heyyy idk if this visibility thing is such a great idea
heyyy idk if this visibility thing is such a great idea
Gender Entitlement and Trans Day of Visibility
a little l8 because i am struggling. apologies that instagram (🤢🤮) saw this first. it will not happen again. i hope you have a goofy/funny April Fools Day and a profoundly somber and meaningful Trans Day of Visibility. -evergreen<3
A patron recently approached me at the circulation desk with a difficult question. He was about seven years old and I was helping him check out a Captain Underpants book. His mother stood behind him, reassuring hands on both of his shoulders. Peering at me from across the service counter, he asked: “Are you a boy?”
As a trans woman in the public service sector, this question is pretty common and often very awkward. As a library worker, though, it’s my job to create a friendly and cooperative social environment, where people do their best to learn and get along.
On one hand, I had a couple coworkers at the desk with me who I had never discussed my transness with; I wasn’t stealth at this job, per se, but I also wasn’t sure if they knew I was trans, and for that reason (and several others, specific to my work environment) I wasn’t keen on answering the patron’s question. On the other hand, working with kids is a central part of my job, and kids are always gonna say this kinda stuff. This boy’s curiosity was completely innocent. I wasn’t fazed by his question. All the same, I chose to brush it off rather than answer him directly.
I smiled and laughed, handing him back the Captain Underpants book. “That’s funny!” I said, reflexively playing it off as a joke. “Y’all have a great night. Take care.” It was closing time and there were a couple patrons waiting in line behind the mother and child.
But the mother didn’t move to leave. “We don’t say that, honey,” she told her kid in a gentle voice. “Instead we say, ‘What are your pronouns?’” The mom urged her kid to ask me himself, using this as a teaching moment, guiding him towards a future of eventual social independence. Head still peeking over the desk, he repeated her words: “What are your pronouns?”
The other patrons were near enough to hear, as were my two coworkers behind the desk. My face flushed behind its respirator mask. I answered him, “She/her.”
“See?” the mom said, zipping up an expensive brand-name puffer jacket. “What do you say to the lady?” The kid thanked me and turned to follow his mom.
I called the next patron over and helped them check out, now officially embarrassed. A coworker caught my eye, one eyebrow raised in an unmistakable What was that all about? expression. The pair had been perfectly polite, as were my colleagues. Nothing they did was out of line—not really. Probably, the mom pulled the “What are your pronouns” line right out of a helpful Facebook infographic, or an office sensitivity training.
Yet all I could think was: How did this sound okay to her? I personally would not ask somebody’s pronouns up front if I were confused about their gender. Not while they're on the job, not unless I absolutely had to refer to them in the third person. And even if that were the case, I would find a way to ask the person discreetly — not in front of their colleagues and with a queue of onlookers. As a trans person, I obviously understand the importance of getting somebody’s pronouns correct. But that’s not what was going on here, is it?
The mother was telling her child how to politely perform entitlement over a trans woman’s gender. And I do believe it was polite, by which I mean it was perfectly in line with the top-down, HR-enforced liberal social norms we are all expected to follow implicitly. Insensitive as it was to me as an early-career trans woman working in an almost completely cis work environment, I know she did not mean anything by it. Because to her, my transness is not a political or economic class. It’s a diverse identity category, like a stripe on a rainbow. Trans people have become a category of person, not unlike “refugees” or “the poor,” who good urban women are supposed to read about in book clubs so they can remain refined, cosmopolitan, and up on the times. After all, because diverse identities are so important, why would we want to hide them away? Isn’t that the opposite of what our whole “pride” thing is about?
On this Trans Day of Visibility, let me add my voice to the chorus of dolls (mostly dolls at this point, as far as I can tell) who say that “visibility” is inadequate as a political aim. Just like liberal “tolerance” rhetoric of years past — and similar to “diversity” rhetoric, now apparently out of fashion — “visibility” projects a world where trans people are just another stripe in the rainbow of working society. Problem is, this does not even remotely reflect our material circumstances.
Trans people are an extraordinarily targeted, relatively small minority population with unique difficulties in healthcare, housing, and workplace discrimination. We experience interpersonal violence at a rate alarmingly higher than the national average, and we are routinely targeted for violence by the state in the form of incarceration, police harassment, and false documentation. We are a long way from the structural changes necessary to fix any of these problems. It is perfectly normal — even, in some cases, necessary — for trans people to circumstantially hide or de-emphasize our transness in order to navigate our oppressive conditions.
