Like a brontosaurus trudging into a tar pit, the New York Times just blundered into a debate that up to now has been best left to feminist journals and Queer discussion groups, in the Fashion & Style section, no less. With the nuance of a brickbat and the keen understanding of someone who has watched “The L Word,” writer Paul Vitello takes a look at lesbian response to transmen and finds (surprise!) some unease.
Unhip and straight as I am, I still know that not every woman who identifies as a man pauses to identify as a lesbian in between and that any woman who successfully passes as a man never quite gains the male privilege that the rest of us are born into.
I’ll leave further criticism of the Times for being out of its league to more qualified blargers, but did want to highlight this illuminating quote from Natasha, a lesbian whose partner became a man, putting an end to their relationship:
“You’re in love with a person, but there is something about gender that is so central to identity it can be overwhelming if the person changes,” she said.
What I had never quite gotten about transgender identity is that if gender is supposed to be just a social construct, like “race,” something that we made up and that has nothing to do with biology, then why change the physical form? Why go through a series of expensive and less-than-satisfying surgeries and hormone treatments just so that you can be who you always felt you are? Why not just be?
As I thought more about what Natasha said, I realize that I can accept my trans friend who identifies as a man, because to accept him as a man means to drink beers together and talk about what’s the best strategy for grooming facial hair. But if it was a man asking me to accept him as a woman, I could do so, or tell myself I could. But I wouldn’t countenance dating her. I would view her as a sexless being, like nuns or my grandma.
Yes, yes, nuns and grandmas are women, and femininity and womanhood comes in all varieties. I could certainly be saying this more eloquently, but I am writing this in the first flush of realization that saying that gender is a social construct (much like saying the same about “race”) does not make it a contemporary fact. Saying it is merely the first step towards making it true. In the meantime, we live in our culture and society today, where gender is so central to our identities, and sometimes extreme physical changes through medical science are important for acceptance.