Who Belongs in Women's Spaces, Again? Women's College Edition

This weekend, the NY Times cover story was on trans men at women's colleges.  I found the article very frustrating, first of all due to the title, "When Women Become Men at Wellesley."  Dear NY Times: trans men are coming out at college, which is different from cis women "becoming" trans men.  Your title is as off-base as one reading, "When Straight Women Turn Into Lesbians at Wellesley."

The subtitle of the article is "Can women's colleges survive the transgender movement?" The answer to this hyperbolic question is obviously yes.  The reporting in the article itself is much less inflammatory, so let's just re-title it in our heads to match the actual content--something like "Women's Colleges Struggle with the Place of Trans Students"--and consider that content.

I understand why trans men wind up in women's colleges. If you're a young person who is assigned female at birth, and you are struggling a lot with gender issues, a women's college might seem a good place to go.  One student in the article, Jesse, says "he chose to attend Wellesley because being female never felt right to him.  'I figured if I was any kind of woman, I'd find it there.'" It's actually quite common for people struggling with trans identities to enter institutions highly centered around the sex they were assigned at birth--for example, many trans women report joining the military or entering highly masculine fields such as firefighting to see if those institutions can reconcile them to living in the gender expected for someone of their birth-assigned sex.  Of course, the result, for many, is to realize they do not identify with that gender at all.  And so it's right and good that students who realize they are trans come out.

But once a trans man or masculine-of-center genderqueer person comes out at a women's college, they have to face the fact that they are a man or masculine-of-center person in a woman's space.  Personally, what I would do at that point is start making arrangements to transfer to another college, because I support the existence of women's colleges in a patriarchal society, and the whole point of them is that they are for women--and I am not a woman.  That said, I don't believe that transmasculine students should be required to uproot themselves and transfer out.  Leaving a college can be emotionally difficult and have financial repercussions, and a transitioning student has a lot on their plate to deal with. I believe that an ethic of care demands a struggling transmasculine student be permitted to stay, and be treated with respect as a man or genderqueer person.

But there is a big difference between accommodating struggling transmasculine students and having trans guys make women's colleges all about them.  And that's exactly what I'd call it when trans men keep insisting that when these colleges call themselves "women's colleges" without adding "plus some transmasculine people" they are doing evil.  That's exactly what I'd call it when trans guys demand that students should stop calling their classmates "sisters" and start calling them "siblings."  I absolutely agree that it undermines one's identity as a man to be referred to as a sister, and I'd hate it too--which is exactly why I would not stay at a women's college.  To stay, and then insist that your needs as a man outweigh the needs of everyone else who chose to go to a women's college . . . that's hubris.

I've certainly met my share of trans men with hubris.  When someone transitions from female to male, they face hurdles in the form of cissexism and negotiating legal and often medical challenges--but they also gain male privilege.  All trans people are aware of the challenges they are facing.  But many trans men seem little aware of the male privilege they are gaining.  That's normal, in the sense that most people are unaware of most of their privileges--but it's ironic when you encounter it in someone who talks about patriarchy and cis privilege, as I have.  Just like a cis man, a trans guy can be oblivious to his own privilege, taking over conversations about sexism in a circle of cis women, or transmansplaining cissexism to a trans woman.  You see, when someone who is being respected in his male identity talks, whether he is cis or trans, people listen more attentively than they do when a woman talks.  That's basic patriarchy, and I've certainly experienced the difference in how my statements are taken more seriously as a result of transitioning to male status.  If you're expecting it and looking for it, as a man, you can see it some of the time and catch yourself.  (I'm sure it happens often without my recognizing it.)  But I've met my share of trans men who conflate their new male privilege and the greater deference they are granted with their gaining confidence and coming into their own as they transition.  They presume people pay such attention to what they say now because they have fascinating things to contribute.  And at a women's college, where young men are a novelty, this effect of attention centering on a man is exacerbated.  (Some of the ways this manifests in the article are pretty creepy, in terms of cis women proving they can be "tranny-chasers" too, but trans men like Jesse report loving having become popular and having people "clamoring" to date them.)