When liberal politics factor in our material circumstances at all, rather than just our bodies or our trauma, the tacit assumption of a “visibility” approach is that, somehow, having a larger cultural or social profile will make trans people safer. This is probably true in some limited cases. But on the whole, it’s a worryingly misguided way to go about improving the material conditions of any oppressed group. We should have learned to question this already from generations of Black liberation thinkers, many of whom are themselves trans.
Trans visibility politics are predicated on the wider liberal belief that representation = liberation. Political marches are successful if they’re colorful and loud, not if they actually change anything they’re marching about. The civil rights of a given group take a massive leap whenever one of their ranks gets elected to congress, regardless of that representative’s actual politics or standing within the community. Because Trixie Martel’s got ad space on the MTA bus and your white cis coworkers use Black and Brown ballroom slang, trans people are somehow on our way to acceptance with the wider world.
Trans people are more visible than ever, and not coincidentally, we stick out like a sore thumb for opportunist politicians seeking an easy scapegoat. I have friends who’ve been discriminated against routinely, or even stopped by US federal agents at a border crossing, for having an X as their gender marker. If you have your correct name and gender listed on your driver’s license but still have your pre-transition name listed in state records, like a birth certificate or a marriage license, you’re essentially at the mercy of whatever bureaucrat or cop has chosen to look you up. Let’s hope they’re not a transphobe! Visibility in these cases, and countless others, is not a step towards liberation but rather a hazard.
The rush towards trans visibility has far outpaced the gradual march of real, material trans liberation. Here are some rapid-fire statistics from the 2022 US Trans Survey, which represents the most comprehensive and methodologically sound numbers we have available:
34% were experiencing poverty, with a population-wide unemployment rate of 18%
11% reported being fired or otherwise forced to leave a job because of their identity
30% had been homeless at least once in their life
47% had considered leaving their state due to political persecution; 5% had already left
30% had experienced harassment in real life during the last 12 months; 39% if you include online harassment
75% (!!) stated they were either “somewhat uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable” interacting with law enforcement
48% reported having a negative or discriminatory experience with a healthcare professional in the last 12 months
There’s a reason almost every out trans woman I know has a habit of pitching her voice up and acting more stereotypically feminine when interacting with a cop, boss, landlord, or doctor. It’s the same reason we have to turn to each other for medical advice, or even medical treatment, instead of the proper clinical channels. Which, in turn, is the same reason so many of us don’t make a huge deal about being trans at our jobs.
This is not to say that trans people shouldn’t choose to be visible. There’s nothing wrong with a trans person choosing to be open and readable to the cis world, including in ways the cis world might consider disruptive or confrontational. The problem lies in the notion that we should be doing this without consideration for our material safety. It’s only human to wish that we could all be the people we want to be and live in harmony with each other. But it’s irresponsible to pretend like this harmony already exists, and it’s reckless to structure our codes of etiquette without a responsible and coherent analysis of our particular oppressions. This goes especially for spaces outside the more permissive social and cultural sphere sphere — settings like the workplace, the courtroom, the psychiatrist’s office, or the police precinct, where trans people face serious risk to our material well being.
Crucially, my issue is not with trans people who decide to post on the internet about being trans on Trans Day of Visibility. My issue is with the notion that cis people, or even other trans people, are in any way entitled to the details of any given trans person’s gender. In such a hostile political climate, free passage of detailed information on a person’s gender should never be assumed — especially in places like the workplace where trans people are routinely persecuted for their identity.
If you are confused about a person’s pronouns, don’t be weird about it. Try to avoid referring to them with gendered pronouns in the presence of other people. Make an educated guess if it comes to that. Maybe hit them with a non-committal “they” if the vibe’s right, or if they’re tall or have a deep voice and dress femme, just use “she.” Contrary to what your HR department may have told you in 2018, it’s actually fine to assume somebody’s pronouns, just do so with care and tact. Be open to correction in any case if you mess it up. And understand that the gender of a trans person, before it’s a colorful identity stripe in the pride flag, is a political and economic class that determines their material conditions and social standing. Calling attention to the aberration of their identity — when not referred to by the person themself — is a bad idea.
email me at eviewrites@duck.com. socials @everzines. newsletter buttondown.com/eviewrites.