#trans list

It’s almost First Saturday! This month we present a multiplicity of voices and stories by and about women and femme-identified people that expand on feminist traditions and consider the future of feminism.

We’re excited to host the Brooklyn premiere of the anticipated new web series Brown Girls with a talkback with creators Fatimah Asghar, Sam Bailey and lead actress Sonia Denis. Plus we’ll be screening The Trans List followed by a talk with Lina Bradford and Kate Bornstein hosted by Sylvia Rivera Law Project and shorts by Brooklyn-based filmmaker Suha Araj who tells stories about Palestinian women living life on their own terms.

Come early for happy hour (5-7pm) and enjoy brand new music by our current faves Charlotte Dos Santos, Buscabulla, and the queen of vinyl Natasha Diggs! Plus tours of Marilyn Minter: Pretty Dirty and our newest exhibition Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern (discounted tickets are available for $12 during Target First Saturdays—only available on-site). Celebrate the 10th anniversary of our Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art and Women’s Herstory Month with us!

A lot of transmasc coming out stories that I’ve read so far have mostly gone like this:

“I always knew I was different, I just didn’t know how. I got mistaken as a boy often/I wanted to cut my hair short and wear boys clothes. Most of my friends were boys and I was a tomboy for the majority of my life.”

Well I’m here to tell you that this was NOT my experience in the slightest, and if you’re anything like me, reading stories with this narrative can be a little isolating because it just isn’t relatable (again, in my personal experience). I thought I’d compile a list of little things that added up and didn’t quite click as I was growing up and navigating adulthood that finally made me realize I was trans.

1. Never felt included in women-only spaces (to elaborate: nobody there was making me feel unwelcome, in fact everyone was super nice to me, it’s just that I felt completely out of place whenever the conversation would shift to very afab experiences if you know what I mean)

2. Never felt represented in all-female squads in media

3. Was never bothered by the fact that there’s more male than female characters in media I consumed (longer explanation: when my female friends complain to me how in sci-fi movies/shows there’s always a predominately male cast, I never really saw an issue with it until they brought it up. I do think that’s an issue - but it wasn’t an issue that I personally found with the shows)

4. I have this friend who’s pretty skinny and she started weightlifting. Since she had very little body fat on her to begin with, her six pack started showing pretty damn soon, and I thought that was fucking fantastic but she told me she hated it because it “isn’t feminine”. I thought to myself “who tf even likes looking feminine” and told her she looks great like this (in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have said that because she clearly wasn’t into it, but this is just to illustrate the point)

5. I complained to my then best friend about how I hated waxing my legs since it hurts like hell, and she suggested I just ditch it completely. I was a bit skeptical but I listened to her and I just. I fell in love with my legs okay. I’m a hairy bitch and I loved how the added body hair made my legs look less curvy and more angular.

6. I had waist-length hair and when I cut it off to a shoulder length it felt real fucking amazing. 

7. Didn’t like how my shirts looked on me with my breasts in a traditional bra so I used a spandex compression thingy that’s supposed to make your waist look slimmer on my chest. Don’t do that! I didn’t do it properly and it hurt a lot but I loved the look of flat chest on me

8. Thought I looked nice in dresses/skirts but felt extremely detached from my body every time I put them on

9. Whenever women talked about feminism it made me want to support them but when it was directed towards me it made me uneasy and feel totally out of place (example: if someone said “women should stick together!” I’d go “hell yea!!!” but if someone said “US women should stick together!” it would make me somewhat uncomfortable)

10. When a friend showed me some meme about detachable tiddies, my immediate reaction was “I’d leave mine at home and never put them on again”

11. When parents kept pushing the idea of motherhood on me it made my skin crawl

12. When mom pressured me into explaining why I don’t want kids, the first thought that popped into my head was “If I could be a father to my kids, I’d have them”

13. Felt a lot more comfortable wearing men’s jackets

14. Never wanted wide hips or an hourglass figure