I've been known to jump on my Facebook (the one I use under my birth name) and go on and on and on about feminist issues, equality, LGTB stuff, and over the past year, trans issues. I saw this hate-ad some idiot put in a newspaper... don't remember where... that really set me off, so much so, I was afraid I almost outed myself, and this was, like, six months ago, when I was still struggling with whether or not I could even admit to believing I was trans. I was so angry about this hateful dreck calling a trans female teen a "male in the shower with your daughter", like we're all sexual deviants just looking for an excuse to troll for sex. And yet, I was so scared that by getting this angry so publicly, to all of my friends, only a handful could really ever begin to understand how I might be feeling... I'm honestly glad my friends just buy into the idea of me being something of a liberal blowhard, sometimes, because I'm honestly amazed that anyone paying attention for the past year isn't asking me if I have gender issues.
Just coming from the MtF side, I'm starting to realize I didn't take up these causes as a male ally, I took them up as a woman who just hasn't fully realized herself, yet. And yet, I'm very self-conscious about getting too far ahead in my male identity in all of this, because I agree, this really is more of a female space. Maybe it's been learning about the Riot Grrl movement, and how bands like Bikini Kill would mandate a "girls to the front" policy at their shows, because they believed that women needed to create their own space in punk subculture because they weren't always welcome, otherwise. But I've been picking up on the whole idea that feminist culture is, at least in part, an attempt by women to create their own space to express themselves and be creative and heard without the encroachment of males, because even in my own experience attempting to be "just another guy", men aren't good at letting people have their space. I can't even use a men's room as a man and expect any real privacy in a stall. Why? Because men think they're entitled to that space, even from other men. At least, that's what my experience with men has taught me.
So here I am, this person with boy parts, who wants to be able to call themself a feminist and support women-focused ventures. And I think it's great that people like the one I try to be as I present myself to the world as male and Joss Whedon want to espouse feminist ideas and bring feminism to an audience that wouldn't care about it otherwise. But I also have this major guilt complex about it, because in a lot of ways, even if I am really a girl in my own mind, other women may not want me here in their space. Even when it feels just as much my space, because men... they like to be in other people's spaces. And they see me as a man.
It's weird. On one hand, if I stay silent, what Patriarchy there actually is wins. But speaking up... my voice my not be wanted, no matter how much I Identify as female, even once I would transition. Worse yet, transitioning could be seen by some feminists as an egregious encroachment of their space.
Sometimes, I feel like I don't really have a country, so to speak.
