241 2005 The Analytic Press

Griffin Hansbury, M.A., L.M.S.W. is a clinical social worker at the Callen-

Lorde Community Health Center in New York City and a first-year candidate
at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (N.P.A.P.).
Studies in Gender and Sexuality
6(3):241264, 2005
The Middle Men
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities
Griffin Hansbury, M.A., L.M.S.W.

Little attention has been paid to the transmasculine (female-to-

male [FTM] transsexual and transgender) community. When we
hear the word transsexual, most of us immediately think of male-
to-females. However, the FTM community is thriving and rich
with variety. This essay provides an inside look at the little-
examined identities within the almost invisible world of FTMs.
Positing that the transmasculine community does not subscribe
to just one mode of identif ication, I illuminate the varied
experiences of transmasculine individuals by organizing the
plethora of defining FTM labels into three broad categories:
Woodworkers, Transmen, and Genderqueers. Within the
admittedly limiting confines of this taxonomy, it becomes possible
to gain a better understanding of the people behind the labels
and achieve insight into their individual therapeutic needs.

What can be meant by identity, then, and what grounds

the presumption that identities are self-identical, persisting
through time as the same, unified and internally coherent?
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble
242 Griffin Hansbury

In recent years the transmasculine community has become

increasingly heterogeneous, including not only subgroups with
special needs (youth, seniors, people of color, substance users,
etc.), but also those with special identities (Raj, 2002). A multitude
of such subgroups, which sprang up in the sex-positive 1990s,
continues to evolve today, each with its own therapeutic needs.
It is therefore essential for clinicians who work with transmasculine
persons to understand more about those subgroups. In this
paper, in an effort to simplify a complex web of identity, I attempt
to contain and name these subgroups in three broad categories.
One transpositive clinician divides the subgroups broadly into
those who subscribe to a concept of self that is both essentialist
(biogenic) and binary-gendered (male or female) and those who
adopt a constructionist (sociogenic) and nonbinary-gendered
self-concept (both/neither male and/or female) (Raj, 2002,
p. 5). Here, I focus on these two extreme ends of the trans-
masculine continuum, as well as on a middle group, one that
straddles both the essentialist and the constructionist concept
of self. The labels I have chosen for the three subgroups are,
from most essentialist to most constructionist, (1) Woodworkers,
(2) Transmen, and (3) Genderqueers.
To posit such a taxonomy is dangerous business. It presumes
that there are such things as identities and that they must be,
as Butler says in the foregoing quote, self-identical, persistent,
unif ied, and internally coherent. To argue against these
identities, however, to dispel them completely by forever citing
the exceptions and many permutations, is to render themand
the people who stand behind theminvisible. Somewhere in all
the discussion, the individual is lost. Trans people, and especially
transmasculine people, have been lost and invisible for far too
long. I am trying, with limited tools, to find them, to make them
visible and intelligible to my readers.
The labels I have chosen to represent the three broad
subgroups of transmasculine identity are currently part of the
trans vocabulary. Given that this vocabulary is forever in f lux,
however, I do not expect the labelsand the identities they
representto persist through time. For now, while they hover
here in this moment, allow me to shine some light on them.
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 243

TRUE SPIRIT
Every February, over the long Presidents Day weekend, several
hundred members of the transmasculine community gather in
Washington, DC for the True Spirit Conference.
1
It is, in the
words of its sponsors, an annual conference for all gender
variant people on the masculine spectrum or the transgender
experience and significant others, friends, families and allies
(SOFFAs) of all gender variations and sexual orientations.
The True Spirit Conference is a useful, if limited, tool for
talking about the transmasculine community and its many
identities. To travel to the conference requires the privilege of
time and money, as well as an interest in participating in a trans
event, elements not all transmasculine people share. I have
attended the conference for the past three years, but it has been
going strong since 1997. As I have been told from long-time
attendees, it has evolved along with the community to include
more and more of the masculine spectrum I have mentioned.
That spectrum is immediately evident when one walks into
the hotel lobby where True Spirit is convening. There, in the
smoky lounge, is a vast array of transmasculine expressions
seated around the bar and on comfortable couches and chairs.
They range from the rambunctious, purple-haired squatter
punks and leather-clad daddies who, at any Queer Pride event,
would blend in seamlessly with the more radical gay men and
lesbians; to the mild-mannered young men in J. Crew khakis
and the fatherly middle-aged fellows who, in this crowd, look
oddly out of place, too straight to fit in with the jubilantly queer
atmosphere. But f it in they do, for all the wildly various
characters lounging in the hotel lounge are there for the same
purpose: to connect with their transmasculine community.
Community, according to Merriam Webster, is a unified
body of individuals with commonality and likeness as their
defining traits. The transmasculine community does contain
commonality; I would not call it unified, however, not even on

