Transgendicus Gregarius

It’s been a while since I’ve done anything here. To be honest, I’d been holding stuff off for posting about Sparkle last year, and never got around to doing that. Seems a bit late now (I can barely remember it) but I might post a few pics.

Just a few thoughts on the great label debate. There seems to be a lot of negativity towards them, and I’ve never really understood why. I get that some people don’t need them, but others, such as myself, find them very useful. They’ve been invaluable in figuring myself out and conveying those findings to others. And imagine trying to write a dating profile without them.

As I see it, there are only two problems with labels.

1) Someone using them to describe someone else, contrary to that person’s identity. Identifying as queer is okay. Being called ‘queer’ when you don’t identify as queer, isn’t. And of course if someone identifies as a woman, it’s not okay to label them as a man, based on your own understanding of sex and gender. Yes, you get to make your sense of it in your own particular way, but when conversing with someone, the decent thing to do is to respect their labels, and keep your own labels for them to yourself.

2) The matter of appropriation. Trans people claiming intersex. Rachel Dolezal claiming to be African American when she’s actually white. This is a very shaky area, because it’s the same argument that the TERFs use to discount trans women as being women. “You’ve had male privilege up to your transition, so you have no idea what being a woman actually is.”

On the matter of appropriation, I think we have to distinguish between the tangible and the abstract. Someone assigned male at birth, who’s never had feminising hormones or surgery is objectively male. Someone assigned female at birth who’s never had masculising hormones or surgery is objectively female. Someone who started out as one or the other but became something other than their assigned sex through hormones and or surgery is transsex(ual.) Only someone who was born outside of the norms for male or female is intersex. And how far outside of those norms qualifies is still a matter for debate (I’m still trying to get a straight answer as to whether glanular hypospadias qualifies me as intersex. Some medical professionals say it does, while others say it doesn’t.)

I suppose what I’m saying is that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are sufficiently abstract for the appropriation rule not to apply. Just as someone who identifies as a photographer might (in your opinion) take rubbish pictures, there’s nothing that you can put your finger on that makes someone a photographer, and someone else not one. You can (and many do) define ‘man’ and ‘woman’ as synonymous with ‘male’ and ‘female’, but equally you can define them as social roles, distinct from the physicality of biological sex. I believe that society already recognises four gender roles: girl, boy, woman and man. The role of a boy is very different to that of a man. The role of a girl is very different to that of a woman. And of course gender roles vary throughout the world: the role of a woman in the UK is very different to the role of a woman in Saudi Arabia.

The same isn’t true for intersex. The same isn’t true for racial identity. The same, in my opinion, isn’t true of sex (rather than gender.) I know some say that sex is a social construct too, but we need to draw a line somewhere. We need to distinguish between male and female. Without one of each, natural procreation is impossible. I’m not about to start using terms like ‘has penis’ and ‘has vagina’, just because someone has decided to reinvent ‘male’ and ‘female’ to mean something entirely other than that.

My understanding is that sex is biology, and that all of the social constructs layered on top of it are ‘gender.’ Gender is a matter of identity. Sex is tangible. It’s what’s in your pants, and what hormone levels are flowing through your bloodstream.

And while we’re at it, let’s keep sexuality about sex. Four possible permutations of same or other sex interest equate to asexual, bisexual, heterosexual or homosexual (‘hetero’ is Greek for ‘other’ rather than ‘opposite.’) Special mentions due to ‘pansexual’ for being more expressly inclusive to people who are transsexual or intersex. Also, androsexual and gynosexual can be useful in expressing sexual interest without reference to the interested party’s sex.

‘Sapiosexual’, ‘demisexual’ and all of that stuff? Great descriptions for preferences, but not actual sexualities. I think the words are useful. It’s just frustrating and confusing that they’ve been defined with the ‘sexual’ suffix (rather than, say ‘philic’.) Sexuality is about whether you’re interested in same sex, other sex, neither or both. Everyone has preferences or standards layered on top of that. Let’s stop this before we end up with people identifying as ‘tallblondeswithbigbreastssexual.’ 🙂

I love Belfast.

