Rules of Trans+ Engagement

Have you ever thought about the role of rules in our lives?

We’ve been brought up with so many rules - especially in the West.

School taught us to always consider age when thinking about respect.

We were only supposed to eat/drink/use the bathroom at certain times.

We’re supposed to consider our needs as secondary; otherwise, we are seen as selfish.

Which has been percolating in my mind - after a conversation that was had in Trans+ Connect support group - is transness seen in a sense as a form of transgression, breaking the rules?

When I think about being trans, I often come back to the Latin root prefix, which means "across," "beyond," or "on the other side of”. Questioning our gender is something I consider to be similar to an awakening. We have woken up and seen life outside of perceived social ‘ideals’.

I have often felt sorry for cisgender people.

Sorry, in the sense that they have never considered what their life could be like if they questioned the status quo of their own existence. That can manifest in some strange ways that I am linking to the idea of trans people being rule breakers.

Cisgender people can sometimes feel threatened by us, because they have never considered being anything other than what they were handed at birth. Thus, this fear gets reversed back onto us. We face an ultimatum: we must conform to the preexisting ‘rules’ or we face the consequences of being ostracised or othered.

I've spoken before about the ways we are isolated. I think perhaps an external way to tackle this isolation is not to ask what it is that trans people do to ‘subvert the norm’ and instead ask why it is that cisgender people are not trying to explore their being in full?

The rules we (trans+ and intersex people) are seen to be breaking are actually a prison many people exist in. Just because you don’t know you’re in a prison, doesn’t mean you are free.

So next time someone suggests to you that trans+ and intersex people are breaking the rules, you should remind them they are simply trapped in a system that we’ve broken free from…