1
At the time of this writing, the True Spirit Conference was still going
strong. It has regrettably ceased to meet since then. I write, though, in the
present tense to give readers the feeling of the meeting.
244 Griffin Hansbury

the occasion of the True Spirit Conference. Even then, when

each facet of the community comes together, there is much
division within the spectrum.
The word spectrum has been embraced by many transpeople
to describe the profusion of identities that is subsumed under
the overarching label of trans. The idea of a spectrum was
adopted to replace the linear model, a kind of Kinsey scale with
a trans extreme on each end and variations in between. The
line is often considered to be too limiting and dangerously
hierarchical. But is the spectrum so different from a line? On
the rainbow, one color may bleed into its immediate neighbor,
but red never touches blue. Perhaps a matrix would be more
accurate, an enormous grid of columns and rows. Even better,
we might imagine a cluster of bubbles, each trans identity
connected to others, touching at multiple vertices, a concept
not unlike recent theories of the universe, what physicist Alan
Guth imagines as an infinite tree of bubbles. But this kind of
thinking requires multidimensional mathematics, and I was
never good at math. I like the simple elegance of the line. It is a
convenient, if ultimately inefficient, tool for talking about
something so complex that it is beyond the reach of clear
language.
The line is out of fashion today because it appears to reinforce
the concept of the binary, which is, for many trans people, an
anathema. This may be the fundamental bone of contention
that divides the transmasculine community. On one side, there
are those who find comfort in the two-party system of man and
woman (a rapidly dwindling, or perhaps simply silent, minority)
and, on the other, those who view such a system as too limiting,
suffocating, and unbearable. It is this second group that appears
to be growing into the majority, or perhaps they are merely
more visible, and more vocal. Indeed, on the schedule of
workshops for a recent True Spirit Conference, there were 16
offerings listed under the category Beyond the Binary, by far
the largest category,
2
and only three workshops on the topic of

2
Including such titles as Blurring the Lines, Femme Boy Caucus,
MultiGenderPlicity, and Occupying the Middle.
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 245

Transition Process. True Spirit workshops are peer planned

and facilitated. In evidence here, the more active and vocal strata
of the trans community may be becoming less and less transition
focusedthe movement from here to there, A to B, female to
maleand more interested in an existence someplace in the
middle, or completely outside of binary notions of malefemale,
manwoman.
The middle is a place inevitably (often unhappily) occupied
by every transmasculine person, up and down the line. Though
some, on the surface, may be more intelligible as male-gendered
personsa beard and a three-piece suit go a long way to covering
up the ambiguities of the trans bodyunderneath, the trans-
masculine person, no matter how much surgery and socialization
he has undergone, remains beyond the binary, surely more
so than the average nontranssexual man.
The real differences among the various identities are based
less on how many testosterone injections one has had or which
surgeries one has opted to undergo, and more on how each
person interprets his or her identityhow she or he perceives
himself or herself and how he or she wishes to be perceived by
others. Someone may identify as a Transsexual Man yet still
maintain his breasts and forgo testosterone. Another may choose
to undergo a mastectomy, take low-dosage testosterone, and
identify as a Passing Woman.
The array of labels used within the transmasculine spectrum
are many and attest to the infinitude of the communitythink
again of Guths ever-branching tree of bubblesas well as its
incipience. This is a community in its infancy, still struggling to
define and demarcate, an endeavor that has led to a dizzying
profusion of labels. Arranged here in an unscientific, somewhat
linear fashion, from (perhaps) the more male-identified to the
more nonbinary, these labels include, but are not limited to,
Man, MTM, FTM, Transsexual Man, Man of Transsexual
Experience, New Man, Transman, Transfag, Transqueer,
GenderQueer, Guy, Boi, Trans-Butch, Tomboy, Boy-Chick,
Gender Outlaw, Drag King, Passing Woman, Bearded Female,
Two-Spirit, Ungendered, Gender Trash, Questioning, Just
Curious. And these identities are not always self-identical; one
transmasculine persons FTM may be anothers Gender Trash.
246 Griffin Hansbury

For the purposes of simplicity, allow me to return to my linear

tool, upon which I have boiled down the transmasculine
spectrum into three broad groups (again arranged from the
more male-identif ied/essentialist to the more nonbinary/
constructionist): (1) Woodworkers, (2) Transmen, and (3)
Genderqueers. Aside from the gender differences between these
groups, there may also be a corresponding generational
difference, with Woodworkers tending to be the eldest (late 30s
and up), Transmen in the middle (late 20s to early 30s), and
Genderqueers the youngest (mid-20s and teens). The reasons
for this demographic appear to be various: from societys
changing views of transsexuality over time, to the Internets
revolutionary connecting of marginalized groups, to youths love
of joyful anarchy and maturitys more conservative desire for
stability. There may be educational, racial, and class differences
as well. The Woodworkers I have encountered are mostly from
working-class backgrounds, and have little or no col lege
education; the majority of Genderqueers I have known were
white, college educated, and of middle-class or more aff luent
backgrounds. Alt hough t here are many vari ati ons and
exceptions to these observations, they may suggest that privilege
is necessary before one can choose to step into the margins.
WOODWORKERS
To put what I have been discussing into some perspective, there
are thousands of transsexual men who do not attend the True
Spirit Conference. They do not read books by Marjorie Garber,
Judith Butler, or even Leslie Feinberg. They are your run-of-
the-mill, Joe-six-pack, female-to-male transsexuals. They would
most likely identify themselves as men, minus any transspecific
pref ixes, and are sometimes called Woodworkers by other
transpeople because of their tendency to blend into the
woodwork. They go stealth, or (a term more common to
African-American FTMs) they are DL, keeping it on the down
low. They live as men, are out only to their families and perhaps
to their partners, and treat their female histories as something
to keep hidden. While a few use the label MTM, which stands
for some combination of Man- to- Mal e, Man- to- Man, or
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 247

