Evan has come to the realization that even though he has transitioned, he is still hiding parts of his identity. Join him this episode to hear about the ways he hides and how he plans to become more visible.
Original music by Evan James White
(“In the Ether” keyboard musical intro)
Evan: Welcome to Just Another Guy (Who Happens to Be Trans). I'm your host, Evan James White.
Lately, I've been thinking about this idea of hiding. You know, I've been thinking about how before my transition, I was hiding my maleness. I would, when I was in high school, for example, dress super, super feminine. I mentioned this in episode one, I talked a bit about how I used to dress. But yeah, I wanted everyone to see me as feminine and a woman, or a girl because I was under 18 at that time. Even when I was older and identified as a lesbian and more specifically a butch lesbian – so that is a lesbian who dresses more masculine, presents as more masculine, is seen in the world as more masculine, and oftentimes is even mistaken for a man – when I presented as a butch and would use the women's restroom, for example, I remember making my voice higher. I would walk in such a way that was a bit more feminine so that people wouldn't be disturbed by my presence there.
Fast forward now (chuckles) I am transitioning still, but for the most part people see me as a man. Now, in some ways I'm still hiding because I do everything I can to make sure people don't see that I was assigned female at birth, or AFAB for short. I don't want anybody to mistake me for a woman. I don't want anybody to know that for 30-some-odd years of my life I identified in the way that I was told that I should. Now my hiding looks like me not smiling as much because I think that my smile sometimes makes me look a little feminine, because women smile and men don't. And I know I'm generalizing, I'm being very stereotypical. But at the same time, from what I see in my interactions, this is what I'm noticing. This is what I've noticed since I was younger.
I make my voice deeper in conversations. I mean, my voice is already deep. The testosterone has done its job with that. But when I'm talking with people, I still deepen my voice. It's a habit that I got into pre-testosterone when I wanted people to see me as the man that I was, when I was early on in my transition before I started medically transitioning, I just kept the practice. And then in some conversations I don't even speak at all because in some conversations topics will come up that I feel like I should know more about as a man, but I don't. And I don't wanna be the only guy in the conversation that knows nothing about it. And I'm talking specifically about sports, and I know that there are many women who know a lot of shit about sports and there are a lot of guys who don't. But I think that I'm hypersensitive because I'm super, super anxious that people will see that I am AFAB and will call me out and say something like, “See, you're not really a man,” or something. You know?
Another example of me hiding is, you know, I (chuckle), I actually use the restroom a lot less now. And I heard, I've heard that in the past, you know, people saying, “Oh yeah, guys don't really go to the bathroom like that in public.” And usually when I see the lines for the bathroom, the women's line is so much longer than the men's. And I get it – one, the bathrooms are gross. There's that. But also for me, I really don't like using my packer, my stand-to-pee packer. So what that is, is it's really a, it's a dick (laughs). It is silicone and it is shaped like a cisgendered male dick. It has an opening that I can put around my area (laughs) down there and the opening is wide enough so that I can pee through it, 'cause it also has a hole so I can pee through it. And there's also a little bit of space where the balls are because my stand-to-pee packer also has balls (chuckles). And that area can catch anything if for whatever reason my pee doesn't make it all the way through the hole, like if it's a very (laughs), very thick stream it can catch some if I need it to. So it took some practice for me to get used to using and I'm pretty good at it, but honestly I would rather not use it because there always seems to be a little bit of excess dribble and I don't like having a wet crotch unless there's a reason for me to have a wet crotch, like during sex, not just throughout the day, just for fun. I don't like using the men's restroom, because if the stall is not available and there's usually like only one – maybe two – if the stalls aren't available, then I have to use the urinal, which means I have to use the packer.
So physical safety is a reason that I hide. And in the example of the restroom, yeah, if I'm in a space where there are cisgendered men – or men who were assigned male at birth – and they may want to cause harm to a trans person and they know that I'm trans and it's an intimate space where our private parts can be exposed, I don't feel safe in that scenario with them knowing that I'm trans.
Aside from the physical reasons why I would hide, there's also the emotional and mental aspects. Like, I don't want to be seen as weird. I don't want to be seen as different, I don't want to be ridiculed because I'm a trans man, and I don't know who's going to want to do that. And it's interesting because a lot of these reasons for me hiding now are the same reasons that I hid before, you know? The fear of being ridiculed, the desire to keep myself from physical harm. It wasn't necessarily safe to express my maleness back then either. That was why I hid in the first place.
And so when I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking about how, how much have I really changed? You know, I had this transition, this outward change, but what about the inner? What would it look like for me to no longer hide? What would it look like for me to embrace my maleness and also embrace my past reality as someone who the world saw as a girl, as a woman? And I think I might be doing some of that now already. You know, I say that I'm hiding, but here I am with this podcast where I talk about being a trans man. I mean, it's in the fucking title (laughs). I promote this podcast on my social media. I have a book that I wrote that is an affirmation book for trans men. I'm very open about my experience. I don't shy away from it. It's not the first thing that comes out of my mouth when I'm meeting someone, but if it comes up I'm not going to deny it or run away from it. So maybe I'm already doing that and maybe it's just about doing more of that with less anxiety and more celebration, more acceptance. I mean why (chuckles), why would I hide the very medicine that the world needs right now? You know, that medicine of balancing duality?
Thank you for listening. This has been Just Another Guy (Who Happens to Be Trans). I'm your host, Evan James White. Peace.
(“In the Ether” keyboard musical outro)