Personally, were I a woman at a women's college, I'd be upset at trans men telling me not to presume my dorm or class was a women's space.  My accepting of transmasculine students would not contradict the fact that they are sojourners who chose to enter a rare territory designed for women.  I guess I'm just fascinated, given the uproar that many cis feminists made when trans women tried to participate in women's events like the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, specifically so that they could be with other women, that when trans men plant their flag and actually say "stop calling this a women's space," the opposition is so minimal.

Which brings me to the topic of transfeminine students in this article--a brief bit near the end of the piece.  I find it very disappointing that an article about women's colleges should give trans women such little attention, while devoting masses of space to transmasculine people.  Look: fundamentally, trans women belong at women's colleges, and trans men don't.  But there's little to report, given that no trans woman has ever attended Wellesley, as far as anyone knows.  (If one did, she did it utterly in the closet, and at great personal risk.  Such things have happened before, however--Anita Hemmings, a woman of African descent, passed as white and graduated from Vassar in 1897, though she was outed in the last weeks of her exemplary college career and kicked out, lucky to have a diploma mailed to her afterwards.)

What really disturbs me is that much of what the article conveys on the topic of trans women entering Wellesley is the opinion of some trans guy.  He says that trans men and genderqueer people who were assigned female at birth belong at Wellesley--but that trans women should have to face barriers to admission, and be treated with suspicion.  No trans woman should be admitted, he declares, unless she can prove she's started medical transition or has changed her name legally (steps very difficult for someone of a typical age to be applying to college to have taken, requiring parental support for the transition and financial resources).  Why this disparity? To keep Wellesley a safe space for women, of course! If she hasn't had medical and/or legal interventions, a trans woman might not really be a woman, he claims. Taking the difficult steps of coming out and applying to Wellesley as a woman aren't enough proof of her commitment! Maybe her identity is fluid and she'll identify as a man again . . .  But hey, aren't genderfluidity and lack of interest in medical interventions treated as fine in transmasculine people?  Yes, says the trans dude. "Trans men are a different case; we were raised female, we know what it's like to be treated as females and we have been discriminated against as females.  We get what life has been like for women."

This argument is appalling on so many levels. First, it is exactly the reasoning used by "gender crits" and Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists to "prove" that gender transition is an impossibility: that gender socialization is rigidly binary, inescapably tied to birth-assigned sex, and sex assigned at birth is thus immutable. The thing is, the TERFs are at least logically consistent in saying that this means not only that trans women are "really" eternally men, but trans men "really" eternally women.  It's transphobic logic--yet it's being voiced here by a trans gender person.  How is this possible?  Enter transmisogyny: the trans Wellesley student applies it only against trans women, while ignoring the implications of the argument for trans men like himself.

Underlying the ability of this trans man to assert a transmisogynistic logic while refusing to see how it applies to trans men is that hubris again.  Look, he basically says, a trans woman on campus might make cis women feel uncomfortable in what's supposed to be a women's safe space!  But apparently it never occurs to this student that a cis woman seeing him in her dorm at night might feel unsafe.  He presumes (a) that women can always tell if a given man is cis or trans at a glance,  (b) that everybody agrees trans men are always "safe" in a way cis men are not, and (c) that if a woman did feel unsafe seeing him in her dorm, her reaction would simply be wrong, as he is Mr. Perfect Nonthreatening Male of Female Experience, and can tell her what she should feel.

For a trans man to believe that trans women pose a threat to female safe space, while transmasculine people should be allowed free access to women's spaces--that demonstrates a combination of patriarchal egotism, lack of awareness of one's own male privilege, and transmisogyny that I deplore.

I do believe that trans men in women's colleges should be treated with respect, but I look forward to the day when a report on trans students in women's colleges will center transfeminine people and decenter transmasculine ones.

On Masculine Honor

It may seem like an odd thing for a trans guy to say, but I've realized that I'm more secure in my masculinity than many men.

