I was asked recently by the children’s society to join in on a discussion about microaggressions and bring my experiences as a trans person to the table. I noted down stuff I talked about and I’m writing it up here. The discussion here might seem kinda rudimentary as it was written exclusively for cis people with a rudimentary understanding of trans struggle.
It actually took me a while to work out what I had to say on the topic, I’d only ever really heard microaggressions discussed from the perspective of race. The idea of talking as a non-binary person about microagressions with people of colour felt kinda uncomfortable? Like I was sticking my foot in the door and saying ‘but what about trans people’. But as a sat down to write some ideas down I found that a lot of the behaviours cis people display to me are actually best described as micoaggressions. Little tiny jabs or invalidations, just enough to make you feel shit, but not enough to make you feel you can say anything back. Anyway, here’s the basis of the presentation I gave. Obviously CW — Transphobia:
What are microaggressions?
A microaggression is a SUBTLE derogatory or harmful behaviour or speech directed at a marginalised group. Often microaggressions are unconscious biases coming out of someone that they might not be aware of.
I’m gonna talk through some examples of experiences of microaggressions I’ve experienced and pick apart a bit of why they might be harmful for obvious, and not so obvious reasons:
Sooo have you y’know, had the operation?
What’s going on with you downstairs?
These questions are unreasonably common and I hope I don’t really have to explain why it’s so bad, no cis person would expect to be asked about their genitals by strangers.
The framing of the questions also put unreasonable pressure on trans people’s existence revolving around surgeries and genitals. Most trans people haven’t had any gender related surgeries, many either don’t want surgeries or can’t have them for whatever reason. This line of interrogation trans people face highlights how much society is obsessed with our bodies and their entitlement to know what we do with them.
What name did you used to have?
Can I see some photos of what you used to look like?
These are both indications that we as trans people aren’t seen as ourselves, but more as a transformation spectacle to entertain cis curiosity. Most trans people aren’t going to be comfortable talking about our birth names or showing old photos because they don’t represent who we are, and usually when cis people ask to see these it’s because they can’t accept us as ourselves, and feel like they deserve to know who we ‘really’ are.
Is your relationship with your family okay?
Have you had any like trauma happen to you with being trans?
These can both seem like well intentioned questions.. At a glance, but again, we’ve gotta look at why they’re being asked. Asking about family acceptance is often in the hope of some drama and horror stories about abandonment and pain, and if we don’t have family acceptance then it is gonna be painful to talk about.
Asking about trauma is firstly, crossing a line, nobody with trauma wants to talk about it with a stranger. Secondly it also ties into prejudiced and categorically wrong assumptions that our transness is an illness that has been caused by trauma, rather than just who we are.
So like, not to be rude but, which direction are you transgendering?
Other than using trans as a verb, which implies being trans is an action rather than identity, this question screams of ‘how am I supposed to see you’. What they really want to know is ‘what are you really?’ ‘What were you born as?’, rather than accepting us as how we present ourselves now.
This collection of questions I’d refer to as cis curiousity. People who feel that maybe because on the face of it they’re accepting of you as trans, they deserve to know the intimate details of your life. In reality we as trans people don’t owe you explanations of who we are, and only respecting us on the basis of interrogation shows how deep the respect really goes.
Oh I just use normal pronouns
So, what’s a normal pronoun? It’s pretty obvious what this person is trying to portray. they’re normal, trans people are abnormal and they can’t be bothered with all this ‘new fangled gender nonsense’. I hope I don’t really have to explain this one any further.
You’re really pretty for a trans woman
You’re prettier than me
Again, I hope I don’t need to explain this too much. The stereotypical image of trans women in many people’s heads is one that people would never consider attractive, when some people meet a woman who discloses being trans, they can genuinely be shocked that the woman is someone they could consider being attractive, because they’ve become so accustomed to the ‘tragic transsexual’ trope in media.
Apart from this obvious ignorance and backhanded compliment, the notion that trans people are valid only on their percieved attractiveness by cis people is extremely harmful and again, reduces us down to just our looks.
I never would have known you’re transgender!
This is a similar kind of statement, you don’t match the idea I had of trans people in my head, and you should take it as a compliment that you look as ‘real’ as the rest of us. Your value as a human is based upon how much you can blend into cisgender society.
