No One Is Ever Going to Keep Me Down Again
From "I Am Woman" to "WAP"
Some Womanly Thoughts On Misogyny, Menstruation, and The Gaze of Males
February 2022
Editor'southward Note: This is the 8th installment of "The Transchick Chronicles," an on-going series of essays written by newly-out transgender journalist Stephanie Haskins, as she chronicles her transition. Parts one and ii can be foundhere. Parts three and four can be foundhere. Clickhere for part five,here for part vi, andhere for office 7.
Office EIGHT
Past STEPHANIE HASKINS
I am woman, hear me roar,
In numbers too large to ignore
And I know too much to become back and pretend
'Cause I've heard it all earlier
And I've been downwards there on the floor
No 1's ever gonna keep me down once more…
L years ago, the belatedly Australian singer Helen Reddy recorded the song "I Am Woman" and it became an absolutely gigantic, worldwide hit. Information technology was immediately adopted by feminists everywhere and sold more than a million copies, which is a very big deal, and an even bigger deal back and so.
The song was all over Height 40 radio, television multifariousness shows—everywhere. It was covered past all kinds of other female entertainers and, as you might imagine, avoided by dudes like Frank Sinatra who thought women's lib was all bullshit.
The song has stuck with me because somehow, through all of my affected, chauvinistic, pretendhoped-for-an actual male life over the years, information technology really spoke to me.
But how, you lot might inquire. Why?
I didn't secretly want to be a woman back then. Really, I didn't. I confusedly thought I was a deeply-repressed gay something or other. I simply knew the words of this song somehow told a story I could chronicle to. And understood.
Again, I hadn't lived the life of a female, but in many small ways I'd repeatedly watched women be marginalized, degraded, discriminated confronting, dismissed, passed over, left behind.
I watched information technology happen to my own female parent, who was smart and ambitious merely never much cared about didactics and had a breakable personality. She was unable to crack the glass ceilings at diverse financial institutions where she worked over the years. She knew how to practise the various jobs she held, but was never considered for more than responsible positions. Meanwhile, I couldn't have been less aware or aware; Information technology was just the manner it was. Afterwards all, the Frank Sinatras of the world were in charge. They ran stuff—seemingly everything, in fact.
"My Way," Frank trilled. His fashion or the highway. No women allowed for "man stuff." Yeah, that'southward just the fashion it was. For a very long time.
Just things accept changed, we're told. A lot, a lot, a lot, we're assured.
Still, I wonder. Only how much?
And how much will all of this affect me? Every bit a transchick.
In fact, since I've begun presenting as a woman, I've noticed little, tiny, anti-feminist, passive aggressions aimed at me. Specially by men in professions where few women have nonetheless to find their place.
An instance: A few months ago, I made a bad plough into my parking space at the condo complex where I live, and scraped my right front bumper on one of the wood supports. No major scratches, no broken pigment. Just a role of the front bumper assembly had been pushed in about an inch or so. And as a result, I couldn't shut my hood all the mode, considering it'd go slightly misaligned by the impact of the accident.
So, I took my vehicle to the nearby Lincoln dealer to accept one of the body store guys wait it over, and get an estimate for a repair. Couple hundred bucks, I figured. I pulled into the parking lot, parked, and walked into the dingy role.
And there he was: California Bubba. Greasy faced, oily pilus, unshaven, stained baseball cap. He stared at me. I said I wanted someone to look at my SUV and give me an estimate for some piece of work. He rolled his eyes, and with a swell sigh, got up from behind his dilapidated erstwhile desk-bound and walked by me out the door. Not a word.
When he saw the minor damage, he asked me how information technology had happened. I told him, embarrassed, because I sensed he was stereotyping me every bit a careless, unskilled,adult female commuter. He grunted, groaned, and looked spectacularly annoyed equally he tried to push the separated, misaligned pieces of sheet metallic back together.
"You lot musta actually smacked that post," he said.
"Um, no, not really. I thought I only grazed information technology," I replied. "So how much to put it back together? I don't think information technology needs whatsoever paint."
"We're looking at $1,500 to $2,000," he said.
I was stunned. "Why? At that place's no existent damage," I said.
That seemed to annoy California Bubba. "You don't know that," he told me. "Nosotros're gonna accept to disassemble the whole damn quarter console, and nosotros're probably gonna have to replace the whole front bumper.
"Ma'am," he continued, near hissing, "if I do the work, information technology gets done right."
"I'll have a pass," I said.
I left.
The motherfucker had lied through his ochre-colored teeth to my face. Considering, I believe, he sensed that the person before him knew zipabout body piece of work. To him, I was just another woman, a stupid woman.
