A Trans Gender Allegory

There are differences between the sexes, but there’s a lot more similarity than difference. And where there is difference, it’s not a perfect, clear border—butch girls, for example, can be way more masculine than a femmy guy.

But somewhere along the way behavioral tendencies—the girls tend to do this, and the boys tend to do that—became treated as hard-and-fast rules, and encoded into pink and blue straitjackets that we are shoved into at birth. Innies only do this, and outies only do that. The straitjackets take overlapping traits and interests, artificially separate them, then impose a divide between them.

If the straitjacket you’re in fits you well, it may seem to you like the artificial divide imposed by the straitjacket is real, the natural order. But for those of us shoved in a straitjacket that confines our natural inclinations, it’s claustrophobic to our soul.

For girls and women, there’s a partial escape option: switching to the purple straitjacket of tomboyness. That, too, has its restrictions; although some masculine things are gained, others are still out-of-reach; meanwhile, some feminine stuff is taken away. And on occasions tomboys are expected to return to the pink straitjacket—say, social obligation to dress up for a wedding—people rub salt in the wound with, “Oh, don’t you look nice,” and “You look pretty in that! Why you don’t wear dresses more often?” These comments are belittling and insulting, whether traditional femininity is happily rejected, or access was lost to it when choosing the purple straitjacket.

Going further means being willing to exchange blue and pink straitjackets, often clunkily explained as feeling “like a woman trapped in a man’s body,” or vice-versa. But most Trans folk these days find that old chestnut worn out and inaccurate.

Thus, I offer this longer, better analogy. Like all analogies, it’s not perfect—but I hope it better conveys the experience than… that other thing. Imagine you’re a child again, growing up in another place, another time—perhaps a place where people survived something like the great depression, when things were very dear, and it left some peculiar marks on the society—

Waste Not, Want Not

You’re the third child in a family, and so all the clothes you receive are cast-offs of your older siblings; it’s part of part society’s “waste not, want not” commitment. Your older brothers are a little stockier than you, so the waist of the pants is always a little big, and they constantly try to slide down. Also, the sleeves on your ihherited shirts always run a little short—they always feel tight at the wrist, elbow and shoulder, confining your arm movement.

As a kid, you don’t really think about this: it’s just how clothes fit; they’ve always fit like that for you. It becomes habit to accommodate the oversize pants by pulling them up every time they to slide down too much. You may do it every 5 minutes, 12 times an hour, over 150 times a day, 1,000 times a week—but it only takes a second, and it becomes second nature, like scratching an itch; something you never think about. Meanwhile, you learn to move in a way adapted to the limited upper-body range of movement imposed by wearing shirts with too-short sleeves.

As you grow, you become more independent and do new things—soon you can ride bike, climb trees, or build a fort in the woods behind your house. And with these new activities, every once in a while, you notice how problematic your clothes are. Using a hammer to secure nails in a tree-fort would be so much easier if you arms weren’t choked by the confining sleeves. Your restricted movement is also a nuisance when climbing trees. Meanwhile, loose pants are hazard in a tree, and a hassle when you’re trying to adjust your bike’s brake so it stops rubbing on the rim of your well-worn, hand-me-down bike. You need both hands to hold wrenches and parts in place as you tighten a bolt, but are interrupted by need to reach back to hoist your pants, dropping the wrench in the process. Again.

But it’s what you always had, what you’re accustomed to, so you don’t yet clue in that it’s arbitrary that it’s this way, it could be different. You just continue to put up with it, because the way things are, is the way things should be. If things should not be this way, then the adults would have made things differently, right?

But finally, as your awareness of the wider world grows, you notice differences. First-borns have clothes that fit better, that they seem more comfortable in. But you’re not a first-born; as a later-born, you get hand-me-downs. Still, the inconvenience of ill-fitting clothing seeds a question in your mind. You aren’t aware of any later-borns that get new clothing—and yet you can’t see anything preventing you from saving up some allowance and upgrading. Except it’s not that easy.