It probably isn’t the first place you’d think of for a night out as someone obviously trans. You think of Northern Ireland, and you think of government still heavily influenced by Christian fundamentalism and still holding out against equal marriage, you think of bakeries that refuse to make you gay themed cakes. And let’s be honest, you think of the social/religious divides that were still fuelling violence on the streets a few years ago.

So maybe it’s the last place you’d expect to find tolerant people, but they’re there in droves. They’re about the friendliest bunch you’re ever likely to encounter. Rare is a night that I don’t end up chatting to someone. I’ve often invited to join a group. I’ve made friends that I’ve kept in touch with since. I ended up on a winning pub quiz team once.

I haven’t had a chance to go over for a while, but made the most of a work trip over there this week. The first night, I struggled to find a hotel (Stone Roses concert, apparently) and ended up in an Airbnb. I thought ‘bloke mode’ was safest for arrival, since I was ending up in someone’s home. It isn’t the same as asserting your right to wear a dress in a hotel.

It turned out I was sharing an apartment (separate rooms) with two concert goers from Scotland. I mentioned that I’d be going out in a dress that evening, and they were both cool with it. I ended up drinking their Buckfast while we had a good old chat. The already drunker of the two was making a little bit too much effort to be cool with it (you know when someone’s trying way too hard to convince you that it’s fine and ends up labouring the point.) I prefer to consider it empathetic paranoia. But his heart was in the right place.

A good night out in Union Street Bar, as usual. Immediately on walking in, I ended up chatting to someone, also over from Scotland as it happened. It turned out that he was one of the sisterhood, but doing ‘bloke mode’ that evening. I’d post a pic, but I did only get his okay to put it on Facebook. Happy hour was great, as ever. You can’t knock £2.50 for a single shot and a mixer.
After a while, we decided to head over to Maverick and see what was going on there. Another good bar, but I’m always particularly curious to see what they’ve done with the women’s toilets. They change the themes regularly. It was ‘Slut booth’ a couple of years back. This time around, I was greeted by this:
So I staggered home at just gone midnight, and got no sleep at all. The apartment I’d booked was on a busy main road, and it was too hot to sleep with the window closed, and too loud to sleep with it open. I reckon I got two hours, if I was lucky.

I scraped through an 8 hour meeting with a customer the following day, doing my best not to yawn the whole way through it. In the evening, I was back to my favourite haunt over there: the Holiday Inn Express on University Street. Crashed for a couple of hours, and then back out to Union Street Bar, hoping I’d meet Mr Nice Guy again (he’d said that he would be out.) Unfortunately, he didn’t show.

A quieter night, but I did have a wander up to the new roof garden bar / smoking area, which is rather funky…
And now the trip home…

I’ve flown en-femme before, so this one was no biggy. The highlight of last time round was boarding: handing the steward my male name boarding card, and male passport in its blue holder, and him still saying “Rear steps please, madam.” This time around, I must have triggered something in security, because they deemed I needed a quick pat down, and this was done by a female member of the security staff. It’s great when they respect what you’re trying to do.
Off to the Duty Free, and hit the jackpot. Estee Lauder DoubleWear actually in my shade, Ivory Beige, rather than having to settle for Shell Beige as I normally do. The nice lady on the till took a photo for me too 🙂
A coffee in Starbucks, and a chill out while they called the flight…
And yes, the cup says ‘Nicole’ on it 🙂
Apart from still needing to catch up on the lost sleep, a brilliant trip. I hope I get to do it again in the not too distant.

Mr Nice Guy did get back in touch. He too was too tired to go out a second night, as it turned out. He might be coming down for Sparkle. Watch this space.

ValueCabs and A1 Taxis were both absolute gems as usual. The ValueCabs app is brilliant for booking and tracking your car.

This one’s been bugging me for quite a while: Why do so many people feel the need to try to quantify being trans? Why is there a desire to have a linear scale, with cisgender male (not trans at all) at one end of it, and at the other (completely trans) post-op transsexual who’s known that they were being raised as the wrong gender since they were three years old?

