a snarky question
I hear on a semi-regular basis — again, just the other day in fact — about what foils for the patriarchy transpeople are. How our undertaking of gender transition helps to support rather than to undermine the gender caste system.
And so now i’m frustrated with this to the point of being snarky about it. Because i’d really like to see on what basis, beyond the thoughts in their head, anyone can make such a statement. Please, someone, anyone, name one reward that one receives for being transgender. One kind of social privilege, however small. It’s been my life and i haven’t seen it, but maybe i’m too “close,” you know?
I can name the costs — economic, social, emotional; i can name the the barriers — economic, social, emotional, institutional, ideological; i can name the risks; but the only benefit i can name is my own health and satisfaction, which can never be perfect. So far as i can tell, it hasn’t won me any friends, prestige, acclaim, higher income, personal security, religious merit, a closer relationship to my family.
If being transgender were truly patriarchy-approved, then there would be some benefit or reward, somewhere. Some kind of official approval instead of static, red tape, and moralistic condemnation.
ETA. Suppose we are foils for the patriarchy. But then: who isn’t? Except for a very few who manage to exist as total separatists, who doesn’t, in some way or another, compromise with the demands of gender in order to lessen the day-to-day dissonance?