WTF trans one

image from Open Your Eyes and Make a Wish


Sometimes i feel i’m a WTF trans person. I know there is a long list of different types of trans identities and processes and some people may find this confussing. Like...all that FTM, gender-variant, pre-op, androgynous, transexual, MTM, MTF, FTF, gender bender, post-op, no-op, trannyboy, genderfuck, genderqueer, transexual, transgender, and the list goes on and on. And even if some people may find this confusing and complicated, for me it’s just the sign that the way we live gender is much more complex and rich than A or B.
I’m a What The Fuck trans person, which means i’m angry, i’ve been angry for a while and i bet my bike (the most important thing i’ve got) that i’ll still be angry in the future. Anger is part of my identity. And stubborness.. Some people could swear how stubborn i am if you need it.

I’m angrily stubborn or stubbornly angry. Nobody will ever ever convince me that:
- there are only 2 genders.
- That i have to choose between A gender or B gender.
- Or that i have to go A B or B A
- Or that’s the only way to live in this society.

Why am i saying that? Because all those things have said to me at different moments both by straight cisgender people and trans folks. And in the same way that i won’t accept a straight cisgender person saying that to me, i won’t it either from a trans person. Exactly the same as there is not one way of being a man or a woman, there is not one way of transitioning. Behind the argument that there is only one way of transitioning, that does not include the possibility of not choosing between A or B, there is the concern about physical, mental and social health. I know this. I know the people who said that to me were concerned as how, as a genderqueer person, i was gonna be able to live in this society. To live outside the radical queer circles that create a safe space around me.

Bad or good news, it depends on how you see it: society is crap. Remember how your parents said to you don’t eat poo when you were little?. So do not eat it now. That’s one of the best pieces of advice your parents ever ever gave to you.

Bad or good news, it depends on how i see it: i’m not only a trans person. I’m an inmigrant, a queer, an anti-oppression organizer, a DIY kid and a quiet punk. I do zines and don’t want a 9-5 job. I ride bikes, drink beer on the roofs and listen to almost any kind of music. I think i lost my place in this society long time ago...and i have better things to do and learn than struggling to have it back. I will better put my energies in the building of alternatives that allow people to express themselves in the way they feel it.

When people say “society” i usually ask myself who the fuck is this society. Because we tend to talk about it in a very large and virtual way, which does not always represent reality. When talking about “society” we barely consider how “society” is different in different contexts and how differently we ocupy a place in it, depending on these contexts. I understand that when we talk about “society” we’re refering to normative and oppressive society. But then, i’m not living out of it. I’m living IN it, that’s why i’m living oppressions. And that’s also why i’m living privileges (like being white western educated middle-class abled-body). I understand that when we say about someone that they’re not living in society, we really mean, they’re not following the rules.

As a queer WTF inmigrant trans person, i don’t aim to follow normative society rules, but to fight for change, to create possibilities, and in not such a long time, to destroy-bomb-explode-and-biochemically-infect all oppressions systems. Like the fucking binary gender compulsory cisgender heteronormativity natural sex complementarity one.
As a WTF trans person, i support trans people having their sex case changed on papers while i keep on fighting for the suppression of the sex case in our minds. I know revolutions sometimes need time. And little steps brought someone to the moon (how was that sentence? Anyway, was someone ever on the moon for real?). But steps should not be confused with goals: papers will never say who you really are, because we’re much bigger than a shit of paper.

You see, i’m angry. I told you i was angry.
Angry against normative society rules and angry against the “that’s how it is” crap. Angry against not only a cisgender supremacist system, but also about the fact that while fighting for trans rigths we may forget how classist and brainwashing the normative transitioning process is. Please, do not think i’m attacking individuals going on transition process. I’m attacking the such small transition process that society is allowing us. It is so small and restrictive that people, individuals, are struggling for it, fighting to get IN. I won’t say to anyone going through this that they’re not making enough. Instead, i will affirm that the transition process is not enough. It is a classist and discriminatory process. It is a process that may clean society bad conscience about all the violence trans people is living in every day life. It is a process that do not put bi-gender, cisgender system in danger, it only says “they’re two genders and the maximum you can do is going from one to the other”.
And on the way, from A gender to B gender, you’ll need money, you’ll need ressources, you’ll need to have the right papers to have access to the process. And of course, you need to want to do the A B or B A transition: this won’t work if you want to be X or move to Z.
Even if the transitioning process can be useful for certain individuals, it is dangerous for many others. Because it does not accept the possibilities that people feel and it’s not accessible for many trans folks, it creates the obligation to go illegal, and/or to put our lives at risk.
Just a quick remind that getting hormones from doctors instead of the internet is a privilege. Papers can only be changed when there are papers to change. Going from A B or B A is not the only way, there are still many other letters in the alphabet.

So please, do not stop transition here. Go further. Whether in the awareness or in the action. Because, whatever it happens, even if you get to do all your transition process successfully by the rules, you are part of the fight. Because for any person identifying as trans and for any trans ally, there is a fight that is happening now, that has happened before and that will continue to happen in the future.

Little steps brought someone to the moon. Your moon, my moon, our moon.
Steps should keep on being made. No matter how little they are, as long as they are.