This is where the COGIATI test (debunked elsewhere in this blog) gets it horribly wrong. The reason it’s bunk is that it sets out to quantify the unquantifiable. Scoring or losing points depending on whether or not you can park a car properly or remember what somebody smelled like. It clutches at straws because there are only straws to clutch at.

The problems with trying to quantify trans, especially on a single, linear scale, are manifold:

1) It invites people to try to be more trans rather than who they are. I’ve watched people do this with the COGIATI. “Yay, I scored 15 more points than I did last time round. I’m making progress.”

2) It plays into trans elitism, and indeed typically has trans elitism at its root. Post-op is better than pre-op is better than non-op is better than TV is better than CD is better than HPW.

3) Once you start keeping scores, it allows you to grade those scores. To decide who passes the threshold for ‘truly trans’ and who’s just a man mucking around in a dress. It becomes a tool for dividing the ‘real’ trans from the ‘fake’ trans, in the way that the TERFs try to distinguish between ‘real’ and (to them) ‘fake’ women. It’s all about validating their own identity, at the expense of somebody else’s.

4) It’s a lot more complex than the linear scale. Some have known since childhood, while others figured it out later in life. Some experience gender dysphoria, others don’t. Some have an element of autogynephilia, while others do not. These aspects don’t necessarily align the way you’d expect them to. Some people might tick all of the boxes. Some might tick only some, even though they feel very strongly about the ones that they do.

Being trans is a matter of identity, therefore if you sincerely identify as trans then you are trans. Nobody’s 60% a photographer or 35% a gardener. They either are these things or they’re not, largely on the basis of whether or not they say so. I honestly can’t think of any other instance where people try to score identity (with any degree of seriousness) the same way they do with being trans.

This is a question I’ve been asked a few times, so I thought maybe it warranted a blog entry. I can only explain how it happened to me, but maybe some other ‘late developers’ will relate.

From discussions with people who figured it out in their teens, they typically knew they were different the first time they were intimate with an opposite sex partner, or possibly even before. They simply knew that heterosexual intimacy didn’t work for them. They then quickly went on to figure out that same sex intimacy did.

Then there are those of us with a strong preference for same sex intimacy, but who can be contented with opposite sex intimacy too. We’re essentially a flavour of bisexual, but with a strong preference for same over opposite. People like us are in a position to do what society expects of us: reinforce our heterosexuality and repress our homosexuality. And that’s what so many of us do, especially when we’re younger and value ourselves more in terms of peer review. We worry too much about what others will think, so we conform, and make do.

Puberty was confusing. But then isn’t it supposed to be? I know most of my fantasies were same sex ones, but I could enjoy opposite sex ones if I chose to. For various reasons, I found myself in same sex environments for most of my teenage years. A little bit of experimentation went on at one point, but nothing too serious. It just reaffirmed the ‘wrongness’ of it, which was already established. Then I ended up at an all boys boarding school, where the worst thing you could possibly be was ‘queer.’ Nothing ever happened there, apart from the reaffirmation that I had a duty to try to be straight.

My next sexual experience happened with a guy I briefly shared a flat with. We’d converted the flat into what was basically three bedsits, and we’d often end up in my single bed, watching TV. No funny business (it was strictly hands-off) but that all changed one night after a few drinks. Clearly, we both wanted it to happen, but his self-loathing afterwards was a big shock. It nearly cost us our friendship, and in all honesty, things were never really the same after that (we haven’t spoken in years.) So we had yet another affirmation that ‘gay is wrong.’ A few years later, I developed a rather strong crush on a friend who’d just come out as gay. My mother spotted this, and gave a very emphatic “I’m not having any of that shit under my roof.” Yet another affirmation that ‘gay is wrong.’

After that, I went back to dating women, and ended up in a relationship that lasted over 15 years. What I found was that whenever I was in a sexually active relationship with a woman, I was perfectly contented and didn’t fantasise about anyone else. When between relationships, or when the physical side went off the boil within them, I’d revert to type, and mostly imagine myself with men. I wrongly concluded that I was a straight guy with kinky bi-curious fantasies, and that my interest in men was purely something that came from sexual frustration. This seemed reasonable, since it went away entirely when I had an active sexual relationship with a woman. A one-off experiment with a random guy seemed to confirm this. I didn’t enjoy it at all.

