sophiaserpentia | my life as a white hetero male

"Teach him to play Monopoly, not to sing in the rain." -Jethro Tull, "Thick as a Brick"

Though I yesterday characterized my voice as "that of queer-fat-trannie," I shouldn't neglect the aspect of me that still remembers what it is like to be a white hetero male.

I'm still white, of course, and it's arguable whether or not I was ever "really" male or hetero, but that's how I identified, and that's how society saw me. When I first began to examine critical and feminist thought 13 years ago, I was soon to be married, and the world was my oyster. I wanted to learn about oppression and social stratification, but I was hindered by the problem of how exactly to relate to the issue or to literature about it.

The assertion that I was privileged didn't gel with my experience. I never questioned exploitation or discrimination, but personally, I felt anything but 'privileged.' My life had been mapped out for me by my parents and by society; I was to excel in academic pursuits and then settle into a suitably bourgeois white-collar life with my wife and the kids we would have.

As a teen I was extraordinarily angsty because I had no way to articulate how constricting this life-plan felt. As I wrote a few months ago, "Have you ever pondered that what it means to be an adult, might mean to finally have your spirit broken?" A lot of you challenged that, but that was how it felt to me. Three years before I became a Women's Studies student, I had told my parents that I was transsexual and their reaction was harsh and unapproving. The tension was released (or I should say, went back inside me) when a year later I retracted, and I started dating women shortly thereafter.

I also felt that my emotional and creative expression was terribly stifled. The range of things you're allowed to express as a white hetero male, especially emotionally, can feel very constraining. Your expressions, your mode of dress, and so on, are critically examined all the time to make sure you "stay in line." I don't recall being explicitly told that "boys don't cry," but it was more than obvious that crying was forbidden. "Being a man" requires a lot of effort and other men are always examining you for signs of insufficient masculinity. I went from living with a family that expected me to be stoic, to a marriage with a wife who expected me to be stoic.

I often felt that the only emotion I was free to really express was anger, and when I was young, I had a LOT of it.

The mythopoeic men's movement fascinated me. It was the first time I had ever heard anyone say that lots of men felt just as constrained by their gender roles as I did. The "voice with the microphone" in this culture may be that of a white hetero male, but that doesn't mean it speaks their experience, but often offers instead only a constructed facade, the experience that they "should" feel. If white hetero men stop acting as the footsoldiers in the hegemony of domination, the elites in the upper echelons will lose their privilege, and we can't have that.

Now, my own experience might not actually be that of a white hetero male. I don't know the answer to that.

But in any case I felt that it was plainly obvious that the forces which constrained me were the same as those forces which constrained women and people of color, and it hurt when a few of the feminists I tried to say this to told me that discussion about how patriarchy hurts men is not appropriate in a feminist forum. (I didn't understand then what I do now, about how bringing up men's issues in feminist forums reflected male privilege.)

Now I see things from a different perspective. If I could speak to my younger self, I would counsel him to learn how to listen to other people's anger, because learning that enabled me to see the ways in which I was truly privileged and kept myself from seeing it. I would also counsel him to listen to perspectives without presuming an agenda.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

but to misquote Monty Python, "you got better."

I think the point that a lot of people miss when they examine themselves and the changes that they have made is that they DID indeed change. "I" am no more like my 'rents than I am like Pat Robertson. I CHOSE not to be like any member of my family and have for the most part succeeded much to my betterment I do believe. The thing is that you are becoming you. THAT is a lot more than many others in this "sheepy" world can say.

Congratulations

LB

:) Thank you.

Sometimes it feels to me like I am changing. At other times it feels more like I never really changed and am only changing my outward self or what I allow to slip past the censors. How else should I interpret the feeling that I am becoming more honest with myself, more true to my nature? If I was less true to my nature before, but am more so now, does that mean I am progressing from "deception" to "honesty"? It makes me nervous to view my transition in terms of salvation.

I have been through a lot of different phases in my life journey looking for the "place" that was right for me. Each time I thought I hit upon it, I was sure that I was becoming more me. Then a very wonderfully special friend helped me to kick myself out of the trans closet and admit to being the man that I am. I now am living every day as the me that I have always known was there. I do not look at being raised a girl as dishonest, in that, "I" wasn't being dishonest..I told people I was a boy. I look at being raised a girl as a learning experience because I learned how to be a better man by learning what hurts women and by learning how women want to be treated not just from observation but from living it. So, I suggest you look at your life as a male with the idea that you take what you learned from it good and bad and find something in it of value. You see, it is my spiritual philosophy that we choose these types of experiences for a reason. So, perhaps there is something there for you to mine out and use.
Also, any time a person becomes more in touch with their true nature, they are becoming more honest and therefore, more honest with themselves. It is easy to delude oneself on any topic until you are faced with hard facts. If you are viewing your transition as salvation then perhaps that is what it is. Perhaps it is saving you from a life in a socialized gender that would be hell for you and perhaps it is saving you from years of self-delusion and teaching you what honesty with yourself is all about. I am not preaching, just suggesting. As honest as I am with other people and believe me, I am honest with others to a fault a lot of the time...I tend to lie to myself still. Stopping that is the hardest thing I have yet to do but I am learning to do it and the more I look in the mirror every morning and see a man, the easier the lesson gets.
You are remarkable for your courage and strength to face society and cry out in as loud a voice as you can who you really are. I support you and everyone else who is trying to break away from the flock and become more honest with self and I include myself in there.

You are most welcome, by the way.

LB

my life as a white hetero male

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