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.