As my last heterosexual relationship (of over 15 years) started to break down, we declared it a ‘sexually open’ one and started to see other people (her suggestion, funnily enough.) Boundaries were agreed, men weren’t strictly off limits for me (and women weren’t for her) and I finally got a taste of what I’d been missing. The real penny drop moment was getting physical with a transvestite I actually had strong feelings for. It was different to the random meets. It actually felt natural. Very natural. Even when they weren’t wearing the dress, the wig or the make-up.

The truth is, I could have been contented as a practising heterosexual for my entire life. It would have been settling for second best, but it was workable, and it’s what I believed (and still believe) society expected me to do. It seems you get a special pass if you’re 100% gay and find opposite sex intimacy repellent, but those who do have a choice of which path to follow, are still expected to choose the heteronormative one.

We still see the “Born this way” argument, and it irks me. “Yes, we know we’re broken and we’re very, very sorry, but please don’t try to fix us, and please love us anyway.” Nobody should have to excuse or apologise for being LGBT, and it makes me wonder why so many people still do. Your practising sexuality is always a choice: if you have no interest in the opposite sex, then you can always abstain. This is, after all, the message that society and particularly religion has been hammering home since forever. They acknowledge that same sex attraction exists, but brand it as a temptation that must be overcome.

The way I prefer to look at it, being gay, bi or transgender should be acceptable as a lifestyle choice. If there’s nothing wrong with being something, then why can’t you choose to be that thing? And ultimately, I made that choice: to cease being a practising heterosexual and become a practising bisexual, and latterly to become a practising homosexual.

I see “Born this way” gaining traction in trans circles these days. “Trans people don’t choose to be trans.” This might well be true of someone who figured it out when they were 3 years old, always expressed it and never repressed it, but it’s harder to swallow for someone who kept it as a dirty secret until they were much, much older, and then flounced out of the closet so much later in life. So where does that leave those of us (who still fall under the transgender umbrella) who simply want to distance themselves from masculinity and embrace their femininity, who enjoy wearing dresses, and who can’t think of one rational reason why they shouldn’t? Answers on a postcard please.

That was last Friday. I’m just about recovered from it now. I’m getting too old for this. So many of my friends out on Friday night, it was never going to be a dull one. Room sharing with one of my besties was the icing on the cake.

The drinks discount in Cosmo was much appreciated. I do hope that’s a regular thing. I always thought the place was expensive, but I think some of the others have caught up now.

At half price, it certainly isn’t. Bridge next on the tour, and not cheap at all. The Heineken tasted a bit off too.

Hmm. The pic was the right way up when I took it.

Bar Fibre next. If you’re going to get grief for being trans at LFF, then it’ll either happen on the street or in this place. I’m not a great fan of LGBT ghettos, but perhaps if this place could decide whether it was a gay bar or not, we wouldn’t have to put up with the abuse. Yes, some drunken tit wanted to show off to his girlfriend. Shrugged it off and walked away, as usual. Waynetta wanted a fag, so we ended up out on the balcony under the heat lamps.

No piccies in Viaduct. Just more drinks. Then a quick wander to Mission2 (open, unusually for a Friday) for the most thorough of handbag searches, and to be asked for 10 quid to get in (no chance.) So The Shed it was then. I do like this wall, as well as the music. Not so keen on something approaching a fight breaking out behind us, though.Smokestack next, but it was impossible to get served. We gave up and ended up in New Penny for one last drink before calling it a night. It just isn’t the same, not rounding the night off in Loft. Apparently, it’s open again from next month.

No pics of the kebab that I shared with Jaimie on the way home, so here’s one of the toilet cubicle instead. Yes, Bar Fibre has one stall in the ladies with two thrones in it. A great photo opportunity. At least until you hear running water from the one sitting next to you.

