Gennnderrrrr

I have a sister-in-law who is very transphobic. It seems like every time I see her she says something derogatory about, well, trans women specifically. It's really bad, to the point where I was actually afraid to invite my trans friends to my baby shower because I don't want my s-i-l to say something hurtful to them, or about them. I still invited them, but I'm not sure they'll end up coming. For one thing, neither of them has a car and we're way out in the country.

Yesterday I got into a big argument with my s-i-l after she told me a story about one of her clients (she's a real estate agent) whose loan application came back saying she was trying to commit fraud because her social security number was previously associated with another name and sex. My s-i-l then confronted her about this and basically was a total asshole about it, and when she was telling me about it, she acted like it was totally ludicrous and dishonest of this woman to "withhold" information from her, as if it's any of my s-i-l's business what kind of genitalia her client was born with or currently has! She also suggested that transgender people be required to have identification stating their trans status on it. Like, it should be a category unto itself on driver's licenses and whatever. I told her that's ridiculous and asked my s-i-l if she knows what the leading cause of death of transgender people is, and she said, "Suicide, I know, it's just –" and I said, "No, murder."

And then I said a bunch of other things that I can't really remember because I was pretty emotional about it, although Pip (my husband, if you've forgotten, since I haven't mentioned him in like three posts or something) said I made all my points really well and she seemed to be listening to me. Basically her argument came down to, "Well, there's women and there's men and if you have a cunt you're a woman and if you have a dick you're a man," although apparently even if a trans woman does get "the surgery" she'll never "really" be a woman, which maybe doesn't make so much sense, but neither does the entire argument, so whatever. I definitely made some point about intersex people, and she was like, "Well, maybe they should be required to put down both!" and I just found the whole conversation extremely frustrating, because it seems like we live in two different worlds. She lives in this world where other people's genitals are her business and there are two genders that are equivalent to two sexes that are these rigid categories that define what you do, look like, wear, and think, and I live in this other world where people are people, there are all different kinds, and the only time someone else's genitals affect my life is if I am having sex with that person.

At one point she said, "Well, whether you like it or not, when people are born the doctor writes male or female on the birth certificate! They don't say, 'Let's wait for the kid to tell us!'" and why not? Obviously, it's because our entire society is structured around this idea of gender as a great organizing force. We have to know right away (or sooner, often before the baby is born) what category to put someone in, because it determines everything, first and foremost how we think about and relate to this new human. It's usually the first thing people ask me when they find out I'm pregnant, and it was the question asked by the first stranger who commented on my pregnancy.* I really doubt society, or even the "two-party system" as it were, would collapse if we gave babies and children a few years before we started heavily gendering them.

Weirdly (or maybe not), I think one reason my s-i-l has such a gender essentialist viewpoint is that she's been told for a long time that she's masculine. She flips houses a lot, which requires a lot of hard manual labor, spatial sense, knowledge of plumbing, wiring, et cetera, and these are all things that have traditionally been thought of as masculine. So I think maybe because of that, and because she gets a lot of flak about her appearance from her mom, she's like, "Well, at least I'm a Real Woman." I hate it how we uphold the systems of our own oppression by oppressing others. I feel like there has to be a way for us all to break out of this, but I don't know what it is. Do you?

*Which finally happened, hooray! It was a clerk at a grocery store, and I was totally spaced out and thought she was asking if we had a rewards card or something, so I just shook my head, and then Pip was like, "Honey, she asked if you're having a boy or a girl" and I was like, "OH! Sorry! We're having a surprise." So now I have confirmation that the outside world knows I'm pregnant, haha. I hope the stranger touching doesn't start soon, as navelgazingbajan warned. Maybe I should start practicing hand deflection techniques now.