This Barbie is a Trans Twitter Legend

Millie Bobby Brown: please discover trans rights next

Oct 17, 2023

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There are about fifteen different ways I tried to start today’s piece across my phone notes, Google Docs, and text messages, none containing exactly what I want to say. You’d all likely be surprised to hear how hard it can be for me—me—to write words waxing on about my opinions. But it is and it has been for the past week as I’ve watched the news break and seemingly everyone I’ve ever met take to social media to share their thoughts. Writing concisely in a crisis is not easy for everyone, or at least it’s not for me.

It’s not that I don’t know what I want to say or that I’m worried about saying the wrong thing—I have had countless hours-long conversations over the last nine days that beg otherwise. My problem is that right now, I do not know how to use this platform to speak on what is unfolding in the war between Israel and Hamas in a way I feel will do anyone any good.

Before you argue, “Isn’t that what you claim Emily For President is? A place to deep dive into history and have hard conversations in a way that’s approachable and accessible?”1, let me say this: there are so many people talking about what is going on who deserve to be listened to infinitely more than I do.

Maybe it’s a privilege to abstain from sharing all of my thoughts online, but I view it as the right thing to do right now. You do not need the E4P stamp of approval to feel how you are feeling about the horrors we are witnessing. You do not need my opinions to form and carry and exist within your own.

Perhaps, eventually, I’ll figure out a way to use this space in a conducive way rather than just as my own echo chamber. In the meantime, I’d love to continue to do what I do best: talk shit and make moderately funny jokes about elected Republican officials (although with George Santos, honey…the jokes write themselves).

Pivoting slightly, today I get to bring you a conversation I’ve been looking forward to having for a while now. I had the great good fortune of talking to an E4P panel champ Alex Hinnant one-on-one about his transness, the key lessons he’s learned so far throughout his life, and some shining moments of optimism

Alex is a diamond certified fan of your favorite thing. He’s a writer and he’s incredibly good at it. He works in social media which means he probably doesn’t shut up but you kinda like it. You probably follow him on Twitter.

Transitioning 101

As always, I had to start with my most serious, pressing, hard-hitting investigative question:

Emily: Men???
Alex: Losers.

Glad we got that settled.

Before we kick things off, let’s talk facts, figures, and terminology. Unfortunately for noted Emily For President superfan Elon Musk, the term “cisgender” is, in fact, not a slur and will be regularly used in this piece. Trans and nonbinary individuals are often grouped into the same one-breath term, as the trans-and-non-binary-community. That’s because the term trans or transgender is broad enough to apply to “someone whose gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth.” Nonbinary is more specifically “a term that can be used by people who do not describe themselves or their genders as fitting into the categories of man or woman.” In this piece, I favored using just the term trans.2

I also want to highlight how big the trans community is because I think it’s a really surprising stat given the outsized attention they’ve received from discriminatory lawmakers over the past year: the most up-to-date number I could find comes from the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute which published a report last June that found there are “1.6 million people ages 13+ who identify as transgender in the US.”

Since you were wondering, that comes out to a massive 0.48207291352817% of the entire US population. Kind of puts things in perspective a bit, huh?

Now that we’ve addressed that, I wanted to formally kick off this section by asking Alex:

Emily: Can you give the SparkNotes version of your transition journey over the past two years?
Alex: I started my transition about two years ago in New York City. It was the only place I felt truly comfortable to be completely and authentically myself. It had been a truly long time coming and it was beautiful to finally recognize and be true to my authentic self. The first milestone I crossed was opening up to my closest friend and from there everything fell into place, but not without hardship.
In the beginning of transitioning, anyone will tell you that the first year is both humiliating and invigorating. Your body completely changes and you’re faced with new things to be insecure about. It goes from desperately wanting to be on HRT [hormone replacement therapy] to beginning to compare your body to other people who already exist and perform their gender in a way that you desire as well.
Most of all this has been a journey of true acceptance of myself, my body, and who I am and the realization that that can coexist with who I once was. As trans I don’t have to be or do anything. Existing as I am is enough.
Emily: Does your transness feel differently now than it did when you were younger and when you began to transition? If so, what are some changes that have caused that?
Alex: My transness feels different now solely because I feel I’m finally identifying as my true self—I’m not so focused on becoming my true self as much as I am bettering who I already am. Instead of fantasizing what it would be like to be who I feel I am today, I get to live that everyday and It’s incredibly exciting, and validating.
That’s not to say that transitioning is everything though. I believe that everyone can find peace in their transness regardless of bodily changes.