Until next time…

Update: Since writing this, Facebook has removed the ‘view as’ feature as described below, so you’ll no longer be able to complete this part (unless they’ve since reinstated it.) To see how your profile looks from another account, you’ll actually have to look at it with another account. You could possibly do this with you male account, prior to blocking it from your female one.

This is something I originally posted to tvChix. The message is quite old now and has been archived, which means I can’t edit it on there. I’m reproducing it here so I can make a few tweaks.

This dates back to when I was still mostly in the closet. I’m out of it now, but I still appreciate that it’s always a risk. No matter how acceptable being LGBT supposedly is these days, your coming out will cause friction. The only questions are who with and how much damage they will try to do? My belief is that you have to hit a point where your need to come out is stronger than your fear of the worst case scenario if you do. And I hit that point a couple of years ago.

But I digress.

Here’s the guide. It will work on a Windows PC, and probably on other kinds of laptop with a bit of tweaking. Tablets and mobile phones weren’t really on the agenda when I wrote it. I imagine that’s a thoroughly horrendous process (this is tedious enough) so do it on something with a keyboard and mouse if you can.

If you follow these instructions, your T-girl account will be invisible to anyone who’s on your male account’s friends list. And even if someone else you know does find your account, it shouldn’t be obvious to them that it’s you. You may want to repeat this process every once in a while, as you add new friends to your male Facebook account.

Instructions

Sign in to both accounts (either on different browsers, or opening one in a private window/tab.)

Step 1 – Configure your male account to make its friends list public, then copy the link:

1a) Click on your name at the top of the screen to load your profile page, then click ‘Friends.’

1b) Click the ‘Edit’ (pencil) icon next to ‘Find Friends’ and choose ‘Edit Privacy.’

1c) Make a note of what the current settings are, and then set all of the options to ‘Public’

1d) Close the privacy window

1e) Highlight the page address in your browser’s address bar (www.facebook.com/yourmalename/friends) and copy it to the clipboard.

Step 2 – Block your male account’s friends from your female account:

2a) Paste the copied link into your (female account) browser window. It will list all of your male profile’s friends who are not currently on your block list. This will be all of them, first time around.

2b) Hold CTRL and click on each friend in turn – they should all pop up in their own new browser tab or window. It’s best to do this in batches of 20 or so if you have lots of friends on your male account.

2c) You will now have each of your male profile’s friends’ pages open in a tab or window. On each one, click the down arrow next to ‘message’ and click ‘report/block.’ Select the ‘block’ option and click ‘confirm.’ Once the message pops up (about Facebook regretting you having this bad experience) you can close the tab/window.

2d) Once you have completed this for all of your male friends, repeat from step 2a: There should be no friends visible if you’ve blocked everyone – if any are, then repeat the process for them.

2e) Block your male account, in the same way.

Step 3 – Configure and test your female account’s privacy settings:

3a) Go to the settings (gear wheel icon) and into ‘privacy settings.’ Set these up accordingly – I have my posts set to ‘friends only’, and most of the other settings as ‘friends of friends’, but this is a personal choice.

3b) When uploading any photos, make sure they’re set for ‘friends only.’ Bear in mind that profile pictures are always public, so if you’re feeling paranoid, keep them non-identifiable. Take care with things like backgrounds too. There’s no point in cropping out your face if someone’s going to recognise your wallpaper and curtains.

3c) To check that you’re happy with your privacy settings, go into the padlock icon and ‘Who can see my stuff?’ then ‘view as.’ This will show you what your page will look like to non-friends, and should highlight if you’ve got your privacy settings wrong anywhere. In particular, if you’ve ever posted any identifiable profile pictures, you may need to remove them from your timeline.

Note: Anyone you’ve expressly blocked (in step 2 above) won’t get to see any of your content – not even your profile pictures.

Step 4 – Finally, back to your male account and put it back to how you found it:

1a) Click on your name at the top of the screen to load your profile page, then click ‘Friends.’

1b) Click the ‘Edit’ (pencil) icon next to ‘Find Friends’ and choose ‘Edit Privacy.’

1c) Set your privacy options back as they originally were, or how you would prefer them to be (I normally have everything set to ‘only me.’)

