Our Language of Choice

I woke up this morning and decided to be a woman.

I really like the idea of earning less money on the job. I like the idea of being passed over for promotions. I like that I will be held more accountable for the care of my home and familial responsibilities than any of the men around me. I’m looking forward to having my expertise ignored. I like that I’ll more likely be treated as a lower-level assistant to male colleagues than an actual colleague. It should be a good experience to live as more of a target for domestic violence and abuse. It will be so freeing to let go of my bodily autonomy and place it in the hands of men who will not understand me.

With so many voices in our society shifting back toward the attitudes of 70 years ago, I am really looking forward to setting aside all trappings of male privilege and power to live as a second class citizen whose voice and opinions are essentially irrelevant.

Just look at all the advantages women have! They get to be concerned about rape every time they walk by a dark alley. They get to be always wary of getting drunk where people might take advantage of them. They get to worry whether or not some perp has doctored their drinks to subdue them. They get to shift from worrying over accidents on the job from equipment, tools, and other physical dangers to threats from men in every aspect of their lives. They get to consider personal safety every time they get dressed, every time they drive by themselves, every time they speak with a man, every time they are approached by one or more men.

I really want to struggle with hormone-driven mood changes beyond my control. I really want to pay extra for products designed for and marketed to women. Those pink taxes are my dream come true! I’d like to be second-guessed for every decision, opinion, and question I enunciate. I’m looking forward to being told that my place is at home with the children, rather than in the important spheres dominated by men. I want to be told that I am too emotional to be taken seriously or trusted with difficult decisions and important matters.

It will be so nice when it is assumed that I will take care of the children in any social gathering, while the men pretty much ignore them. It will be great when I am expected to cook meals and clean up afterwards, whether at home, a party, or an office gathering. Just think of all these benefits I have been missing!

Oh, to be able to go out to eat and be the target of snide comments and obvious glares by other customers! Oh, to be mistreated by wait-staff who are uncomfortable serving me! Oh, to have people question me about using a bathroom! Oh, to go through life with a big target painted on my back! Oh, to be the brunt of jokes and ridicule by people with no understanding of my desire to become a woman!

On top of all that, I will get to be questioned regarding my identity. I will get to be told I am not really a woman, at all. I will so enjoy getting excluded from the men’s club, as well as the ladies’ room, by people who fear me much like they fear the many predatory men in their lives. I will be able to expect being turned down for employment by people who do not understand my choices and decisions. I will get the chance to be denied housing by people who won't sully their lives by renting to me. It will be so wonderful that I might be denied healthcare by professionals who decide they have some religious excuse not to assist me with their medical knowledge. I will have the opportunity to belong to a community with the highest rates of suicide, domestic violence, rape, and murder. I will even be privileged to see the judicial, executive, and legislative systems at federal, state, and local levels second guess my rights in ways they would never apply to men. I will get to have the medical decisions of my physicians blocked not only by insurers’ quests for greater profits, but also by politicians pretending to protect society from the evil influences of my existence.

It’s likely I will get to join thousands of others like me who have been excluded from at least part of their families. I look forward to telling my parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents that the kid they thought was a boy has decided to become a girl, just to confuse them with a new name and insist on new pronouns to make everybody uncomfortable. It will be wonderful not to have a place to go to for Thanksgiving and Christmas while others celebrate with family. I can’t wait to be excluded from most of my friendships, my church, and the rest of my support network. Won’t it be wonderful to have to consider how safe I will be with every person I meet!

Since I have already gone through puberty, I will get to experience it all over again in a wholly new way as my body adjusts to hormone therapy. My parents likely wouldn’t be of much use in helping me navigate the impact of the physical changes I will experience. Mom never took me shopping for a bra. We never talked about hormonal mood wings. We never talked about the physical discomfort of developing breasts. Neither Mom nor girlfriends introduced me to make-up, so I’ll get to discover that on my own or find safe people to teach me what I need to know. I’ll get to spend more of my income on clothing than I would have. I’m looking forward to discovering just how much it will cost to purchase the make-up I’ll use to fit the cultural norm for femininity. In the process, I will also get to enjoy a higher risk for developing breast cancer. Won’t that be wonderful?! I’ve heard that annual mammograms are pure joy!

I think I’ll travel to Uganda for my next vacation, since they passed legislation to make my identification as a transgender woman illegal and worthy of death. I’m sure that will be an unforgettable experience!

Then again, maybe this is not my dream life. Perhaps, if I had a real choice, I would never travel down this road of living at odds with society all around me. Perhaps, only those who talk about my self-understanding as a choice are the ones with a choice to be hurtful and derogatory rather than attempt to understand something beyond their experience.

/Satire/

Do you still think being a transgender woman is something anyone would choose? It definitely won’t make my life easier in any respect. Who would want this? I’m not that masochistic. Are you?

— ©Copyright 2023, Christopher B. Harbin 

http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

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