Because you know what’s going to happen at school. The clothes might fit you better, but everyone’s going to take notice. You’re going to get slammed with snide comments. “Somebody’s got more vanity and money than rightful frugalness.” “Afraid of honorable careers like plumbing?” “Ooh, someone wants to look like Fabio now.” Better-fitting clothes won’t help with the first-born kids: “What, you think you’re a first-born now?” “What, you think some fancy duds are gonna make you older? You’re still a later-born,” they’ll say. And it won’t do wonders for your relationship with other later-borns: “Dude, what are you, trying to be one of them? Get the fuck out of here.”

Your current clothing might have problems, but trying to change what you wear will get you completely ostracized. So you keep putting up with it, thinking maybe one day, you can move somewhere new and start a new life with new clothes from scratch, where nobody will hold your birth order against you.

But you still wonder what it’ll be like to have clothes that fit, and one day, your curiosity gets the better of you. You collect your savings and bike to the Clothing store. You make sure nobody’s watching as you enter; once inside, you make sure there’s nobody familiar who might see you shopping there. As you’re perusing the racks, you see a sales bloke and lady whispering to each other, looking in your direction. They see your worn clothes and know you don’t belong here; they watch carefully, making you feel self-conscious. Soon, their attention gets under your skin and you leave, your questions unfulfilled.

The intimidation pushes questions away for another month, but the difficulties of manipulating hand-tools in shop class restores them. You bike to a different store, and this time, you manage to pick out a pair of pants and try them on. When you step out of the fitting room to use the mirror, your heart pounding in fear at your transgression, an old lady shopping nearby spies you and gives you a look of disgust; you habitually reach back to hoist the pants, but that wasn’t the reason for her glare. She saw your shirt, and read your movement and body language, and knew that you were dressing before your birth—later-borns like you should know their place, and your place isn’t this shop.

You’re of a dual mind as you glance in the mirror: you’re ashamed and fearful that you’be been caught out of place by the old lady; yet, you see how well the pants fit, and can feel them riding nicely on your hips, without falling down—the fit feels amazing. Something feels right, in a way you’ve never felt it before.

You slip back into the fitting room and into your old clothes, then head to the cashier, who can’t quite restrain a smirk at you purchasing this. You quickly pay for your item, then rush home to find a hiding place to stash your new pants—because if your parents see them, you’re going to get an earful: you’ve wasted your allowance money, you’ve got perfectly good hand-me-downs. What are you, trying to be one of those elites with their tailored clothes, whose children all wear new? How snobbish, trying to show you’re better than others via conspicuous consumption.

Over the coming weeks, you wear the new pants when you can, when you’re alone. The next month, you head back to the shops and get a shirt to go with the pants. The pants took away a nuisance, but the shirt yields newfound freedom of movement; it’s amazing to not feel so miserably confined all the time. You can reach and stretch your arms in all directions, unrestricted. These clothes fit.

With each wearing, you feel more comfortable, more right in clothes that fit. The guilt of misusing money and transgressing your assigned role weakens, as your comfort in proper-fitting clothes grows. You question the status quo: Why do only older siblings get fitting clothes? Do ill-fitting clothes not bother other later-borns? You recognize that part of your problem is that your body-shape didn’t follow that of your older brothers; if you’d been shaped like them, hand-me-downs would be fine. But you are a different body shape, and the third-hand clothes don’t fit.

But as stupid as it seems, you also know the challenges you’ll face if you buck society: inspiring a Sunday sermon, where the preacher will rant about the waste, vanity, greed and self-interest of those who choose to reject what’s been handed down to them by the grace of god, the hard work of their parents and the kindness of their loving families.

That summer, you work odd jobs around the neighborhood, and turn your income into more clothing for your closet. Toward the end of summer, after a particulary tough day of struggling to mow lawns while fighting pants sliding down, you decide you’ve had enough. The next day, your heart pounding in terror and excitement, you head off to mow some lawns in proper-fitting clothing. A few customers glare at you, a few looked confused. Many bite their tongues, but one old lady tells you get off her lawn. She’s paying you to help you save for college, not have a fashion show.

