Nothing Like It

I've written poetry, short stories and blogs about this, but it's still something I can't help but think about.  There's nothing like being Transgender.  It's the most isolating thing, especially if you're a student of history and literature.  I'm used to being able to draw parallels between an historical or philosophical perspective on almost any subject.  But I don't think I can here.

I was trying to think of other unique experiences where someone would have a hard time explaining their state to others.  Simple concepts come up like color-blindness.  I just watched a +Life Noggin video about how this works, and at the end he asked "If you had to describe the color green to someone who was color blind, what would you say?"  This is a pretty normal way of asking this question, it assumes the listener is in the majority.  But the question that we have the burden of answering for the rest of the world is, "How would you explain what you see as Green, even though you know everyone else sees it differently?"

We're in the minority, we're this odd little club of people who have difficulty with such a basic, fundamental part of our identity.  Cis People have a really hard time explaining their gender, you can check out this video with the wonderful +Janet Mock if you doubt that.  That situation could be given to almost any Cis Person and they're going to give you the same response, "I just never even thought about it." 

That's not true about 'green' though.  Most people have been asked questions like the one Blocko asked.  And it's not true about sexual orientation.  People think about that.  Most people have a pretty good idea of what they're attracted to in the kinds of people they're attracted to.  They could (and frequently DO) give you lists.  They don't have to struggle to explain what they don't find attractive about people they don't want, they can just list it.

But they don't think about their gender.  They don't even have a second thought about it.  It would be like questioning their own eye color.  It's a basic component of who they are.  They don't think about the gender they're reflecting every day because it's never been an issue.  It's clear and easy. 

That is what, I think, brings trans people together.  We're the weird group of people that do question that.  And when we question it we find flaws, we find incongruity between our expression, or at least our expectations, and the gender we were told we belonged to.  I don't know that I've ran into a lot of trans stories where the person doesn't give a decent amount of thought to the subject of gender, even after transition.  There's always an element of it that is oddly self-aware.

But maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe there is some other community that has to give that much thought to a central identifying factor in their lives.  Fill me in if you think of something, but for now I'm going to wonder what that means for us - where that puts us in the grand scheme of things.