Me, Robin

It’s formalities season in Norway. The big national holiday is two weeks away, the sun is out, and every Good Child is either getting baptised or ‘confirmed’, like a good Catholic. That’s right: it’s queer trans girls going to church season. Join me for a ride through one of my favourite Norwegian mine fields!

So, a kid is getting confirmed. It’s a whole thing. Extended family will attend, and there will be a photo op. Maybe a hip local bishop performs the sacraments. And somewhere in attendance will be me, the trouble maker.

You see, my in-laws have been talking. It’s about me. What am I going to wear? They’re concerned. For the children, of course. For the sake of the children. They’re only children, Robin. They just. won’t. understand. So, amongst themselves, they have been talking about whether I could just show up in ‘normal’ clothes. But please note that they haven’t talked to me about this.

It seems that every Norwegian family has in it the willingness to turn anything into a secret. It goes well with their conflict-shy tendencies. The baffling thing, of course, is that they will have whole Socratic dialogues – where the point is that I am excluded at every turn. After a few weeks of this, my partner received a call, asking, ‘so, is everything all right? I heard something about Robin’s clothes’. That’s so radically direct I think I need to lie down for a bit.

Of course, they didn’t actually ask me anything. They didn’t ask me what I thought. They didn’t ask me for advice. They didn’t even ask me nicely if I could show up a little less obvious¹. And while that request is itself an assault – more on that later – I would also, at the same time, have honoured it. It’s a twelve-year-old’s special ceremony. I don’t need to upstage a child.

I am evidently granted so little trust that they can’t even ask me directly. They drop hints at my partner, who suddenly has to bear the burden of telling me that I am not welcome.

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What lies beneath the surface of the request (as it has been relayed to me) is a violent dismissal of my identity: don’t look like yourself, please. I was asked to dress ‘gender conforming’, which is, emphatically, not what they think they are asking for. If they’d asked me to wear pants because, jeez, it’s church and there’s a lot of kids – and they don’t want to deal with having to explain someone like me to someone else’s children – fine! I have some really cool pieces of clothing that have seams down the middle too. It’s not a big ask. The problem is that they never even asked.

To ask it as if the clothing is this Thing that I do, as if my clothing, when more gender-ambiguous, is any less fabulous and pronounced, as if I am only who I say I am if I put on a dress, that’s the violence. And since they think of themselves as non-violent people, they will never understand.

PinkNews, our favourite source of gay-flavoured clickbait, is at it again. In their latest ‘community’ post, which is an opinion editorial without taking responsibility for it, they publish the notion that ‘trans people can become women for frivolous reasons like fashion or clothes’. First of all, I am anything but frivolous. I’m fucking fabulous, and in our society clothing is much more complicated than just that. If gender dysphoria had any such a simple solution, you’d think it would be resolved much more easily. Second, what of trans men? Are they just women wanting to opt out of the frivolity of fashion?

The excuse that is used for this language is a ‘feminist lens’: using the power of feminism, we can ignore that this promotes a long-standing harmful stereotype about trans people (women in particular). Fay Weldon, the woman whose opinion is elevated in this masked op-ed, says [m]an now controls the best weapon woman ever had, the body he so envied, its very moods and subtleties. He can become her, suck her up, subsume her.

As a feminist first and foremost, I don’t believe in this lens – Weldon’s excuse is that men are looking to lower themselves to become women. It entirely erases that trans women are and have always been women. But it also tries to have it both ways: man is superficial in wanting to co-opt womanhood, which itself is blatant superficiality. Isn’t the want for the superficial a superficial want?

But I’m not in this for the underlying reasons. Fay Weldon acts to reduce trans experiences to the superficial, whether that is the plot line she desired to write or not. If you write a ‘radical’ idea that you do not fully believe in, then there is no blame on the reader who takes your word for it. If you wear a trucker hat ironically, the end result is that you wear a trucker hat. If you wish to dissect and discuss the machinations of society that tend to divide people based on gender assigned at birth and then punishes them for deviating from the norm, be my guest. In fact, come over. I’ll cook you dinner and we can talk. But write it in a book as plain fact, and I’m gonna reserve the right to not cook you anything.

A mirror reflects who you see, and it can give the impression that you can see who you really are. But it is no coincidence that every culture has a saying for the idea that we are the product of the best of our friends. And that is something no mirror can show.

When we are the best of our friends, that is different for each of us, simply because our friends are different. And even if we share a lot of friends, we will still find different qualities in the people around us. When we think of ourselves as having good qualities, we should always reflect: who showed me how to be like this? When we answer this question, we recognise the good in each other.

If our friends shape us, and we shape them, then it is entirely logical that we shape each other into better people. Into people who can take care of us. In other words, when you teach somebody your language, you teach them how to talk to you in your own way. You teach people how to be with you, and vice versa.

A friend is, with all these qualities, the original safe space: a refuge from hatred, bigotry, insecurity, and a safety net when you fall. Family is the web you are born in: your friends are the first web you make yourself. Every now and then, when you think about your friends and how and why they made you better, tell them. It reminds them that it was worth making you.

A few months back, I optimistically¹ asked for ideas on the burden of understanding. I had a lot of great conversations on the topic, mostly in person, with a range of friends. Some queer friends shared their own stories, and some straight friends explained how they’ve dealt with concepts new to them.

