SBS 301 Cultural Diversity/Prof.
Koptiuch
Fall 2015 Personal
Memory Ethnographies
Riley Grapentine
A (Trans)Gendered Account
A lot has happened in
the transgender community throughout the years,
but so little of it is known to
people who aren’t transgender. So much of
transgender history has been covered
up or swept under the rug, but still it remains.
Many people think that the
existence of LGBT people is a more recent
occurrence, but people who live
outside of the gender and sexuality norms have
existed throughout all of
history. It used to be a lot more unsafe for LGBT
people to “come out” than it
is now—and even then, it is still very dangerous.
In the 1990s, there were
multiple brutal and violent murders of transgender
people, including Rita
Hester. The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR)
was created after these
murders to honor victims of anti-transgender
violence. The high suicide rates
of transgender people and the alarming number of
hate crimes committed against
them just because they are different
is downright scary. While it is still not uncommon
for a transgender person to
be the victim of murder, “corrective” rape, or
suicide, there have arguably
been more victories for transgender people in the
past 10 years than in the
past 100. There are more transgender people being
represented in the popular
media than ever before as of 2014, and in 2010, it
became a federal offense to
discriminate against transgender individuals
seeking employment.
One thing about me that
not a lot of people know, and that I usually don’t
talk about with strangers,
is the fact that I am transgender. It is something
I have only fairly recently
accepted and come to terms with. I have the full
support of everyone I care
about that I have ever chosen to “come out” to (my
dearest friends, my mother,
etc). I spend a lot of time on websites where I am
surrounded by a very
accepting, nonjudgmental community. I felt I was
normal, because I was accepted
for who I am by almost everyone I knew. I grew up
in a relatively safe haven,
and I am surrounded by supportive and open-minded
people. However, this blessing
can also be a blinding curse. At times, I forget
that there are still people
out there in the world that detest me on principle
and are disgusted by me
because of my mere existence—because I am
“different.”
When I was a child, I
remember being uncomfortable because I never fit
in—I didn’t want to wear the
dress to Christmas dinner. I didn’t want to change
in the girls’ locker room
with all the other girls. I didn’t care about the
same things that my female
peers did. On multiple occasions, I would go on
shopping sprees and buy a
multitude of “girly clothes,” despite the fact
that they make me feel
uncomfortable, in order to try to force myself
into the female gender
stereotype. It ended up being too much for me, and
I’d throw the clothes in a
bag, never to wear them again. But for so many
years, I didn’t even know what
being transgender was. For
years, I
never told anyone, let alone let myself dwell on
it.
Feeling the way that I
felt, it is hard to describe the amount of
surprise, frustration, and depression
I experienced when I saw so many people’s negative
reactions to Caitlyn Jenner
coming out as a transgender woman. Caitlyn
Jenner’s brave spirit, accompanied
by her beautiful and elegant dress on the cover of
Vanity Fair when she first came out
as transgender publically, is
extremely important to me. It takes a lot of
courage for someone whose identity
is generally repressed by the norms of society to
be their true selves out in
the open, knowing
that people will
judge them. I find what Jenner did utterly
inspiring, as someone who feels it
is unsafe to come out of the closet in such a
harsh world. Before this, I had
started to feel as though hate for the LGBT
community was a dying thing, the
minority’s view in America. I was so wrong. I
often forget that despite the
fact that I may be surrounded by accepting and
loving people, those who see me
as the Other will always be there to disagree with
me and force me to see
things from their point of view.
Net Surfer:
People are saying that something “big” has
happened. I didn’t know what they were talking
about, so I read an article
online. It was about Bruce Jenner, the Olympic
athlete. He said he is a
“transgender woman.” I didn’t quite
understand, so I kept reading. This means
that he thinks he was born into the wrong
body—that he should have been born a
girl. Now he’s going to go through
sex-changing surgery to become a woman.
Unbelievable.
After Caitlyn Jenner
came out, it was scary and exciting all at once.
