I have a new story out in Abyss & Apex, about trans bodies, trans communities, and responding to the cis gaze: “Five Reasons for the Sign Above Her Door, One of Them Unspoken.”
I can’t talk about this story without talking about what it means to be a trans woman viewed constantly through the eyes of cis people. In many ways I an lucky, in that I am about as close to invisible as a trans woman can be. I don’t mean that I pass, exactly, but that I am white, fat, middle-aged, and not conventionally attractive. I’m also privileged in that my transness isn’t immediately obvious to everyone who sees me.
I am, in short, the kind of person that who goes unseen: a white woman who men don’t desire.
And yet on occasion a tweet of mine will go viral, and with it will inevitably come men sliding into my DMs eager to chat me up. I don’t engage with them, but their presence signals a particular kind of interest. They want me, but they want me because I’m trans, because they imagine they know what my body must be like. This is gross, of course, but early in my transition it was also strangely affirming: straight men wanted to fuck me. What is a more fundamental experience of womanhood than that?
My tastes don’t generally run toward men, for which I am extremely grateful, for how could I ever know if it was me they desired, or if I was only an object to fetishize?
I am invisible. Except when I’m getting death threats. Except when I’m catcalled. Except when I put on my cutest dress and thick eyeliner and am called “sir.” Except in the way I can’t meet strangers’ eyes in restrooms. Except when I am an object of desire or contempt.
Even when I am invisible, the threat of the cis gaze follows me everywhere. Transmisogyny shapes my interactions, even with people who are neither transphobic nor misogynist.
I wrote this story to respond to the voyeurism of the cis gaze, but also to explore the spaces trans folks make for each other, the bits of ground in which we see, support, and protect one another. The spaces where we can hold each other (apart)/(up)/(together).
Such spaces are the other half of my story, spaces where I am neither invisible nor objectified. Spaces where I am seen.
The cis gaze is monstrous, but trans communities are beautiful.