And you’re done.

It’s all rather tedious, but worth it for peace of mind. Facebook works in mysterious ways and can sometimes figure out that two accounts are related. Mine started suggesting male mode’s friends to my T-Girl account. Thankfully, the reverse didn’t seem to be happening, and my T-Girl account wasn’t being suggested to my friends. But if you’re still in the closet and want to stay there for now, better safe than sorry.

Some further mucking about with the COGIATI. It turns out you can just submit scores to the website, and it will give results. I messed around with various scores and found that there are five categories.

-650 to -390 Classification 1 – Standard Male. Basically tells you that you’re a man, and any interests in dressing or feeling feminine are likely down to conflicts over your sexuality.

-385 to -130 Classification 2 – Feminine Male. Again, you’re conflicted about your sexuality, but this accepts that you do have some feminine traits.

-125 to 125 Classification 3 – Androgyne. Says you’re a mixture of male and female, or possibly neither. Advises you to have fun ‘playing’ with it.

130 to 385 Classification 4 – Probable Transsexual. Suggests that you seek counselling, since you may be a strong candidate for transition.

390 to 650 Classification 5 – Transsexual. Suggests that you absolutely need to seek counselling and support, and probably should transition.

655 and above, or -655 and below are impossible scores and return no classification.

Unless I’ve miscalculated, the lowest possible score is -650 and the highest possible is 635. There are 65 questions, most of which have 5 answers, scored +10, +5, 0, -5 and -10 points respectively. Some questions only have 4 answers, in which case, there is no +10 score.

I’m still struggling to believe that there’s no weighting on this test, and that while you can score +10 for identifying as a transsexual, you can lose all of those points by scoring -10 for being good at parking your car. The same (net zero) balance can be achieved identifying as male, but not knowing the forward gears from reverse. If you literally don’t know how to drive, then you’re instantly more feminine according to the COGIATI.

Now remember that those 20 points (-10 rather than +10) because you can park a car can easily tip the balance from, say, category 4 to category 3.

There’s some atrocious gender-cliché sterotyping here. To get top marks, I’ve had to claim to be suicidal (due to gender dysphoria) unable to park a car, crap at anything to do with maths or logic, have no sense of direction, coordination or spatial awareness, that I would prefer to be seen and not heard, especially in business meetings, and that I masturbate to erotic literature. On the plus side, I get to be literate, intuitive and sensitive, with a good memory of what people (including myself) were wearing.

Hopefully, properly dismantling this test has exposed it for the rubbish it is. It certainly has no place as any kind of diagnosis or self-diagnosis tool.

The COGIATI test is a subject that comes up from time to time. No, it has nothing to do with being registered to service your boiler. That’s called ‘Gas Safe’ these days.

I’ll link to it at the bottom, but please read this before you do, so that you don’t take the results without a massive pinch of salt. If you feel you need counselling for your gender identity, or you’re contemplating hormones or surgery, don’t let a score on a webpage tell you what’s right or wrong for you.

The first issue with the COGIATI is that it relies heavily on gender stereotypes. Women are rubbish at maths and spacial awareness, while men are rubbish at noticing and remembering details. Does anyone else have a problem with this? But that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. You would expect more relevant questions to carry more weight, but they don’t. For example, surely whether or not you identify as transsexual is more important than whether or not you’re any good at parking a car.

But the whole thing is written in HTML, and the scores are there for all to see if you view the page source. (Try it. You don’t really need to understand HTML to see what’s going on.) For each question, the most masculine answer scores -10, the most feminine scores 10, and other answers score -5, 0 or 5. It’s the same for every one of the 65 questions. The final score is simply the total of all selected answers. I initially thought there might be something clever in the post-processing, but selecting the first answer to every question scores -90 – exactly what you get if you add up the values for each of those answers in the HTML.

So, while identifying as a transsexual will earn you 10 points, you will lose those 10 points for being able to parallel park. If you still think that’s a sound basis for determining your gender identity, then by all means take the test seriously. If not, then click and have a laugh.

Link to the test.