Privilege

This is going to be a delicate subject.  As a result, I wish to place a disclaimer first.  These views are my own and I don’t profess to be right on any of it.  I am just speaking of opinion that I have formed from my experience.  I do not invalidate the experiences of others when I speak of mine.  That is neither my intention nor my desire.  I do wish and welcome a dialog on this topic from people with different experiences so that we all may come to some kind of truth together.  The hope is that, through this conversation, we can make a better culture for us all.

Secondly, we need a working definition.  I say working definition because the dictionary definition of privilege is inadequate for this discussion, not nuanced for what we are talking about.  I checked the urban dictionary, but quite a few of those articles were written by edgelords and trolls so they wouldn’t be helpful either.  So, for the purposes of this discussion, here is my definition:

Privilege is the unearned state of being on the beneficial side of a system of oppression.

People of color did nothing to be oppressed by the system of racism; Heterosexual people did nothing to benefit from heteronormativity; because of how the class system works, few people have the choice or the ability to change where they are within that system; Men have done nothing to benefit from sexism; and, important in this conversation, trans folk did nothing to be oppressed by cissexism.

This is, by no means, an exhaustive list of the people affected by, and systems causing, oppression or privilege.  Also, I wish to say, no person is Privileged.  I feel it is better to say that a person has privilege.  A fine distinction, to be sure, but important none-the-less.  Where some people may have more privileges than another, everyone has some dimension where there is a system of oppression that affects them and others that grant them privilege.  To the person that some kind of oppression affects, that system is difficult to constantly deal with, and hearing that they are privileged -full stop- causes them more injury because it isn’t recognizing that they do have some element of oppression to deal with themselves.  Saying instead, that in this one case we are talking about they have privilege, tells them that we recognize that they may have something they have to deal with as well, but today in this space we are talking about this one other thing.  Shouting, “check your privilege,” doesn’t help or move the conversation along, no matter how cathartic it may be.

Now, finally, into the meat of things and how this relates to my journey through my life and transition.

When I was born, I was assigned Male.  Sure, all the evidence suggested it, and the state of the art at the time had no evidence to the contrary, and the systemic problems of our society required some assignation to be made.  But it was wrong.  I am not, nor was I ever, male.  I am female with a body morphology that does not match what is usual for others of my gender.

When I got this assignment, I was apparently the beneficiary of the systems of sexism, heteronormativity and cisgenderism.  I did nothing to be the beneficiary of those systems, so I seemed to have gained privilege in these systems.  I tried to use this apparent privilege to help others oppressed by the same systems and, at least on a personal level, to break down those systems.  

In spaces I shared with other women, I used my apparent male privilege to make sure they got the space to speak and be heard.  I amplified what they said with direct attribution to them, so that it could not be ignored or downplayed.  I railed against overt misogyny and tried to notice and work against the subtle.

I am primarily attracted to women, so as I grew I again apparently benefitted from heteronormativity.  But I always made space for non-hetero folk in my spaces, and I loudly and publicly stated my derision for people who shunned or oppressed those who were not hetero.

Related to both of those above, I thought I was cis.  I had some gender variance, yes, but it wasn’t enough for me to classify myself as trans.  So, I used my apparent privilege in the dimension of gender to try to support folks who did identify themselves as trans; I argued with anyone who professed doubt or derision for trans folk, and I spoke against trans jokes. 

Was I perfect?  Absolutely not.  Sometimes I just couldn’t exert the emotional labor to fight that time.  Other times I just didn’t watch my own speech closely enough.  In certain crowds I played along, with my silence, because I just didn’t feel safe possibly exposing my variance if I tried to fight for inclusion or acceptance to take down the specific oppression being expressed.  I am most ashamed of when I occasionally actively joined in.  I apologize for those times, I am not proud of them.  I was in spaces where those being spoken of were not apparently present, ever, but that does not excuse it in any way.

All that said, however, was I really privileged?  I had apparent privilege, but I don’t actually think I did, at least not in these dimensions.  I do acknowledge that I do have privilege.  I was from an upper middle class home and that did not change with my transition.  I am white and again that has not changed.  But as I was never actually a cis het male, did I really have the privilege that I used?

Let’s go back to the definition I am using for privilege.  I have posited that it is the unearned beneficiary that has privilege.  If I claim I did not have privilege among those dimensions I will need to explain how I paid for that to show that my benefits were not unearned.  So, how did I do that?  

Almost suicidal mental distress.

Because I am trans, and I believe that being trans is a thing I have been since birth (and probably before), I have never been cis, nor hetero, nor a male.  I also do have dysphoria.  This dysphoria, as I have stated other places, was a slow simmer that built to a point where I was becoming willing to leave life behind rather than continue fighting the constant drain on my mental reserves.  Trying to hold on to my apparent privilege was slowly killing me and until it did it was vastly reducing my quality of life.  I had no emotional responses to things good or bad.  I couldn’t maintain good emotions and I couldn’t cathartically experience the bad emotions.  I had traumas and abuses that I couldn’t process and find care for because dysphoria made me feel unworthy of the help.  Traumas occasionally related to my cis het maleness, that had I not been classified thus, would have engendered support from others of my actual classifications for our shared experiences. 

I earned, through this exchange of my mental health, all the benefits I gained along those dimensions. 

And I feel that many trans folk have felt the very same way.  We are not exchanging privilege for oppression by embracing our trans-ness.  We are not downgrading our lives.  We are not giving anything up.  Instead, we are embracing the bad that comes from being part of a disadvantaged class because only once there can we start to get some stability, and care, and support to try to really live for once.  And maybe, by recognizing we really don’t have privilege in these systems and situations, we can help other trans folk to get the help they need to become whole and healthy so that together we may destroy the systems of oppression that harm us.