What’s the difference between a bad tranny and a butch dyke?
February 26th, 2010
Occasionally, and usually when I’ve been drinking, I like to tell people that I wasn’t born female; I’m trans, writes Ioana Poprowka. I don’t do it all that often, but the reaction is always the same: disbelief. As in “I never would have guessed!”
And you know what? I get a kick out of that. I like the fact that I’m under the radar. Unfortunately, this kind of steps on most of the points I’m about to make, but I’m just putting it out there for the sake of honesty.
The reason I get a kick out of this is roughly the same reason that people are surprised to hear my news. Transsexuals suffer extreme pressure, both from society and from themselves, to fit in, to ‘pass.’ Those who don’t, the ‘Bad Trannies,’ are mocked and ridiculed. They have failed at being trans. Their disguise is imperfect.
A male to female transexual who does not pass is seen as sad and a little pathetic, not just because of their comical appearance but because of their desperation to fake a femininity they simply do not possess. Popular culture is littered with such creatures, from the grotesque Mr Garrison in South Park, to the pantomime dame Emily Howard in Little Britain.
All trannies are bad trannies
These depictions are not entirely rooted in fiction. Most trannies have been bad trannies at some point. When I first transitioned ten years ago I couldn’t hide the fact that I was trans any more than I could fit my size tens into Topshop size eights. Transitioning is like going through your teenage years all over again, with all the bad make-up, poor wardrobe decisions and body changes that go with it.
After so much upheaval, it’s natural that as soon as you can get away with it, you want to distance yourself from the whole trans business. I know I did; once I realised that nobody around me knew my secret, I worked very hard to keep it that way.
However, this does nothing to dispel the myth that transexuals are simply trying to fool as many people as possible, a myth supported by shows like The Ladyboys of Bangkok, where the fact that the performers’ true genders are hidden is the whole basis for the show.
Another problem is if trans people who pass keep their gender a secret, suddenly the Bad Trannies find themselves ambassadors by default; because they can’t hide in the background, they have to fly the flag for transexuals every day.
Penis envy, schmenis envy
Butch Dykes should sympathise. They are also mocked in popular culture, for the same reason as the Bad Trannies: their perceived maleness. Bad Trannies can’t hide theirs, and Butch Dykes are supposedly trying to fake theirs.
But it’s this sliding scale of maleness which we should take issue with. Why should a woman who rejects how society says she should behave be automatically branded male? If a woman wears trousers, cuts her hair short, likes football, drinks beer and sleeps with women, yet she still identifies as female, then surely all these traits are just as womanly as if she wore pink and drank Malibu and diet coke?
This is a familiar argument, reclaiming certain traditionally male behaviours for women, but it’s about time trans people got on board too. Maybe our Bad Trannies don’t look the way we think they should, maybe their voices are too deep, maybe their hands are too big, but surely a trans woman is still a trans woman despite all this.
In fact, as long as you reject the idea that trans women are simply men invading women’s spaces (and if you don’t reject that idea, well that’s a whole other article, and frankly, oy) then Bad Trannies and Butch Dykes aren’t even mutually exclusive, but are simply types of women.
Trans Pride
The notion that someone can be ‘bad’ at being trans simply because they don’t look right ought to be redundant. In fact, perhaps the fact that their trans-ness is inescapable and something they have to face up to every day makes them better trannies than those of us who don’t have this experience.
Being trans isn’t about putting on a disguise and fooling people. Butch Dykes may not be able to hide their sexuality, but they can be proud of it, and trans people should do the same.
That’s not always easy. As I said at the beginning, standing up to be counted isn’t something I do all that much. But I’m working up to it.
Actually the 2 ‘bad’ trans women I met over the past years, were off-putting, not for their looks, but behaving more like gay men than women.They both acted like caricature high femmes.
rory ∼ March 1st, 2010 12:37 amThat was off-putting not the adam’s apple.
Interesting article, really got me thinking. Thanks.
Cat ∼ March 1st, 2010 10:21 amRory - often trans women are like that when transitioning and learning how to be in the world - it’s a lot more acceptable behaviour from a teenage girl than from an adult, particularly one who doesn’t pass as cisgendered (= not trans). People may well find it strange and offputting but often it’s an unavoidable stage in learning how to be in the world.
