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Double Consciousness, and its Application with Transgender Men

Overview

Double Conciousness, first named by Dubois in the early 1900s, is done for safety. It often reenforces stereotypes about a minority group in order to survive encounters with the group in power. This applies to all minorities, but here specifically we will be talking about my experience as a transgender man and how I did this uncontiously with with gender for a very long time.

Double Consciousness

This term was first published by W.E.B Dubois in 1903 in his work The Souls of Black Folk. He specifically described it as looking at yourself through the eyes of others, and the awareness that those in power could not see him as both American and Black. This description has been expanded upon by other writers since then as they explore the implications within themselves and the people they see. When trying to conform to one side or another to please someone, it has an aspect of lying to oneself, and it is hard to live a lie. At the same time, there lies a layer of safety to chosing to comforn to one mold to appease others. Choosing to conform one way or another can lead to increased safety. One example of this is a light skinned black man passing as white to be safe.

Part of the problem this leads us with, is chosing to live with one lie or another, and how Double Contiousness plays out both with others and within your own mind. With others, Double contiousness can lead to Code Switching. Code Swtching is when your speak differently to different people. This can be anything from playing up stereotypes people see your minority as (as seen in James by Percival Everett), or as small as swearing a lot around their friends and not at all around their family. This Code Switching can be directly based off of how others percieve you as well. It can keep a person safe from either perceived possible, or actual harm coming to them due to their words. Double consciousness not only includes this change of phrase, but also body language.

Double Consciouness has also been expanded upon by Black women, who added the term Triple Consiousness to add the intersection of being a Woman, Being Black and being American at the same time. Triple Conciousness has also been used to add Sexuality Ethnicity and additional nationalities as well, aknowledging other intersections. For the sake of this Article, I will be using Double Consciousness, however this concept has been and should continue to be used with intersectionality.

My Personal Experience as a Transgender Man

If we want to get into the nitty gritty details, I am a Nonbinary Man. This being said, I believe my experience can be similarly expressed by Transgender Men and by some Nonbinary people as well. I also believe it can be shared in some aspects with Transgender Women and all Transgender people, however their experiences are significantly different than mine. For this reason (and because it is more widely known) I will be talking about being a Transgender Man because it is the most well known gender identity similar to my own.

Double Consciousness and Gender

In this society people will treat you typically as either a man or a woman. That being said, depending on how liberal an area you are in, there is also a third gender people will treat you as, Queer. There are other people who mention things being like, you're treated as either a Man, a Woman, or Ugly, with Ugly being failing both genders, which can also be very true, especially for women.

Personally, and for a very long time, I would unconsciously decide how well I think I'm passing as a man or a woman, and play that role. If I believed I was being perceived as a woman, I would make my voice higher, I would move around more, I would cross my legs when I sit. On the opposite side, when I beleived I am being percieved as a man, I would speak eithe rin my normal talkign voice or lower it slightly furhter than that. I would sit with my legs more open and slouch my shoulders and sometimes tug on my very limited facial hair. Being masculine and feminine is highly subjective and varies based on person to person and culture to culture. What is seen as masculine by one person can be seen as feminine by another person.

I still do this switch, I just notice when I do it. For me, this is not a conscious matter, I have only started to notice that I do this because I learned this terminology. If I had not learned it, I would still be doing it exactly the same, I just would not be aware of why my voice was randomly super high or that other people experience similar things.

How I act around people I know

Around friends, I know I am percieved as a man and I act it. I tend to dress and act more feminine around them because I know it will not change their perspective of me. I will be more likely to wear a skirt, or to put in earrings and someitmes even wear gaudy makeup if I know I'm going to be with friends who support me. This is very different from being in public on my own or even around my family.

My parents tolerate me being trans. They're starting to use the correct pronouns but its clear they don't really like it. They're only trying hard to not drive me away as I go to college and grow into my person. That being said, I do everything in my power to dress masculine around them, but I cannot keep my voice low. Even as it has dropped due to Testosterone, I can still manage a voice that semi passes as female, especially when I'm nervous. I'm always nervous around my parents, so my voice still sounds like a girl, even though it is significantly deeper than it once was. I simply cannot shake coding myself as a girl around them because at my core, I know it better than I know being a man. I'm still learning and I'm still rarely seen as a guy outside of the people I know closely. Hell, I was called miss at my pharmacy after picking up my Testoserone Prescription. Like???

The more I know someone, the more likely I am to not only bring up the fact I'm trans, but be relaxed and more masculine around them

Conclusion

There is something to be said about Dual Consciousness existing within Transgender people, especially around my lived experience as a transgender man. It is a term that works well to express the conflict that arises from society as a whole not recognizing someone can have multiple seemingly conflicting identities at once. I hope others got good information out of this.

Readings Mentioned