Have you ever put on an outfit, looked at yourself in the mirror and noticed that your body has something that societal norms would dictate a woman shouldn’t have? This is a familiar experience for many tranfems, since our crotch areas often have more volume than what a cisnormative society would deem “normal”. I would pick out something cute only to have the excitement turn into a sour reminder that my body had something womanhood couldn’t contain. I’m be-penised.
But it’s not bitter anymore. The meaning of penis is malleable. To me it used to mean masculinity, anxiety about not being man enough, anxiety about being too much of a man, a violence I couldn’t control1, a marking of otherness, evidence of not reaching womanhood, a point of shame and disgust2, but all these meanings were given to me. I didn’t choose these. And none of them are objective truth.
I wanna reach out to all the trans girls out there who were like me, and I want you to look at the broader patterns. This isn’t the first time in history that women have been made to feel shame and disgust about their bodies. Breastfeeding is still seen as “indecent exposure” by some. A visibly transfem body, whatever that means, existing in public should never be shameful, criminal or seen as violent. And I am so sorry that there are places where it is.
Bathroom bills are an explicit example of this. It is important to note that there has never been any reason to believe trans women as a group are more dangerous than cis women. The legislation that has been passed in some parts of the USA used the argument that cis women are not safe alone around trans women in bathrooms, lockers or sports teams. Genital inspection is one of the methods proposed to assess who is cis and therefore safe. The presence of a penis is seen as a danger.
We have to do a better job in feminism to share positive perspectives on penises, both sexually and non-sexually. Saying that size doesn’t matter is fine, but I’ve heard it too often be followed by complaint about how men are dumb for caring so much. I think we will have more success destigmatising bodies if we have empathy for the people whose bodies we’re talking about. You might think you’re punching up when you joke about how some guy has a small dick, but it’s still body shaming. Your be-penised friends and comrades might not find it very funny. But if you’re so pink-pilled that you can’t make yourself feel empathy for men’s feelings about their own bodies, do it for transfems. Do it for trans people at large.
I’ve had transfems ask me “What if I don’t tuck and it makes someone uncomfortable?” and look. If your body, fully clothed, existing around someone makes them uncomfortable I WILL FUCKING KILL THEM WE HAVE A RIGHT TO MOTHERFUCKING LIVE!!! I REFUSE TO EXIST IN THE CORNERS OF YOUR WORLD they’re not worth being around, and they have some serious issues that they should figure out, preferably far away from where it could affect you. If you’re cis and these ideas make you uncomfortable, I want you to think about why the diversity of human bodies makes you feel that way.
Long-term, I believe we need a similar push as “free the nipple” for dick. We could probably use a round two for free the nipple, so maybe a combination of both. Fundamentally, we need to liberate women’s bodies, and that includes public titties and dick in women’s showers. I want to be able to take a shower after working out and have it be entirely boring. And in order for that to happen we have to kill the idea that penises are masculine, powerful, violent or even that they are important. A penis is just some flesh we gave a name.
One way I’ve tried to re-frame penis in my life is by changing how I talk about bulge in my fashion. I choose to call the skirts that hug my thighs and show off my bulge when I stand upright “bulge opportunities”.3 Because those skirts give me the choice to highlight a part of my body that I find beautiful. In a tight velvet dress you can see the curve of my breasts, my hips, my butt and occasionally my soft bulge. It’s as squishy and bouncy as my other parts, and in my eyes not any more sexually explicit than them. I dream of a future where I can wear a bikini that shows off my bulge and no one bats an eye.
It feels important to me to state that penises are not violent, obviously. Sexual violence is caused by humans and does not require penises. Men do not enact violence because of penises. I see feminists, even self-labeled allies, claim that doing damage to penises or testicles would improve the world somehow. Please stop doing this, you are not an ally to me by threatening genital mutilation or forced surgery on anyone. ↩
They’re also not disgusting. Feeling disgust about parts of natural human body diversity is politically pretty dangerous if you also let that disgust inform your politics. See Is a “genital preference” transphobic or what? ↩
There is much to critique about the modern fashion industry, but one thing I can add to the pile is the cisnormativity of the fashion world. Getting feminine clothes designed for bodies that have bulge is not much of an option, but this is not a unique struggle. The current fast fashion industry does not have the ability to design clothes that work on the diversity of human bodies. ↩