Masculine-to-Male (a designation used by men of transsexual

experience who feel they have never truly lived as female), most
just call themselves men and forget the rest as best they can.
This forgetting is more an act of disavowal. One transsexual
man I knew used to speak of his former female self as someone
who was dead, someone he had had to murder in order to
live himself. If I hadnt buried Rose-Marie, he would say, Rose-
Marie wouldve buried me.
Sociologist Aaron H. Devor, writing under the name Holly
Devor (1997), posits a system of identity-development stages
for FTMs. The second-to-last stage on this chart is Integration.
And here is where most of the participants stood at the time
of Devors study (approximately 19871991). At this stage, the
FTMs
lived their lives as unremarkable men whose transsexuality
remained invisible except to specif ically chosen other
people. They treated the information that they once had
been female and had lived as girls and as women as
potentially discrediting information which needed to be
managed with care [p. 604].
Devor describes very wel l the group of men known as
Woodworkers, or MTMs. However, a quandary arises when we
look at Devors next, or last, stage: Identity Pride. A smaller
number of participants moved from the Integration stage to
this phase, one in which they fully and publicly claimed their
bifurcated histories and proudly posed themselves and their
lives as challenges to the restrictive binarisms of the dominant
gender schema. The quandary is this: by setting up a system in
which the final, triumphant goal is public pride and activism,
FTMs who remain at the Integration stagein the woodwork
may too easily be seen as developmentally stuck, as poor,
misguided victims of the heteropatriarchy, suffering from
internalized transphobia.
Many, perhaps most, transsexual men, have dreamed all their
lives of becoming, unremarkably, men. To live normal, average
lives as their own fathers and brothers did. The pursuit of such
a life does not necessarily spring from a place of shame,
248 Griffin Hansbury

although, to live a closeted life (if there even is such a thing as

a trans closet) can produce feelings of shame. It is all too easy
to see such men as ensnared in the dark, tangled jungle of self-
loathing. But we must ask why, to be fully actualized, every
transsexual must publicly challenge the restrictive binarisms
of the dominant gender schema. Many of these men would say
that they never were girls or women in the first place and that
the invisible boys and men they truly were have now been
liberated from the bonds of what was a horrible birth defect. If
anything, to these men, making the transition to and maintaining
a male identity is the ultimate coming out. For such men,
transsexuality is a foreign state. They do not identify with it.
They take great pride in the male bodies and identities they
have achieved. They are, unashamedly, men. Therefore, to be
out as trans would be to deny their hard-won identity, to erase
themselves.
In 1995, when I began my own transition from female to male,
the only FTMs I met were Woodworkers. My therapist, a gay
man and a gender-savvy CSW, referred me to a new therapy
group for FTMs that was just getting started in the West Village
of New York City. In that room I found a handful of men at
various stages of transition. Some had been on testosterone for
years and, with deep voices, full beards, and receding hairlines,
bore no traces of the female bodies they inhabited. Others, like
me, were just beginning. But there was no doubt that all of us
felt ourselves to be, in the now-antiquated vernacular of those
old fin-de-millennial days, men trapped in womens bodies.
We were determined to get to the other side, where we could
acquire the physical masculinity we had so dreamed about
al l our l ives. We were, gathered together in that room,
classic FTMs.
The group of men I met there were, for the most part,
heterosexual, working class, and older than I was at the age of
24. They were like big brothers, offering advice and guidance
to someone just starting out, and I am indebted to them. But I
also remember them as unhappy men, sometimes angry, often
lonely in their isolation. The stories they told were about the
families they had lost, the women they longed for, the friends
from whom they kept their secret. These are stories common to
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 249

many transmasculine people, all along the line, but they seem
to be especially common to Woodworkers. They are the stories
of alienation.
Much has changed in the intervening years, but these men,
and many others like them, are still out there. Now and then,
they will come out of the woodwork to attend the True Spirit
Conference or join a support group for a few meetings, then
retreat once again. In the groups, they express loneliness and
the need to connect with other transsexual men. Once this need
is temporarily filled, they often leave the group, taking a few
phone numbers with them. It is as if they are getting their
batteries recharged.
Although there has been no research to back this up,
3
my
educated guess is that, as a group, the Woodworkers are the
most likely to go all the way with sex reassignment surgery,
that is, phalloplasty. Their friends are, by and large, not trans-
sexuals, from whom the FTM keeps the secret of his female
history. Many of them have little contact with their parents and
birth families, who often rejected them earlier in life. They do
not talk gender-speak and are likely to adhere closely to our
cultures rules for masculinity. They also tend to be older, late
30s and up; they made the transition and went underground
before the so-called transgender revolution got underway.
Until that recent revolution, in order to be given the clinical
stamp of approval for sex reassignment, a trans person had to
prove himself or herself to be a true transsexual, that is, one
who fits the typical profile set forth by Harry Benjamin (1966)
in his Sex Orientation Scale (S.O.S.). The scale ranges from the
Type I Pseudo Transvestite to the Type VI High Intensity True
Transsexual. A true transsexual is one who intensely desires
relations with normal male as female (Benjamins scale measured
only male-to-females); who unequivocally requests, hopes for,
and works for sex reassignment surgery; and, in the high