From an outside (read: cisgender) perspective, transitioning might seem like a straightforward process: you do not feel like the gender you were assigned at birth as per your sexual organs, so you take some hormones and now magically live your life as the opposite gender. Even writing that felt pejorative but I hope it made abundantly clear the fact that transitioning is often a complex and involved process.

There are three very broad types of transitions: social, legal, and physical. A social transition is one in which a trans individual lets the people around them and the world at large know they’re trans. The Society for Research on Adolescence explains that “simple changes like changing a child's name, pronouns, hair, and clothing might be the first steps” of a social transition.

Legal transitions are a little more challenging and pertain to making sure legal documents like licenses, certificates, and all other forms of identification reflect an individual’s preferred gender. Speaking, as I am wont to do, on behalf of cis people, I definitely had never thought about how many things require us to state our gender identity. As someone who gets overwhelmed remarkably easily—le gasp!!—I can’t imagine how hard the process of updating all of these forms would be for me, much less how agonizing being constantly faced with requests to select my gender could quickly become.

Physical transitions are the ones that come to mind the most if you’re a bigoted congressperson who has never met a trans person in your life. Many trans people experience gender dysphoria, which “occurs when there is a conflict between the sex you were assigned at birth and the gender with which you identify” (x). You might be shocked to discover that trans people are people (somewhere, a chill ran down Lauren Boebert’s spine) and each have an entirely different approach to their own transness and gender presentation much in the same way anyone has a unique approach to their own identity.

For some, a social transition is enough. Some trans individuals seek out HRTs or puberty blockers to shift the internal dynamics toward their gender identity while others seek out gender-affirming surgeries, like top surgery to remove breasts or bottom surgery so that their sexual organs reflect the proper gender.

To be clear, all physical transitions are valid but aren’t necessary for a trans person to be trans. However, the goal for some trans people is to “pass,” or to exist in the world as their preferred gender without anyone being any the wiser. There was a study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2020 that explains how

visual conformity with affirmed gender (VCAG) or “passing” is thought to be an important, but poorly understood, determinant of well-being in transgender people. VCAG is a subjective measure that is different from having an inner sense of being congruent with one’s gender identity.

The study then found that

VCAG was achieved in 28% of transwomen and 62% of transmen and was more common in persons who reported greater sense of acceptance and pride in their gender identity as measured on the Transgender Congruence Scale. Another factor associated with greater likelihood of VCAG was receipt of gender affirming surgery, but the association was only evident among transmen. Participants who achieved VCAG had a lower likelihood of depression and anxiety with prevalence ratios.

The point is, as we’ve established here before (time and time again), gender is a much more malleable and personalized thing than we often allow space for in our society. Thinking about all the ways to transition and the role passing can play in the trans narrative, I asked Alex:

Emily: Is passing important or even essential to your identity?
Alex: For me specifically, I remember in the beginning desperately wanting to pass, because I spent so much of my time constantly comparing myself to the other men around me instead of existing happily in my own body. The more I transitioned and started to pass, the more I realized I could always find something to be insecure about. Now that I pass, it has been that I’m manly enough or muscular enough.
I think transitioning is really just about finding peace within yourself and being comfortable just existing as you are.
Emily: Last year, I talked with Mon Sucic about how TikTok became an incredible resource for trans and non-binary individuals to experiment with and discover their gender identities. What roles have TikTok, Twitter, and the internet in general played in your transition?
Alex: To my surprise, I honestly feel like the internet didn’t really influence me or my trans identity because growing up, I was basically only on the sides of the internet that were about fandom. However, during the pandemic, I felt that many people were finding strength in themselves on TikTok, Twitter, etc., to finally transition, and that bit was inspiring to me.
For most of my life, it’s felt insane or out of reach, but seeing so many people with sort of my same out look on life finally take the leap, truly made me feel like I could too. I think visibility is incredibly important no matter how small, which is why I try to never shy away from my transness online. I’m not ashamed and I don’t want to hide it and I think it’s refreshing for other people to see.

