#3. As one of my mutuals said very well: ‘misgendering’ a cis person does not carry the violent connotations of misgendering a trans person

[captain-lovelace]

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[goatsandgangsters]

For the trans asks! 1, 6, 14, 18, 25, 41?

1. How did you choose your name?

So the majority of people in my life call me either Em or EJ, though some people still call me Emeline (which is my given name). I don’t think I’ll ever consider it a deadname, because I do have some attachment, but I think the nicknames Em and EJ suite me better. People are welcome to use any of those options. While I’m particular about people getting my pronouns right and using neutral- or masculine-coded language, I’m kind of shrug emoji when it comes to names.

Em is actually largely @meyerlansky‘s doing (still suspended, rip), because they just... have a tendency to shorten people’s names and started calling me Em several years ago. And it just caught on! Particularly among online friends or mutual IRL friends, I looked around one day and was like “oh huh, a lot of people call me Em now, don’t they?” 

EJ has a bit more of an intentional story behind it: I first thought of EJ back in mmmmaybe late 2018? I saw a post on tumblr that was like, “I think it’s cool how there are a couple different Categories that transmasculine names tend to fall into” and listing those out. And one of them was initialisms—with examples like AJ, CJ, TJ. And I noticed, you know, J is always the second letter. And EJ is ACTUALLY MY INITIALS. And I just instantly felt really good about that, because here was a Very Gender Neutral Name, but it still already felt like a name I’d had my entire life. It was fresh and familiar all at once. It fit into this J pattern while also still feeling unique, because EJ is not as common as other -J initialisms. I first tried it out when I started going to a trans group IRL, so I have an entire trans friend group that only calls me EJ. The majority of people at work also call me EJ—similarly because nicknames just spread sometimes. I left my official documentation under Emeline, but mentioned to a couple people that I also go by EJ and then I blinked and almost every single person I work with calls me EJ. 

Both Em and EJ amuse me, because I’m surprised at how easy it is for people to pick up a nickname. I’ve found that people adjust to using a different name WAY more easily than they adjust to changing pronouns? Which is on the one hand an interesting observation, but on the other hand, it’s unfortunate because I CARE MORE ABOUT THE PRONOUNS PEOPLE USE THAN MY NAME

6. When did you realize you were transgender?

Short answer: 2012. I was a sophomore in college and one day I found out some people actually want to be their assigned gender?? I had thought we were all just miserably putting up with it. 

(There’s a longer answer here about realizing my gender in 2012 but then spending years and years overcoming my internalized guilt about “not being trans enough” and constantly moving my own goal post of “well I’m not trans enough because I don’t do x” and then doing x and going “OKAY BUT I HAVEN’T DONE Y” and then doing y and going “YEAH BUT I DON’T DO Z” and then wanting z and finally realizing, hey uh, how many times are you gonna move this goal post and also you’re eventually going to run out of goal posts—and finally having to go OKAY FINE, YES, I’M TRANS ENOUGH. I’M OUT OF EXCUSES TO INVALIDATE MYSELF.)

14. How long have you been out?

2018 was the first time I started telling people directly to use they/them pronouns for me. (I know, I know, took SIX YEARS RIGHT? But processing that is what my therapist is for.) But before that, I was definitely like in that vague place of “blogs about gender feelings and nonbinary stuff often enough that everyone who follows me like probably knew for a number of years before I said anything directly.” But in 2018, I was finally being Concrete and Direct about it, put it in all my socials, etc. Then in 2019, I came out to my parents and at my job for the first time. So officially, 2–3 years overall! 

18. How does your family feel about your trans identity?

If you asked them, they would tell you that they love and support me and they’re proud of me and they fully accept my identity. 

If you asked me, I would tell you that while they do love and support me, trans stuff is COMPLETELY BRAND NEW to them, so they don’t always know the right ways to show that support. It’s one of those “sometimes I wish it didn’t take work, but I know they’re trying and they mean well” situations

They ARE making progress, albeit more slowly than I’d like. Neither of them had ANY IDEA what I was talking about when I first came out. They very much... did not understand what I was telling them. So I made them both read a very good book on the subject, which they did read, and that helped lay some groundwork.