It's peculiar because, like other trans folks, I have to live with a great mass of cis people perceiving my gender as “fake.” I know that lots of people think that guys like me can't be “real men.” Many flatten all issues of sex and gender down to genitals and judge trans men as deficient, whether we've medically transitioned by one route or another, or not. Others prejudicially deny the reality of gender transition. They claim they can spot us a mile away, and if they can't, that we've deceived them, and deserve to be threatened with violence or humiliation.

You'd think that living under such circumstances would make me much less secure in my masculinity than most cis men, but I've not found that to be the case. It's not that I'm some icon of rugged manhood. I'm 5'2”. I have the musculature of a middle-aged college professor, which is what I am. I bind my chest, and my knees creak.

But all of that is fine with me, because I have no fear that it negates my male status. I am a man because I identify as such. That's all there is to it. I've walked the awkward and bemusing path of gender transition, and while I'm not done with that journey, I am fortunate enough to now be acknowledged as legally male, which certainly doesn't hurt. But by the precepts of the trans ethos, a person's gender is determined by their identity—not by the size of their feet or their phalloclitoris; not by whether they excel or suck at sports; not by bureaucratic rules or the marker on their passport.

However, for so many cis men, manhood is governed by the Code of Masculine Honor, not gender identity. According to this Code, status as a “real man” is a privilege, and can be revoked at any time. And what negates it is any whiff of feminine gender expression. Masculinity is defined negatively as the rejection of all things feminine, and femininity is defined through a disturbing concatenation of weakness, sexual desirability, technical incompetence, emotional tenderness, powerlessness, nurturance, and beauty. The result is the fodder for so much humor, middle-school fag-baiting, and towering insecurity based on feminine challenges to “true manhood.” A dude can find his masculine honor called into question in innumerable ways.  It could be by being discovered by others to be walking a chihuahua, crying at a “chick flick,” earning less than a female coworker, having a gay son, shaving his legs, being unable to throw a football, holding his girlfriend's purse or his daughter's Hello Kitty backpack, being technically incompetent and relying on his wife to fix the car or the computer, enjoying ballet, losing an armwrestling match to a woman, being a “cuckold,” or wearing any one of a panoply of feminine-coded garments, accessories, or cosmetics.

It's a tediously familiar scene. The new kid at school is discovered to lisp. A man at the office is publicly dressed-down by his female boss. As a guy bends over to tie his shoes, lacy underwear peeps out of his pants. What follows is a ritual tormenting by a group of other males: the victim is called a sissy, a bitch, a fag, a wuss, a GIRL, often in high-pitched, mock-feminine voices. The challenge to masculine honor is iconically avenged through violence—honor restored if the victim becomes the dominant aggressor. There are other ways out. The victim can clown around and try to turn the hazing into a joke. He can verbally disdain the harassment and assert that he has other forms of masculine power that matter more (income, political power, sexual prowess, physical strength). He can defend sensitive modern manhood. But under the Code of Masculine Honor, only the response of physical reprisal is seen as fully restoring “real man” status. Deck your challenger, and you can stand over him and crow, “Who's the bitch now?”

The ritual enforcement of the Code of Masculine Honor leaves swaths of cis men eternally insecure about their masculinity. Nobody can embody all of the precepts of ideal manhood—being tall and muscular and hung like a horse, able to fix machines with ease, being a sports hero, a deadly fighter, having political authority over others and enviable wealth and harems of nubile sexual partners. That's the stuff of fantasy. Of comic book heroes and gangsta personae. Mere human males can never meet such a standard, and so all are left aware of their “failings.” And to deflect attention away from these failings, the insecure call attention to others' in the endless ritual of hazing. They avoid any association with “sissies” and “fags”--even if they themselves are gay. Just look at all the men-seeking-men ads that frame the seeker as hulking and “straight-acting” and not interested in feminine men.

