Transness

Bryn Kelly, a trans woman, took her life recently. I didn’t know her, though I knew of her. She was close to several friends of mine. She was, by all accounts, a vivacious, outgoing, successful, seemingly happy person, a writer and blogger. That was how I knew her. I don’t know why her death affected me so deeply, more than many other trans women who have died by suicide, but it did. Since I heard of her death, I have spent much of my time in isolation, grappling in my head with transness and its intersections with marginalization, depression, poverty, the daily micro-agressions of living in society, physical and psychic violence, gender dysphoria, body image, suicide, early death, and how all of that relates to me. Trans women, and trans feminine people, especially trans women of color are possibly the most marginalized people in our society. It is a constant struggle for many of us to survive. We face discrimination in housing and employment. We are often rejected by family and friends. We often live in fear in our day-to-day lives. Although I live in perhaps the most trans positive city in America, I still experience trepidation every time I go into a public restroom, or get on the MAX, or enter any unfamiliar public space. Many of us grapple with mental health issues. Severe depression is widespread. I don’t know if being trans is the cause of my bipolar and anxiety conditions, but I do know it has affected them in negative ways. Many of us live in poverty or near poverty. Sex work is a common occupation with young trans women because they cannot find other work. Trans women are more likely to drop out of school and to be homeless at some point, the most common cause being family rejection. This lack of education can perpetuate a vicious cycle of poverty. While I do not live in abject poverty, I am among the nation’s poor. My disability income is just enough, and sometimes not enough, to live month to month. I am always one rent increase or one unexpected catastrophe from being on the streets or couch surfing from friend to friend. We experience micro-aggressions on a daily basis. Every hostile look or stare while out in public, every misgendering, every transphobic remark takes a toll. This is why I try to spend most of my time in trans spaces. Even other queer spaces can be transphobic. I loathe going to the grocery store. I always use the drive up window at the pharmacy. I do the vast majority of my shopping online. I spend a lot of my time alone in my apartment, partly because of depression, but largely because I don’t want to interact with the hetero-normative culture. The ever-present possibility of physical violence takes a toll. There are many places I won’t go by myself. The possibility of encountering the police causes anxiety. My heart rate goes up every time a police car passes me on the street. Trans women encounter frequent mistreatment and violence at the hands of law enforcement. I am filled with dread every time I contemplate being arrested and incarcerated. Rape of trans women in jails and prisons is almost a certainty. Psychic violence is much more common than physical violence. The hatred we are daily assaulted with by TERFs, the religious right, political demagogues, and the mainstream media take a psychic toll. Every week, it seems, new legislation is introduced around the country to deny us our rights, even to criminalize us. We are painted as predators whose only motive in transitioning is to enter women’s restrooms and spy on or assault “real” women. The virulence of these attacks is breathtaking, and terrifying. I thought that when I transitioned I would be done with the gender dysphoria that had haunted me all my life, but that’s not how it works. I am daily beset by doubts as to the reality of my identity, my truth of being a woman. Part of this is that I do not ‘pass’. I am most often looked upon as a man when engaging with the larger world, a major reason for withdrawing into my trans community. I have major body image issues, as do many trans women. I have almost invisible breasts. I have no hips. I have enormous feet for a woman. It is almost impossible for me to find women’s shoes. I have a large masculine face and a deep voice. I was fortunate enough to be able to have sex reassignment surgery, but that is an impossibility for most trans women, as it would be for me today. If I had the money, I would have breast augmentation, vocal cord, and even facial feminization surgery. As my financial circumstances are unlikely to change drastically, I am constantly reminded that those things will likely never happen. Suicide is an ever-present reality in the trans community. I have known several trans women who took their lives, and hearing of other suicides is a regular occurrence. Over forty percent of trans women report that they have attempted suicide. I have never gotten to the point of actually making an attempt, but I have come very close. Thoughts of suicide are alluring. How lovely it would be, the voice tells me, to break free of this existence where I am judged a freak, an imposter, a monster, a grotesque, and shoot off toward the next stop on my cosmic journey if there is one, and if there is none, to sleep in blessed peace. I usually deal with all these realities by that most convenient of coping mechanisms, denial. When someone gives me a hostile stare on the sidewalk, I ignore it. When the customer service rep on the phone continues to call me sir after I have corrected them several times, I let it go. These minor indignities don’t matter, I say. Forget about it, I say. But of course they do matter, and the more I ignore them and deny them life, the deeper they delve into my psyche, until one day yet another trans woman, who I didn’t even know, takes that final plunge, and it all comes bubbling and boiling to the surface.