BethOfTheWild

Gender occurs! CW: gender/discourse/internalized denial/neoliberalism

“Yeah, uh, I have no idea where Pretzel even is right now. Sorry,” Mel said.

“No worries,” Hunter said as he stroked the purring cat on his lap. “Pickle is providing an entirely sufficient amount of kitty interaction right now.”

“Aw. A very blessed sight.” Mel said. “So… can I talk to you? It might get a little heavy. And, like, feel free to say no.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Hunter said, turning to face Mel as she seated herself on the couch beside him. “I hope I didn’t do anything that made you feel uncomfortable or anything? But I want to be someone who’s open to listening and trying to get better.”

“Nah, it’s nothing like that,” Mel said. “So, uh… I’m just going to talk to you about this once and then let it go, okay? I don’t want to, like, nag you about it or seem like I’m pressuring you or harassing you or anything. But…”

“Yeah?” Hunter asked, leaning forward, then leaning back after the cat on his lap made a protesting sound.

“Have you… uh, fuck, let me think about the best way to word this. Have you considered that you’re trans?”

Hunter laughed, short and almost bitter. “This is what you wanted to talk to me about? I mean, yeah, I’ve seen people keep saying that in the chat. I thought you were on my side in wanting them to stop.”

Mel sighed. “Look, I know it’s annoying if people say like that because of the clothes you choose to wear or whatever. I’m not saying this because you like wearing girl clothes, or anything like that. I… you seem sort of deeply unhappy, in a way that’s only relieved when you feel you look like or are treated like a girl. And it just really reminds me of myself in the past. I guess I’ll ask you this: is there a good reason to think you’re not trans?”

“Uh, yeah?” Hunter said. “I mean… I didn’t play with dolls as a little kid. I haven’t known I’m a girl my whole life. I don’t have a strong internal sense of my gender being female. I don’t even know what people are talking about when they say they can feel their gender, honestly. If nothing is inherently gendered then what am I supposed to be sensing? And I don’t feel like I’m really a girl. Would I like to be, sometimes? Sure. But am I currently? No, I don’t think any reasonable person would say that. I look at myself in the mirror and I wish I could see myself as a girl like other people seem to be able to, but I just can’t. I wish you wouldn’t have brought this up to me again because I’ve honestly worried a lot about this and researched it a bunch and you’re just dredging it all back up again and making me really anxious all over again.”

“Hunter, I think you have a misunderstanding of what being trans is,” Mel said. “Look, this is hard to talk about, especially because people tend to get really worked up about this general kind of conversation. I think there’s a widely held understanding that people promote to push back against, like, TERF shit and bioessentialism that says ‘Trans women are women. They always have been. There’s some abstract internal gender identity that’s a real, objective thing that exists in the world, and you should listen to people when they tell you about theirs.’ The problem with this, at least to me–and I’m sure lots of people would disagree with this–is that I don’t know what the fuck gender is. I don’t have an internal sense of gender, not that I could point to, and I don’t believe in souls or whatever. I think that we are our brains and our bodies, nothing more and nothing less, and gender isn’t somehow independent from the rest of us. I just try doing things involving my body and my presentation and see how I feel about them, and if I like them I do more of them. I think it’s really easy to get caught up on labels and categories when those are just simplifying abstractions that we try and fail to impose over the complexities of the world. Really, I guess it doesn’t matter if you use the word ‘trans’ for yourself or not. What I’m really trying to ask is: Does your current gender make you happy? Would you be happier if you presented more as a girl, or at least not as a boy? Do the effects of HRT sound appealing to you?”

“Whoa,” Hunter said. “Uh… damn. Uh. Yeah, I guess the answer to those last few questions is ‘yes’. Yes, those things all sound great, actually.”

“Then you should do them,” Mel said. “Also, I feel like you’re being an oblivious egg and/or lesbian so I want to say this very clearly: I think you’re cute, I see you as a girl, and I would like to smooch and cuddle and et cetera with you. I would like you to be my girlfriend, if possible and if you’d want.”

“Mel, you’re the smartest fucking person in the world,” Hunter said. “Yes, that also all sounds great.”