The Trans Imagination and the Real World

Being trans, non-binary, gender, nonconforming, etc. requires a level of imagination that exceeds the boundaries of the collective imagination of society. You’ve been told by doctors, parents, schools, the government, basically everyone that your gender is a set way your whole life. To realize you’re trans is to think outside of the box and see yourself in a more honest way as something other than what you’ve been told. This is simultaneously a very scary, but very exciting prospect. You discover your imagination, you discover how to look within and see yourself and it’s a beautiful process, this process of growth. 

At some point, however, the growth of your imagination is going to run into the boundaries of the imagination of society at large. At some point, you go to use the restroom in a public space and either you don’t feel safe using the one that corresponds with your gender, or there isn’t a gender neutral restroom. The letter next to “gender” on your birth certificate or your drivers license shows you again the limits of society’s imagination. Being asked time and time again “are you a boy or a girl?”. This limited imagination is made real, physical, structural. In this way, it becomes inescapable.

This is a large scale, collective struggle of trans people. We are imaginative. We have taken time to imagine ourselves beyond what others have said is allowable. We have imagined a world for ourselves, where we fit in the way that we want to fit in and then we have to contend with the collective imagination of society that says “No. There are two genders. We decide them based on what you look like when you’re born and you will act in certain ways, you will use certain bathrooms, there will be certain letters on your government issued documents. We will do everything we can to keep you in boxes.” It is hard and it is exhausting to have our imaginations stifled by the physical manifestation of another’s more limited imagination.

This is one reason why it is so important for trans people to find trans spaces to exist in. Because when we create collective spaces together, we’re allowed a moment of reprieve. When we get to exist in the collective imagination of our people who have the boundless imagination that we do it’s very freeing, and it gives us a moment to breathe and collect ourselves, and prepare ourselves to go back into a world that is constantly stifling us. I hope that you find your community. If you’ve not found your community yet, we’re here for you.