The thing is, the Code of Real Manhood doesn't just hurt men. It's built around class privilege and homophobia, and most especially, around misogyny. It centers on the idea that femininity is humiliating—that the worst thing imaginable is to be a “girl.” For this reason, feminists have long critiqued it, and championed gentle, sensitive masculinity. This is turn has led to one of the most longstanding and powerful bits of antifeminist rhetoric: that feminists are seeking to “unman” men. We may live in an era in which masculine behavior is evolving. Today, a man may change his baby's diaper without being laughed at as henpecked, as he would have been in the 1950s. Guys may pluck their unibrows without causing much of a stir. Middle-school boys may chide their friends for calling everything they dislike “gay.” But the hazing maintenance of the Code of Real Manhood retains great potency.

Gender transition has brought me many good things. One of these is that in order to do the hard work of coming out to family and friends and coworkers and negotiating the many hurdles of gender transition, I had to reach a place of surety that my masculine gender identity defined my status as a man in a way others must respect. This gave me security in my manhood. But gender transition also came with some “gifts” I could do without. One of those was a welcome into the world of random challenges to fight. As an academic and a shrimp, I don't get a ton of them, but it periodically happens. A guy cuts me off pulling out of an alleyway nearly causing an accident, and then storms out of his car and tells me to be a man and get out of mine, spoiling for a fight. Three large young men brimming with insecure cockiness follow me down a street, commenting on how faggy my pink hair is and how I'm too much of a faggot to turn around when they're talking to me.

Though I find myself in these situations, I've yet to get into a fight. One teenaged boy slugged me once and ran off, but that was random and not interactive enough to count as a “fight”--which is exactly the point. I haven't found myself in a fistfight because I don't rise to the bait to defend my masculine honor. It's not that I don't feel that if I had to defend myself, I couldn't. (And I don't say that to prove I'm a man—I think that most people of any gender can learn to defend themselves if they have to.) I don't rise to the bait because I don't feel challenged. My masculinity is not based on my vehicular dominance or the color of my hair or my physical strength, but on my gender identity. Inside, when I'm called a “fag” for dying my hair pink for a while, I'm rolling my eyes. Outwardly, being sane, I simply don't respond. And when my cheek is metaphorically slapped for a ritual duel and I don't return the slap, generally the fight fizzles. The Code of Masculine Honor is not served by fighting with girls, or with people who don't care if you call them one.

That doesn't mean I don't think the Code poses a serious problem for trans people. Those who enforce “real manhood” guard its territory closely, and are often hugely transphobic. They refuse to let people in or out of the man club based on their gender identities. While as a trans person I don't feel undermined by claims that my behavior is incompatible with honorable masculinity, I'm deeply hurt when people assert that I am literally not a man. And I am fearful of the fact that some defenders of “real manhood” engage in a very ugly form of violence—not individual duels of masculine honor, but warlike boundary guarding, involving group attacks on people who reject the archaic Code: fagbashing, gang rape, brutal trans murders.

The sad ubiquitous fact is that trans women are at particular risk from enforcers of the Code of Masculine Honor. From the perspective of the Code, they enact the ultimate treason when they leave the man camp to embrace their female identities. In asserting that they experience being a woman as preferable to enjoying the privileges of masculinity, they speak heresy.

As a result, women who are visibly trans gender suffer appalling levels of violence. I ache for what my trans wife must cope with on a daily basis: the ongoing harassment; the regular challenges to fight posed through body-checking and name-calling; the random terrorism of boundary policing in the form of bottles thrown at her out of cars or attempts at sexual assault. Whereas I face few overt threats, and have been able to diffuse them, the level of violent enforcement of the Code of Masculine Honor she encounters makes it hard for her to live a life not constantly on the defensive.

And what I find particularly sad about the violence my spouse faces is that most of it comes from men who are marginalized, and face challenges under the Code due to that marginalization. Guys with low incomes and men of color. Self-hating, repressed homosexuals. Pubescent boys. It's amazing how often the men who get in my spouse's face and tell her she's a “disgrace” are very short.

The Code of Masculine Honor operates not only to perpetuate masculine privilege, but to perpetuate marginalization. It keeps men who face discrimination for various reasons from uniting to change systems of social power. It mobilizes insecurity to divide and conquer. And it generates a constant level of self-doubt that leads to a situation in which I, a trans guy, am more secure in my masculinity than so many of the cis-privileged men around me.

As a man, I say down with masculine honor.