Every Type of Person Exists

I descended into the comforting darkness of “The Hole” in Jackhammer sometime last year and was greeted by the familiar sights and smells – sweat, beer, leather, the jolting whiff of poppers. A few dozen half-naked men sat or milled about the bar, and beyond them I could glimpse the more densely packed crowd of mostly-naked men in the cramped hallway and the room full of sex swings that it leads to. I was in my usual uniform – shirtless, leather harness, heavy black pants and boots, handcuffs on my belt. You feel the bass vibrating in your chest as soon as you get down there – ntss ntss ntss ntss — and I put a hand to my heart to feel it, grinning contentedly. Home.

I was fully healed from top surgery at this point. In a pleasant way, being fully healed and having a “male” chest made the experience of being in The Hole more boring, if you can imagine boringness as pleasant. I still looked FTM, for sure, but there was no longer much of a legitimate argument that I didn’t belong in this place. I had already proved myself a million times over – with taped-down triple D’s, no less — so my claim to the space was probably stronger than that of the average natal male in there. So there was no sense of exotic danger or the thrill of a challenge anymore – just the peaceful happiness of being back in your natural habitat.

A youngish guy across the bar is looking at me as I shimmy into a gap between two huge hairy men and grab the bartender’s attention. The bartender says “Tommy, right?” and we make a little leisurely small talk while I collect my drink. I can see in my periphery that the young guy is still looking. I take a guess that he’s curious about my scars, and maybe new to the scene and trying to be polite. Stares, also, are totally normal to me here, and not negative. Like I said, I still definitely look FTM, and this is very much a man’s world.

I like that. Jackhammer has consistently been one of the most welcoming, safest places I have ever experienced. Part of the reason Jackhammer feels incredibly safe to me is that you get to be a guy at Jackhammer. People are very blunt here. People feel free to let their eyes rove over the parts of your body they like, or the parts they’re curious about. They reach out to touch you and trust that you’ll push their hand away if you don’t like it, no offense taken on either side. I get to do those things. I get to breathe as a regular dude. I’m not afraid of accidentally hurting anyone here, and they aren’t afraid of hurting me. Especially before, when I was first learning the ropes of how to be a man at all, this was priceless. There’s no other place where I felt like I could really just let my instincts take over, and my instincts were truly, naturally aligned with the prevailing social rules.

So, once I collected my drink, I made my way over to him and plunked myself down.

“Hey! I’m Tommy. Can I sit by you?”

“Yeah, totally.” He scooches over.

We make small talk for a little bit. He’s in his early twenties, and he’s been here before but is still skittish-seeming. Obviously friendly, though. My goal is to make him feel safe enough to verbalize whatever question/comment was prompting him to stare at me, because I already approve of whatever it is – honest questions are good questions. Feeling free to ask direct questions is one of the great beauties of this space, and I consider it my duty to actively support that culture. I start poking around, asking leading questions about vaguely political topics and giving blunt answers about my own beliefs especially where they are nonstandard, to show him that it’s safe to ask whatever he wants to ask.

“Ok, so, can I ask you a question?”

Finally! “Sure, shoot.”

“What do you think about nonbinary people?”

I chuckle. This is one I haven’t gotten before. “Ummmm, huh. I guess… I support them?”

I think about it for a few more seconds. “I mean, obviously I don’t support EVERY nonbinary person, haha. I guess ‘nonbinary people’ feels like too broad of a topic to just give a general opinion about. There’s lots of complicated stuff you could say about nonbinary people. Is there a specific issue around nonbinary people that you’re thinking of?”

He gets very quiet, then says, “Well, I have… trouble… with the nonbinary ideology.”

I nod. “Mm, yeah. I have my issues with a lot of leftist-type gender ideas.”

He chews on his thoughts for some seconds in silence. Finally he says, “I think the nonbinary ideology is sexist.”

“Oh, interesting. What makes you say that?”

“My sister got really into the nonbinary ideology. Well, she became nonbinary. I guess I should say they became nonbinary. And she’s an adult, you know. I totally support her right to do whatever she wants. But when she explains the reasoning, the reasoning just sounds sexist.”

“What’s the reasoning?”