My straight friends focused mostly on exposing people to diversity. And this is a pretty effective idea. People who actually know a greater variety of people (heritages, sexualities, gender identities, physical and mental divergencies) tend to be open to increasing that. At the same time, people who have never met a single black person tend to vote the most racist. But this approaches the idea from the top down: it says, if people just knew you, they’d care. But it ignores that if they don’t care yet, they won’t care to get to know you. The question remains, how do you get somebody to listen?²

The narrative from the queer friends was universal: you can’t convince family. They will either get it or they won’t. Every single queer person told me the same thing. So for a few months, I struggled with this matter.

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A few weeks ago, my dad called. He told me he’d been having a few ‘illuminating conversations’. I told him that he was ironically vague with that statement. Then he explained that he had talked to old friends. A lesbian couple he’s known for years, and a drag performer he’s known for decades³. They, essentially, told him the ‘let people be people’ angle. They told him about the haters, about how a lot of people simply don’t fit in the expectations others have of them, and how that isn’t their fault (sound familiar?). They talked about being your genuine self, and how it’s worse for me than for him.

And with that, my straight friends and queer friends meet in the middle. What my parents needed to hear, they heard from someone they trusted. When they heard it, it opened their hearts to me again.

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I don’t recall ever having talked to these people. Maybe I did, when I was younger. I have a spotty memory of my youth. But they defended me, in my absence and in a position that was clearly beleaguered. They’re the greatest ally I didn’t know I had, and it moves me to tears just thinking about that. And I’ve thought about this idea of an ally. An ally is someone who defends your rights when you’re not there; a great ally is someone who also defends your humanity.

When I asked for help, everybody told me it was out of my hands, and I learned to accept that. It gave me the distance I needed to just… let it take some time. And then, by sheer chance, somebody else spoke for me.

Here’s a compliment I get more often than I care to count. It’s a weird one, no matter how you twist it, and I’d like to talk about it.

It usually comes from someone who has been appraising me from a distance. It usually comes as the person is about to leave. They tell me, It’s so important what you do.

What, if you please, is it that I do? I am drinking wine. I am making faces at my friends who are trying to rope me onto the dance floor. I am discussing, right before you come over, how I ‘trick’ horny men by not being the woman they think I am. Then you come over and tell me that you think what I ‘do’ is important. So, please, what do I do?

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If you’re willing to follow me down this path, there are a few things that occur to me. The most common angle is this: according to you, I could be an obvious dude¹ wearing make-up and a dress. In that case, what you’re reading into me is bravery, a sort of standing up to the status quo. The compliment is then for a battle that you imagine I am fighting. Whether or not I am actually fighting, this assumption shows me that this is not about me, but about how good you are for accepting me. For how liberal you are. It’s the more common variety of virtue signaling.

The compliment could be for me being visibly unconstrained by the gender binary. If that’s the case, you’re already aware of the different burdens on and expectations of women and men. Your compliment, then, is preaching to the choir, isn’t it? If that’s the intention, maybe just tell me I look great. That would be good. I love hearing that.

I am guessing that what I ‘do’ is exist. That’s true. But that’s not brave. That is the inevitable outcome of surviving, and of choosing to present as my true self. Simultaneously, it is not cowardly to not be out. Not everybody is afforded the luxuries I have. My privilege is that I can be out, in the first place, and to not worry about being attacked for existing in the second place². So no, I am not brave. That’s not something I do, either.

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I’m not discounting the compliment wholesale. There is likely a good intention behind it. It also takes guts to walk up to someone queer and compliment them. I am easy-going, but I understand that fabulous strangers can be intimidating. But if you compliment them so you can show them how good of a person you are, I am not here for your feel-good-quota. And if you compliment them for how pretty they are ‘for a man pretending to be a woman’, then perhaps you need to think long and hard about your intentions.

Some people are happy to tell you: what’s inside is the only thing that matters. They tell you this to reassure you that you are truly Yourself. They tell you to just trust your guts.

And there isn’t a single person who doesn’t also have a knot in that very gut. The world outside always rains in. What we are on the inside isn’t all rainbows, hopes and dreams. It is also fear. We are afraid of ourselves: of who we are, of who we were, of who we want to be. We are afraid of the outside: of who hates us, of who sees us, of who doesn’t. Whatever it is that’s outside of us, it’ll come in, whether we want it or not. We trust our guts: they tell us to be afraid when we should be.

People tell us that what’s inside is the only thing that matters. What’s inside is also Fear.

And our fear is legitimate. There are predators out there who wish us harm. There are opportunists who, when lifted up, leave us on the ground. There are fires to put out in every building and our attention and energy is limited. This means that our fear is not only legitimate, but also reasonable.

To have a reason for fear is brutal, grotesque and unfair, but it’s real. It’s real, and it’s inside of us. What’s inside is the only thing that matters.

In the beginning, things were simple. We were all born naked. In the beginning, basically, we woke up.

We woke up from a sleep – who knows how long, who knows how deep – and we emerged from a real drag. In our many varied dreams, we had whole lives lived. We scaled mountains, rode bicycles through the rain, consoled friends, danced all night, broke hearts, had hearts broken; we made family, lost family, made friends, lost friends; we witnessed greatness, cowardice, doubt, insecurity, pride, bluster; we lived whole lives in our dreams.

We woke up from a long, deep sleep, and were born naked. This morning, we woke up. We were born naked.

When we look in the mirror, we look for someone there. An answer to a question. In the morning, we try to find an image of ourselves. In the beginning, we’re a face looking for a face.

The person we find in the mirror is not always who we want to see. These can be trying times, and they may last for a long time. You may see the dreams you dreamt, the family you lost, the pain you felt, the hopes you held. You may see someone who manifestly is yourself, but not You at all.

In the beginning, we dress ourselves and face the day.