After that when you see a customer that wants to say something, you headed them off: “It’s easier to push the mower when my clothes aren’t falling off.” Some nod, others frown disapprovingly. One well-dressed father, carrying a 2-year-old in ill-fitting clothes, asks if bad-fitting clothing is really that much trouble.

“If your older siblings aren’t the same shape, it can be.” The father looks at the daughter in his arms, contemplating what your answer advises for her future.

At home, your parents soon find out. Initially, mother frets over what the neighbors must think, while father writes it off as a phase you’ll grow out of. But with each passing day, you became more accustomed to proper-fitting clothing. You gradually lose the habit of hiking up your pants, and unbeknownst to you, you begin to use your arms differently as your brain and muscle memory learn new movement patterns free of constricting clothing.

Mother puts her foot down when it is time to return to school. “You will not humiliate this family with such an ostentatious presentation,” she insists, and makes you change back into hand-me-downs before heading to school. You comply, but pack fitting clothing in your backpack so you can change when you arrive at school. The walk to school is difficult: you keep tripping over pants, and have to keep stopping to pull them back up. And the shirt: you feel like you can barely move. You would love to stretch your arms and tear holes in the sleeves—but it would be wasteful to destroy a perfectly good shirt.

As predicted, you get a lot of flack from fellow students. You begin to notice a pattern: most disapproval comes from the first-born, for whom clothing has always fit well, and the later-born with clothing that fits ok. Those with ill-fitting clothing generally accepted your explanation, “Nice to have clothes that fit me properly.”

Day by day, you learn to ignore the social pressure, which comes in different forms: some shun you, others insult you. Some, you can see, want to follow your actions, but don’t have the courage. Maybe in time they’ll get there.

And then one Sunday, the expected sermon comes. By now mother has relented and lets you wear what you want; it’s been weeks since you’ve worn poor-fitting clothing. Father has mostly stayed quiet on the issue, but that’s the way he often is, so his one comment on liking your style really stands out as supportive. So there you are, wearing your Sunday best, listening to this preacher until the end. He even adds a bit about coveting, and how we should accept what we have rather than be be jealous of others.

When he’s done, you stand up. All eyes turn on you as you step into the aisle; your mom is aghast. “Sorry, mom,” you say quietly, before facing the preacher.

“That’s all very easy to say for a first-born who has worn well-fitting clothes his whole life.” You hold up your hat. “This was my brother’s hat, and my elder brothers' before him. I wear it still because it fits. Waste not, want not.” As you breath again, the congregants titter; you see the preacher spooling up. You continue loudly, preventing him from interrupting, “I do not wear these clothes for vanity, nor greed, nor ostentatiousness, waste or jealousy.”

The whispers start up again; the preacher interjects. “Then why do you wear them? What is it about these new textiles that justifies forsaking your proper clothes, purchased by your hard-working parents, broken in by your elder brothers, that now sit at home, wastefully relegated to sitting on a shelf as remaining life goes unused? What advantage do these shiny new duds provide, that justify abandoning the old tried-and-true?”

“Frankly, these clothes provide no advantage. In fact, they cost me dearly, both in the form of the many lawns I mowed and hedges I trimmed to buy them, and in the difficulties many put in my way for wearing them. But as for the garments themselves, I would not think about them were you all not so uptight about them. And not thinking about them is exactly the point. I abandon the old for the disadvantage of their ill fit, and the difficulties that brings me.”

“The fit?” the preacher asks. “Do you not have two legs and two arms? Were your pants not built for someone with two legs, and your shirts for someone with two arms?”

“Spoken like someone with the privilege of being first-born,” you reply, “who has never had the displeasure of clothing that doesn’t fit. It’s very easy to say a lot of things, preacher, when you’ve never walked a mile in three-sizes-too-large pants, or tried to trim a hedge in a shirt that’s practically a straitjacket.” At the risk of being indelicate, you continue, “But if you’d like to, I’m glad to offer my cast-offs for you to try.”