Transgenderism, transgendered
These are phrases I hear a lot, and while it’s very subtle, it’s important. Transgender is an adjective, a characteristic about a person.
Transgenderism pathologises the idea of transness and implies it’s a disease that has afflicted us, rather than a part of who we are.
Transgendered implies that being trans is an activity we have done, we have become transgender, rather than it being an implicit part of who we are.
Why do microaggressions affect trans people, and how do I respond?
The short answer is I don’t respond.
Microaggressions are so harmful and insidious because they are so small. The state of trans people in the UK is a mess at the moment, from openly ‘traditionally transphobic’ people to TERFS there’s enough overt transphobia in the world that it’s hard to have the energy to talk about the smaller stuff.
This by no means means that it isn’t an important discussion to have though. The trans community is relatively insular and microaggressions are a contributing factor towards that. When ‘progressive’ people who claim to respect you end up inadvertently invalidating you it’s hard to feel safe anywhere other than within the trans community itself.
This is also why allies can be so beneficial to trans people, if you can explain why the language is harmful it takes a lot of the heavy lifting off of trans people’s shoulders, and we also don’t feel like we’re directly in the firing line.
Existence for trans people is so politicised that it can be hard to call out hurtful behaviour for fear of more open hostility.
Personally I feel almost lucky when people aren’t openly hostile towards me being trans, soI’ll try to look past the hurtful things they can say, and that obviously isn’t ideal.
Our self image can be deeply affected by microaggressions, when people who claim to respect you are clearly seeing you through their own biases and prejudices towards trans people, it’s hard not to internalise their view of you. I think this is a dangerous part of microaggressions. While in the moment it can be hurtful and I might need to vent to someone about how I was upset by someone being aggressive to me, it impacts me far more in a wider sense of how I view myself long term.
Who perpetrates microaggressions:
I’m going to overgeneralise and categorize causal transphobes into two boxes here. Sorry about that, I’m trying to highlight the two ways of thinking I generally see:
The first I guess you could call laissez-faire approach. This tends to be along the lines of ‘you do you’ vague support of trans people without understanding of our oppression. This line of thinking is maybe comparable to ‘I don’t see colour’ kind of willful ignorance with regard to racism. While these kinds of people are supportive, it’s to an extent and with conditions. For instance the acknowledgement of ‘you do you’ is often followed up by a pat on the back they give themselves for being supportive, and then a range of intrusive questions are fired at us. This line of thinking then usually ties more into the cis curiosity line of microaggressions.
The second way of thinking I see is something like ‘I’ve seen orange is the new black so I know everything about trans people’. Again, I’m not saying these people are bad by any means, they can be supportive, but their support is also often self congratulatory, and are often trying to prove to themselves that they’re accepting. These folks tend to say more things like ‘I never would have known you’re trans’, or ‘she uses they/them pronouns’.
The main differences between these two categories of thinking is the perceived level of knowledge. The first has a Joe Rogan-esque line of ‘I don’t know anything so I can do no wrong’.
The second has the opposite viewpoint: ‘I understand this so everything I say is woke and right’.
How we can do better
There’s an easy answer and a harder answer to how we can do better:
The easy answer is to learn by rote the phrases and language not to use around trans people, and not use it. To pause, think about what we’re going to say, and consider why we want to know and if it’s appropriate.
The harder, but in my opinion much more effective solution is to educate ourselves on trans people, cisnormativity, misogyny and colonial roots of transphobia.
I use roots with two meanings here, the roots within history, of how transphobia became what it is today, and also the roots in our minds, the deep seated fear or discomfort that comes with facing trans people.
The first solution is like mowing a lawn to get rid of weeds, the weeds cannot be seen, and won’t offend people, but if you don’t keep mowing the lawn they’ll keep coming back up.
The second solution is to get in deep and pull out the weeds by the root, to examine privilege and underlying emotions around trans people, and get rid of as many weeds as we’re able to.
I think there’s a very specific audience I’m trying to talk to here. It’s the centrist to centre left cishet person who has some awareness of trans people, and the vague notion that they ‘are women’, but without a clear idea of the bigger picture. I’m not interested in debating whether my existence is valid, arguing with terfs and traditional transphobes. I want to help those who’re on the fence, or slightly confused and scared by the whole discourse around trans people. I think most people in the UK do have good intentions towards the trans community. Though that’s hard to see a lot of the time.
