Is it radical to be trans*?
When you transition from one gender to another a couple of reasons may have provoked you to do so: you may have felt trapped in the wrong body, you may have reached a personal breaking point, you may have just accepted this is who you are and done something about it, or you may have done so for completely different reasons. There is no one pathway towards stepping outside gender normativity, though often the framing of that first step is one of radical rejection of gender structures within society. Yet, for most trans* folk the aim is not to be permanently transitioning, but to be able to fade back into the gender background, to be assimilated back into society. To be perceived as trans* is radical, but that is not the primary aim for everyone.
In an age where to be trans* is inherently political you cannot but be radical if you are visibly and vocally trans*. You are othered, degraded, demeaned, objectified, and possibly slain just for living as yourself. Other people make you political, society others you. Yet, how many OnlyFans trans* girls intended to use the platform to make a living? How many of us in the community expected to make a GoFundME just to escape our states and countries? Our bodies become the points scored by politicians desperate to find the next scape goat for the problems they caused.
Selling our bodies is an inherently capitalistic solution to escaping poverty, especially when all other avenues are closed due to other people rejecting our core being. Trans* people do not seek poverty, do not wish to be on the margins, and have never sought degradation at the hands of others (unless it was consensual in private). Our hopes and dreams are usually normative, we simply want to exist as part of the tapestry, not the fraying edges picked apart by caprices and whims of others.
Being radical implies something to be radical against. Against murder, against abuse, against pathologizing of bodies just because they do not fit into any one mould. You become radical through injustice inflicted and rights stripped. You become radical because society is taught to fear and attaint you just because you exist in your own skin. Of course, this is not sadly a trans* dilemma, all minorities suffer similar othering at the hands of xenophobes. All minority bodies are exotic to the curious, and at the distance of screen and webcam those bodies are all commodified. Just do not bring them into the street.
However, all the quiet trans* lives that exist in the suburbs, work discretely in the corner, make no waves. Are they radical? If you fade into the background and simply live your life you are radical in waiting, for if the State or community decide you are something lesser by the very fact you exist you become a radical element. Not for any crime or for any action, but because other people declare you to be so. It is a catch twenty two; either you self-declare a radical self and face hostility, or you fade and are then declared radical should the mood suit. To be outside of the normative will always be radical because others perceive it as radical. What society choses to do about that radical in their midst makes the difference between thriving and shunning.
Yes, I am being reductive, and yet plenty of trans* folk will disagree that they are radical in any shape or views. But, this conception of radicalism is not only centred on the self. There are plenty of angry pissed off queers who are justified in their frustrations. There are also many white picket fence trans* folk who enjoy domestic life and have no desire to protest. In the middle are trans* and queer folk who feel pulled in both directions, myself included. This is the conflicted space that is hard to describe, hard to vocalise, for we both see where political winds are going and desire a degree of normality derived from whatever privileges we enjoy. Is this a damming indictment or merely a pragmatic approach to life? That is for all of us to square with our consciences.
In answer to the question, yes, to be trans* in the 2020s is a radical action either from self-declaration or the caprices of others. There is no denying the politically charged nature of us simply existing, yet there is also no denying that there are plenty of cis folk out there who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us on the metaphoric barricades. This is not a them v us, backs against the wall radicalism, but, I would suggest, a radicalism fuelled by the desire to lead our best lives in the face of those who wish to exile or eradicate us. Whether we are having an 1848 or 1917 moment is left to be seen, but our radicalism begins with us accepting ourselves and talking that first step forward.
