Reddit reviews The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For. Alison Bechdel

Well, the thing is OP, like everything, it's really, really complicated. I have met trans people of all walks, orientations, and ages. Some of them are extremely masculine. Some extremely feminine. Some cringingly, affectively, trying-far-to-hard so. Some extremely neither of those, and somewhere in the middle.

I know a software engineer from Amazon who wears overalls and no makeup. She's not femme at all. Not a single stereotype about her, unless "middle-aged lesbian" is the one you were going for. I know one trans woman in her 20s so is an MUA who is so femme you would think she was born female. I know another trans woman to whom this applies and she is in her 60s, so bear in mind what I am about to say now with a pinch of salt.

I heard one cringe-inducing story which I will now tell you. I was at a workshop on exploring our own gender which was being given by a cis presenter. And honestly it was cringe. She was clearly doing her best and clearly had a point to make but we just were never quite on the same page. At one point she asked us all to write down what we thought were typically feminine and typically masculine traits. For 'feminine traits', myself and a group of other trans women all put down things like "Strong", "Resourceful", "Driven", "Determined", "Independent", "Has strength of character", and so on. For "masculine", we put "lazy", "weak", "self-serving", etc. And why would we not? We are transitioning to be women. Why would we think anything else of femininity? But the honest truth is that that exercise hurt. It hurt and made us all, but most of all the NBs in our group to whom no gender or stereotype applies, extremely depressed and dysphoric. "Women (and men) are not stereotypes" we said in the feedback. "We are all so much more than that."

In the closing session, the cis presenter related a story. She had been at conference about LGBT stuff and a trans woman much, much older than her with obvious stubble came up to her and after awkwardly complementing her appearance, said something like (and the presenter's voice deepened as she said this), "I especially like your handbook. You know what us girls are like with our hair and handbags." I was appalled. Why tell this particular story in this particular way to a group of trans folk? Is it because you genuinely think that is what all trans women are like? And also how dare you make fun of her like that? She has to work so hard, every single day--just to be seen as female. And here you come along. You take all of it away from her. A struggle you will never know. Her femininity revoked in an instant. My cis therapist was also suitably appalled.

The point is that if a minority of trans people can have stereotypes about cis people, a minority of cis people also have stereotypes about trans people. Honestly, usually its more than a minority.

Growing up I knew a cis girl who I was close friends with once confided in me that she wanted nothing more in life than to be a housewife and after procuring a suitable husband would spare no effort to make that happened. She also embodied every conceivable feminine stereotype you could imagine. She always and only wore pink. Cute handbags, every time. Beautiful, perfect nails, teeth, and hair. Her favourite song was by Aqua. Her voice was like a spring flowing on a summer's day, her fingertips like snow flakes in winter. And because she was born female, she will never, ever be judged for any of that. Can you imagine what people would say if she was trans? After graduating medschool she got a Ph.D in cell biology, before starting and managing a successful shipping company. I am very well aware of how much harder she will have had to work than her male peers to make that happen but as far as I am aware she has still not given up on her childhood dream. (And honestly her curriculum vitae probably makes her more successful at this, not less. What man wouldn't want to marry a devoted genius who didn't particularly care about her career but happened to be extremely good at everything she put her mind to? Idiots, that's who.) Sometimes stereotypes can defeat you in the most unexpected of ways.

The truth of the matter is that everyone embodies a stereotype, just not usually the ones you're thinking of. A majority of my trans friends, whether M2F or F2M (of which there is a roughly equal split), are non-binary. That means that they emphatically refuse "he", "him", "she" or "her" pronouns. They would not be caught dead in dresses, nor would they ever wear makeup, nor do they watch football, or drink beers with boys. Their body types tend toward the aggressively androgynous making assigned-at-birth-gender difficult or impossible to guess. Only when they speak can you know.

Even my cis friends are stereotypical. Nearly all of them are polyamorous working-class queer super-mums with no long-term partners in their early 30s and you have to take everything associated with that stereotype to understand what makes it true, from the nose rings to the queer cuts. Honestly, nothing has changed since the 80s. But that's not a stereotype you were expecting, was it?

As for myself, I'm pretty normal. I have a small list of kinks which I share in common with many other cis women. I like wearing dresses and painting my nails and feeling like others think I'm pretty. Do I do that because I like them innately or do I like them because I live in a cis-supremecist society where I am harshly-judged or even assaulted or murdered if I don't look the part? I don't know but your life being on the line is a pretty good incentive to start enjoying doing anything especially when doing something makes you get treated as the person you really are and not doing something gets you assaulted or murdered. Is "Why do you like doing that?" really a serious question when put into that context? This is the rock-and-a-hard-place intractable dilemna that trans women like me are faced with. If we refuse to conform to the stereotypes laid out for us by cis society we are "gross", "disgusting", "perverts", just "men in dresses", "come on, make an effort". If we do "make an effort" we're "walking stereotypes", "vain, self-obsessed, interested in no one but themselves", and "all womanhood means to them is hair, fake tits and makeup". It is the same trap laid out for cis women of course, only deadlier.

There are lots of reasons why my life is better now and many of them are social because there are lots of terrible things about being perceived to be a guy when you're really a woman. Being expected to know the football scores by other men or to have an opinion on them. People thinking I'm bad with children. Women being afraid of me. Honestly do you want to know the first thing my best friend ever said to me? I was presenting as a guy at the time. It was in the kitchen of a mutual friend's house where I was making tea for the hosts of the party. I said to her, "Do you know where they keep the sugar?" and she said "I'm not interested in a boyfriend, sorry." (Sometimes I bring it up to tease her but honestly she knows that I know exactly where she was coming from when she said that.) When what you want most is to be friends with other women, being seen as a guy is a difficult place to start from.

Of course there's the physical stuff too. The self-loathing when you look in a mirror and see a guy staring back at you. The hatred of your own body. I have a recurring dream that my body is covered in thick, course fur. The cancerous, tumorous growth that grows and shrinks arbitrarily between your legs. It doesn't even look pretty! Your voice, which sounds like gravel dragged on sand-paper. (Honestly my voice is much higher and more variably-pitched but of course I got bullied for speaking like that as a child and had to teach myself to speak like a man so I didn't get bullied). Can you imagine being the heroine in a book by Franz Kakfa or a prop in a painting by HR Griger? Honestly it's like that. The crippling, unrelenting dysphoria. Natalie Wynn captured the experience well.

Is being trans based on gender stereotyping? No, absolutely not. It's physical, it's psychological, it's social. It's about lots of things. It's about wanting the freedom to be the person who you really are. I don't see how or why cis people like to stereotype us. But they do. Maybe a small minority of trans people do seem to base their identity on stereotyping. I tend not to get on very well with those people. Should that for a minute invalidate their trans ness? No, absolutely not. And it sure as hell shouldn't invalidate mine.