Hey, Colonizer

Hey, Colonizer is the catch phrase of a Native American Tik-Tocker one of my kids told me about. Seems to fit.

The hits just keep coming, don’t they? Just a day after posting what I thought would by TransPost of the Week, up pops this Vanity Fair essay by Lucy – formerly Luc – Sante. About how at 67, he’s finally hatched and is now a gal.

F*** right off, Lucy.

You all aren’t used to such language from me, I know. Even with astericks. But if you were an adult in my presence, you wouldn’t be shocked, so we’ll leave that at that for the moment. You obviously understand by now that this issue is one that drives me to point of profanity like none other. So let’s move on.

It’s a little difficult to tell exactly what this all about. I’ll refrain from making judgments about motives and causes and such. Because who the hell knows. But I will say.

Lucy: You’re not a woman.

As an almost-70-year old-dude, if you want to start wearing your hair lady-style, wearing dresses and being called “Lucy,” I actually don’t care. But don’t you dare call yourself a woman.

I’m a woman.

I’m a 61-year old woman.

Don’t you dare try to colonize my experience.

And I haven’t even had a very rough life, at all. I wasn’t a girl child who underwent a clitoridectomy. I wasn’t a young girl forced into an arranged marriage with a man thirty years my senior. I can vote. I can hold property.

But nonetheless. Colonizer.

You. are. a. man.

When I was in single digits I used to imagine being transformed into a girl overnight. Some nights I would yearn for it; on the others I shook with fear at the prospect. It was too desirable but too unobtainable. I could never really be a woman, so I had to resign myself and keep the thoughts from overwhelming me. Not until the internet came along, bringing with it a range of transgender sites, did I know much of anything about hormones.

Related: Almost 60-year old British comic/actor Eddie Izzard last year declaring himself non-binary and determining that at times, sure he can live in “girl mode.”

In the past, she has identified as a trans person and has been a leader when it comes to LGTBQ+ advocacy. “I’m gender fluid,” she said. “I just want to be based in girl mode from now on.”

I am just trying to imagine my five kids’ reactions if their 61-year old mother gathered them and announced that I want to be based in girl mode from now on.

And I’m a female, in case you forgot.

Point being: Trying to work out those childhood and adolescent issues in a public space in very late middle age is not a good look, no matter what your sex.

Anyway.

When you read Sante’s piece, you see complexities and issues and yearnings, yes. And perhaps for him, these issues would be addressed by presenting as a female. Who knows, but who cares, really. Claim your identity as a man who has issues with maleness and likes presenting in a stereotypically western female aspect. Fine. But maybe stop colonizing women’s lives to figure out your own problems.

I can think of aspects of my life that are vaguely dissatisfying, but in no way does the path to fixing it begin with deciding that I’m male or Italian or a 14th century Breton or 34 years old again.

And if I can’t be any of those things, no …you can’t be a woman.

I wrote about this here. About Girl World. Let’s keep going.

I’m all for personal freedom, but I’m going to say that here’s what you don’t get to do.

You don’t get to live a lifetime as a male with all the privileges that go with that, and then pop on a wig, toss on some Eileen Fisher, tilt your head, and claim that you are my sister.

Because you missed a lot, dude. You missed those years of bleeding, pain and discomfort. You missed those budding breasts, so weird, and then those drooping breasts, kind of weird, but really not anything you think much about, much less discuss on the internet. You missed years of unwelcome visibility and then sudden invisibility.

You missed the experience of being twelve years old, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, walking with your head down, minding your own business, and still being catcalled. The experience of not being able to sit in a coffee shop alone without males being convinced that you’re aching for their company. The experience of workplace discrimination and exclusion. The pressures of sexualized expectations and then, of course, judgment for not living up to sexualized expectations.

Of nurturing a person inside your body, birthing that person, nursing that person, being connected to that person in a way that no other human being every will be.

Of being a woman who has never been pregnant and birthed, who isn’t a mother. Which might be an experience of loss for some, but not for others, but no matter which it is, it is an experience of being in and living in a female body, which is not male, and cannot and should not be appropriated, and is not about dresses and hair and makeup, but about just…female.

I have long said this:

You could get a crew of the most diverse females you could imagine in a room: an 8-year old girl, a 90-year old woman, a middle-aged mother of 3 kids, a middle-aged woman of no kids, a butch lesbian, a teen-aged female gymnast, a goth girl, a bohemian chick, a female firefighter, a female fashion model. a burqa-wearer, a stripper, a nun – and then throw in Lucy Sante or poor Jazz Jennings, and somehow, you know it – you would know.

What does it mean?

I don’t know. It’s not about maternity or “femininity” – whatever the latter means. It’s simply about the mystery of being an embodied adult human female – a woman. With all the pain and joy involved in that, with all the lifetime of who we are.

And what does it mean for you to want to be this? What are you trying to find? What is to be gained by pretending you don’t have a penis?

No matter what, be assured of this: womanhood is not performative. It’s not an act. It’s not appearance. It’s not even a feeling. And it’s especially not a feeling of being disassociated from your own body.

That’s your problem, not ours.

Womanhood is not a tilted head, pursed lips and a mincing walk.

Womanhood is watching, waiting, listening, and when it’s time – striding purposefully, racing towards what lies ahead, unfiltered, watchful, alert, and strong.

Reminder: This is not primarily about a privileged white male getting to switch his identity and garner praise and profit for it. This is about the question of why Sante gets to be Lucy now, why his desires oblige the rest of us to co-operate and most importantly: if Sante can declare and switch, why can’t a male prisoner or a male hospital patient do the same, thereby gaining access to vulnerable women?

Where is that line, exactly?

And does anyone care?