I’m not that big on fanfare, so TransGuys.com never had an official launch party. There wasn’t even an announcement made when the website went “live.” To be frank, my plans were a little hazy and documented only in a notebook of scrawled ideas and rough interface sketches. TransGuys.com soft-launched last February with the Transman Mapping Project, an initiative that was popular and heavily shared across social networks. The positive feedback was inspiring, and I continued to refine my ideas until I could see the goal: a magazine-style website for transgender men.
In late July, I received a message via my personal YouTube channel that I subsequently tweeted about:
I got numerous thoughtful replies to this (that I’d post here if they were still available in Twitter search results) all of which centered around the troublesome use of the word “lifestyle.” In this context, “lifestyle” seems to imply that there’s a choice involved—that transgender people choose to be trans. Being trans isn’t about choosing to be a gender though; it’s about being who you are.
Not more than two weeks later I suddenly sat straight up in bed with the realization of what I’d done: included in my short bio for the Gender Odyssey conference program book that I’d just submitted was a description of TransGuys.com as “the Internet’s Lifestyle Magazine for Transgender Men.” My intentions had been pure: I wanted to position the website as a “lifestyle magazine”—that is, a publication for and about a community of shared interests. I certainly didn’t want to imply that trans people choose to be trans, but I realized that my choice of words could be considered offensive.
The word “lifestyle” was originally tied more to the concepts of private property and class status than it is today. “Lifestyle” indicated a consumer culture, where identity was tightly wrapped up in activities of consumption. Who you are is what you buy. In this context of personal choice, “transgender lifestyle” is indeed a troubling notion.
In more recent sociological terms however, lifestyle is defined by tastes, attitudes, ways of behaving, and possessions. An example of a more modern concept of lifestyle is “green living.” Like any diverse slice of society, not all transgender people share these same attribute values, but there are threads of commonality that link us together. In this light, perhaps there is a “transgender lifestyle.”
What about culture? Is there a “transgender culture”, and how is that different from a “transgender lifestyle”? According to Wikipedia, “culture” is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a group. By this definition, culture and lifestyle are synonymous. The new quarterly magazine Original Plumbing celebrates the “culture of FTM trans guys.” With less ties to consumerism, there’s something inherently more worldly and wholesome about the idea of culture compared to “lifestyle.” (Note: In no way am I trying to depict Original Plumbing as “wholesome.”)
In the end, I didn’t receive any complaints about describing TransGuys.com as a “lifestyle magazine” but I made an executive decision to cut the word “lifestyle” from the website’s tag line to avoid any misinterpretation. TransGuys.com is the Internet’s Magazine for Transgender Men. It’s a loose description, but appropriate given the repulsion to boxes and labels that trans people so often have. It’s a “lifestyle magazine” in that its content addresses common tastes, attitudes, goals, practices and consumption habits that are shared by many transgender men, but this positioning doesn’t mean to imply that one chooses a “transgender lifestyle.” Despite the modernized concept of “lifestyle,” attempting to define an individual’s gender identity (and by some people’s standards, medical condition) and resulting needs by it remains problematic.
What do you think? Please leave me your comments about trans lifestyle and culture below.
Thanks for reading my first editorial for TransGuys.com! I hope you enjoy the site and stick around.
Related: Zines Explore Transgender Culture Beyond Stereotypes
How increasingly popular transgender zines are creating community and building diversity in ways that the Internet and the big screen can’t. By Maya Schenwar, Punk Planet. Posted December 19, 2006.
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:18 am
To answer your question, yes, I think there is. When I think of lifestyle, I think of day to day living, day to day events, a mindset, a way of living your life. We don’t choose to be transgendered, but we choose to do something about it. We choose to undergo hormone treatment and surgeries, we choose to use equipment to help us pass, we choose to live our lives a certain way. Now, as I would say the majority of transmen will be following similar practicies in order to pass and transition, I think it is safe to say that there is a ‘transgender lifestyle’.
As a disclaimer, I know not every single transguy will have the same practicies or experiences as every other transguy, but my opinion is based on my experiences and from talking to other transguys, and its only my opinion.
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I would use the word culture and not lifestyle when I spoke to various sociology classes about gender and sexuality and it was mostly because I wanted to be sensitive to what you describe – what the word implies and it’s potential to be offensive.
I do, however, believe there is a certain lifestyle to being transgender. Like Keltik said, one chooses to do a variety of things as part of existing in that identity. Another aspect of it that I think is important to mention is the passing down of information. This is more related to the idea that trangender-(ness? ism? Idk…) is a culture with a point of reference, history and practice.
All that being said, I do not like identifying with the FtM lifestyle or culture. I do so to gain a sense of community and because I appreciate my fellow brothers and our shared experience or journey. Also, because I’d like to provide myself as a resource to younger transmen who may not have the foresight to acquire necessary knowledge as far as their transition is concerned.
But I am a man. I live my life as a man and look to fit into THAT lifestyle and with THAT culture – regardless of my missing part. I struggle sometimes with the feeling that identifying in a ftm subset calls out my different sense of masculinity and manhood and it makes me feel further outcast-ed.
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
At least where I am now, my “lifestyle” as a trans man is remarkably different from that of the other trans men I know. I aim to be stealth, I identify as heterosexual, I fall within gender binary norms in my dress, etc. In contrast, most of the transgender guys I know here are relatively open about being trans, identify as genderqueer, and intentionally buck gender binaries in their outward appearance.
We may (and actually do) share a lot of the same political opinions and have taken advantage of the same medical technologies in transitioning, but our personal aims are drastically different. So I’d be one to say that a “trans lifestyle” is about as appropriate a moniker as a “man’s lifestyle.”
There are lots of different ways of being a man and “lifestyle” there would refer to the distinction between a Maxim, a GQ, a Car & Driver Guy, a PC World Guy etc. etc.
All that is to say I appreciate taking out “lifestyle” as it’s a problematic word and best avoided in this context, IMHO.
January 2nd, 2010 at 6:03 pm
This is great, thanks for your comments guys! I’m still thinking about this one.
Oscar, what you said about the passing down of information, history… I think that’s a pretty important distinction between lifestyle and culture. Nice one.
Transliving Magazine is “the world’s largest Transgender lifestyle magazine” produced out of the UK. Does geography influence the definition of “lifestyle” at all?
When I get to the deeper parts of this conversation, I find there’s something about labeling shared ways of being as a trans lifestyle that makes me feel like I’m putting people into slots—not good.
“Oh, this language of the solids. It’s so imprecise.” –Founder, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
January 13th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
I think we all get too hung up on the meanings of words. The english language is a continually evolving language and needs to be accepted as such. The word ‘transgender’ no longer means what it originally meant ‘a person who has gone from one gender to another’. In todays world crossdressers, intersex and preop’s are now considered ‘transgender’. And so with ‘lifestyle’.
Ok, im a MtF sexchage and have very much compassion for the many FtM out there.Im a member of the transgender community but no longer call myself a transgender as I am not intersex or a crossdresser. I think the biggest point raised in your editorial is something many TG will have missed. ‘To be who I am’. There is no choice, we are just being who we really are. Open and honest about it. Alas societies rules have tended to make us mix in certain groups, cultures, lifestyles because it is where we find comfort and acceptance easiest. The biggest thing TG need to do is not lock themselves in these groups but to go out into society and show we are just normal people and in time we will gain accptance. Alas it will take time but it will happen.
Just show you are who you are and proud of it.
But dont lock yourself into a particular lifestyle.
Good luck.