3
Some of the only statistical information on the lives of transsexual men
comes from informal online-group polls, created by FTMs themselves. On
one Yahoo group for posttransition FTMs, more than half of the respondents
(n = 43) identified as either male or man. Posttransition does not
necessarily include genital surgery.
250 Griffin Hansbury

intensity case, who despises his male sex organs and is in

danger of suicide or self mutilation if too long frustrated (p. 22).
Transidentif ied persons seeking psychotherapy and sex
reassignment in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, but who did not fit
this narrow definition, often lied to their therapists and doctors,
the gatekeepers who held the keys to transition and happiness.
An FTM, for instance, who was primarily attracted to males
and who di d not desi re phal l opl ast y to construct a
(nonfunctioning) penis, would have to play it straight in order
to get the hormones and surgeries he did desire and need. This
necessity for subterfuge, along with the pregender-studies
climate that preceded the 1990s, I believe helped to create a
whole generation of Woodworkers. Indeed, blending into the
woodwork was the number-one goal of sex reassignment
specifically encouraged by the health-care providers of the time.
A successful transsexual was an invisible transsexual.
This history, coupled with the average Woodworkers lower
economic status and lack of formal education, combines to rob
him of the luxury to fuck with gender and go beyond the
binary. To make such a choice would be to reveal himself as a
marginal figure, stepping outside the mainstream where it is
more difficult to earn a paycheck, obtain health insurance, and
keep oneself physically safe in the small-town hinterlands and
aggressive inner-city. Such a choice requires a certain amount
of privilege before it can be made; privi lege that many
Woodworkers simply do not possess.
When a Woodworker does seek gender-related therapy, he
may do so out of a profound sense of alienation. He longs to
talk to someone about his transsexual life while, at the same
time, he wants not to have to live such a life. He doesnt like to
think about it, doesnt like to talk about it. It is possible that he
will describe his transsexuality as a birth defect, one that has
been corrected through physical transition. Trans, therefore,
has no place in his self-identif ication. If he has a wife or
girlfriend (or a homosexual, nontranssexual male partner), she
is most likely also deeply invested in keeping his transsexuality
secret, whi ch i s now t hei r secret. She may i dent if y as
heterosexual, with no fondness for the queer label and does
not want her family, friends, or larger community to know that
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 251

she is romantically involved with a transsexual man. With so

much secrecy surrounding him, and with a distinct lack of
transmasculine role models, the Woodworker may come to
therapy with a great deal of shame and internalized transphobia.
And, because he identifies as a man, a public proclamation of
his transsexuality is not the answer for him.
TRANSMEN
I had a difficult time identifying wholeheartedly with the men
in that f irst therapy group. While many of the things we
discussed struck a chord with me, and while many details of
our trans-stories were startlingly similar, the thought of living
my life so invisibly was an uneasy one. But, in 1995, before the
Internet revolution, I had access to very little information. My
transmasculine role models were Woodworkers.
For the previous 20 years, Robert Stollers (1975) definition
of the female-to-male transsexual had held water. He said, in
summary: Assigned to the female sex at birth, FTMs began to
show masculine interests and behaviors at about age four, and
their gender identities progressed along a masculine line, so
that they invented boys names for themselves, played only with
boys toys, walked and talked like boys, and so on. At puberty,
they detested getting their periods, breasts, and all of the female
secondary-sex characteristics. They were attracted to feminine
females and to masculine pursuits and occupations (pp. 223225).
Stoller was correct in positing that FTMs deny themselves to
be homosexual women.
4
It is also true, however, that, before
physical transition, many seek refuge in the lesbian community,
where they may be accepted and celebrated as butch. For such
FTMs, when butch begins to feel just as uncomfortable as
woman, they may opt out and begin to pursue the possibilities
of sex reassignment.
5

4
Many FTMs embrace a gay male identity and some contemporary
Genderqueers may use the dyke label, for example, boi-dyke.
5
With more and more choosing this option, there is some panic in the
lesbian butch-femme community, as well as tension between butches and those
who transition; what Judith Halberstam (1998) calls the Butch/FTM Border
Wars (pp. 141173).
252 Griffin Hansbury

Stollers (1975) definition is an old standard and, while much

of it remains true, it is far too limited to encompass the vast
array of transmasculine folks who now either f loat within the
bubble formation of the trans universe, or who perch, like
starlings on a telephone wire, along its continuum.
A little bit further down that line are the FTMs/Transmen.
This is (at the present moment) my own comfortable spot along
the continuum.
I prefer the label Transman.
I am not comfortable labeling myself as just a man. For me,
its too limiting. To call myself only a man is to deny my history
the 24 years I spent living in a visibly female bodyand my
present, in which I continue to live in a body that, after hormones
and some surgery, persists in being neither female nor wholly
male. And yet I am a man, and I also want to own that label.
Still, it needs a modifier. Hence, trans. A prefix perpetually
in the act of changing, forever crossing from one side to the
other, it means across, beyond, and through. It has nothing
to do with arrival, or departure. It is forever about the journey.
(The label FTM, for Female-to-Male, may be read as asserting
that it is possible to move from one sex to another, as if regular
doses of testosterone and multiple surgeries are capable of
transforming not only sexual organs and hormone levels, but
also chromosomes, brain chemistry, and a lifetime of female
socialization; as if there were such a thing as male and female.
I am most interested in the to. Many trans people now read
that to as toward, and many just use the prefix trans as
their identifying label.)
I met my first Transmen in 2000. I had left my first therapy
group a few years before and spent the intervening time working
as a man (minus the trans) in the conservative office of a
multinational corporation. In ef fect, I sl ipped into the
woodwork. Initially, I embraced my invisibility and my ability
to pass completely as male. It was, indeed, liberating to be seen
at last as the man I knew myself to be. And aside from my more
masculine identity and desire to be perceived as male, I cannot
deny that I was (and continue to be) attracted to the comfort
and security that comes with being normal. I earned a white-
collar salary, complete with 401(k), health insurance, and paid
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 253

