Beyond not just gender roles but gender itself, trans individuals face both discrimination and complete incomprehension.
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The speed with which America is moving to abandon traditional gender roles can seem dizzying. Last month’s landmark Supreme Court decisions on gay marriage are one major signpost, but others are all over. For instance, this week’s People featured a story titled “Becoming Nikki,” about a 12-year-old coming out to family, friends, and schoolmates as a girl after spending her early years as a boy.
Nikki’s family, her school, her community, and, for that matter, the article’s author, Nancy Jeffrey, couldn’t be much more supportive of Nikki and her decision. Certainly, Nikki’s parents were torn and confused at first when the two-year-old they thought was a boy began to insist, “Mommy, I’m a girl,” when she was tucked in each night. But it appears they’ve completely come around at this point. “I’m still grieving the loss of a son,” Nikki’s dad Barry says. “But I’ve come to understand she’s been a girl the whole time. The cool thing is, she’s right here and she’s more alive than she’s ever been.”
In the article, that quote from Barry is highlighted and placed above a picture of Nikki with long hair, wearing a pink, polka-dotted outfit with a similar bow in her hair, spinning so her skirt flares out. She looks radiant and extremely feminine. The contrast with the baby picture which opens the article—in which “Niko” has a short haircut, a blue shirt, and looks very much like a boy—couldn’t be much more eloquent.
But… eloquent about what? The contrast is obviously a deliberate choice on the part of People—the images which bookend the article are there to show us something. Specifically, they’re supposed to show how Nikki has changed. She was a boy, the pictures say, and now she is a girl. Isn’t that transformation amazing/sweet/inspirational/cool?
Again, it really is inspiring that Nikki’s family has been able to accept her, and it’s kind of amazing that we’ve reached a point where a mainstream magazine frames it primarily as inspiring, rather than as a freak show.
But the temptation to frame it as a freak show isn’t entirely gone either, and those pictures show that it isn’t. In that quote, Barry is careful to say that his daughter has always been his daughter; they may have thought she was a boy, but that was a mistake. The pictures, though, aren’t as circumspect. The caption to the picture of Nikki at three refers to her as “Niko,” even though, Jeffrey tells us, the family always refers to her as Nikki, even when discussing the period when they thought she was a boy. And it’s not an accident that we have picture after picture of her in that insanely girly dress. People wants to be sure we see her as her—and it does so by photographing her in a way that emphasizes traditional markers of femininity.
I’m guessing Nikki does, in fact, like wearing pink, and that she identifies with some traditional markers of femininity. Lots of girls like princesses; there’s no reason that Nikki shouldn’t. But I’m also sure that Nikki has less girly outfits, and that she has interests and enthusiasms which are not traditionally girly, because people just don’t fit into boxes that easily. Some day, Nikki might be a firefighter, scientist or an athlete, and she probably won’t be wearing that dress the whole time. But she’ll still be a woman.
If the People article shows how far we’ve come in acceptance of transgender people, it also shows how persistent notions of gender can be. People is willing to accept Nikki as a girl as long as she does the things girls are supposed to do. But the image of her from when she was three is labeled as “Nico” and presented as male—even though, according to her own account, and according to her family, she was as much of a girl when she was wearing that blue shirt as when she was wearing that pink dress.
Women and girls wear gender-neutral clothing all the time without ceasing to be female. But people (and, apparently, People), can be leery of following through on that logic for transgender people. If you were born a female, the logic goes, then it doesn’t matter what you wear or how you act. But if you’re transgender, you need to be in a pink dress, because otherwise how could we tell?
And yet, it’s quite clear that Nikki could tell. Despite her body, despite her clothes, despite the insistence of those around her, it seems like just about the first thing she did know was that she was a girl. Julia Serano argues that people have a “subconscious sex,” a deep-seated understanding of what gender they are. For most people, that subconscious sex corresponds with the sex they’re assigned at birth. For Nikki, it didn’t. That may well have some effect on the clothes she likes to wear and the things she likes to do. But it isn’t predicated on them, any more than I’d be a woman if I wore a dress.
People is trying to make sense of Nikki’s experience by suggesting that gender expression is more important than bodies; that what Nikki does or wears matters more than what genitals or chromosomes she happens to have. But surely if Nikki is a girl in spite of her chromosomes, she’s a girl in spite of whatever she wears, or whatever she happens to do. Even the formulation “in spite of” doesn’t quite seem right—it’s not that there are these other things that would make her a boy, but she struggles past them. It’s that she’s a girl, and whatever she does is part of being a girl.