Building off of that, I wanted to use this time to negate a major talking point from the past few years:

Emily: What do you have to say about or to people who believe trans and non-binary kids and individuals are "made" this way by what they see online or in books?
Alex: Well, honestly, they can fuck off.
But no seriously, I think that there’s a lot of bigotry and just a general refusal to understand anything outside of what you know. There’s such a lack of compassion for knowledge and community. I feel that today the world operates very individualistically and doesn’t make space for anyone who doesn’t match the criteria of a “normal” person.
It’s really frustrating, but trans people are not going to be quiet, stop existing, or stop making ourselves known as incredibly versatile, passionate, and dynamic. Those who get it get it. There’s a quote that says, “be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

In the Year of the Barbie Movie…

Back in August, Alex arrived early at my apartment for our friend group’s screening of the gay rom-com of the year: Red, White, and Royal Blue. (Nicholas Galitzine, if you’re reading this: please like me back on Raya.) We talked about a TikTok I had recently seen in which a transman shares some of the harder lessons he’s learned since transitioning, namely how lonely manhood can be.

There’s been a rise in conversations around the male loneliness epidemic which has been an interesting juxtaposition with the Summer of Female Solidarity we’ve been enjoying this year. Alex has the perspective, as someone who has seen both sides of the binary and who loves Barbie and Taylor Alison Swift, to speak to both of these trends simply by sharing his personal experience.

I decided to ask:

Emily: What has been the most surprising lesson about manhood that you've learned?
Alex: The most surprising lesson I’ve learned is how important as a man it is to protect the women around me and how common it is for that not to be the case with other men. I’ve found my journey as taken me from kind of an outside viewer to someone who’s constantly involved in standing up for and protecting the women around me, especially trans women.
Although there are times I don’t consider myself manly enough, stepping up and making my presence known has become incredibly important to me. I feel a new sense of responsibility to look after myself and others both in person and online.

Emily: How has existing as a man changed the way you see the world?
Alex: Existing as a man has changed the way I see the world in many shapes and forms. I’ve found myself realizing how much better men are treated than women. And of course, this is something I already knew, but seeing it unfold in real time was definitely a bit of a culture shock.
I remember existing as a Black woman was often depressing and isolating. Whereas men alongside other men seem to have an unspoken solidarity that already exists without anyone saying anything.
Emily: What is the relationship like between your Blackness and your transness?
Alex: The relationship between my Blackness and transness has become more complicated, because I’ve learned all of the setbacks and trauma from being a Black woman just to turn around and have to accept the new realities of trauma like police brutality and the prison industrial complex that affects Black men. It’s an interesting intersection that seems to just only become more nuanced.
I often think about what Black trans women face and how that’s different from my experience as a Black trans man and the things I can do to continue looking out for the women around me.

I personally have never understood TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or J.K. Rowling’s book club) primarily because I try not to be awful to others or annoying at parties. But I guess I also never got the point of denying someone entry into womanhood: it is, in fairness, remarkably dangerous to be a woman in this world—especially for trans women, as Alex mentioned, who made up 81% of the trans individuals murdered last year.

Despite that, as we’ve seen on gorgeous display this year, it’s really fucking cool and fun and enlightening to be a woman! We make friendship bracelets and fight the patriarchy and then drunkenly become friends with one another in the bathroom. We should want to invite people into this club.

I think that’s why I was so affected by James’ video and why I wanted to ask Alex his own thoughts on the differences in presenting as a woman and living as a man: there are so many beautiful parts of womanhood that I think, perhaps, we joke about too often or even take for granted.

With this front of mind, I asked Alex:

Emily: What part or parts of girlhood and womanhood do you miss the most?
Alex: The part of girlhood and womanhood I miss the most is just the camaraderie. It’s so easy to become bros with another man, but women together have sort of a magical bond. From talking to each other and helping each other in the bathroom to looking out for strangers in public, there’s something that brings girls together regardless of differences that I don’t quite think is present enough with men.
Emily: Have you carried anything from your womanhood with you into life as a man? If so, what?
Alex: I’ve carried everything from womanhood into manhood. All the lessons I’ve learned have made me a better man.
I think operating masculinity under the guise of knowing what it was like to be a woman has given me sort of a unique understanding and a superpower to truly understand the world through both eyes and experiences. This ultimately leads me to make a huge effort to prioritize the comfort and well being of others.

Treat Your Trans Homies With Kindness

During our conversation, Alex brought up patience several times in a number of different contexts. He talked about having patience for others who cared about him but had never learned how to care for a trans person before, asking for patience from his community as he moved through the process of transitioning, and being patient with himself in these moments as well.