vacations. As the first person in my family to earn a college

degree and to leave the small, blue-collar town in which I grew
up, I had an awareness of the potential for poverty, an abyss
that yawned beneath me, one that could swallow me up at the
next wrong move. To come out as transsexualand risk losing
my job and all its attendant perksI was convinced, would have
been that wrong move.
Though I never made that move, eventually the silk tie around
my neck began to become tight. I joined the Mens Support
Group offered by the Gender Identity Project in New York City.
There I found men more like myself: Transmen.
A sea change had occurred in the years of my absence. These
Transmen were younger, first of all, than the Woodworkers I knew
from the initial therapy group. All of them were in their mid- to
late 20sI, at 29, was one of the oldest. Most of them were college
educated and had lived as butch dykes during the early postfeminist,
sex-positive campus days of the 1990s. In college, they read Judith
Butler, Camille Paglia, and Madonnas mylar-wrapped Sex. They
were men, but they also embraced their transness, which lent them
a blended quality that made them more gender f luid than the
Woodworkers and the just men I had previously known.
Being more f luid, such a Transman may or may not fit the
classic, Stolleresque definition of the female-to-male transsexual.
The Transman may or may not have invented a boys name for
himself in early childhood (I did not). He probably played with
boys toys; however, a few girlish things may have slipped in
there as well (my Victorian dollhouse made a great space-station
for my Star Wars action figures). While it is very likely that he
detested the physical changes of female puberty, as he made
the transition, it is not uncommon for him to go through a brief,
and often uneasy, period of mourning for those physical markers
of femalenessmenstruation, breasts, and the like. He may or
may not be attracted to feminine females and masculine pursuits.
Indeed, many Transmen are primarily attracted to males, other
Transmen, or masculine females. Many identify as gay men.
Many Transmen do not like football, and a few even choose to
become pregnant and give birth (after going off testosterone
for the time being), although there is great controversy in the
FTM community about this practice.
254 Griffin Hansbury

On my transmasculine line, then, the Transmen would sit

somewhere in the middle, with essentialist Woodworkers on one
side and, on the other, the constructionist Genderqueers. All
trans people must get used to occupying middle spaces, and
the Transmans position in the FTM community is just one more.
It is a diff icult place to stand; for, in the transmasculine
communities, as in any society, there are prejudices. And here
the linear tool has another use, revealing the leftright politics
that often lurk behind the transmasculine identities.
To many Woodworkers, a Transman may be seen as too trans,
too far to the left. In earlier days, in support groups populated
mostly by Woodworkers, I felt a pressure to hide my trans
leanings from the group, to be one of the guys and conceal
any feminine traits I might have possessed. But the real pressure
these days comes not from the Woodworkers (who, for the most
part, as the silent and invisible stratum of FTM society, exert
little or no inf luence on its shape), but from the very vocal and
inf luential Genderqueers, for whom the Transman stands too
far to the right.
Transmen, like Woodworkers, are hard to find. Difficult to
see. We look like men and there is little visible evidence that
would convince you otherwise if you saw us walking down the
street or into your office. Like Woodworkers, most Transmen
have committed to a lifetime of testosterone (injections, patches,
or gels) and have reaped the benef its of that hormone: a
deepened, masculine voice; facial and body hair; increased
musculature and bone density; a heightened libido and energy
level; and so on. They may have also undergone, or have plans
to undergo, the same surgeries that Woodworkers have: bilateral
mastectomy, hysterectomy and oophorectomy, and one of two
genital options, phalloplasty or metaoidioplasty.
6

6
Phalloplasty refers to the construction of a penis, using tissue from the
patients forearm, groin, or abdomen; this procedure includes a vaginectomy,
testicular implants, and urethral extension (to allow for standing urination).
The cost for this option can be as high as $100,000. In the metaoidioplasty,
the clitoris (enlarged by testosterone) is released from the pubis to give it
more length, and testicular implants are added; a vaginectomy and urethral
extension are optional. This procedure is more popular owing to its lower
price tag (up to $30,000), as well as its greater successthough the phallus is
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 255

Both the Woodworker and the Transman present themselves

to the world as men, but the Transman may be more likely to
allow some segment of that world to know about his trans-
sexuality and his female pastand not only to know about it,
but to celebrate it to a certain extent. This segment may include
family, friends, romantic partners, and coworkers. It is less likely
to include strangers, although many Transmen do take up
the mantle of activism, thereby outing themselves as trans in a
public way.
Transmen seem to be more comfortable than Woodworkers
when talking about their female pasts. In safe company, it is
not unusual to hear a Transman say, When I was a dyke. . . or
When I was a Girl Scout . . . On the other hand, I cannot
recall hearing a Transman utter the words, When I was a woman
. . . or When I was a gi rl . . . Language is a touchy thing
and, when referring to the female years, it is preferable to say,
Before transition, Before testosterone, or When I was still
presenting as female. For while the Transman may have less
surface anxiety around his female history than the Woodworker
does, it still remains an uncomfortable place. A clinician can
quickly alienate a trans client by using the wrong language. Just
as, too often in the clinical literature today, clinicians offensively
(and confusingly) refer to FTMs as transsexual women, a
designation that is specific to male-to-female transsexuals. They
also label gay Transmen as nonhomosexual female-to-males
(Chivers and Bailey, 2000), belying their loyalty to genetic sex,
when the transfags I know are proud to claim the title of homo.
In general, it is best for a therapist to inquire at the outset what
language the client preferswhich words, including pronouns,
are off limits and which are acceptable.
The Transman stands in his own kind of limbo, half in and
half out of the trans closet. The unique struggle of the Transman
is that he often feels pulled between the left (Genderqueers)
and the right (Woodworkers), between the two identities of
trans and man. Which takes precedence in his life? Perhaps
it changes from day to day, but the perennial question for a

