We Can't Have Both Tomboys and Trans Boys
When gender identity wins, gender non-conformity loses
When I was in the middle of labor, my nurse referred to me as “they.” Why? Because I have short hair. That's it. That's the only reason. All my medical records say I am female. I mean, I was about to give birth, so there was really no doubt about that. But I am a woman with short hair, and in today's world, that means it’s quite possible I think of myself as a man, or non-binary, or anything but as the woman I actually am.
I'm not writing this to complain about the nurse—she was lovely, and she only did it the one time, probably because I managed to scoff loudly through a contraction. But I think this incident illustrates the point that when the concept of gender identity becomes accepted, as it has in the nursing profession, then gender non-conformity loses. You really do end up having to pick one. Either you think that people's hair styles and fashion choices don’t change what sex they are, or you buy the concept of “gender identity” and you think that signs of gender non-conformity mean that someone is trying to deny their sex.
I know another woman with short hair who keeps getting asked her pronouns in various situations. She has started asking the people who do this if they have inquired about the pronouns of any other woman around. They never have, of course, so she then questions why they seem to think she is less of one. She told me she has made it her mission to make them too scared to ask anyone else. I am proud of her.
Her situation also perfectly illustrates how the concept of gender identity cannot coexist with the simple fact of gender non-conformity. Once too many people have bought into the idea that being a man or a woman (or something in between) is totally separate from your physical body, then any obvious enough deviation from a typical male or female appearance is read as evidence of an incongruous “gender identity.”
Trans activists have been so successful that this is exactly where we are now, and I am bitter about it. People already find it hard enough to understand, much less accept, gender non-conformity. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the acceptance that we have. At the end of the day, however, the sexes are different, and people who deviate from those typical differences do stand out. Still, at least we had reached the sort of “live and let live” ethos that made it so that those of us who were a little different could go along and get along without much issue.
Today, however, gender non-conformity does present an issue. People walk on eggshells, feeling like they are going to get in trouble for using the “wrong” pronouns for a woman who doesn't present stereotypically feminine or a man who doesn't present stereotypically masculine. I'm sure part of what happened with my nurse was that she was concerned she would offend me if she referred to me as a woman. It's highly possible she’d had a laboring female patient get upset at being referred to as a woman in the past, and so she decided to err on the side of caution.
But I'm not trying to frame this as a deliberate attack by trans-identified people against gender non-conforming people. Sure, I think there probably are some autogynephiles seething that even women like me get accurately perceived as female virtually all the time. But, as a group, trans-identified people, both the males and females, are simply looking out for their interests.
The sad thing is that I don't believe it was always the case that their interests collided with ours in this way. Back when trans-identified people largely used to seek to “pass”—when they believed that the onus was on them to elicit a perception in others that they were the opposite sex—the world could safely assume that if a person appeared male or female, then they likely saw themselves as such.
I'm not saying that was an ideal situation and that anyone should necessarily seek to appear as the opposite sex. I think it is a drastic step to make the extreme physical changes you likely need to achieve passing, and I'm hard-pressed to agree that it's ever a good option for anyone, even those who I may believe have managed to go on and be happy in life. But with that attitude, at least, trans people were living their lives without causing anyone else's “gender” to be questioned.
But modern trans and queer activists exhibit an external locus of control and seem to think that the onus is on everyone else to see them as they wish to be seen. What they desire in order to feel accepted and affirmed is for society to see markers of gender non-conformity—like, for example, short hair on a woman—and assume that the person is aiming to present as something other than the sex that they are.
Unfortunately, asking society to function this way works against my interests, and so we are at odds. I'm sure many women who cut their hair off and want to be perceived as men as fine and nice people, but I don't want people to think I'm trying to present as anything other than a woman. So, this really isn't personal. It's not a declaration of war against individuals who claim a trans identity. I just don't want to be associated with that way of living and being in the world, but widespread acceptance of the concept of “gender identity” does force me to be associated with it.
More importantly, I don't want my daughter growing up to think that she isn't a girl if she also ends up with some gender non-conforming likes and interests, or if she chooses to style her hair and clothes in a certain way. I don't want her to reject her body or feel that something about the way she is is wrong for a girl.
It's obvious to me that gender non-conforming people lose when the concept of gender identity wins. We either accept people the way they are or we expect that they are trying to be something they are not. Society only has room for one of these narratives.