CONFESSIONS OF A TRANNY:

REVEALING THE SHIT WE’D ONLY TELL OUR DIARIES

a confession by anonymous.

I recently went to a bachata dance class with a very good friend of mine. She had been raving about the previous sessions she attended, saying she felt so beautiful and feminine being approached by all the guys as the sensual nature of the genre demands the acceptance of physical suggestions from the masculine partner; and frankly being tossed around by the more experienced ones. Being that a class like this is highly gendered and made up of a group of strangers, I had a bit of anxiety beforehand considering my transition is relatively young. “What if none of the guys want to be my partner,” I asked myself while my (very pretty cis) friend told me about the several attractive men who asked to dance with her. The idea of rejection generally doesn’t scare me enough to keep me from doing things I want to do, so I happily tagged along despite my weariness. 

The structure of the class was very casual but had a clear agenda - first the instructor would teach the group some basic moves and a short combination to be performed without a partner. Then, she would invite the (very hot) chef of the venue, who doubled as her very impressively talented dance partner, to join her in teaching the group a partner combination. If you did not come with a partner who complimented your position (leader or follower), you were put in a big circle and rotated through everyone who did during this portion of the class. Finally, the class would open up to a more social vibe with music constantly playing, allowing students to dance at their leisure. Once we had gotten through the simple solo choreography and the sexy chef in a tight t-shirt joined the group, we were told to quickly find a partner in which to start with. I looked around the room, half expecting to be the last one chosen as I was the only visibly trans woman of the group, but was happily surprised when a cute ”pocket papi” with a nice smile and dimples extended his hand and asked if I would dance with him. I accepted his offer. He was clearly experienced and took the lead well. He supported my weight as I dipped and guided me smoothly as we pressed our chests and pelvises closely together. As I rotated through the rest of the “leaders” I was much less impressed by their suave. It seemed like a group of beginners. Nobody else held me up or made as much body contact as my initial “boyfriend,” as I had deemed him by the time I made my way back to my original position. “So we meet again,” he toyed as I left the last of the other amateurs in the class. It was only the second rotation and I was in love.

After about 30 minutes of circling when we had learned the last of the combination and prepared ourselves to perform it finally with music, it just so happened that our first partners would be our last. In other words, it was fate and my boyfriend was now my husband. Despite having only recently enrolled in my first class no longer than 2 hours before, he made me feel like I knew what I was doing. He kept me tight in his grasp throughout our final choreographed moments together, our fronts one fluid mass. The song ended and he gave me a hug. “Thanks for the dance.” You’re so welcome, Daddy.

The class ended and the social portion of the evening began. The more experienced crowd who had far outgrown the need for a beginner session began to arrive and the room filled up. At first everyone was a little hesitant. The girls sat back and waited to be approached by a guy, but before long the couples started forming. My friend was quickly whisked away as I took a seat strategically a couple feet away from my husband, close enough to be found by him but not enough to appear thirsty. I didn’t want to scare him away after I had just decided upon a dramatic Cinderella-style dress for our wedding. Unsurprisingly, my man took the hint and had me up and twirling away in no time. We incorporated elements of the choreography from a few moments earlier as we improved our way through a Prince Royce song. When the song ended we returned to the bar with my friend.

“How long have you two been dancing for,” he asked us.

“This is my first class and her third,” I responded.

He turned to my friend and asked, “So you enjoyed it so much you brought him along?”

For a moment I convinced myself that I misheard him, but there was no deluding what had just happened. My husband thought I was a man. Now, I’m not blind to the fact that in many ways I don’t pass. I only recently began taking hormones and oftentimes find myself wondering just how clocky I am. When I look in the mirror I see a woman but I sometimes wonder if that’s just my eye seeing what it wants.

I was asked to dance by a few more guys and happily obliged but I now couldn’t help but notice the slight differences in the way they held their bodies with mine compared to when they partnered up with the other girls. I saw one guy who had kept a noticeably holy gap between us practically attempt to get my friend pregnant in front of everyone immediately after our song was over. As I waited patiently to be chosen once every few songs, I watched my friend be shared between almost every guy in the room, each of them clearly bringing their A-game for arguably the most gorgeous girl in the class. Once we agreed we had finally tired ourselves out, we gathered our belongings and made our exit. “Didn’t you feel like a princess?” she asked. “Yeah,” I chuckled, keeping secret that I felt more like an ugly stepsister.

While I really enjoyed attending the class and plan to go again, it raised several complicated conversations for me about being trans in hyper-gendered environments and, more generally, the nature of desirability under patriarchy. I am not typically misgendered. The 400 some-odd doses of estrogen I have taken have softened my face and chest and I dress feminine enough to at least be addressed as a woman by most people. That terribly surprising comment made by my now ex-husband is not representative of how I am usually regarded but it made me ask myself - is everyone around me constantly reminding themselves that they must address me in a way that is not automatic or reflexive? In other words, are they noticing my womanhood or my transness? This is not to say that consciously, they are not doing both at the same time, but what this situation made of interest to me was others’ subconscious attitudes toward my gender. Because while I was asked to dance by about 5 guys, there was no mistaking that they were not as excited to dance with me as they were with my friend or with the other cis women in the room. While many of them seemed to hold me at a bit of a distance as we stumbled awkwardly through the motions, they were much more eager and moved with much more comfort and grace with other girls who seemed to be at the same experience level as me. I worry that I will forever be a woman worthy of being asked to dance, but not enough to be swept off her feet.

Furthermore, the very fact that I even thought to look for the subtleties that made up my gender insecurity in the class is stressing me as under this logic, my womanhood relies solely on how I am perceived by men. At least in the 3 or so hours that I spent in the dance class, I allowed my worth as a woman to be determined by how desirable I was, which is a daunting thing to confront, particularly as a trans person who is undergoing a medical transition. While I am thoroughly enjoying my hormone therapy and hope to make other changes to my physical appearance to look more feminine, I must now ask myself if these plans are rooted in a desire to fulfill a personal need or one to meet the requirements set by men. What is most scary to me is that the answer to that question is most likely “both.” Unfortunately my understanding of what makes a woman is not and never will be independent of the male understanding. I will never know whether or not the urge to accelerate my transition into a further phenotypic route is to satisfy myself or those around me. But maybe in this contemplation I have uncovered what being a woman truly is. Perhaps when I felt the least like a woman was when I reached the peak for what is it to be a woman if not at the mercy of men?