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By: JENNIFER VANASCO
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THIS SUMMER, A woman I camped with last year at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival came as a man. I’ll call him Sam.
Sam had been an adorable butch, with an easy sexiness. But he had decided that he wasn’t comfortable in his woman’s body. His first Michigan event last year had been a turning point for him; he felt acceptance of his choices. This led him to decide to take hormones and a male-ish name, and to flirt with the male pronoun.
He told us that this would likely be his last year at Fest. Once he had breast surgery, he said, he would consider himself no longer eligible under Michigan’s womyn-born-womyn policy, though he currently has no plans to change his vagina into a penis.
“I haven’t changed who I am,” he said. “I’ve just changed my body so I’m more comfortable in it.”
Sam is wonderful to talk with, and those of us who camp with him love him, so a couple of us spent time asking all of our burning questions: How did he decide this? Was he worried about testosterone’s effect on his body? And my primary worry: Why is he taking a male pronoun?
MY VIEWS ON gender transition are complicated. I never question men wanting to become women — not only having women’s bodies, but taking on full female identities, names, pronouns and lives.
But then again, I understand why a man would want to be a woman. Women are wonderful! Of course men would want to be women!
It breaks my heart, though, when women formerly identified as lesbians become men. Why is that?
Part of it must be that when men become women, they are giving up all the privileges they formerly had. When women become men, they seem to get everything — male privilege in the mainstream world, plus the understanding that they are really part of the women’s community.
So maybe women like me who remain women are simply jealous. But I think it’s more than that.
Almost everyone believes that trans people should have equal rights. What is up for debate is their place in the gay and lesbian community.
Some people — I’m among them — worry that the trans movement is encouraging our most masculine women to abandon their female bodies for male ones. We worry that instead of fighting a world culture that discourages women from being strong and masculine, they simply give up and decide to join, well, “The Man.”
Of course, many trans men continue to identify strongly with the lesbian community, calling themselves — as Sam does — gender queer. And Sam assured me that he is a feminist. In fact, he said his activism on behalf of women is stronger than ever.
THESE WORRIES OF some lesbians, however, aren’t illegitimate. Think about breast augmentation, as opposed to breast reduction. We can support an individual’s right to enlarge her breasts, and even celebrate her choice, while still worrying that such a choice is a concession to the dominant culture that tells us that women’s bodies must look a certain way.
Even so, we know that there is always going to be body modification of some sort or another.
After all, we all do things to modify our bodies. We go to the gym. We color our hair (mine changes color several times a year). We pierce and tattoo and take pills and have plastic surgery and tan and wear makeup. I understand about feeling more comfortable in a body that’s a certain way. I think all of us do.
But is it necessary, really, to also take on a male identity?
I wonder if trans men like Sam, who aren’t planning on changing their vagina to a penis and so who still are, technically, women, could think about keeping the female pronoun even as they “masculinize” their bodies.
Instead, let’s expand our definition of women to include the gender queer, to embrace people who have more male bodies, even when those bodies are achieved through hormone therapy and surgery.
The Michigan Womyn’s Festival should continue to welcome trans men, as should we all, in all of our lesbian spaces — but we should welcome them as our sisters, not as new brothers.
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