Chapter 4: How to be a walking documentary.

About the need to always explain, clarify, and justify yourself.

You are never just trans. You are walking gender education. A living and breathing dictionary. The central hub for any question cisgender people might have, complete with free psychological insight.
“How does it feel to be trans?”
“When did you first notice?”
“And… which surgeries did you have?”
“Are you more into men, or more into women?”
“May I ask you something, it’s really not meant in a transphobic way…”

Pro Tip: These questions are almost always transphobic, because the moment you are outed as trans, you become an involuntary educator. From that second on, you stop being you. Instead, you are Bill Nye in heels. A trans essay in three chapters. And don’t you dare refuse to participate: “See, if you don’t want to talk about it, don’t be surprised that people know so little.” Now you are responsible for their ignorance. You are responsible for their insecurity. You are the solution to their discomfort.

And while you drone through your tenth coming-out in that monotonic PowerPoint voice, the person across from you gives you that look. That mix of fascination, disgust, voyeurism, and heartfelt pity. And they probably think: “Oh wow, what a life. I couldn’t do that,” while you are thinking I can’t do this either. I simply had no choice. Now try to explain that.

You are not allowed to be angry. Not allowed to be annoyed or exhausted. You’re expected to be grateful that anyone shows interest at all. You’re supposed to be understanding, when someone says: “You really don’t look trans.” Or even worse: “You are so brave to do this.” As if you leapt out of bed wielding a sword, battling society, just to buy groceries.¹

And if, once in a while, you say “I’m really not in the mood to explain this again today,” you’re suddenly snappy. Ungrateful. Aggressive. And that’s bad for your image, because you’re not really yourself. You are “the trans person I know.” Your behavior gets projected onto every other trans person. Reduced to a stereotype, compressed into a series of bite-sized memes, and consumed by the masses like a vegan burger in Texas.

Keep in mind: You are not trans. You are trans enough to answer all their question, but not so much that you become an inconvenience. If you are lucky, someone says, “No need to explain yourself.” But by the third conversation, even that person will ask you how you came out to your parents.

Jessica Krämer said: “I’m not strong. I’ve stood at the edge too many times and thought about jumping, but I couldn’t even do that.” ↩︎