A few days ago I was talking with an awesome cis-het dude I’m close with (who I am also not out as GenderQueer to). Since we met, he has come a long way in regards to his views on LGBTQIA+ people and concepts. It turns out that his bias wasn’t really inherent bias at all—pretty much nobody had ever simply told him “dude, Queer people are people. Knock it off.” Since then, he, as the cool kiddos say, ‘gets it.’ However, there’s one thing he is still struggling to wrap his head around: transgender.
We were watching one of the X-Men movies when the topic of gender fluidity came up. Inadvertently. Indirectly. Mystique is an X-Men character who can change her appearance—including gender—at will (and also is a super badass anyhow). Cool Cis-Het Guy turns to me and says “how cool would it be if Mystique was your girlfri—I mean your partner, that’s the inclusive term, right?—because she could change her appearance into any girl you wanted.” He meant this, I believe, that partnering with Mystique would mean her agreeing to act out her partner’s (and her own, presumably) sexual fantasies, for whatever reason, which is all well and good, aside from the objectification aspect. In this, I saw an opportunity to explain what it is to be transgender through allegory.
I asked him, “well, why would she agree to ‘turn into another person’ for you? Don’t you think she’d be a bit offended?”
He responded: “if she loved you, y’ know, and you loved her, you both would know she was the same person beneath her appearance. Even when it changes.” Score. “So the change is just physical, it doesn’t change her. Or her person.”
I might as well have been jumping up and down in my seat with excitement at this point. The hypothetical conversation was going exactly where I hoped it would; in hopes for full fruition, I wondered out loud to him “. . . and how would that work if her partner wanted her to change into a person of a different gender, or another gender in general during sex or otherwise?”
His answer was (. . . wait for it. . . wait for it . . now!) “as I said before, she’d be the same person underneath. Even though her appearance has changed. So I guess it wouldn’t be any different if her partner wanted her to change gender.”
“And what if she wanted to change her gender—for nobody but herself?” And here I am, a big grin slowly spreading across my face. The kind of grin you couldn’t hide if you tried. Imaginary ‘you got the right answer’ sounds from The Price Is Right ringing in the background—Ding! Ding! Ding!
“Well,” he says “that’d be the same thing. Wouldn’t it?” Yes! Yes, it would! Cool Cis-Het Guy turns to me, and firsts asks if I’m okay, then asks if I was making fun of him. My only response was “do you see? Do you understand now?” And he did; he didn’t know he did, of course. Later that evening, something clicked: “were you really explaining what transgender means when we were talking about X-Men?” No, I wasn’t; he was. All I did was keep the conversation going in that direction.
Understanding real-life through fictional allegories is something that, despite sounding silly, is actually a really effective tool. It can be easier for somebody to wrap their head around something they don’t understand when it’s not directly connected with societal implications (at first)—say, for example, through a fictional narrative in a book or movie. There’s a big difference between not understanding and not wanting to understand. Sometimes, raw facts can be overwhelming, which means processing them is even more overwhelming; it can sound, or seem, demanding. Finding individual ways to learn, whatever it may be, is important.
I’m certainly not saying tailor delivering of uncomfortable facts to everyone ever. What I am saying is that just like there are multiple intelligences, there are multiple ways of explaining and understanding. Explaining and understanding anything–not just social justice. Different people absorb different things in different ways. It can absolutely be frustrating, it can absolutely take longer than anyone wants it to; but when someone finds a way, that way is valid–whether it be anything from comic books (like in this case) all the way to cosmology–as a conduit.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