A couple of weeks later on, a mobile dent repair guy I found on Yelp came to my condo, spent about half an hour, manipulated the two pieces of sheet metal back together, replaced a couple of small clips, and whaddya know: Fixed.
The cost? $150—which i had to force him to have. "Aw, I didn't practice much. I don't what to charge," he said.
His name was Rob. He had an infectious, good natured sense of self about him—and my God, he was interested incustomer service. MY customer service! Plus, he didn't seem to take whatever preconceived ideas about my intelligence or ability to understand his oh-so-complicated automobile-lingo.
Rob, I believe, will never be a California Bubba. He was a sweet male human who saw me as a person, not a 43C rack on legs, and restored my faith—a bit—in people with XY chromosomes (a.k.a. men).
Still, it was Bubba who stayed in my mind. A misogynistic, chauvinistic paternalistic asshole. The Bubbas of the world have fabricated me increasingly phobic about spending whatever time at all around aging, ambulatory eggplants.
Oh yes, I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I take to, I can do anything
I am strong
I am invincible
I am woman
Former in the next three or four or six months I'm going to undergo what'southward quaintly known in my transgender universe equally "bottom" surgery.
That ways that my highly skilled San Francisco surgeon will "re-purpose" my sad-piffling-pretty-much-useless penis into a vagina. Recollect about that for a moment.
It'due south bloody miraculous!
I take NO fears whatsoever about this wondrous surgical intervention because it means that, at concluding, I'll accept done as much as I can to physically transform myself into what I promise the rest of the world will perceive me to exist: A adult female.
Yes, yeah, aye, yeah
Yeah, you fucking with some wet ass pussy
Bring a bucket and a mop for this moisture ass pussy
Give me everything you got for this wet ass pussy
Yeah! Simply, no, those are definitely Non lyrics from "I Am Woman." For the uninitiated, they're from a far more, uh,contemporary striking titled "WAP" by the rapper Cardi B. WAP stands for an aforementioned "wet donkey pussy." It'south a totally feminist fuck-you vocal—a melody to which ane can wildly dance if i so chooses.(I exercise!)
In my humble opinion, Cardi B speaks the wet donkey truth. I love this tune, and it's go my newest go-to anthem when I start to have doubts about myself and my journey.
Of course, I'll never have a naturally moisture-ass pussy, because my neo-vagina won't be cocky-lubricating, But I'll finally accept a pussy however.
A dry-ass pussy.
(So, side note, if anyone wants to come up and romp in my new surgically improved playground, a lot of store-bought lube will be totally necessary. All flavors and scents welcome.)
But hither's what'southward important: At long last, my physical beingness volition finally match my now incredibly stiff sense of femaleness—and hopefully it will no longer reverberate my e'er-diminishing-guilt for never been a genuine, real, intuitive male person.
I was a phony. A fake. A counterfeit, pretend, masking AMAB (assigned male at birth) who never had any fucking idea what he was doing every bit a presumptive penis-person.
With that said, my penis is going away for good. Its brusk term charter is getting shorter past the mean solar day. Pretty much like my actual penis nowadays. The estrogen and the androgen blocker I have have shrunk it, and my testicles, and fabricated them basically useless as a sexual organ. My dick is now employed merely for conveying urine from my bladder to a toilet. So, at long last, the goddamn thing will be gone old shortly.
As a side notation, nonetheless—a confession, actually—I'm terrified nearly the get-go time I'll have to pee without having my penis act as a piping from my within to the outside. A young trans woman who recently completed her gender confirmation surgery told me that when she now has to pee, her urine doesn't emerge as something resembling a stream; it sort of gushes out everywhere, although she's gaining more control.
That is non good news for me or my OCD, which demands perfection in all things—especially when it comes to (cartel I say NASTY) trunk functions like peeing or pooping.
I practice NOT desire my pee going everywhere. I desire it to come out neatly and cleanly. No unwanted splashing, please.
Of course, at the same time, I want my penis-funnel gone even more than.
I will learn to live with splashing.
Another females-only bodily part that has recently shown upwards, quite unexpectedly, involves my own personal iteration of a menstrual period. No, I don't discharge whatever period, but for the by six months or so, I now experience many of the same symptoms women experience every calendar month. For me, they show up between the 15th and 20th; I feel tired, crampy, bloated, and oh-my-god, I have BAD intestinal issues.
I mean BAAAAAAADDD.
I know, I know. This sounds like full bullshit. But kids, I clinch y'all it's not. I didn't believe that It was existent until it happened. To me. Ane of the virtually cynical, no-bullshit persons on the planet. And it wasn't until the 3rd or quaternary time these symptoms occurred that I accepted the possibility of having my own version of "the curse."
