Dealing with Gatekeepers

 

Image from Ries Bosch
on UnSplash. 

Unfortunately, all the people who see it as their job to be a gender gatekeeper can run the spectrum from nice to nasty.

The nice ones are just normally curious as to what you are doing in their world and will sometimes even help you come through their gate and cross the gender border you so desperately want. Then there are the other ones who sadly make a bigger impact in the world when they overstep their bounds and attempt to keep transgender women or transgender men from ever entering their spaces.

My problem with gender gatekeepers is who gave them the right to do what they are doing anyhow. I see the titles of woman and man as socialization words only. Meaning just because you were born female or male does not mean you are ever socialized enough to earn the title of women or men. I fear the ones who never deserved to be called a woman became the gatekeepers who are trying to stop us transgender women from ever achieving our socialization goal of at least being able to have a feminine life which includes entering spaces such as restrooms.

During my life, I have met both sides of gatekeepers. I have seen it all from being called a pervert in one women’s restroom to being helped to an empty stall in another. Then, there was the Lesbian Valentine’s Day dance Liz, and I went to years ago in Cincinnati. While Liz went up to the refreshment area to get us some appetizers, unannounced I was approached by this lesbian ciswoman who wanted to know what my “real” name was. She was nasty and naturally, I would not tell her anything about me because for some reason she took it upon herself to be a gatekeeper where she did not need to be.

Because I was completely and quickly kicked out of the men’s club when I transitioned, I did not have to worry about very many male gatekeepers. I still remember vividly attempting to join a conversation when I first came out between men when they were dealing with a subject, I knew a lot about and was quickly ignored. It reinforced in me how much I would not miss getting kicked out of the men’s club and sought out the company I really wanted which was with women. As I realized I had always felt that way and life had just got in my way as I always had been pressured to find and date a girlfriend as a male. Ironically, I was very shy and afraid to challenge the feminine dating gatekeepers to even ask a girl out. I finally overcame my internal gatekeepers with the help of friends who set up dates for me with unattached girls they knew.

As I began to explore the world increasingly, I began to meet and utilize more feminine gatekeepers to my advantage. I started to realize how much more ciswomen were secure in their sexuality than cismen and were not afraid to interact with me. Plus, when they went out of their way to do so, at the same time it gave me a chance to learn so much more from them. With men, if most of them even talked to me, they felt somehow, they were gay. Again, I was happy the male gatekeepers kept me out.

Then, let us not forget the most extreme gatekeepers of all, who are the TERFs (or Radical Feminists) who have even teamed up with groups of Evangelical Christians to keep transgender folk from crossing gender borders. There is nothing I dislike more than having a so-called Christian tell me they will pray for me as they jump on the gatekeeper’s bandwagon.  

Sadly, gatekeeping still exists in the gay and transgender community as the Log Cabin conservative Republicans have recently announced they would be taking the “T” out of their LGBT language. I always use them as an example of what will happen when the current administration grows tired of coming after a minority transgender community and comes after a larger gay one.

Even sadder yet are the transgender community members I have known over the years who have tried to exclude certain trans women for not having as many gender realignment surgeries as they have had to prove how trans they are. And they are nothing more than glorified cross-dressers. As if there was anything wrong with being a cross-dresser which most of us started their active transition to being a transfeminine person by experimenting with their mom’s clothes.  Who must say that in the future, the cross-dressing person you shunned may want to do more in their gender life and blossom into their full desired gender lives.

These days, with how divided the country is, it is so sad that so-called normal people are ready to jump into other people's business and become novice gatekeepers. Who gave the woman the right to call me a pervert or even transgender women chiding me for wearing pants too much and who needs to know my previous name except for me anyhow. I know all humans face gatekeepers in life, but it seems the trans community faces more than their fare share of people attempting to exclude us. To put it another way, I faced way too many four way stops on my gender path to finally living my dream, Seemingly, destiny had to show me the problems of living with then losing to death a disapproving wife all the way to losing friends and my brother when I transitioned across the gender border to be a happier person.

I guess I was lucky I wasn’t on a toll-road where the gatekeepers wanted a payment for passage. If I was, I would be broke by now and I was lucky to have received so much more than I lost as I carved out a new feminine life.

Hopefully, you can navigate your gates successfully as you move along your gender path.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my lifetimes worth of experiences! Any comments are always appreciated.