much smaller than in a phalloplasty, it maintains full sensitivity, and there

are fewer complications.
256 Griffin Hansbury

Transman is simply this: to be or not to be invisible. Do I allow

myself the comfort of anonymity, of being just a man? Or do I
out myself in an attempt to be my whole self and to raise the
consciousness of the people around me? This is the Transmans
dilemma, but it is also his choicea choice that I struggle with
almost every day.
GENDERQUEERS
As in any politically correct caste system, the ones with the
privilege to sit at the top of the food chain are those who are
most oppressed, and the Genderqueers, in many ways, have the
roughest time of it, simply because they defy classification.
Indeed, their motto might be Dont pin a label on me. Gender-
queer is a catch-all term. It may be, to some, synonymous with
Gender Trash and is used to refer to a steamy, ever-changing
compost of identities in which the gardens of a new gender
paradigm are germinating.
I f irst became aware of the term Genderqueer, and the
population for which it stands, at the 2001 True Spirit
Conference, where their ranks vastly outnumbered those of the
Transmen and Woodworkers. While this population, of any on
the transmasculine spectrum, is the most diverse, f luid, shifting,
dynamic, and impossible to describe, allow me to make the
attempt just the same.
In the hotel lounge at the True Spirit Conference, the most
visible Genderqueers were the youngest of the bunch and the
most rambunctious. Many adopted a squatter-punk style,
complete with tattoos, facial piercings, and blue mohawks.
Doggie-piled on one of the couches, they were smoking
cigarettes, laughing, and making out with each other in gleeful
adolescent abandon. When the mood struck them, some of them
would take testosterone, which they purchased not with a pre-
scription, but on the black market. Some of them were boyish
looking, others appeared femme, and most of them might be
taken for punk-rock dykes or teenage boys.
This group did not represent all Genderqueers, but only one,
albeit vocal, segment of the Genderqueer population, a segment
t hat somet i mes takes on the aggressi ve l abel Gender
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 257

Anarchists or the scary-sounding Gender Anarchoterrorists.

These labels are apt, for this groups def ining style comes
straight from punk and shares many characteristics with that
movement, especially the desire and the ability to shock. These
kids are making a youthful protest with their bodies, and I
wonder if todays gender anarchists will grow out of it. Their
population is so new, it is impossible to say what they will grow
into: Transmen, butch dykes, or more conservative Genderqueers?
The more conservative Genderqueers could also be found at
the True Spirit Conference. They were seated around tables,
outside of the rowdier, colorful crowd. They also tended to be
younger (teens to 20s) and were probably not taking testosterone.
They were dressed in khakis, sweaters, and oxford shirts. And,
again, you would most likely perceive them as masculine women
or teenage boys. Indeed, those among this group identify not
as men, but asbois or guys. Within this more conservative
segment, just as in the punk group, there are different types:
those who have made the decision not to take hormones (a.k.a.
No-Hos, for no hormones), those who are taking low
doses of testosterone (a.k.a. Lo-Hos), and those who may still
be deciding.
There are many reasons someone may opt not to take
testosterone. There are health issues to consider: uterine,
ovarian, and cervical cancer (potential problems that can be
avoi ded wi t h a ful l hysterectomy); polycyt hemi a, t he
overproduction of red blood cells; liver disease; hypertension;
hi gh chol esterol ; and cardi ovascul ar di sease. Some
transmasculine Genderqueers do not like the idea of taking on
all the male secondary-sex characteristicsthey might like to
grow a mustache, but dont want male-pattern baldness (who
does?). For others, their female, feminist, activist, or transgender
identity is so crucial, they dont want it to disappear behind the
straight male scrim of testosterone. Still, they identify as
transmasculine and, for the No-Hos, the dilemma becomes how
to achieve a trans visibility when, without the effects of
testosterone, they remain invisibly transmasculine. For some,
the answer is to take low doses of testosterone (becoming Lo-
Hos) to achieve a comparably lower level of masculinization,
where they can strike a balance without going over the edge
258 Griffin Hansbury

