Matt Kailey

I remember speaking once at a youth organization, and some of the counselors — well-meaning and compassionate people — were concerned about a teen girl who was dating other girls. They believed that she wasn’t “truly” a lesbian, but that she was a straight girl who was dating other girls as a response to past sexual abuse. And they didn’t want her to be a lesbian if she didn’t “have” to be.

My response was that it really didn’t matter why she was dating other girls. If she wanted to date other girls, then that’s what she should be allowed to do. Certainly, the sexual abuse issues should be addressed, but not in terms of who she’s dating. What difference does it make if she’s dating women because she’s a registered, card-carrying lesbian or if she’s dating women because she’s more comfortable with them, for whatever reason? Whose comfort was really the concern here? Hers — or theirs?

In some ways, it’s the same thing with trans people. There are those who want us to go away. There are those who want us to go through intensive therapy — not so that we can transition, but so that we can be “fixed” and be “normal” again. There are those who want us institutionalized. And there are those who want us to suck it up and live with it. But these are all solutions not to our problems, but to theirs. These are all solutions to make “them” feel more comfortable.

We make them uncomfortable, and they don’t want to be uncomfortable.

But I wonder why we make them so uncomfortable. I’m pretty easy to get along with, and if you feel tongue-tied around me because I’m trans, I’m always willing to discuss the weather (yep, that’s Colorado — if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it’ll change). But maybe they’re not as uncomfortable with me as with what I (and all of us) represent — self-awareness and an absolute certainty about who we are.

Maybe they are uncomfortable with their own manhood or womanhood, so they need to “fix” those of us who can identify our own gender and work toward living it, whatever it is. The fact that we know who we are and take extensive measures to be that person and live in that way makes them uncomfortable, because they are not so sure of themselves. We are.

In fact, the pain that we are willing to suffer and the lengths that we are willing to go to in order to be who we really are proves just how strong our identity is. We know who we are. They don’t know who they are. Our identity is strong. Theirs is not. That makes them uncomfortable.

Maybe we are scary not because we are weak, but because we are strong. We know ourselves, we know what we want, and we live it. Because of the way society treats us and responds to us, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we are the ones who are confused, unsure, scared, weak.

But the reality is that maybe we are the only ones who know ourselves ultimately — who are certain of our identity — and that being trans is the gift that allows us to see this. It doesn’t matter why we’re this way — we are this way. And it’s not the wrong way to be, it’s just one of many ways.

Making us go away — either through therapy, institutionalization, sucking it up, whatever — is going to fix someone’s problems, but it won’t be ours. It’s going to fix someone’s comfort level, but it won’t be ours.

We aren’t confused. So to those non-trans people who want to “fix” us, I suggest just sucking it up — or maybe get some therapy to work on your comfort level. Once you’re okay with who you are, you’ll feel better about who we are.

Thoughts?