I feel fucking awful for a few days every month.
I take to acknowledge that when I first read near trans women possibly experiencing menstruation-similar symptoms, I thought it was just the craziest thing I'd ever heard. Couldn't be true. Trans women don't have ovaries, and no bank of ovum—and so the shedding procedure that comprises the pathology of menstruation can't happen.
Nope. NO. And withal some other no.
Well, the discharge can't happen. But since we trans gals flood our systems with estrogen for months and years, some researchers now believe our bodies' endocrine systems are sometimes stimulated by female hormones to the betoken where our brains kickoff to anticipate either a pregnancy or the sloughing off of an unfertilized ovum.
Of course, neither reproductive scenarios are reality. We don't have human eggs waiting to be fertilized, nor tin can we shed them each month. Nosotros only tin't. Ever.
Only too late: Some of our bodies have apparently come to anticipate one or the other, and since pregnancy isn't possible, we get to FEEL like we're expelling an unfertilized ovum, fifty-fifty though we're non really doing so.
I offset read about trans women experiencing faux periods about five years ago, when I came across an article on a now defunct website called "The Establishment." It was written by Sam Riedel, a trans adult female who had heard near the miracle from some of her trans friends, and was fascinated by the possibility.
Finding almost nil about transgender female periods in existing medical literature, Riedel conducted her own modestly-sized survey among other trans women and discovered, much to her surprise, that a relatively significant number of transitioning women reported having to deal with symptoms that presented as those of a dry flow.
Riedel's article had a huge bear on on me.
For one affair, I knew then that I might be inbound a very mysterious land of femininity and that emerging sensibility made me shiver with…what? Anticipation? Anxiety? Dread?
Yes!
Since Riedel's article was published, I wanted to see how much additional literature on transgender menstrual periods has been posted or published. When I Googled the subject, I found quite a chip more than—although Riedel's article still seems to notwithstanding be the seminal piece. Still, fifty-fifty theWall Street Journal has weighed in with an article.
The miracle seems to be well accepted at this bespeak by many gender clinicians, but information technology hasn't inspired a whole lot of intensive, additional research. I DO know that in my own trans support groups, no one seems to be surprised if a member discloses that she is experiencing pre-menstrual-type symptoms.
One article, written by Veronica Zambon forMedical News Today, also notes that while this surface area of trans health has non been extensively studied, the International Association for Premenstrual Disorders (IAPD) agrees that the hormone loads almost transgender women carry in their bodies may crusade symptoms similar to those of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).
Again, those symptoms might include sore breasts, rapid mood shifts, and irritability. For me personally? Check, check, and check. Not to mention the other symptoms as well: headaches, intestinal problems (and how!), cramps, and a sense of almost total burnout.
Only WHY? Over again, hormones—high levels that tin can fluctuate up and down. I utilise estrogen patches, two at a time, that I change every three days. I affix them pretty much everywhere on my pelvic surface area—buttocks, abdomen, groin, hips—simply not in the same surface area twice in a row.
I used to accept tablets—merely my endocrinologist suggested patches instead when my hormone levels started to drastically seesaw. I do like the patches. Sounds silly, but they make me feel more than feminine.
I personally think menstruation is an absolute gift to persons who were assigned females at nascence. It's a wondrous process whereby women tin slough off unfertilized eggs and get a fresh beginning every month. A brand new chance to become pregnant. Which I also remember is wondrous.
Of grade, I do sympathise that most females have decidedly mixed feelings about the procedure. I was married twice and accept a daughter. I've been around menstruation about of my life.
Then, mixed feelings, yeah. The monthly pain and discomfort, the mess, the inconvenience. But it's also emblematic of the exclusive feminine prerogative of pregnancy. Bearing children. Little versions of ourselves. Perhaps the most sacred of all things man: reproduction.
And maybe I'd be even less enthused about my faux-periods if I had to use tampons, and pads, and worry nigh leaks, and stains, and some REAL menstrual pain. Calendar month after month, year later year, decade afterward decade.
Next topic.
Let's call it "The Gaze of Males."
Yes, I see them watching me. Some guys have started noticing this transchick. And a few of them, I believe, want to fuck me. In a vagina I don't yet have. Or, in lieu of that, they want to stick their dicks in other orifices already well-established for alternate pleasuring. Shake your heads if you must, just this is absolutely true. And I've done Goose egg to encourage this. I swear!