into the controversial province of straight, white, male; but

this solution does not always resolve the dilemma, as they often
remain androgynousa desired, but problematic state to be in.
For those persons who have made the decision to go
No-Ho or Lo-Ho, Genderqueer is a final destination. More
transmasculine/male than butch dykes, the middle is exactly
where they want to be. But for those who are still deciding, it
may be only a stopover on the way to another identity, perhaps
Transman, perhaps something else. Even so, it is a mistake to
view Genderqueer as a phase within the transsexual transition,
though it often may seem to be. Before testosterone, most
transsexual men never identified as Genderqueer, but always
as FTM (or Man, Transman, etc.). More and more, Genderqueers
are seeking a comfortable place in the middle, outside any and
all boxes. Many eschew gender-specific pronouns, or, conversely,
they embrace ambiguity. Some of the labels this group uses
are: androgyne, gendermutt, ungendered, and polygendered.
For those who reside in the un/polygendered space, the
middle is a place of both comfort and discord. Because most
Genderqueers do not take testosterone, they often do not pass
as male. How, then, do Genderqueers maintain a sense of self
when the world is constantly perceiving them as female or butch,
and not seeing them as they see themselves? This oppressive
feeling of invisibility may pressure many Genderqueers to begin
transition before they are ready, or when they do not really
want to. The pressure comes not only from the general nontrans
population, but also from the transmasculine community, from
whom the Genderqueer receives the subliminal or overt
message, Without testosterone, youre not trans enoughnot
man enough. How can you be trans, without transition?
7
In
response, the Genderqueer may turn to testosterone for a beard
to hide behind and wear as a badge of validating masculinity.
In addition, Genderqueers often maintain close social ties
to the lesbian community, from whom they also receive a
fair amount of grief. Many lesbians, perhaps more than

7
The Transman/Woodworkers perceived power here is known as
transprivilege or passing privilege.
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 259

heterosexuals and gay men, have an especially difficult time

accepting the transmasculine identity, which may be seen as a
betrayal. Why would you want to be a man? some lesbians
have asked of transmasculine persons (myself included). They
utter the word man with the same distaste as they would
cockroach. This prejudice, coupled with the Genderqueers
seemingly butch-dyke exterior, leads many lesbians to continue
referring to their Genderqueer friends and partners with female
pronouns and names, even after the Genderqueer has asked
them not to. While the Genderqueers feel pressure from the
transmasculine community to begin testosterone and transition,
they often receive the opposite pressure from the lesbian
community; and, in particular, from their potentially lesbian-
identified partners, who may say, I will leave you if you take
testosterone.
Between the transmasculine and the lesbian communities,
Genderqueers often feel caught i n a tug- of- war and,
simultaneously, exiled from both sides, without a community
of their own. And, of course, the nontrans world offers no
respite. All this makes it very difficult for the undecided among
the Genderqueers to make a decision about transition. They
must find a way to turn down the volume on the many voices
that exert their desires; they must tune in to their own inner
self-perception.
What makes a Genderqueer boi different from a butch dyke?
Physically, there is often no difference. Again, it is all about
self-interpretation. The boi, or guy, perceives himself, and wishes
to be perceived, as a transmasculine boi. Thats a much taller
order than that of the Woodworker or Transman who asks to
be seen as a man. We all know, or think we know, what a man
looks like, and testosterone will do most of our work for us. But
what is a transmasculine boi? How can I see him without
testosterone to make him visible? This is the challenge of
everyone in a relationship with a Genderqueer, including
counselors and therapists. The best way to go about it, is to
simply ask, and to keep on asking, because a Genderqueers
identity, name, and pronomial preference is often in f lux.
While all on the transmasculine spectrum struggle with self-
perception, the Genderqueer (and nonhormonal Transman)
260 Griffin Hansbury

probably struggles most with the perceptions of others, simply

because the rift between inside and outside is so much greater.
Without full doses of testosterone, few transmasculine persons
can pass full-time. This difficulty leads to crises when the time
comes to use public restrooms, swim at public pools, or sun on
the beach, and when using the locker room at the gym. Non-
passing trans people are the recipients of often-daily harassment.
Their ambiguous appearance invites the worst from strangers,
acquaintances, coworkers, fami ly, and friends. And, as
Genderqueers age, without the virilizing effects of testosterone
it becomes more frustrating to be seen as a young boy. One
Genderqueer in his mid-20s with whom I recently spoke
recounted to me the story of being at a wedding, dressed in a
suit and tie: When I went up to the bar and asked for a gin and
tonic, the bartender looked at me like I was crazy. He thought I
was a 14-year-old kid. It really ruined my night.
For the transitioning Transman who, with the help of
testosterone, wi l l soon move t hrough t hi s ambi guous,
androgynous phase, there is comfort: this too shall pass. But
for the Genderqueer who chooses this middle space in which to
reside permanently, the privilege of passing is not an option.
Nonhormonal transmasculine persons, most of all, need to
acquire the skills necessary to cope with everyday life. Simply
moving through the public worldgoing to work, buying
groceries, riding the subwaycan be a harrowing dai ly
experience. The pressure to take testosterone can be over-
whelming, and the risk is that a Genderqueer will be tempted
to do so before he or she is ready, or, worse, when testosterone
is not at all what he or she wants for life.
CONCLUSION
Although homosexuality was officially depathologized and
removed from the DSM in 1973, transsexuality has yet to earn
the same distinction. The presence of Gender Identity
Disorder in the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association,
2000) is a controversial one among trans peoplemany oppose
its inclusion, while others believe that its status as a disorder
assists transpeople in receiving the psychotherapeutic and
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 261

