Being Transgender & What it means to be a woman (for me)

Hi beautiful!

Continuing from where I left off last time, I thought I´d discuss a bit about how I view the term "woman".

You see, there´s a lot of misconceptions out there about transgender peoples views on gender. I´ve seen dysphoria in several stages, both in me and in others.

Let´s just start with the simple thing first: gender norms are in many cases not inherently harmful. That is to say, a hyper-feminine woman and a hyper-feminine man are not harmful by their existence in a vacuum. However, many people that strive for hyper-gendered ideals are harmfully affected by society. Just look at young men bashing a hammer on their chins to "looksmaxx" and young women seeking out surgeries that they feel pressured to get.

So now that we have an idea of what hyper-gendered norms might look like (I´m sure you have a vivid picture or two in your head), what does my gender tell you about me?

Truth is, not a damn thing. My gender does not tell you if I like makeup, cycling, wrestling, short hair, big muscles, narrow waists, a defined jaw-line or whatever other gender norm you might think of.

So then, in the words of an asshole bigot: "what is a woman?" . For someone that subscribes to the notion that a woman should fit into a neat box of gender norms, I suppose the Barbie doll at the toy store might be for you.

A favourite singer of mine put the problem quite nicely in one of her songs:

"See, the problem I have with gender
Is that I'm not even sure whether
I know what I mean when I say I'm a girl because I feel that way
'Cause boys can wear dresses and makeup
Anyone can wear whatever they want
Girls can have short hair and muscles
And that's where I run into trouble
'Cause if I use she pronouns, well, what does that mean?
Am I reinforcing a gender binary
That I don't believe in?
That I don't adhere to?
I say I’m a woman, what’s that supposed to tell you?
Gender doesn't tell you a damn thing about me
It doesn’t tell you what I like or how I act, it doesn't tell you how I speak"

If saying “I’m a woman” doesn’t tell you how I dress, what hobbies I have, whether I’m soft or aggressive, whether I like makeup or motorcycles, then what does it tell you? I think maybe less than people think.

When I tell you that I’m a woman, I’m not handing you an instruction manual for my personality. I’m telling you something about how I understand myself and where I locate myself in relation to other people. It is a category that feels like home to me, even if I cannot draw a perfect little fence around it and tell you precisely where womanhood begins and ends.

And perhaps that bothers people because we like categories to be clean.

We want definitions with sharp edges. We want to be able to point at something measurable and say: there. That is the thing.

But people aren't very good at fitting into neat boxes.

I don't think being a woman makes me feminine. I don't think femininity makes someone a woman. I don't think a dress, a chromosome, a hobby, a haircut or the pitch of someone's voice contains some mystical essence of womanhood.

I just know that when I stopped trying to understand womanhood as something I had to perform, and started understanding it as something I was allowed to simply be, the question became a lot less frightening.

So, what is a woman?

I don't know if I can give you the neat little definition you're looking for.

But I can tell you that I am one.

And you'll have to actually get to know me if you want to learn anything else.