Labia Majora

Current draft of the second chapter of my upcoming memoir.

Violence and harassment aside, being visibly trans in our current society subjects one to a slew of peculiar interactions with strangers. These run the gamut from prolonged stares to flustered confusion and awkward confrontations. Perhaps none, though, is as bizarre as this old classic: being shamelessly asked about one’s genitals—bluntly, and entirely unprompted. And in broad daylight, mind you! Lamentably, I have discovered in my years of being openly trans that strangers will drop wildly invasive questions like this on me with alarming nonchalance. These brazen inquiries tend to occur sometime between learning my name and asking what I do for work. If you aren’t trans, this may seem far-fetched. But trust: it has happened to me more times than I can count.

Such proddings, typically from a new acquaintance in a one-on-one conversation, are always uncomfortable. These occurrences tend to be easy enough to manage, as they carry minor social impact and can be responded to very directly. Other times, the context is more poignantly inopportune.

An example: once, a colleague of mine casually dropped such a question in the middle of a work project. We had met a few days prior and were now in a yurt in Northern California with five or six others, building a masonry stove to keep the space warm for the coming winter season. Organic bass music wobbled through the speakers, bricks were being carefully stacked, and we were all just doing our thing. Out of the blue, the question came: Hey Flower, do you have any plans to chop your dick off?

Okay, okay, that’s not a direct quote. What she actually asked is if I intend on “fully transitioning”. But given the subtext of this loaded term, she might as well have used those words. Her implication of genital surgery was unmistakeable. I was so shocked by this non sequitur that I actually laughed out loud, initially at an utter loss for words. It took a moment to process that she had just unabashedly asked me about my junk in front of all of our work friends. To make abundantly clear that this was not going to become a group discussion, I walked over and crouched down beside her, speaking to her directly. I appreciate your curiosity, I said plainly, but that’s not something I am interested in discussing in this context. Work continued, and to my relief, nothing more was said of it.

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I do trust that in most cases, people do not intend be invasive. Sometimes, when encountering unfamiliar terrain, we simply fumble our way around in the dark until we bump into something. Maybe even you have been this person. Before you realize what you’re actually saying, you have just unwittingly asked a stranger what’s in their pants. Oopsie poopsie!

At other times, folks seem to naïvely think that their expression of curiosity is in fact a noble display of allyship. A swing and a miss, pal. Personally, I cannot think of any context where it is even remotely appropriate to ask a stranger about the medical history of their genitalia. I mean come on, can you imagine if people had the audacity to prod cisgender people with the same gall? Hey Kathy, are you fond of your labia majora? Any plans to have it surgically modified? Like damn, at least take the poor woman out to dinner first!

Questions of such a profoundly personal nature are best reserved for close relationships where trust and intimacy have already been established. Every person, transgender or otherwise, deserves the dignity of privacy about their own body. Thus, I implore you: before asking a trans acquaintance something about their body or medical history, consider how you would feel if they asked you a question about your genitalia. If the very idea of it makes you squirm, that’s the only answer you need.

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Another issue at play with the question of “full transition” lies in the very term itself. Implied in this framing is the positioning of a specific medical intervention—colloquially called “bottom surgery”—as the moment when someone finally becomes “fully trans.” This narrow and confining definition of trans identity is a failure of perception. Such a narrow vision falls short of the expansive domain of gender—including, yet stretching far beyond, the medical system. Since when are surgeons are the arbiters of gender? If you are cis, would you suddenly become trans by undergoing such a procedure? On the contrary—cis and trans alike, our gender identities are our own. The truth of our lived experience is our birthright as human beings. May we never give away that innate power!

“Bottom surgery” is an umbrella term that includes a variety of genital procedures for all trans bodies, such as vaginoplasty, orchiectomy, and phalloplasty. These medical interventions can be life-changing and even life-saving, treating profound dysphoria and aligning the body and the psyche. For anyone with this gendered truth, bottom surgery should be treated as medically-necessary and should fall within the provision of health insurance. Some trans women have had it; others desperately yearn for it, but are obstructed by lack of insurance coverage or personal finances. If I were in charge, every trans girl that wants a vagina could get one. I’d be like Oprah in ‘04 with the Pontiac G6: You get a pussy! You get a pussy! You get a pussy!!

But here’s the thing: for various reasons, many trans folks consciously choose not to get bottom surgery. Yet, they are no less trans—it’s really that simple! Moreover, this does not even scratch the surface of the incredible variety of natural body expressions seen in intersex conditions. Intersex is a term to describe people who are born with sex characteristics (such as chromosomes, hormone production, and anatomy) that don’t fit the overly simplistic and scientifically inaccurate binary of male versus female. Some intersex traits are apparent at birth, while others emerge at puberty or are discovered later in life. Believe it or not, being born intersex is as common as having red hair.

There are plenty of reasons why a trans girl might be content without surgery. I mean, let’s face it: the penis is unquestionably superior as an apparatus for convenient urination. From a purely functional perspective, it’s easy to see why some girls are happy to keep their default hardware. For others, preserving fertility and the ability to conceive are of paramount importance. Perspectives on surgery are innumerable, and our collective imagining of gender ought to make room for all of them.

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The positioning of bottom surgery as the final conclusion of gender transition is also predicated on a misguided assumption. In such a framing, transness is defined by the presence of bottom dysphoria: distress about one’s pelvic area or how these parts are perceived by self or other. While I do think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who has made it through transition without a lick of gender dysphoria in some form, it is not the dysphoria that makes someone trans. Dysphoria is but one facet on the radiant jewel that is the transgender experience.

This conflation of transness with dysphoria is revealed in the common trope that to be trans is to be “born in the wrong body.” Girls like me are sometimes called “a woman trapped in a man’s body.” While I respect that some transgender people resonate with this framing, universalizing it is inaccurate and confining. No matter what one person asserts about their own gender, (including me), always remember this: there is no universal trans experience.

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As for me, I was not born in the wrong body. I was born in a trans body. And I adore my trans body. The changes that I make to align it with my sense of self are not to fix something that is broken; they are part of the ongoing miraculous act of creation. They are manifestations of love for myself. The patchwork quilt of my gender experience surely carries the mark of dysphoria, but it also brims with soul-stirring euphoria, bursting at the seams. I have claimed agency over my physical form in myriad ways, from adornment and aesthetic to hormone therapy and medical intervention. I’ve said yes to some procedures, and no to others. Notwithstanding my admonition above to carefully reflect before prying, you may by this point be hoping that I will divulge more about my own relationship with my body—which surgeries I have had, which I haven’t, and why. Hold your horses, partner—we’ll get there. I’ve got plenty more to share on these matters, but whadd’ya say you get to know me a bit more first?