medical help they need. Either way, the existence of a

pathologized Gender Identity Disorder is problematic. The
DSM-IV definition of this disturbance is a narrow one, leaving
no room for those transidentified persons who do not desire
to be the other sex and do not request for hormones, surgery,
or other procedures to physically alter sexual characteristics to
simulate the other sex.
8
Further, the diagnosis asserts that the
disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment
in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning
(p. 260).
I must argue that it is not the persons trans identity that
causes such very real impairments in functioning, but rather
the negative and stigmatizing views of the transphobic society
in which the person exists. From early life, the masculine female
childwhether the child grows up to be lesbian or transwho
expresses gender- vari ant tastes and behav i ors i s often
corrected by parent s and peers. In adol escence, t he
predicament intensif ies as the transmasculine teen faces
isolation. At a time when peer identifications are so crucial,
nongender-normative adolescents may find themselves without
the opportunity to develop a group identity, a sense of we.
Even in their own families, there is no sense of we; parents of
an African American child can role model what it means to be
an African American, but the transsexual child grows up without
models and without mirrors; there is little information available
to tell the trans adolescent how to be. Martin and Hetrick (1988)
found that, for gay and lesbian adolescents, this isolation resolves
once the young person has the example of adult as well as
peer role models [and] when the adolescent has someone to
talk to openly and has access to accurate information (p. 172).
Even at a time when more and more high schools and colleges
are offering gay and lesbian clubs and peer activities, few
embrace the trans student.
Such isolation, in adolescence and in adulthood, can impair
the transmasculine persons sense of self and lead to self-

8
Like disturbance, the word simulate here further reveals the DSMs
transphobia; in this case, a refusal to accept the trans identity as anything
more than a deception.
262 Griffin Hansbury

destructive behavior. The relationship between suicide risk and

sexual orientation is strong; studies have shown that suicide
rates for homosexual adolescents are much higher than those
for their heterosexual counterparts (e. g., Remafedi et al., 1998).
Devors (1997) study of FTMs found that 27% of participants
(n = 45) had considered suicide during adolescence, compared
with 15% of teenagers in general (p. 305).
In adulthood, transmasculine persons may seek counseling
on their own for a variety reasons. Some may need help in coping
with their personal feelings of isolation and internalized
transphobia. Some may not feel the need for psychotherapy at
all but will come (often resentfully) because they are required
by the Standards of Care to do so before beginning transition.
Others will seek mental health services for reasons unrelated
to their trans status. Whatever their reasons, many trans people
will have fears about sharing their trans identities and stories
with someone who is not trans and who may not only
misunderstand trans clients, but also mistreat them.
Transphobia has long been a problem in clinicianpatient
relationships (Raj, 2002). Any clinician, whether hetero-,
homo-, bi-, or transsexual, may exhibit transphobia, a fear that
most likely springs from societys negative view of trans people
and from the still-dominant theories of transsexuality that
pathologize the desire to transition physically from one sex to
the other (Stoller, 1975; Lothstein, 1983; Volkan and Masri,
1989). However, as mental health providers educate themselves
on trans issues, this paradigm is changing from transphobia
to transpositivity (Raj, 2002, p. 2). Self-education is the key.
FTM (and MTF) respondents to a survey asking about their
experiences in psychotherapy yielded the following valuable
information:
When asked what had been most helpful people listed four
things: acceptance, respect for the persons gender identity,
f lexibility in the treatment approach, and connection to
the Transgender community. . . . negative experiences in
therapy were more often associated with perceived lack of
provider experience with gender issues. Subjects also
An Introduction to the Transmasculine Identities 263

reported that treatment was compromised when providers

who had some expertise in gender were not adequately up-
to-date on current queer, transgender, or FTM issues
[Rachlin, 2002].
In trans parlance, the clinician is known, not affectionately,
as the gatekeeper, for it is the clinician who has the power to
provide or deny the letter required by the Standards of Care.
Without this letter of approval, most endocrinologists and
surgeons will not assist a trans person on the desired journey
of transition. Trans clients are inclined to approach a new
therapeutic relationship with suspicion and, oftentimes,
resentment. To establish trust at the outset of treatment, it is
essential that mental health providers be able to show not only
that they are educated in basic trans issues, but that they are
also up to date on the current language and trends in the trans
communities. It is my hope that this article will assist my readers
in doing just that.
Of course, with a communityand its languageconstantly
in f lux, and with a taxonomic tool hopelessly inefficient at fully
expressing every permutation on that infinite tree of bubbles,
by the time this article is read, it will undoubtedly be out of
date. Like identity itself, it cannot possibly persist through
time. Still, it is a place to start.
REFERENCES
American Psychiatric Association (2000), The Quick Reference to the
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Psychiatric Association.
Benjamin, H. (1966), The Transsexual Phenomenon. New York: Julian
Press.
Chivers, M. & Bailey, M. (2000), Sexual orientation of female-to-male
transsexuals: A comparison of homosexual and nonhomosexual
types. Arch. Sexual Behav., 29:259278.
Devor, H. (1997), FTM: Female- to- Male Transsexuals in Society.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Halberstam, J. (1998), Female Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press.
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Lothstein, L. M. (1983), Female-to-Male Transsexualism: Historical, Clinical

and Theoretical Issues. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Martin, A. D. & Hetrick, E. S. (1988), The stigmatization of the gay
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Rachl in, K. (2002), Transgender indiv iduals experiences of
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/www.symposium.com/ijt/.
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Remafedi, G., French, S., Story, M., Resnick, M. & Blum, R. (1998),
The relationship between suicide risk and sexual orientation: Results
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