Ioana - I too am trans but always pass as cis- and practically always as female (I have slightly androgynous queer hair). I still find it really difficult to negotiate! Sometimes I wish that people would out me as trans-, as it genuinely would make it easier and often they are too enlightened to. I’d hate to give them that power to use as they liked, though, so I’m still trying to figure out this stuff. It’s difficult! A lot of people seem to be taking the view that they want to be “visible” rather than unambiguously “out” or “loud”, and I suppose this is where I fall, but, still, it’s an awkward and individual thing to negotiate.
Celeste ∼ March 1st, 2010 2:30 pmthanks for explaining Celeste, that makes a lot of sense. And helps me with my relations with trans women. I do want to be kind and supportive.
rory ∼ March 2nd, 2010 4:38 am“If a woman wears trousers, cuts her hair short, likes football, drinks beer and sleeps with women, yet she still identifies as female, then surely all these traits are just as womanly as if she wore pink and drank Malibu and diet coke?”
Thank you..as someone who drinks beer, likes football, wears guys jeans/tshirts & cuts my hair short I have never seen anyone put it so well. Thank you. I completely agree with your article.
TC ∼ March 4th, 2010 2:16 amRory: I think Celeste said it all, but I would add that it’s important to remember that some people, trans and otherwise, are simply awful.
Celeste: I hear you. A friend, to whom I was not out, once told me that she could always spot transexuals. “It’s a gift,” she said, unaware of the irony. In such situations, it’s difficult to know what to say. Personally, I like to assume everyone I meet is trans until I find out otherwise.
Ioana Poprowka ∼ March 4th, 2010 7:01 pmI see what your getting at here but c’mon, “true genders”? The gender we were assigned at birth is a false gender not our true genders.
Speaking for myself, I’m not wearing a disguise. I am female now and was female when I was born. and it has nothing to do with the junk I was born with or the junk I have now.
Rory-
estrobutch ∼ March 20th, 2010 11:26 pmmaybe what those two women were doing wrong was letting themselves get in range of your misogyny.
Great article. Gay men also need the same reminder that their oppression is in large part based on gender stereotypes, and that’s a good reason to be in solidarity with trans people’s struggle.
In her book Whipping Girl, Julia Serano makes a great point about the word “pass” in this department: it suggests something the trans person is or is not doing, rather than something the world does TO them. She prefers to talk about how others “gender” you. A person is said to “pass” when what in fact that means is that they are gendered appropriately by others.
She points out that she does little to “pass” but, since she has a small frame, she is invariably gendered appropriately as a woman by others.
She points out that the problems that trans people have “passing” are in fact caused by people’s obsessive need to gender others immediately, and extreme anxiety when they are unable to do so unambiguously.
femme guy ∼ March 20th, 2010 11:59 pmand dear cis people,
estrobutch ∼ March 21st, 2010 12:48 pmjust because some fool among us wants to pander to you for cash. does not make it remotely ok for you to
1) say tr*nny
2) call us “male-born” or “male-bodied or any other way disrespect our femaleness
3) refer to the gender we were falsely asssinged at birth as our true gender or our real gender as a “disguise”
4)continue assuming that hot butch that was flirting with you last night must have been assigned female at birth.
Um this why we put recreated transgender 15 years. We did it to recognise that butch was trans, just as transexuals were trans. That transvestites and transexuals and drag kings and drag queens and butch women and femme men and androgynes and later words such as genderqueer and on and on the list of labels go and all of them are transgender, unless of course they don’t wont to identify with the term.
And we also made a prediction, that if this gained any sort of power groups would try and say that transgender would mean only them and who they decided was included.
An guess what for 15 years we have had wave after wave of insecure transexual saying transgender and trans was only about them. When they only could be bad trannys - transgender must only be about them. Then like so many transexul’s before and since them lept for stealth.
