Of Real Transgender Dignity

Hello My Dear One,

I am back at work, special education in an elementary school setting, and I have spent the past weeks learning the ropes in a new building with new colleagues. At work, I interact with a wide variety of people, and as their and my perceptions intermingle, I catch glimpses of how I walk through the world. I see things in myself that I might not otherwise as my words and actions are reflected back to me in others' reactions. If I'm lucky it shines a light onto an issue I have been unable to name, especially one that hurts more than I can admit.

This time, it began when I started examining how and when I focus on the details, or whether I focus on the whole picture of my life. Mostly, I get stuck in the details, but sometimes I can see a blurry panorama where all those pesky pieces fit together and there is a wholeness to my life.  But sometimes it's not just my view that matters, and that's what I've been exploring most recently.

You see, there are people in this world who focus more on the details of my life, making my transgender identity the only thing they can see in or about me. One detail of my life becomes the whole picture. And when this happens, part and sometimes all of the picture of my dignity is lost within the ignorance, the unknowing, and sadly, the transphobia that surrounds me.

To be honest, I've always known that my transgender identity can be troubling for people. My intersex condition was a place of absolute shame and fear as a teenager and young adult, as I was forced to hide the physical characteristics of my maleness and pass as a female. It was a job that took all of my effort, my strength, and very nearly my life. As I began to transition from presenting myself to the world as a female to the true male that I am, each day brought a growing sense of self worth and pride. Knowing who you are, and that it is OK to be that person, is the greatest liberating force that I believe there is. But freedom comes with a price, and in the hetero-normative world that I live in, the cost is largely counted in dignity.

Each and every day I encounter some form of transphobia, be it on the large scale of the daily press, or on the most minute scale, when a coworker treats me just a little differently than others in the workplace. I revel in reading stories of transgender people in articles and profiles on the internet, but I dread the anonymous comments section that will usher in a flood of ignorant, hateful, and bigoted opinions about transgender individuals. Mostly, these comments are directed at the person featured in the article, yet all too often the sentiment blurs into a more encompassing worldview. Personal attacks become blatant attacks on an entire population, and I am a member of that population.

So too, when colleagues fail to know, learn, or use proper terminology in regards to LGBTQIQ people and issues, I may feel attacked, even when the intentionality isn't as obvious as the faceless haters hiding behind their computer keyboards. But when we are face to face with someone, we are less likely to be confrontational, instead, choosing a more subtle or passive aggressive form of discrimination. So, when I hear a coworker refer to a lesbian parent as the "father figure" of the couple, I raise my defenses, and question how safe I am in my workplace. I fear that there is not true support of who I am, and that my gender identity is a liability. And the underlying transphobia and intolerance seep into my consciousness. 

Despite years of living as myself, I am not immune to the vitriol that is projected onto me, whether directly or not. By engaging in life, I willingly engage in the positive and negative aspects of it. But what does it mean when it's personal? Why is the dignity of transgender people like me important? And why does it hurt more when I experience a loss of transgender dignity, than when it's the economic injustices, religious biases, and political beliefs that I may be attacked over?

Dignity. Being good enough. Being worthy. Being.

The word dignity comes from the Latin dignus "worth (n.), worthy, proper, fitting" from PIE *dek-no-, from root *dek- "to take, accept."1

The word dignity represents a concept that is thousands of years old, and at its most basic root level, tells us to take, to accept whatever is being offered to us. And in so doing, we receive what someone else is offering us. We take in the gift of someone else, and we accept it for what it is. It is affirming the worth of our own, and of each other's gifts. It is saying that who I am, who each one of us is, is worthy of acceptance, regardless of all other factors.

Ideally, we treat everyone we ever meet this way, holding their dignity as a precious and inherent right. But in reality, we treat others in ways we would never want to be treated. We judge, we condemn, we withhold forgiveness, we act in selfish, scared, and harmful ways, as we reject that which we cannot accept. We reject the different. We reject the other. We reject ourselves when we fail to see the Beloved Child of G-d in all people. By denying dignity we reduce each other to little more than soulless vessels. 

So, is there a difference between transgender dignity and inherent human dignity, when the bodily vessel is the actual matter at hand? Does the indignity matter more or less when transgender is the issue? What is the cost of dignity? 

I believe that there is a difference and that it matters because each transgender person has willingly entered into battle with themselves, their fellow human beings, and their G-d to become whole. Because I have chosen to be myself and have worked hard, risked everything, and lost much in order to live as the man I am. Because every transgender person I have met has done this too. And even though the cost may be unquantifiable, the ability to bear another's dignity is as great as any love there is.

I did not choose to go through years of therapy, surgeries, support groups, private and public scrutiny, and the loss of family, friends, and jobs, because it would be easy. I knew full well the tasks ahead of me, and I faced the truth, that my survival was worth more than the love and acceptance of others, even those closest to me.

I decided that I was worthy of living. I affirmed my own dignity, accepted who I was, who I am, and took it. I met myself where I was, and from there I was able to become who I needed to be.

A transgender man of dignity.

And that's why transgender dignity means all that it does to me, and I suspect for other transfolk as well. With the help of G-d, we have shaped, created, and loved ourselves into being. We have taken and accepted the bodily and emotional selves that we could no longer live as, and have made the whole people we are called to be. And when that self is criticized, overtly or with the cover of an almost imperceptible slight, as a transgender person we are cut more deeply, because we have worked so hard to be that self.

In the end, I know that I will continue to face discrimination as a transman, and that even when I am long dead and gone, there will be those who will reduce my life to my transgender identity. There will be those who will know my biology, but never know my story. But each day that I get up and choose to take and accept what those around me have to offer, I grant them, and I am granted with dignity. We are all worthy of G-d's unending acceptance of us, and we are all called to share that worthiness with every uniquely wonderful child of G-d.

Thank you for offering your gifts to me, and for accepting mine on this journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari



1 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dignity