Ok, no, not true, exactly. Later on I got my breasts a year ago, I decided that I didn't want to wear bras. Ever. Oh certain, sports bras when I accept the need, but other than that, nope. And then, when I pack my breasts under tee shirts, or blouses, or dresses, they're unencumbered, and my nipples are very obvious, and very visible. And I don't freaking care. Not one goddamned flake.
Ya wanna look, boys? Be my guest. Enjoy. Let your imaginations run wild. I've started to learn how some women wield their power by inviting not-and then-clandestine inspection.
And aye, I realize my exhibitionist prerogative erases a bit of my radical feminist street cred, but we all have our niggling guilty pleasures.
And and then in that location's social media, which is still something of a mystery to me. I admit to being a bit careless—and possibly naïve—when someone I don't know wants to connect with me online and, with trivial hesitation, I respond with an "Okeeeeeedokeeee! You CAN be my friend!" And mayhap I shouldn't be surprised when some random dude, usually from a far-off land where English isn't the starting time language, assesses my photos, and starts upward a texting conversation that commonly goes something like this:
Them: "Hi."
Me: "How-do-you-do back."
Them: "What are you doing?"
Me. "Responding to you."
Them: "Ok."
Me: (No response.)
Them: "You are then beautiful."
Me (Surprised): "Thanks."
Them: "Are you taken?"
Me: "No."
Them: "I honey you so much. Y'all're going to be my married woman."
Me: "Um, well, we'll see," (Then I give them the talk about being transgender. That I still have a penis. That I'm still pre-op, that I do NOT take a vagina, that that I'm even so legally married to my wife.)
Them: "When will you get a vagina?"
Me: "Soon."
Them: "Send me a moving picture of yourself without any wearing apparel on."
Me: "No, I don't practice that."
Them: (They send me unsolicited pictures of their cock dicks. Some of which, I must acknowledge, are quite beautiful.)
Okay. So I don't totally hate ALL dicks. Depends. Mayhap information technology'southward more who's attached to them.
I even so don't want to keep mine, though.
Regardless, I'grand non sure I Ever want a penis inside of my new vagina. Every bit my gender has changed, and then now has my sexual orientation, it seems. Now, I believe I identify most every bit a lesbian.
And I absolutely don't desire cisgender, straight men (Bubbas) hanging around me. At all. They can take their dicks and shove them.
Someplace else.
Still, I've got to better sympathize and larn to alive withThe Gaze of Men. Wanted or unwanted. Correct now, I really don't know how I feel. Flattered? Yes, I guess so. No one—and I mean NO one—has always called me cute up until now. Ever! Very few have lusted subsequently me (that I know of).
And then, I gauge I rather like being a sex activity object. Whodathunkit?
I mean, I practice have a rather attractive body of a woman of a certain age. Measurements: 43-28-38. Not exactly hourglass shaped merely, hey, non bad.
I've even been wolf-whistled, when I was out running a couple of times recently. I was surprised at first, and so I felt very vulnerable. Ii or three youngish, unappealing, and rather unkempt young men started driving slowly alongside me and screaming nasty shit.
And maybe, for the offset fourth dimension e'er in my life, I actually felt a sense of violation. I understood how women take felt when they're emotionally assaulted by assholes who call up they have the right to verbally fondle and/or perchance even emotionally rape women who they perceive to somehow be their property.
I go it, sisters.
Perhaps besides tardily, I acknowledge. But I finally,actually get it.
And I can't tell you all how truly sorry I am for all of the disgusting shit you have to put up with.
I'm also now somewhat sad for me. Considering no woman—cisgender, transgender, straight, lesbian, questioning, etc.—should ever have to motility through our civilisation always being a niggling scrap afraid, about all the time.
It'south condign very obvious to me that my new life as a female person—equally a woman—is going to be an ever wondrous, often fabulous, sometimes scary, and occasionally confusing trip through a cultural landscape that is still oft times openly hostile and fearsome to us.
I'll end upwardly, I think, as a sort of mashup of the women celebrated in the lyrics of "WAP" and "I Am Woman." Funny how the by and the present tin can come together—if we try hard plenty.
Now from the tiptop, brand it drop, that's some wet ass pussy
You can bend but never intermission me
'Crusade information technology only serves to make me
More determined to attain my final goal
Now get a bucket and a mop, that'south some wet ass pussy
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
'Cause you've deepened the confidence in my soul
I'1000 talking WAP, WAP, WAP, that'south some wet ass pussy
I am strong
I am invincible
Give me everything you got for this wet ass pussy
I am adult female
Stephanie Haskins is hard at work on the next capacity of "The Transchick Chronicles," and we'll bring them to you when they're set up. Sign up for our e-newsletter here to exist alerted when they're published. Stephanie can be reached at
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