I asked:

Emily: Why has patience become such a key part of your transition?
Alex: Patience has become a huge part of my transition, because after you start HRT you kind of want to see the results immediately. Every day, I would wake up and check for facial hair or I would do my voice recordings to show the progression of my voice and how it changed every month. But eventually you learn that these things take time. I’m still seeing changes in my body in terms of shape and facial hair in my third year now of transitioning.
There’s a lot of beauty in having patience and I think patience brings peace. You start to realize you don’t need to do anything to feel like yourself. It’ll happen gradually and all you can do is work on accepting that.

Earlier this month, the United Kingdom’s health secretary Steve Barclay announced that their National Health Service’s constitution would be updated so that “trans hospital patients in England will be banned from being treated in female- and male-only wards.” For the sake of time, I’m going to aggressively simplify what I learned in my semester-long abroad course on British politics3 to explain that Barclay belongs to the Conservative Party which is also often called the Tories. They are, for all intents and purposes, the Republicans of the UK.

Keep this in mind as I tell you that in that same speech, Barclay “sought to appeal to Tory members, telling conference delegates in Manchester ‘we know what a woman is’” (x).4

The irony is dramatic and the joke is bleak, especially because this casual transphobia, which is apparently typical of the UK’s government, has already had significant and horrifying ramifications. We can go on about this for an entire E4P installment but the point I want to make is how very obviously Barclay and his supporters’ lack of understanding of transness only stands to hurt trans individuals.

At the bare minimum, cis people should know what they’re talking about when they talk about transness, and that knowledge should—and this is going to sound crazy, I know—come from trans people themselves.

So, as a cis person trying to know what I’m talking about, I asked Alex:

Emily: What do you wish more cis people knew about transness?
Alex: I wish more cis people knew that transness isn’t something that has to be ignored or never referenced just because the person they know has now started passing. It can be an ongoing conversation or discussion, and they don’t have to be fearful to bring up questions and thoughts. I think asking more questions could create a space where more and more people are knowledgable about transness and involved in the trans experience.
Emily: What can cis friends and loved ones of trans and non-binary individuals do to better support, protect, and care?
Alex: Cis friends and loved ones can honestly just ask more questions and make themselves known as interested in the trans experience. I feel that a lot of people want to know and understand more of the experience, but are honestly too afraid to ask, and I think that hinders relationships.
I always love and welcome questions about my identity in a safe space. It’s not a secret, and I think people should really make more of an effort to try. There are ways to make an impact outside of reposting an infographic on Instagram.

Before we close out today’s piece, I wanted to shout out Alex’s amazing online community. He’s huge on Twitter and, as I touch on a bit in my next question, has built such an incredible corner of the Internet there. Alex was one of the four LGBTQ+ community builders I sought out last year after the homophobic mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs for this very reason, and I would be remiss not to give space to celebrate that:

Emily: You have such a vibrant online community where you're a powerful and inviting voice. How did that space come to be and what do you hope your mutuals and followers take away from your presence?
Alex: I’ve been on Twitter since 2010, and I think growing up, having an online community was always important to me as an only child. I feel that in my adult life, I’ve garnered a big community in person as well as online to combat feeling alone or lonely and to have people around me that truly support me.
My only goal when I log onto anything is to make people laugh or smile, it’s truly been such an honor that people care about anything other than that. I hope they takes away a positive energy that brightens their day or makes them feel welcome or less alone. I try to keep my account an uplifting place, but, of course, I think being vulnerable and honest is important too, I think that really helps other people feel seen.

And finally, because so many of our larger societal conversations about transness revolve around some axis of discrimination (anti-trans laws, bathroom laws, sports, Caitlyn Jenner’s passive-aggressive fight with Lady Gaga on a red carpet over sovereignty of their shared Starbucks), I wanted to end by asking Alex:

Emily: I feel like transness often has serious and heavy connotations when we discuss it. What has been the funniest or most lighthearted part of your journey thus far?
Alex: The funniest or most lighthearted part of my journey was when one time at a Brooklyn bar, I don’t even remember what bar. I was probably six months into my transition and was passing a little bit. The bouncer checks my ID and he goes “...Female?” and I’m like “...Not anymore,” and he got so excited for me.
I think that kind of solidarity was very comforting in that moment and also just hilarious at the same time.

Thank you a million to Alex for his excitement about this conversation as well as his generosity and compassion for both the trans community at large and his friends. If you don’t already, follow him on Twitter @nothnghppens!!!