (If you haven’t noticed, I’m highly unimpressed with Facebook’s choices when it comes to comments made on their platform).
The thing that pissed me off the most was that, when I went to my husband for support, he handed my ass back to me with a single, infuriating question: “Wouldn’t it have been easier to be kind instead?”
“Oh, fuck off,” I thought to myself. You, the man I love, sitting there on your moral high ground, judging me and feeling all superior because you’ve never been a sassy bitch to anyone on Twitter. (Don’t worry, I’ve talked this out with him, and I used much kinder language).
But my first reaction of defensiveness told me all I needed to know. I knew I was wrong. So very much in the wrong. But I had made the easy choice to be an asshole, to stoop to some guy’s level and resort to name-calling and a, ‘See, I told you,’ complex.
My husband later clarified with me that he wasn’t telling me I should have been kind in the first place, but actually that I should stop poking the angry bear. I realized that the bear was attacking Dr. Levine, and all I did, instead of trying to drive it away or make it stop, was make it attack me instead.
Usually, I’m okay with this. Go ahead and attack me instead. I’m sick of trans people always being attacked for simply existing. I can take the attacks. At least, I thought I could.
But I had to stop myself. I wouldn’t have been attacked in the first place if I hadn’t responded to the comments. I wouldn’t be in a place where I’m scared to lose my job because I wouldn’t have made someone angry and vengeful enough to send a letter to my employer. Maybe this guy has, or maybe he’s full of empty threats. I don’t know.
And honestly, my first instinct was to apologize to him. But, I can apologize for what I said and the harm it caused others while not feeling sorry that I confronted him. I could have gone about it in a better way, and still held him accountable for his hate.
I consider myself an activist and a social justice warrior. I wear those words with pride. But every warrior needs a reminder of what they’re fighting for. And this was a key reminder that I’m not fighting to change people’s hearts and minds. If I specifically try to tell someone to think differently, it’s not going to work. I can certainly say, “Well, this is how I see it,” and simply offer my perspective. I’ve seen that approach have a much higher success rate of people taking me seriously and considering what I say.
Why? Because I’m not attacking them. I don’t have to call someone stupid to try and make them see things from my point of view. I don’t have to tell them the labels of homophobe, transphobe, or bigot apply to them in order to tell them, “Hm, I usually think about it like this.”
See, this second approach is much harder for me. Much more difficult. This is hard for me to admit, because I’ve always thought I was a kind person who simply wanted to pass on knowledge. Yet, here I am, saying that kindness and expressing an alternate perspective is difficult for me.
It’s easy to call someone a transphobe and dismiss their views. It’s harder to show that person the humanity they’re denying someone else by having a conversation with them.
It won’t work for everyone. You can’t change every person’s mind, nor should you assume that your perspective is the one they need to change theirs to. My take is that calling a trans woman a woman does me no harm, and it does her good.
I don’t have the answers for everything. I know there are feminists out there who want a penis-free space, and that’s why they exclude trans women with penises. But I side with many of my female friends who say that gender is not a vagina or penis, and that when a trans woman finds her identity, she should have a community of women to embrace her.
I also know there are people who are all up-in-arms about trans people using public restrooms. Sometimes, trans people have to empty their bladders, and they can’t always rush home to do it. So, they need to use a public restroom. I can definitely say that any person who puts on a dress to go rape little children in a bathroom is not a trans person. They are a pedophile and a rapist. A trans person looking to pee very likely doesn’t want to be in that bathroom any more than a transphobe wants them in that bathroom.
Trans people are more likely to be murdered, especially trans women of color. Trans people are more likely to complete suicide. Their life expectancy is between 30-35 years old. To some frankly evil people, this is fine. To me, it’s evil to not care.
So I’m going to continue to advocate. I just need to remember to do it in a way that doesn’t destroy me. Because I want to be there for the future I believe we’ll see, and that we’re already seeing in some parts of the world. Peace and human rights are advancing all over the world, and I want to stand for freedom, beauty, truth, and love. People have the freedom to be whatever gender they want to be. They are beautiful inside and out for being so brave. They are living their truth. And their truth is love.
I want to be remembered for my empathy and kindness. That’s the truth I want to live. I don’t expect other queer people to take this on as well. All I will say is that, in my experience, meeting hate with hate only breeds more hate. But meeting hate with empathy and kindness at least puts that out into the world, and it doesn’t corrupt you. I have to preserve myself so I can, in turn, try to help others. Because that’s the person I want to be. And I have to remember to make the hard choice every day to rise above the hate and live a life of love.
To all trans people: I see you, I am with you, and I love you.