Like so many of us right now - I feel tired, sad, spun around and often darn right lost. My home country’s (UK) legal system has just made a pointless ruling that does very little but cause potential for harm and restriction (for everyone - even if you currently lack the insight to realise what a pyrrhic “victory” this could be yet…), and my current chosen country of residence (New Zealand) is attempting to embolden its own brand of bigots, manipulators and unfortunately disillusioned with a copycat movement.
The world is being sold, bombed and burned; people can’t afford food, housing or healthcare whilst billionaires continue to get richer and hoard obscene wealth through a system that destroys our mental and physical health, suffocating us into tighter and tighter spaces, further and further apart; and many of our supposed “leaders” aren’t even pretending to care.
They’ve blamed immigrants; they’ve blamed people of colour; they’ve blamed poor people, they’ve blamed gays…
So what is the solution this time? For all this suffering?…
Smaller boxes!
Cue:
American president: “There are only two genders.”
UK supreme court: “A woman is defined by biological sex.”
NZ ACT party: “We need to define what a woman and a man are!”
Why…?
Choir of hate: “BlAmE tRaNs PeOpLe.”
How this helps with the cost of living, homelessness, war, famine, genocide or any of the above, is beyond me. But I tell you what it does facilitate: creating further separation and distraction, which of course makes us easier to control… and we have seen the same playbook used countless times against the marginalised communities already listed above - “don’t look at the billionaire paying no tax, look at the vulnerable people receiving benefits from YOUR taxes”, “don’t look at the prices and unemployment going up, whilst social support and wages go down - look at the immigrants stealing YOUR jobs” - it is so dull and an insult to our intelligence. The way they do this isn’t even subtle - they grab the emotional puppet strings attached to our fists and yank them in the direction of the next most vulnerable group down on the list. And if this REALLY was about protecting women and their rights, you’d think that the people they would be restricting, educating, encouraging change with would be the demographic that is actually historically documented as causing women the most harm! As so many have said already - “If you are scared that men are dressing up as women to infiltrate women only spaces - you are not scared of transwomen - you are scared of cis-men!”
Besides, I do not know a single trans person who is trying to take anything away from or be given more than anyone else (and I know a lot of trans people!), and honestly the highest likelihood is neither do you. We are 0.7% of the population in NZ (0.5% in the UK), and we just want to fucking live - and for many, it was discovering our trans-ness that made us want that. Trans people are amazing and remind us how wildly free we are when we allow ourselves to learn about and meet ourselves without preconception or expectation, and have the courage to listen to our hearts and live them authentically. And honestly, life is so much better when you are not purely defined by (or forced to explain!) what is in your frickin’ pants!!!
So if you are feeling hung up on the idea of what and who is and is not a woman (or man) right now, ask yourself why? More accurately, why does it matter? Or even more so… does it matter? Are you actually being harmed? Does the evidence support that? Or are you harming (intentionally or not)? Where does this path lead?
It is ok to look at yourself and consider what aspects of the wide spectrum of identity do and do not fit you - healthy in fact: find what serves you to feel whole, valid and well, and question the aspects that do not; question where they have come from, what expectations are not feeding you and see if you can let them go. Understand that gender does not need to be a set menu with which you are forced to be all in or go hungry. It is a buffet - pick what you like.
If your knee jerk response to that statement is - “No - these are the rules” *points at genitals* - ask again: why?! Why limit and reduce yourself to such a narrow, restrictive and inaccurate metric? What does that serve? I understand that sometimes boxes can feel safer - because you don’t have all that **stuff** flying about: questioning who you are, why you are, what is your purpose, why do you act like this, what should you accept, what clothes should you wear, how should you talk, work, socialise and engage with the world? And, a big one: “Am I happy?!”. It is, seemingly, on the surface, much easier when there is a rule book, that negates you from having to navigate that existential soup, right? But you lose so much of life, for a smaller version of yourself; in danger of becoming a character… written by someone else…
And that’s not to say that if the current version of the rule book fits you perfectly that you have to ignore it. That's great! I am happy for you. Genitals, socials, presentation - all rolled a six. Congratulations. But understand that my brief gambling metaphor there is entirely appropriate… it was just luck of the draw, and in another time or, simply, place your draw would not fit the “rules” and you would be out of pocket.
So if you find yourself feeling upset or annoyed at people who do not follow the path you do, also ask why? Could it be because they are doing that which you have not managed? Can you accept that they have asked the same questions and come up with different answers? Can you accept that they have asked questions that you have not or did not realise you could? Perhaps you could feel grateful that they highlight the opportunity for you to be able to do the same? Or maybe it really just doesn't affect you?
Either way, do not fall into the all too easy trap of getting angry at people that have the courage to do that which you have not yet managed, or never had to. And remember, you do not lose anything by allowing others to experience what you already have.
Oh, and if you are getting caught up in the idea of there only being “biological women” or “biological men” - don’t even get me started on what this means for intersex folks and the multitude of ways in which sex deviates from a binary (seriously don’t because it is a vast subject that I know relatively little about, and there are many people that know MUCH more who would be far more useful to talk to, and yet still I fully understand that they exist!), or the dangers of trying to create a definition of something with so much natural variance that if you continue following that path you will inevitably end up excluding yourself - or at least everyone who doesn’t look like the person defining it.
And honestly, it just leads to the kind of ridiculous interaction I (a non-binary person) describe in this poem…
