The Mythology of Transness

how the world keeps us in the closet or tortures us for coming out

Mar 02, 2023

Mythology is a complex topic. Myths are ancient. Greek and Roman, Irish, Norse, hundreds of others I don’t know about. And their purpose? Fearmongering, social control, rational lessons about staying alive. Isn’t it nice to breathe a sigh of relief that all those silly myths are in the past?

Except for Star Wars1. Of course.

Oh yes, and the notion of a Zombie Apocalypse.

And also possibly that belief about carrots improving eyesight.

Or the entire industry built around Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and other icons used to enforce behavior standards on children2.

What’s the going rate for a tooth in 2023?

“As classical myths did for the cultures that conceived them, modern myths help us to frame and come to terms with the conditions of our existence.”

There is another type of mythology that bothers me these days. You’ve heard of it, you just might not realize what’s happening. I call it The Mythology of Transness. This isn’t just one story, it’s a full collection. Shall we dive in?

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Transgender people all identify on the gender binary and are all (obviously) straight.

This is an Auntie Anne’s Pretzel of confusion. Gender and sexual orientation are two distinct things. People can identify as any combination of gender identity, gender performance, and gender expression that feels like the best fit for them. This may very likely change over time, even for adults. Some folks happily identify as a transwoman or a transman, others (like me) don’t fit those neat little descriptions. Some of us are nonbinary. And not all nonbinary people identify as trans. A person’s gender identity is internal to them, and how they elect to present that is their gender expression.

Sexual orientation has to do with who a person feels attracted to, which is also convoluted when oversimplified. Sexual attraction and romantic feelings can be distinctly different. Trans people and cis people can embody a huge range of these feelings or orientations.

Where do I fit in here? I am a transmasculine nonbinary guy. I’ve been married to my wife for a long time. My orientation is “happily married and monogamous.” Try finding that on a form…

Myth #2

Lesbians, especially the butch ones, are a dying breed; they’re all becoming transmen.

First, not all transmen or transmasculine people were ever “lesbians,” especially butch ones. I certainly wasn’t. Revisit myth #1 for a brief moment, and hopefully that helps clear this one up a little. You do not have to be attracted to women in order to be a transman.

Based on current statistics3, transpeople are still only 0.7% of the total population in the United States. Compare that to 6.8% of the US population who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or something else (not straight or heterosexual).

Have no fear, friends. The lesbian population is going to be just fine.

Myth #3

Trans athletes are better at their given sport than their cis opponents.

This is a hot topic for arguments right now, so instead of riling everybody up, I’m just going to point out the parts I think are most salient to the largest part of the population.

Transpeople have been competing in sports for a long time without making waves (and without ‘stealing’ all the glory). This isn’t a new phenomenon.
Kids just want to play sports. Most of the uproar about this issue stems from the idea of college level competition and higher. Legislation that keeps transkids out of sports impacts them all the way down to t-ball age. Can’t we just play for the love of the sport?
If you still think trans athletes have some sort of unfair advantage over their cis peers, this article does a great job of clearing things up.

There is a wide range of body types, capabilities, and skill levels amongst all competitors of all sexes and genders. To think that some have advantages or disadvantages is inherently sexist, genderist, misogynist, and wrong. Policies against trans athletes are the red flag waving to show that we are ‘different’ or ‘other,’ to put us in our place. But we’re not. After all, transwomen are women, and transmen are men. Transathletes are athletes.

Myth #4

All transgender individuals MUST be on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and they MUST have surgery.

This is a big one for me. There are some old ideas at play here, many of which were used as gatekeeping to slow or restrict access to gender affirming care for trans people. And those old ideas were predicated off of a gender binary.

IF you are a transgender man, then you MUST be put on testosterone hormone therapy for a minimum of 12 months in order to be even remotely eligible for any type of gender affirming surgery.

But what if you identify as nonbinary?

What if you don’t want to be on testosterone? Or what if you cannot be due to medical reasons?

What if you start HRT and then decide it’s not right for you or your body?

Surgery is also a big topic. It’s one of the most common questions trans people get when they are outed to others (willingly or not). Do you even know how many different types of surgery there are for trans-related healthcare? Do you have any idea how difficult and expensive it can be to pursue them (with or without insurance)?

Suspend your belief for just a moment, and reread myth #1 again. Gender identity is an internal feeling, unique to everyone. It does not require exogenous hormones to be felt. It does not need surgery to reveal itself. Transgender people know that we are trans because we feel it inside of ourselves. But our bodies should be our own damn business.

Myth #5

There are more transgender-identified children than at any other point in human history.

I knew I was not a girl when I was 6 years old. That was 1984. Who could I have told? What resources were available to me back then? Would my pediatrician have known what to do with me? Would my parents have understood?

We are seeing more families come forward with gender-nonconforming children because the world is a different (and slightly better) place than it was in the 80s. We have standards of care. We have recognition in health insurance. There is (some) active legislation to keep us safe and healthy. Celebrities identify as trans and support their trans peers. I’m so grateful that the generations after me have more adults willing to listen when they speak up about their identities. This is not a sudden influx of kids identifying differently. This is a shift in culture allowing them to speak up.

Myth #6

Someone might pretend to be transgender so that they could commit a crime in a public restroom.

