Trans Justice & My Body

Oppression is embedded into our bodies, not just our minds or institutions. We live in an age where we’ve become increasingly reliant on blogs like this to drive social change. It’s spaces like CSTI, though, that give us our best opportunity to change the way bias writes itself into our neuro-pathways.

I’ll use myself as an example.

I’m sweating in a global warming hot classroom at CSTI, learning about transgender justice. Our first practice with each other is a check-in: say your name, your organization, and which pronouns you prefer to use. He. She. Ze. Or no pronouns—just your name.

By accident of fate, the gender I was assigned at birth—male—happens to (mostly) coincide with my sense of my own gender. I am a non-transgender (another term for which is ‘cisgender’) man, although the way I express and see myself isn’t necessarily manly.

Even today, talking about what gendered pronouns we use (or don’t use) isn’t typical for me. Like many of you, I’ve been trained to take someone’s gender in with a glance, and dutifully choose ‘he’ or ‘she’ based on the information. Sometimes I’ve gotten it wrong, and felt the familiar queasiness in my body as I’m overcome with embarrassment. “Sorry ma’am. Sorry sir.”

As my ears are straining to hear everyone share their pronoun over the hum of heatwave fans, my brain is working overtime to get the pronouns right. I don’t want to disrespect my peers, and I don't enjoy the physical feeling of embarrassment when I get someone’s pronoun or name wrong.

In my effort to be a Class A ally, I’m fighting against deep-seated neural pathways. Most of us start making gender assumptions and choosing gendered pronouns when we’re still in diapers. Our brains developed alongside cultural attitudes towards gender that range from very to VERY rigid.

The result is economic and physical violence for those whose gender identities don’t conform to expectation—especially transgender people, but also young men whose fathers try to beat manhood into them.

I’m no stranger to this work—I’ve been engaged with transgender justice advocates, as an ally and friend, for several years. But just as I continue to learn about the way that racism is inscribed in my white body, I am still working out the ways gender oppression resides in me.


It’s break time, and all of the water I’m drinking to hydrate myself is catching up with me. I step out to the gender-inclusive restrooms—a powerful part of CSTI’s commitment to be inclusive of transgender people. I prod myself to go into what’s usually a women’s restroom.

I feel a whiff of the anxiety that I imagine transgender people must feel going into gendered restrooms. If there’s a non-transgender woman in here, will she feel threatened by me? I remember the feeling I had when I once unwittingly used a women’s restroom, and only belatedly saw that there were no urinals.

How did it come to seem to earth-shattering that I might be caught in the wrong bathroom? This is another case of societal conditioning—social taboos—written into my body, making me slightly weak in the knees. Coaxing myself into the gender inclusive restroom, I am actively rewiring my circuitry.


During our lunch break, I sit talking with some transgender and intersex colleagues. We discuss barriers that transgender leaders face in progressive movements. In my role as a program manager at Rockwood Leadership Institute, I feel a deep commitment to support transgender leaders’ advancement within social change movements.

As we talk, I’m mindful of how my physical comfort level with transgender peers has shifted over the years. When I first began working with transgender activists, I felt a great deal of awkwardness in my body. I felt a little dizzy when deprived of the normal gendered cues that usually rule the way we touch or don’t touch each other.

Like most of us, when I meet someone for the first time my mind and body instantly consider how I relate to them physically. What sort of physical contact is appropriate? Are we sexually compatible? If yes, what boundaries do I need to observe with them?

For me—also like many of us—this process is highly gendered. Sometimes it feels suffocating. Gender is high stakes!

Getting gender wrong can lead to harsh outcomes for all of us, but especially for transgender people, who are often made to pay for others’ gender confusion with their jobs, their health or their lives.

On the other hand, engaging with transgender advocates has been liberating for me as an ally. It’s allowing me to work through my body’s panic about gender, and bring myself more authentically to my relationships with people of all genders.


What does this kind of gender liberation mean for other social change work? Oppression works itself out in my body, especially in my nervous system and the almost automatic muscular responses that learned before I even had words.

Shared spaces like CSTI aren’t just spaces where I can sharpen my social justice analysis. They’re also opportunities to rewire our minds and bodies in each others’ presence. It keeps my commitment to justice from becoming an abstraction, and fuses it in the way my body is present with yours.

I can’t wait to practice with you next year!

More information about terminology used in this article >>

A guide for promoting gender-inclusive facilities >>

A guide for building transgender-inclusive organizations >>