Matt Kailey

At First Event last week, and at many other conferences I’ve been to, the Saturday night banquet is the highlight of the conference and the culmination of all the hard work on the part of the planners and all the fun on the part of the attendees, so many choose to get completely decked out for the event.

For some of the women, this means high heels, high hemlines, and low-cut necklines — and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this.

I’ve always thought that if you’ve got it, you should flaunt it, whatever that is — brains, talent, a sense of humor, muscles, great legs, a special skill. Whatever it is that makes you feel good about yourself or that you know is special, let the world know. If you don’t put it out there, nobody else will, that’s for sure. You’re all you’ve got, baby.

But I think trans women get the raw end of the deal when it comes to complaints about either reinforcing gender stereotypes, reinforcing the sexual stereotypes that some people have about trans people, or both. So let’s break it down.

Reinforcing gender stereotypes:

Almost all of the women who attended the First Event banquet (and most conference banquets that I’ve been to) wore a dress or gown of some type. Dresses and gowns, in our culture, are considered to be “women’s wear,” and they are also considered to be appropriate for a formal banquet. Most of the women fixed their hair, wore their makeup, and turned the evening into a special occasion where they could get dressed up.

So my question is this: Is it reinforcing a gender stereotype to wear a dress or gown or to wear special makeup or a special hairstyle for an evening out? Or is it simply being yourself? If you’ve waited 30, 40, or 50 years to be yourself, and yourself is a person who likes to put on a dress, heels, and makeup, should you be denied that pleasure and that right — the pleasure and the right to express your gender as you choose — because it reinforces traditional gender stereotypes?

Freedom of gender expression means freedom for everyone, not just for a select group who wants to defy gender stereotypes. And although my hope is that trans people can be a force in relaxing or eliminating traditional gender stereotypes, we are in no way required to do so.

The few guys who were at the banquet wore a suit, a shirt and tie, or, in my case, just a shirt and jeans. I gave up ties a long time ago — not because they were a gender stereotype, but because they make me look like a turtle with no neck. (Note: it’s not unusual to see fewer guys than women at these events or at conferences in general, but First Event’s TransMasculine Track brought in over 50 trans guys for a day of programming, thanks to planner Anderson Clark.)

Traditionally masculine trans men sometimes take heat for being excessively “macho,” and I’ve met a few who might earn the slightly outdated label of “male chauvinist pig,” but trans men rarely take as much flak for putting on a suit and tie — traditional “men’s attire” — as trans women do for putting on a dress, heels, and makeup.

Why? Because of the whole “sex and sexuality” thing that surrounds women in general and trans women in particular — and that we will talk about next time.

(Photo — me decked out for prom, circa 1971)