The T in Context

I’m Trans . . .

By uttering that declaration publically, I am directly confronting, by means of my expressed humanity, one of the most compelling and durable social constructs in the human experience. That most of us think of our embodied humanity as fixed, either male or female, demonstrates the pervasive nature of the so-called gender binary. For most cisgendered* persons, how we view ourselves through the lens of gender becomes internalized over time and recedes into our subconscious.

Whether you are straight or gay, questions of gender, that is - your own sense of being male or female, seldom rises to the level of conscious thought. Yet for many transgender individuals, thoughts of gender never fully recede into the subconscious. They persist as a kind of background noise, the constant and nagging reminder of the question that seems irresolvable, just what am I?

Trans – the word has come to exemplify a sort of shorthand signifying identification as transgender. Being transgender implies literally violating the constructed boundaries of gender. To be transgender is to experience life in the liminal spaces between one’s birth assigned body and one’s soul – between male and female. In order to perceive one’s self as transgender one must have an appreciation that society demands strict conformance to “accepted” stereotypes of “gendered” behavior.

In the social and communal sense, gender is performative. We in effect, do gender. In performing gender, we each seek to be in conformance with society’s larger consensus of just what constitutes gender-appropriate behavior. In this core construct is the genesis of the gender binary as a social ordering principle. The gender binary persists as society’s acknowledgement, not of the physiological differences between males and females but rather its attempts to underscore the assumed social differences, rooted as they are in the acquisition of power and privilege.

Traditionally, society has conflated being trans with being gay. The essential distinction is in the fundamental difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. Sexual orientation touches upon attraction and with whom, you’ll form romantic relationships. Gender identity is based not in the question, to who am I attracted, rather the question is who am I . . . and what am I?



*Cisgendered - an adjective used in the context of gender theory to refer to a class of gender identities characterized by congruence between an individual's gender identity and the behavior or role considered socially appropriate for one's sex


© 2009 Renée Thomas all rights reserved