“It’s like, she doesn’t feel good in dresses and makeup, she feels good in masculine clothes. And I’m like, is this the 1800s? You sound like you’re from the 1800s, saying you can’t be a woman because you like to wear pants. And she says she feels degraded when people see her as a woman. But that seems sexist! It seems like she’s saying ‘being a woman is degrading’.”

He goes on like this for a while, sharing similar details, then says, “So, do you think the nonbinary ideology is sexist?”

“Well” I say slowly, “There’s no one unified nonbinary ideology.”

He nods. “But like, when nonbinary people transition. Do you think they’re doing it for sexist reasons?”

For a moment I think about the incredible amount of sexism I’ve experienced in trans spaces, from nonbinary and traditional trans people alike. But the way in which that relates to this question is mostly tangential, and the question itself is still poorly formed.

“Here’s the thing.” I say. “Every type of person you can imagine exists.”

He looks at me blankly.

“Imagine the most sexist nonbinary person you can. They think of women as silly and emotional, and they think of men as smart and rational. They decide to transition because they’re sexist, and they don’t want to be a silly, emotional woman. So instead, they try to become a nonbinary. That person exists. There’s definitely a person out there who’s like that. And there are ideologies which encourage this person in their ways.

But now imagine the least sexist nonbinary person you can. A super true nonbinary person. This person was born with a really unusual brain, naturally. They instinctively desire a beard, and feel a deep, indescribable sense of ‘rightness’ when they see a beard on their face. But they also enjoy having breasts. They naturally walk, talk, and act like a man, to the point where they often get mistaken for one, because their gait and posture and mannerisms are insuppressibly masculine. But on the other hand, many aspects of this person’s sexuality are found almost exclusively in females. They’re not trying to do any of this – it’s just how they are. They were born with a very unusual cluster of objectively highly sex-correlated traits. ‘Nonbinary’ seems like a good label for this person. And this person also definitely exists! I know lots of people like this. And there are lots of ideologies that speak articulately about the existence of these people!

So, you asked ‘Do they transition for sexist reasons?’

And I think the answer is: Some of them definitely. And some of them definitely no. The world is so big that there will always be a group of people doing the thing you’re worried about. Which doesn’t mean that it’s not a real problem - it just means that you have to avoid pattern-matching onto everyone who looks similar to the people doing the problem. There are people transitioning for the worst reasons, and there are people transitioning for the best reasons. There are people marrying deadbeats, there are people marrying their soulmates, and there are people marrying the Eiffel Tower. Every type of person you can imagine, exists.”

We went into a lot of the details. It was nice. I explained that I think most people who identify as nonbinary do it for pretty good reasons. I explained that I also think the sexist undertones of certain gender ideologies are a real problem which do sometimes push people into transition when it’s not good for them, especially natal females, and that shouldn’t be ignored. As for his “sister”, it’s possible they are transitioning because of sexism, but it’s also possible that there is so much left unsaid in their conversations. Dysphoria or highly sex-correlated preferences can be truly innate and can cause a legitimate, involuntary sensation of being ‘nonbinary’, but they can also be very difficult to talk about. If the relationship isn’t trusting, people may try explaining things on a more superficial level, and as a result sound shallow and sexist. Brains are really complicated, and I think it’s best to err on the side of believing people.

Towards the end of the conversation he thanked me and gave me a friendly kiss, then said, “I hope this isn’t bad to say. But I wanted to ask you these questions as soon as you came in here, because, you know. Because… I could tell.” He gestured to my scars, then quickly added, “I’m sorry if that’s bad to say. You look good!”

I laughed loudly. “Dude. It’s not bad to say that you could tell I was trans. Obviously I look trans!”

He chuckled in relief.

“I do have a question though.” I said. “How did you feel when you saw me come in? Did you feel like I shouldn’t be here? It’s okay if yes. These things are complicated.”

He looked legitimately taken aback. “What? No. Not at all.”

“Oh. You know, because I look sort of nonbinary. I figured that’s why you were asking me these questions.”

Looking startled, he said, “Wait. You’re a man right?”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

“Ok, yeah. That’s what I thought. I could tell you were trans but you’re obviously a dude.”

I was immediately beaming, and with nothing to prove, I didn’t try to hide it. “Dude. That’s SO nice to hear. Thanks.”

Afterwards, I found “Every type of person exists” sometimes coming in handy as a tool for encouraging people to hone down overly general questions.