I increasingly feel like a woman torn between two worlds, Cis World and Transfem World. Cis World is where I live and work but also where I am threatened by society for my nonconformity. Transfem World feels safer, but it’s far away from my cis friends and family and not a place I can stay long-term. I cling as best as I can to my connections to Cis World as it pushes me away, while Transfem World pulls me in the same direction with utopian promises. I feel like I need to be able to travel between the two in order to hold everything in my life together, but it increasingly feels harder to do that.
Cis World is the world of jobs and property, of life milestones and families of origin. Cis World tolerates queerness and transness that is legible under the lens of patriarchy. Because transfemininity embodies a rejection of the superiority of masculinity, Cis World distrusts trans women and paints us as both sad amusements and dangerous predators. Cis World bartenders pretend I’m not there when I try to order something. Older men in Cis World stare at me on the sidewalk, full head rotation and slack-jawed. There are “sapphic night” or “femme affinity” events in Cis World, but they’re not for anyone who was born with a penis. Leaving town puts me on guard, I feel pressed to evaluate everyone in my vicinity as a threat.
At the same time, I feel this incredible growing joy in transness that I want to share with everyone around me through surreal jokes and incredible outfits and heart-wrenching music. I feel sustained by art by and about other trans people, about the potential that so many of us carry in secret until one day it arcs across us in a bright and colorful flash. Then I attend Cis World parties ostensibly fundraising for trans causes where I’m met with side-eyes and false flattery. I feel like it’s a joke, “inclusivity” for the social credit. My life is not a goddamn plywood cutout to peek through and pose with.
Transfem World is a place where I can catch my breath and get a reprieve from the trauma and grind of microaggressions in Cis World. When I’m in Transfem World I don’t have to deal with people questioning my validity (unless I’ve lost the good graces of some clique). It’s a lot easier to talk with the folks there about bodies, emotions, memories, sex, queer joy. That said, it’s hard to stay there without inviting consequences from Cis World. Cis people aren’t welcome there (for good reason), and so the longer I stay in Transfem World the weaker I feel like my ties are to cis people that I care about and to society as a whole. I worry that a full-time stay in Transfem world would alienate me from loved ones and the powers-that-be that I need access to in order to sustain myself.
I’ve spoken to many transfems who have felt the push out of Cis World and start talking about founding their own rural communes, healthcare systems, bathtub yam-based estradiol, prepper arsenals. This often gets lumped under Torrey Peters’ definition of “T4T,” as an ethos of selfless trans-supportive mutual aid to the bitter end as put forth in her book Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones. But separatism is a utopian dream that leaves the disadvantaged - like trans kids - out in the cold. Additionally much of what passes for Transfem World institution is propped up by individual goodwill and circumstance, and so I doubt the ability for such projects to come to fruition. I’ve been accused of being an assimilationist for my skepticism around this, but I think assimilation looks more like valorizing passing and stealth as opposed to continuing to live visibly with cis people. To be clear, T4T is a much bigger concept than just Peters’ ethos but that’s another blogpost.
Ultimately, I feel like the struggle to move between Cis World and Transfem world comes down to my ability - and willingness - to tolerate the shit I have to put up with. I have the distinct advantage at this moment in my life to handle more bullshit than most because I have privilege, specifically economic privilege. Having a job that pays well means I can appear more or less the way I want, get most of the medical care I need, clear transition hurdles more easily. And this initially gave me the impression that I can use my privilege to buy my legibility to cis people. If I do all the transnormative things and get really good at doing “woman” in a societally acceptable way it’s bound to get better, right?
But the degree to which I bend to fit into society really doesn’t matter when I’m encountering a transphobe or a transphobic institution. If society wants me dead because of what I am, trying to fit in better isn’t going to change that. As I fearfully try to preserve what balance I have, I'm having to come to terms with the fact that my agency matters much less than I am willing to admit.