Reply to Ellen Page announced new identity as Elliott Page

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have many waves ions about the broader issue of what it means when people born and assigned the female gender at birth this I they can no longer identify as a woman because they don’t present as femme. Or vice versa. A dude can’t wear a dress. I thought the whole point of gender as a social construct was that we could be free to be you and me as we see fit.[b] For example, where are all the butch lesbians? In my youth I hung with many. Now it seems the young ones who would’ve been “butch” in the 90s are just claiming FTM. [/b]
I guess overall to me it seems that frequently it actually pigeonholes gender stereotypes more when people feel that because they don’t represent a mainstream expression of gender they must somehow be transgender. I’m not trying to be trans exclusionary. I don’t actually GAF what anyone wants to identify as, I’ll call you what you want, but I just can’t get past the irony of how much of this actually perpetuates harmful gender stereotypes while trying to be free of them. [/quote]

I went to Smith in the early aughts, so I know all about butch lesbians. I don't think the "disappearance" of them is that complicated, it's just society evolving. You think a butch lesbian now being transgender is pigeonholing because you are picturing the more limited, "old" view of what transgender meant (examples like say Caitlyn Jenner).  When in reality the modern label of transgender is meant to be more inclusive, more the Eliot Page way of being more "non-binary" and "pansexual" and physically looking and dressing like either or.

It's as if a former butch lesbian saying they are now transgender is not saying, "I'm a woman becoming a man."  But rather, "transgender encompasses all of these "non-traditional" presentations." I can be a FTM in 2020 without growing out my facial year, without binding my breasts.  Dressing more traditionally male can be "enough" to be transgender in 2020. 
[/quote]

Excellent and informative post, thank you. May I ask another question? It's going to sound stupid, but this is one of the things I am having trouble wrapping my mind around. The question involves the present trans identity versus the person we knew in the past as a non-trans person. If an adult declares himself/herself/theirself as transgender, whether that is the traditional or non-traditional presentation, does that have any uniform meaning in terms of their life up until that point? In reading about "deadnaming" and thinking about the traditional understanding of a Caitlyn Jenner model of a trans person, prior to transitioning, the trans person was living a life in pain, constrained by a gender assignment that did not match their true selves. But is that always true? Using Elliot as an example, was Elliot always Elliot? Did Elliot star in Juno because that is who Ellen really was?

It is easy for any normal, decent person to treat a trans person respectfully in the present. My struggle is processing a transgender identity in connection with past associations with the person before transition. I hope this isn't offensive, because it is not meant to be. [/quote]

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