It was exciting because there
were finally people like me who
were
famous and somehow validated my existence. It was
scary because there was a
rising wave of hostility from anti-LGBT folk who
made me feel threatened. It’s
a terrifying thing to come out to one person, let
alone an entire nation (if not
the world!) at once. I immediately respected
Caitlyn’s pronoun and name changes,
as the people I care about have done for me. And
then I made a terrible
mistake—I looked at comments on online articles
about the recent events
surrounding Caitlyn Jenner. There were hateful
comments, disrespectful
comments, and disgusting “memes” meant to be
funny, such as pictures of a dog
that were captioned “Bruce Jenner’s cat”.
Next I scroll
down to the comments. Some are supportive, and
some are not. I decide to write a comment of
my own, to reflect my stance. This
is what I write: “Bruce Jenner is not a woman.
I’m not going to call him
Caitlyn. He has lived his entire life as a
man, and he has slept with women and
has kids. Doesn’t this make him straight? I
understand that maybe he wishes he
were a woman sometimes, but there’s nothing he
can do about that. You are what
God made you. I’m sorry but a sex-changing
surgery isn’t going to make a
difference—he’s still going to be a man.”
How could so many people
be so ignorant, so blind, and so repulsive?
Unfortunately, many of the
anti-Caitlyn comments were made by people whose
religions preach love and
acceptance of all people, religions that teach
them to “hate the sin, not the
sinner”. I found myself skimming these comments
for hours, days, reading over
and over how Caitlyn was disgusting, a boy playing
dress-up, fake, and her
gender identity laughable. They must think that I
am disgusting, a girl playing
dress up, fake, and see my gender identity as
laughable. Everything that they
said about Caitlyn, they were also saying about
me—about all transgender
people.
When people see
my comment on Jenner, they explode with
anger. They call me transphobic, and that
lights me with fury. I’m not afraid
of transgender people. I just think that
they’re confused. We should help them.
But it’s true, and I stand by what I said—he
can’t be a woman. You just are what
you’re born as. Why doesn’t anyone understand
that? It’s so frustrating! He can
put on a dress if he wants, but the fact
doesn’t change that he was born with a penis and that makes him
a man. I think he would be happier if he just
accepted who he is, because I
don’t think anyone is going to start thinking
of him as a girl, especially this
late into his life.
You just can’t be
transgender. God picked your sex for a
reason.
These comments deeply
hurt me—they will always hurt me. After being made
to feel like the majority
would accept and love me, everything I thought
that I had known was thrown out
the window. It wasn’t true. The majority of
people, it seemed, rejected me,
hated me, and judged me because of something so
trivial in the big picture,
without ever even knowing me. I couldn’t, and
still can’t, believe that people
believe that what I feel and who I am is “fake”.
I recently saw another
article depicting the newest Halloween costume
fad, its popularity rising. It
had overwhelming support and not nearly as much
negative feedback. This costume
is of “Bruce” Jenner, in the outfit “he” wore when
“he” was on the cover of Vanity Fair
magazine, complete with a
sash that reads, “Call me Caitlyn”. My gender
identity, as well as the gender
identity of all transgender people, is now a
Halloween costume. And people
laugh, and they buy it, and on Halloween, they
will wear it, a symbol to
humiliate and reject transgender people.
Transgender people, to the majority of
the public, are a joke. Ipso facto, I am a joke.
What I feel is a joke. My life
is a joke.
This is the series of
events that have shocked me and opened my eyes to
the harsh reality of the
world, and have taught me that the only people I
can ever count on to accept me
and treat me like a normal person are the few
friends and family members that I
have come out to; that I am mocked because of
something I can’t control, simply
because other people do not want to understand.
This is a story about my
gender. This is a story about me, and
it will always be important to me. No longer will
I lie to myself and live
uncomfortably to try and fool myself and others of
who I am. From the day
Caitlyn Jenner came out and onwards, I knew this
event was important to me
because I was free.