The preacher looks stunned at your rudeness and disregard for the dangers of trading clothing outside the family. While mutters rise up from the congregation, you raise your hat, nodding to the preacher. “Trying it would be worth more than 1,000 words,” you finish, turning on your heels, you plop the hat on your head. Out of the corner of your eye, you see your dad grinning at you proudly before you walk upright out the front doors of the church and into the bright sun.

You take a deep breath to steady your nerves, and calm the adrenaline coursing through your veins. Then you head for the park where lately, walks have seemed subtly more enjoyable than they used to.

Discussion

If a social straitjacket imposing second-hand clothing seems absurd, it’s only because it’s not ours. We think the pink and blue straitjackets of our gender norms are right, proper, and natural—but they’re just as absurd as the straitjacket of being a later-born in the parable. The difference is, we grew up wearing pink and blues ones, so it’s difficult for us to imagine life without them.

I was assigned a blue straitjacket, but rejected it 30 years ago, at age 19—replacing it with a pink straitjacket, because I assumed at the time that I needed a straitjacket. In time, I rejected that for a purple one, because the pink one was too confining, too impractical for a girl that likes powertools, hiking and adventuring. But purple, too, comes with restrictions—I love dancing and flirting, and dresses and skirts are so comfortable and nice, even if they’re impractical sometimes. Finally I realized I can just go without any straitjacket. They are all social constructs that I never agreed to, that are not helpful, and that prevent me from blossoming into the full possibility of what I can be.

For some of you, your straitjacket fits well, so you have never noticed it’s there. For some, maybe it even brings comfort, reassurance or familiarity. So I’m not going to tell you to get rid of yours.

But understand that for us Trans folk, these straitjackets made our lives miserable. Getting out of the wrong one takes years or decades of struggle. Why are they even imposed on us? If it seems like Trans people are going after gender roles—well, if we’re talking about those straitjackets, then yes, we are. They do nothing but restrict us, and provide nothing but patterns for dysfunctional behaviors. I cringe remembering my time in my assigned straitjacket, the sexism and elitism it came with that I tried to do in hopes the jacket would finally fit. The blue straitjacket gave me nothing, did nothing but harm, and left only regrets.

But remember what I said back at the beginning: the straitjackets created an artificial divide, wherein Innies only do this, and outies only do that—a dysfunctional, hard-and-fast set of rules, instead of allowing us our natural tendencies.

When rigid rules are made out of tendencies, then forced back on us—that is always a problem. For example, most people are right handed, therefore if you’re left handed, you’re a bad person who is afflicted with Satan. What nonsense, but how long was that nonsense a blindly accepted rule of society.

There are innate, natural tendencies. Boys and girls tend to display some difference. Trans people don’t want to dismantle that; we couldn’t dismantle that.

What we do want to end is future straitjackets. Without straitjackets, average kids will grow up no differently, driven by innate, natural gender tendencies—but maybe without some of the adversarial gender crap that comes with the straitjackets. But there are always going to be some outliers, some who don’t stand neatly in or near the center of a bell curve. Eliminating straitjackets will remove one hindrance that makes it difficult for those outliers to understand themselves. They will be able to figure themselves out faster and with less strife.

Trans people don’t want to take your gender away or impose new genders on you or anyone else. We recognize we are outliers among gender expression—but being an outlier is not wrong, being different is not wrong. We would like the freedom to express our genders as we see fit, and I hope you’ll respect the new genders some use to self-describe. And we would like to do away with the inflexible, society-imposed gender roles—the straitjackets—that were imposed on us at birth, and denied the validity of the natural differences and variations in our gender that make us, into us.

Because among the many children born, there will always be some gender variation. We want to do away with the obstacles that made it difficult for us to figure out and express our natural tendencies, so that future Trans folk can be themselves without the pain and strife we were put through.