On Nevada, Trans Narratives, and “Cis” Boys
An Open Letter to Those “Cis” Boys Who Might Have Gender Stuff, Who Aren’t Sure About It But Feel Pretty Weird A Lot of the Time
I get it, okay? You read or hear about Those Gender People, and you’re meant to think either, “fuck, those people are weird, I’m glad I’m not one of them,” or, if you’re hip and 2016 about it, “wow, good for them, that must be tough, but I’m still glad I’m not one of them.”
This is the way cis media talks about trans folks, and the expected reaction to any sort of media about trans people. The assumption being, of course, that everyone is super-hella-cis.
The first time I heard about being trans was when I was eight or nine, leaving gymnastics class (I hated soccer and all that bullshit as a kid, but loved gymnastics—weird, right?) and asked my mom what a he-she was, and she said, “oh, you know, one of Those Weird People.”
I’d heard the word “he-she” at a fundraiser for scouts: my friend Alexis had tied his older brother to a chair, duct taped his mouth shut and was rocking him back and forth, yelling “he-she for sale!” ad nauseam. I yelled it too, because I thought it was spelled “hishi,” and it sounded like some Dr. Seuss creature.
Chronologically, my next memory of any mention of trans-ness is this girl in my grade 11 French class, who was really into calling people she didn’t like trannies and waxing poetic about “imagine—a tranny? Hahaha.”
So you hear this shit, and whatever you do, you don’t process it or engage with it, because that’s an easy way to want to kill yourself. So you learn to gently remove yourself from your body whenever any sort of gender thing is brought up.
And at your friend’s birthday-party-cum-picnic, she says you always compliment her on her dresses and she really appreciates that, and you, having not noticed that you compliment her dresses every time you see her, say “haha, dresses are so nice! Almost like—well I dunno, I’d almost want to wear a dress, not from like a gender thing, but just fashion, they’re good Objects Of Fashion.” You tear up grass in your hand.
You’re vaguely aware of people who talk about gender shit on places like Tumblr, and you stay away from these places, because they are terrifying—remember, no engaging with anything allowed. Instead you go on 4chan and funnel how weird and fucked up you feel into the 4chan brand of “we all feel weird and fucked up and that makes us better than the normies.” You keep masking feeling weird and fucked up in elitist love of High Art Music or Hard Video Games or Really Expensive Steaks or whatever. You see the word “cis” for the first time in that “die cis scum” meme, used ironically, to lambast people who go on Tumblr.
Your friend offers to do your nails, as practice, and you start shivering, even though you’re wearing a sweater.
I get it, is what I’m saying. It’s okay. It’s okay to feel weird and not know why and be blankly terrified of knowing why. Not like “this is good” okay, but “this makes sense and is not your fault” okay. I felt that way for an extremely long part of my life, and when I read Nevada it felt like someone was stabbing me, but it was good because it meant that I could finally see my own blood.
Part of how the li’l piece of bullshit we call our society works is preventing anyone from having access to anything like an authentic, let alone empowering, trans narrative. I’m a Scouts leader, and I can’t tell the kids that trans people exist because it’s “inappropriate.” Because, like everyone, they all are Cis, Of Course.
For so many of us, Nevada, or else stories like it, were the first things that introduced Being Trans as a reality. More than just “being trans: it’s okay actually,” it clocks you in the nose with the visceral reality of what it’s like just walking around while trans, which—spoiler alert—I’ve never found a single cis piece of art that does this.
Nevada presents being trans, not as some theoretical framework, either of social decay or the proof of patriarchy or something we Should Be Accepting About or some shit, but just a thing that you live with. I think that sort of tangible image of trans-ness is much more accessible for those of us who don’t know what’s up with gender but feel weird, than the abstract theoretical talk we get, even in trans-adjacent circles.
What I’m saying is: it’s one thing to see a tweet or Huffpost headline about why trans rights are important, and another to get your head dunked into a no-holds-barred 200-page account of what it’s like being trans, like a cold bathtub.
And if you might have gender stuff, and you aren’t sure about it, but feel kinda weird a lot of the time, Nevada is the sort of thing that you might need to kick you out of the “haha of course im cis 😊” rut we all found ourselves in once upon a time.
I know it’s what I needed. I hope it can help you too.
Yours,
Sadie
P.S. Nevada takes an explicitly trans woman angle at being trans, but my sources tell me it’s frighteningly capable of awakening unseemly gender feelings in trans people who aren’t trans women too. Check it out y’all confused li’l beans.
P.P.S. I was going to write a whole bunch of other open letters to people, like the cis girls who won’t stop asking me if I want them to take me shopping; or for me to do their gender 101 homework for them; or the profs who really want to teach about gender in this gender-y twenty-first century, but do it in a really boring cis way; or famous-man Eddie Redmayne.
But the gist of all of those were “hey cis people: you think you know shit, but you don’t, and Imogen Binnie does, so read her book haha now get lost dweebs.” What’s the point of writing that four times? Plus, writing to/for cis people is boring. I hereby solemnly swear that all my emotional and intellectual labour goes towards helping trans people, or at least not the kind of cis people who I’d have written those letters to.
There was also going to be a letter to trans people that have been out for a long time, but are still dealing with the emotional aftershocks from all the self-suppression that comes with growing up trans, but I’m not there yet, so I’m not going to try to speak to that experience. Imogen Binnie did though! And did a damn good job of it—so read her book.
Nevada can be bought online, at the Concordia Co-op Bookstore, or downloaded for free with Imogen Binnie’s consent at haveyoureadnevada.com
