Ways in which the word “female” relates to me:

• I was female assigned at birth
• I lived in a female role before I transitioned to live as my true gender (a man)
• People thought I was female

My body is not female. My sex is not female. There are parts of my anatomy and my chromosomes that people often assume are correlated with the word “female” and that usually accompany people who would describe their bodies as female, but they are parts of me so they’re male, because I’m male.

While I’m not suggesting it’s appropriate to go around talking about my body, I think that often times the term “female-bodied” is used in an attempt to include me in groups that it might be important to differentiate. So to that degree, I/my body fall in to these categories:

• People with two X chromosomes
• People without a Y chromosome
• People with ovaries and a uterus (for now)
• People who were born without a fully developed penis
• People who do not currently have a fully developed penis
• People who were born without testes
• People who do not currently have testes
• People who were born with vulvas
• People who currently have vulvas
• People who were born with vaginas
• People who currently have vaginas
• People whose chests at one point (or currently) had substantial breast tissue
• People who have flat chests
• People who were assigned the sex female at birth
• Men
• Males
• People who are biologically male (yeah I’m biologically male)
• People who live in a male role
• People with high levels of testosterone
• [And as an additional note, I also fall into groups like “people with eyebrows,” “people with blonde hair,” “people who are between five and sex feet tall” …]

Does this make sense? What are other trans* people’s perspectives on the terms male- and female-bodied? I don’t like the terms as they suggest there are only two kinds of bodies and I think they are misused beyond that. If someone made me choose, without thought I’d say I was male-bodied. I’m male so my body is male. Beyond that, biologically, aspects of my brain, my hormones, and my physique and anatomy are even what the mainstream would label as typically male.

Posted 10 months ago with 44 notes // Comments