My dad has been consistently good about using neutral language from the start and as of a couple months ago started consistently using my pronouns! My mom still has not used my pronouns ever, which is kind of a bummer because she’s had... two years. She’s at the stage of “notices when she gets it wrong” or “aware enough to avoid pronouns,” which is better than not noticing at all, but it’s still not as good as getting it right. iT’S A PROCESS. I’m trying to be patient with it. They mean well. But god I wish it could just be easy, like a light switch. 

I still haven’t told them about my plans for top surgery. I’ve been putting off that conversation for....... months. It was actually the “pin in that for next week” comment to my therapist when we were wrapping up. But like, IDK IF YOU’RE STILL WORKING ON PRONOUNS, I FEEL LIKE “SURGICALLY REMOVING MY BOOBS” MIGHT SOUND LIKE A LOT?

25. What do you wish cis people understood?

I MEAN, QUITE A LOT. But if I have to get specific, I wish there was more understanding of why pronouns are actually important. I get the sense from a lot of cis people who are older and who don’t have a lot of understanding about queer stuff to begin with, that they think of pronouns as like “something they have to be PC about” and if they use the wrong pronouns I’m going to be mad and offended and they’re going to be sent to pronoun jail by the language police. Like, people approach pronouns by thinking “I need to remember that she uses they/them pronouns, so I need to only call her by them/them pronouns.” 

But actually, I’m asking that they stop seeing me as a woman. I don’t want a linguistic bandaid slapped over internal misgendering. If you can’t internalize that I’m not a girl, then pronouns will continue to be a struggle. I’d rather people call me the right thing than the wrong thing, but I don’t want to only be called the right thing. I want to also be seen as the right thing, too. It’s like one of my friends had a coworker call them by the wrong pronoun and the coworker came to apologize and then was like “alright, see you later girl!” with apparently no cognitive dissonance whatsoever. Pronouns are important, but they’re also not JUST language. Pronouns are important because they signify seeing people authentically. I want people to get my pronouns right, but I don’t want getting my pronouns right to be ALL that people do. 

Also, the idea that trans people are “angry and offended” when you misgender them because everyone is so sensitive and political correctness has gone too far, instead of like “it’s a painful reminder that you never get to just exist as your gender the way that cis people do, that no matter what you do there are always people who’ll use the wrong pronouns—sometimes unintentionally, sometimes intentionally, and it’s death by a thousand cuts” is a whole other rant I could go on. But if I get into how the myth of trans people being “easily offended” is dangerous, unfair, and untrue, we’ll be here all day. 

41. What is the place (blog, website, forum, IRL space) you get most of your info on being trans or on trans related things?

When I was first starting out, I did—for better or worse—get a lot of information from tumblr. On the one hand, I can’t shit talk, because it did allow me access to information that at the time I couldn’t find anywhere else. On the other hand, tumblr is often an ugly place for information (and whatever nonbinary discourse and misperceptions might exist now, it was 38475785 times worse in 2012. good god. just fuckin wall-to-wall trusc*m). I can’t tell you how many “HOW TO PASS AS A MAN (FTM)” articles and blogs I read back in 2012 as well. I absorbed any information I could find about anything, anywhere, because it was not as widely available. 

In the interceding years, I feel like I don’t know exactly where my information comes from. I just absorbed so much of it, wherever it could be found, that I don’t have a strong sense of where it comes from. I’ve watched countless “1 month on T / 3 months on T / 6 months on T / one year on T” videos on YouTube. I’ve trawled transbucket and facebook groups looking at people’s top surgery results. I’ve read lots of articles on fitting clothing and masculine style onto bodies that weren’t necessarily intended for those clothes. 

Spending IRL time with trans people though has been by far the most enriching and healing, though. It wasn’t necessarily where I learned the basics like different methods of top surgery, but it was where I started un-learning a lot of the emotional baggage I’d picked up along the way. 

[Trans ask game! What has been your gender journey?]