This one is just ridiculous. Is anyone really going to pretend to be trans? Take it from the guy who isn’t faking it; being trans is HARD. I loved the Silence of the Lambs as much as anybody, but the entire notion that transpeople are mentally ill criminals is another part of this myth that just needs to stop.

Transgender people often hold our bodily needs until we can use a safe bathroom at home because we have such justified fears of using public restrooms. This is why we’re so likely to get kidney or urinary tract infections4.

Myth #7

Political legislation doesn’t actually hurt anyone who is transgender.

As of this post, there are over 300 anti-transgender bills5 in the United States that have been created in 2023 with the intent to harm or remove support from transgender populations. These range from such things as denying access to changing a person’s documents (like driver’s licenses and birth certificates) to removing coverage of gender affirming medical care up to the age of 21. Some states want to remove transgender children from their parents. Others seek to medically detransition those who are currently being cared for by their physicians.

This type of systemic attack on an entire group of people manifests as shootings in clubs, murders of transgender people, and statements like, “We must ban transgenderism entirely,” by right-wing political figures6.

So yes, this hurts. It’s very personal.

Myth #8

All trans people want (or need) to “pass” in society or be “stealth.”

To put in bluntly, we don’t all have the privilege of passing7. And even if we could, that’s not always a shared goal.

Perhaps a more important question is this one; Where does the desire to “pass” or be “stealth” come from? Is it a very rational fear of violence if we are discovered? And is that fear all too often fed by the narrative of “deceit” that a trans person was hiding their true identity from someone all along? Gosh, it’s almost like someone could make an entire film about that fear and then give all the awards to the cisgender actors who portrayed transgender characters8.

Myth #9

Trans people lose all of their friends and family when they come out.

This is one of the most damaging beliefs that the trans community faces. It plays off of the aforementioned “deceit” of hiding one’s true self from their spouse and family members, and it openly states that our loved ones really do place conditions on that love.

This is a blatant lie.

That’s not to say it doesn’t happen. It does, and it hurts many of us so deeply that we never recover from the pain. But I wonder how many family members of trans people act out of their own fear of this myth, out of the belief that they should not accept their trans spouse or child because society makes it so hard to be an ally. Of all the prevalent myths hurting transgender communities, this one might be the most important to fix.

Myth #10

When someone comes out to me as transgender, I should ask them about myths 1 through 9.

Please don’t.

The courage to come out to others is an enormous step. Becoming the token trans person in a friend or work group is stress that no one needs to take on, especially in the first few months of living authentically as a trans person. If you have questions, there are fantastic resources out there to help you learn more so that you can be a supportive friend, coworker, or relative to the trans people in your life. This newsletter is one of those resources.

Now that we’re through the worst of the myths, ask yourself something.

Did you know anything else about transgender people apart from those myths? Or was that the entirety of your belief system?

This is why modern mythology can be so damaging. Erroneous ideas permeate society, and these become our talking points. Even here, in a space where I am carving out community for myself and for others like me, it’s important for me to call out the false narrative we have been fed. When we spend so much time on these misunderstandings, where do we build space for the truth?

More importantly, how do we begin to rewrite this narrative?

I would like the next generation of transgender kids and adults to have something positive to frame their reality. In fact, it would have been nice if this wasn’t the mythos that fed me what I knew about being a transgender person.

What were my earliest fears as someone newly recognizing their own transness?

I was terrified that I would lose my marriage and my family.
I was afraid of “not being trans enough” because my identity isn’t binary.
I felt pressured to disclose private, personal things about myself and my journey to validate the thoughts and opinions of others.
I believed that the world would not welcome me.
I expected hatred.

Where did this whole idea of our current trans mythology even begin? Myths exist in all societies for the same reasons: they help people make sense of things they don’t understand. And in most of human history, not understanding something typically means we fear it.

This is a space where I have come to write about who I am, what I deal with in life, how I raise my family, what happens in my marriage, and how all of that relates to my identity as a transgender person. It’s a process of demystification. There’s nothing scary about me (unless we’re out of dark chocolate and I wasn’t informed). I’m ridiculously normal. I could be someone you work with, someone you met at a school fundraiser, a second cousin you haven’t seen in years, or that quiet kid from middle school you never got to know very well.

So now what?

We are collectively at a point in history where we can choose to rewrite our understanding of what it means to be transgender. The following are some suggestions (and by no means are they the only answer).

De-gender your language and your life when and where you can. See how hard it is. Ask yourself why you need to check that box on the form anyway.

Protect transgender kids. That bears repeating. Please protect transgender kids.

Imagine being afraid to use a public restroom. Really let that fear sink into your full bladder. Encourage businesses to have nongendered restrooms. Advocate for simple changes like bathroom signs.

Vote like your family members are transgender. Because they might be (even if you don’t know it yet). Pay attention to the news stories about our rights being deliberated without us. Look closely at the wording of bills in your state. When your trans friends talk about their fears of these new laws, listen.

Normalize transgender bodies. There is an incredible variety in body types and physical expressions of ourselves. If this can be true for cisgender folks, make it a known truth about the rest of us. Don’t sensationalize hormones and surgeries. Those are personal anyway. Consider a model of bodily autonomy.

Make space for transgender people to tell their own stories. For all of the good, bad, and strange things that our lives include, let us tell you about them. Let us write our own words, play our own parts in films, and have our voices heard.

Your trans friend,

Robin