It’s become a cliché to say freeing ourselves of gender roles requires the realization that gender isn’t real; that it’s just a social construct. But Nikki’s experience suggests that our problem isn’t that we think gender is too real, but that we fail to see just how real it is. We want gender to be bodies, actions, or emotions, but it’s more solid than any of those. The problem isn’t that we force people into gender roles, but that we insist that gender is a role, or a body, rather than something that comes before either, and gives—disparate, surprising— meaning to both.
This article was originally published at Splice Today.
What an excellent article written by someone who has taken the time and made the effort to learn about trans folk before writing about us. Thank you for your excellent piece. To some of the above commenters: yes, gender confirmation surgery is dangerous, as are any surgeries that require anesthesia and 6-8 hours on the table. Perhaps what we who have experienced it mean to say is that the danger seems worthwhile in order to attain the congruence of body and heat that have seem to have been separated for our entire lives to that point. Thank you Good Men… Read more »
Being transgender is subjectively harmful only in the eyes of the prejudiced.
It’s ironic that in many parts of America people are challenging gender categories but doubling down on racial categories. Perhaps one is in reaction to the other?
If I told everyone I was transgender, I’d get a lot of moral support where I live. If I said I was transracial, the same people would shun me. Apparently, to the (other) compassionate liberals around me, gender is a n outmoded construct, while race is a real set of categories that must remain front and center.
interesting point wello, that this 2003 article goes into. i couldnt find anything on whether the man later had his dna retested and found african blood The surprising outcome of a DNA test proves a man’s race while throwing his blackness into question. “[…] Here was the unexpected and rather unwelcome truth: Joseph was 57 percent Indo-European, 39 percent Native American, 4 percent East Asian — and zero percent African. After a lifetime of assuming blackness, he was now being told that he lacked even a single drop of black blood to qualify. My son was flabbergasted by the results,”… Read more »
Gender identity is different than gender role. One can tie into the other, but it doesn’t have to, nor should it.
It’s interesting how everyone is presenting this as a “choice”. How is it a choice to deal with a terrible mistake mother nature has made with your gender identity not matching your physical sex? How on earth is that a “choice”?!
Simple answer, it isn’t a choice. And I’d argue it isn’t a ‘mistake’ a disease, or a disability either. It’s just something that happens, and sometimes requires medical intervention. The only unique thing about it is the way it upsets sexist assumptions about gender.
Very thoughtful and eloquent article. As a trans woman, articles written on trans issues by cis people usually make me uncomfortable, but this one was wonderful.
Nikki may never fully transition sexually, that will be her choice, but I really admire the parents who put aside whatever fear they had and allowed Nikki to express herself as herself. Sometimes individuals know who they are very early in life, as Nikki did. Some, like myself don’t understand who they wanted to be, or who they will be most happy as, until their 60s. I wish to fully transition genderwise, but I do not believe that I need to transition sexually. We ARE all different, and I am glad that view along the gender/sexuality spectrum is being given… Read more »
I never understood why people have a problem with transgendered or gender queer individuals. Like, if someone sees themself a certain way, but their body doesn’t match, they have every right to present themselves as they see fit. Having a penis at birth shouldn’t define you s a man if you see yourself as a woman, and vice versa if you’re born with a vagina. People need to just let everyone be whoever they see themselves as, and not try to stop it because of stupid stereotypes…
Other landmark things that have happened recently are Passports allowing trans people to have the gender they identify with, the Social Security Administration allowing trans people to change their gender marker without having sex-reassignment surgery (a procedure that is dangerous and expensive), the release of the new Netflix show Orange is the New Black with a trans character in it (and gender non-conforming characters left and right), Delaware passing gender identity protections, ENDA passing the HELP committee, the Violence Against Women Act including transgender women, Coy Mathis being allowed to use the girl’s bathroom at her school and other awesome… Read more »
Sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is generally NOT dangerous. Do keep in mind people have been medically transitioning for more than 60 years; it’s not something new. In fact it is estimated more than 100,000 transsexual people in the USA, including myself, have been through SRS. SRS is not anymore dangerous than other surgery.
SRS is a very serious surgery and many people die, or a permanently mutilated as a result of it not being done correctly. No major operation should be taken lightly and down playing the risks of SRS only down plays the struggle of trans women who make the choice for their personal health and well being not to get the operation.
All surgery is dangerous. People go into the hospital for minor surgery all the time and have deaths from complications. SRS is _major_ surgery. I remember reading several years ago that it was estimated the stress of it on the body could take ten years off of the life of the person. I’m happy to hear you had SRS, but I’m not really sure how you could take it so lightly.
probably a lots depends on where you live