Q:

Lately, I’ve finally started dressing/acting like myself, and that’s meant dressing more butch and cutting my hair. If you were to ask me my gender, I’d say “lesbian.” I dislike my curves and long for narrow hips and to be taller, but I also like the category of woman, especially “lesbian,” and feel comfortable with its heritage. If I were younger maybe I’d ID as non-binary but feel pretty settled in my she/her “my gender is dyke” life.

The problem is people in my life will not stop asking me if I’m nonbinary or trans. Everyone keeps asking if I have new pronouns. I’ve gone on two different dates where my (trans) date has asked me if I’m sure I’m not actually a trans guy. My friends keep wink-winking me when I say I use she/her. It drives me crazy, but I’m afraid that that “drives me crazy” feeling is transphobia… like, why does this annoy me so much? Is that bigotry? Why am I so resistant to IDing as nonbinary when according to everyone in my life I “obviously am”? I really want to unpack this — I don’t know if I’m allowed to be annoyed or if that annoyance is something ugly that I need to address.

Also…if I basically just want to look like Tig Notaro…what is going on with my gender? Can lesbian be a gender?

A:

Fuck yes lesbian can be a gender and your gender can be dyke— a lot of people feel that way, including me, that something about that term and the shared history and community around it and its opposition to patriarchy feels situated in a real deep truth about not just sexuality, but gender as well. I know many of our readers feel the same way, and you’re definitely not alone in that category!

So that’s one thing — yes, you can feel that way about your gender. Yes, you can be a woman and still be masculine and have short hair. You can aspire to be Tig Notaro, who is handsome and incredibly aspirational. If that’s where you feel settled and comfortable at this point in your life then there’s no need to change yourself or how you identify to please others.

Then there’s the other question: is your reaction indicative of internalized transphobia or transphobia in general? Are you okay to be annoyed or is there something ugly about your reaction to it?

I think there’s a few things going on here. The first is your friends being really rude! Maybe they’re well-meaning, but it’s also, I think, objectively mean for friends or dates to make suggestive or joking comments to you that imply they know you better than you know yourself, or to misgender you. Especially someone you’ve literally just met. Unless you are a politician actively working to pass legislation that harms trans people, the proper moment for them to share their personal opinions about your gender would be the moment you invite them to do so. You say you’re resistant to identifying as nonbinary “when according to everyone in [your] life you ‘obviously are’” but what everyone else thinks you are doesn’t matter. (Cue a montage of people telling femme-presenting lesbians that they absolutely must be straight based on how they present.) 

It sounds like you are feeling especially affirmed and free in the way you’ve chosen to present yourself — that your clothing and haircut finally reflect the way you see yourself, and that’s a major step forward for you. It totally checks out that after making that step towards affirmation and self-assurance, you’d be frustrated by people who are telling you that you’re still denying your true self. You want them to see you, and they’re telling you that you’re actually still hiding.

They’re also playing into annoying tropes that masculinity = nonbinary or man and that masculinity cannot possibly be embraced by someone who identifies as a woman. Masculinity is not a one way road to being non-binary or a trans man, and there are plenty of femme non-binary people and trans men. There is no single way for a trans man or a non-binary person to dress or act or cut their hair or wear makeup or walk or talk or live. It’s also okay to have feelings about your gender or presentation that are similar to feelings had by trans people, and still identify as whatever makes you comfortable. It’s okay to feel gender agnostic and just roll through life as you are. There is no one way to be a woman, and it’s misogynistic for them to insist you can’t possibly be a woman just because you do present in a masculine way. (We get enough of that attitude from straight cishet people.) And if later in your life you do realize that you’re nonbinary or a trans man, that’s okay too! There’s no one way to do any of this. For now, this is who you know that you are, and they should respect that.

Is it possible that your reaction is rooted in internalized transphobia? Sure. Often we react most aggressively to being seen when it’s a way we’re not ready to see ourselves yet. It’s also possible that your reaction is rooted in simple transphobia — that you aren’t trans yourself, but that you have some bias or negative associations in your mind with transness that are worth unpacking. Digging deep to figure that out is a valuable exercise regardless, you know? But honestly… that doesn’t feel to me like what is happening here.

I’ve known so many people who’ve been in your situation, friends and exes, who’ve talked with me about having the same experiences you’re having now — presenting/identifying as a masculine lesbian and dealing with assumptions from queer people and cis allies that they must use they/them pronouns or being challenged by dates and well-meaning colleagues and even medical professionals. And to be honest, many of those people did end up eventually coming out as non-binary or as trans men. Others still identify as women. One just started rolling with whatever people project onto her, pronoun-wise, because she feels “too old to care.”

So anecdotally, there’s absolutely some correlation between “feeling annoyed by being assumed to be trans” and “actually being trans.”

But there’s also a correlation between feeling annoyed by it simply because it’s annoying!

Nobody should be misgendering you, making assumptions about you and refusing to see you for who you are telling them that you are, and you shouldn’t feel badly about saying so when it happens. Shore up that confidence, if you can — as Tig Notaro herself once said, “I feel comfortable with who I am. I know what I am. You can call me a choo-choo train — it doesn’t matter.”


You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.