As you say in your article, you can only be in any way loud about being transexual, you can only peel away the layers of stealth with dutch courage
This is Big Kate, a loud and proud tranny. Who has been loud for over 30 years about being transexual (and a Drag king). Who transitioned over twenty years ago. And who is an out and loud and proud - DYKE!
big kate ∼ March 21st, 2010 1:09 pmrory: I really wonder why you take issue with those two women’s behaviour, and why you categorized them as “bad t*****.” (such a disrespectful word). Because you perceived she was gay male acting? Because she was a “high femme” charicature? Why can’t someone have this behavior? Wasn’t it the transgression of your traditional perceptions of women’s behavior that was what felt off? So…doesn’t this just reinforce the erroneous nature of gender stereotypes, and reinforce that people’s behaviour can come across in many ways?
anon ∼ March 21st, 2010 4:31 pmI put the word in commas for a reason, which has to do with the article.
rory ∼ March 26th, 2010 3:40 amThere really is a difference between women and men’s cultures. Women’s culture is marginalized enough & I for one refuse to be forced into abandoning it for ‘genderqueer’ which is entirely male culture.
Yeah, I posted a bit too hastily before… there are a number of problematic aspects to this article that other people have pointed out, notably the bit about “true gender” used to mean “gender assigned at birth.” But the gist — that it’s illegitimate and wrong to judge other queers based on how closely they conform to the way in which you think they ought to perform their gender — is important to both the trans and cis queer communities.
femme guy ∼ March 31st, 2010 1:36 amDon’t kid yourself a ft transexual passes as a female, don’t kid yourself any transexual can live in stealth very few do, unless they are thai and or transitioned during the teens.
Society is very unforgiving. Even if you do pass, as a woman you get treated worse than most men.
I hate transexuals that show off, eg, one that is a highly successful entrepreuneur and rides a bike and outs her self as a ts. She is merely behaving as a man.
Women whether genetic or genuine trans don’t show off like that
post op ts ∼ May 12th, 2010 4:34 pmPost-op TS,
I think you’ll find that showing-off is not gender-specific, neither is not caring much about your appearance or caring altogether too much. To label behaviour as “behaving like a man” or “behaving like a woman” is a sexist fallacy IMHO.
As an ordinary woman, born female, I don’t label of my negative traits “male” and my positive traits “female”. Like most people, I’m a mixture of masculine and feminine traits, good traits and bad.
And I’ve got news for you: women do show off like that. Or worse. And some men are shy and retiring. It is all part of the rich variety that makes us human - whatever our gender.
Anastasia ∼ June 13th, 2010 1:14 pmYep, totally agree with Anastasia there - people are a mix of musculine and feminine traits, and just because you identify as trans doesn’t automatically mean that you have to act like the sex you weren’t born. For example, I know a trans woman (born a man)who dresses completely from the mens section (apart from underware) so everyone is always surprised to find out she’s not a bloke - as she says, she’s just a really butch woman!
Ab ∼ June 13th, 2010 9:19 pmSome really interesting comments. For any of you that live in the North East we are organising an event at the Star and Shadow on the 23rd of July to celebrate gender diversity in all its forms with film, photography and music. Click on my name to see a flyer. Hope to see you there!
Hurlvis ∼ June 16th, 2010 9:42 amIf people could only just let us be who we are, rather than struggling with their need to understand.
To the world:
I am not here for you, I am here for me. I am about me. Who I am, my gender, my sexuality - this is information available on a need to know basis. If you are close to me, then we probably will exchange that kind of information. If you are not that close, you don’t need to know how to place me, how to identify me - you just need to let me be. Let me be who I am, without explanation and especially without the necessity of your acceptance.
If you find it difficult to let gender variant people just be, if you feel anger, angst or any kind of negativity toward us, but you wish to change - consider this: “The problem with humankind is that we believe we should understand everything in our rational minds. We believe that everything is here ‘for us’, and that therefore, we should be able to understand it.” (paraphrased from a talk by Terence McKenna)
I did not arrive at my current existence through my rational mind. I do not even ‘understand’ myself in that context. What gives others the right to demand that I explain myself in rational terms that they can understand?
Anyway, food for thought…
Bree ∼ July 2nd, 2010 9:57 pm