Hannah McKnight: Princess, Save Yourself

I’ve heard it said that the world doesn’t hate you (well, maybe some people do) but as a whole, the human population (on an individual basis) doesn’t care about you one way or the other.

That sounds really harsh, but it’s rather liberating in a way.

If you spend your day running errands, you will likely encounter hundreds of people. Most people are those whom you pass by at the grocery store and you never exchange more than fleeting eye contact. You’ll probably interact a little with the cashier, or the pharmacist if you are picking up a prescription, or the barista if you need a little treat. And really, none of these people really care about you. Again, it sounds harsh, but the other shoppers are there to get their groceries and leave, the cashier and the barista are doing their jobs and counting down the minutes until they get to go home. They probably won’t give you a second thought after your interactions with them are finished.

Essentially the world and its inhabitants are indifferent to you. But to be fair, you are likely indifferent to them as well. Everyone is trying their best to get through their day and live their lives and are so distracted and focused on our lives, our own day that we don’t have the bandwidth to focus tooooo much on completely random people that we will likely never see again.

None of this is to say that people are unkind. Most people are helpful and more than willing to assist a stranger with something, whether it is helping them take something down from a high shelf at the store or other small acts of kindness. These moments are also fleeting and will likely never enter someone’s consciousness ever again.

I really believe (and perhaps it’s the coffee I am drinking that’s giving me this sense of optimism) that people are inherently kind and that cooperation is one of humanity’s unique and ingrained characteristics. I feel that most of us WANT to help others but we are also so overwhelmed with our own day to day lives that beyond a small moment of kindness we really aren’t able to do more.

I want to do more. I think most of us do. I see so much injustice in this world that I am inspired to DO something. But I don’t. Not really. I think volunteering for a charity that I believe in would be a wonderful way to be a part of something bigger than I am, buuuut when I look at my calendar and work obligations I get overwhelmed and I am convinced that I don’t have the time.

Which is silly and wrong. I DO have the time. I mean, I can make the time. Somehow. I mean, if out of the blue my boss says I need to travel for work in two weeks, I buy my ticket and book my hotel and the other commitments I have somehow get reshuffled and still get done. I just need to apply that thinking to other, more important things I should do.

But I don’t. I know my job is just my job, but I look around and I see the tangible things my job provides, like my salary (which pays the mortgage), for example. I am keen to stay employed. Yes, I have vacation time that I earned, but I feel stressed about taking time off.

None of this is an excuse. Well, it is absolutely an excuse, but it’s an example of how I WANT to do more, but I essentially CHOOSE not to.

As a caucasian person I do not feel that I am target, but that doesn’t mean that I am not enraged or terrified about what is happening

But I mean well! But that means very little. Someone’s good intentions do nothing to help others.

Which sounds really pessimistic. I suppose you could say that every good deed STARTS with good intentions, so perhaps I am being too hard on that word.

As individual human beings, we rarely participate in events that directly impact a greater segment of the population. I can do nice things to people all day long and these actions might make a person’s day a tiny bit easier and a tiny bit better, but in terms of making a significant change to millions of people, well, that is very rare. I suppose the only thing that comes close to that is when I have a chance to vote. Every four years (well, at least for now), eligible people are able to cast their vote for the presidential candidate that they feel is the best person to lead the United States for the next four years. Of course in many elections we are choosing to vote AGAINST the person whom we feel is the wrong choice. Yes, I don’t like sometimes we vote against the lesser of two evils, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

In the United States, we vote for ONE person to be president. People vote the way they do for various reasons and some reasons are baffling. Some vote based on the candidate’s economic plan, some vote for a person because they hate the same people they themselves hate. Regardless, you may LIKE the person you are voting for, but you are also voting for the policies they will enact and the other people that they put in their government. These policies and other appointees will impact millions of citizens. Sure, you may not have voted specifically for the person in charge of the education or health department, but you voted for the person who nominated them. So, in an indirect way, you played a direct part in that person getting into that department who introduced policies and laws that will play a role in the lives of everyone in the country.

Here in the United States we are living in pretty alarming times. It’s disturbing to see certain parallels that mirror the characteristics of facism and dictatorship. We are seeing legal citizens being deported to God knows where and citizens being silenced and intimidated and worse for speaking their mind or enforcing a law that is in our constitution. Much of what we are seeing, for now, anyway, is impacting people of color. As a caucasian person I do not feel that I am a target, but that doesn’t mean I am not enraged or terrified about what is happening.

As a transperson, though? That is a very different story.

Everyone knows that these methods and mentality are not going to stop with citizenship or immigration related matters. The attention will soon turn to all people of color, as well as the non-binary and non-straight members of our country.

So, people like myself and likely people like you.

So far, most of the legislation that has passed and is being discussed impacts transgender folks serving in the military or those who are medically and legally transitioning. I am not a member of the military nor am I transitioning so thus far nothing is impacting me directly. But that doesn’t mean I am not outraged by it. Even if I was cisgender I would still be outraged by this. Regardless of whether or not legislation impacts me directly, the message is clear: I, and others like me, are hated and we will be eliminated.

Wow, that escalated quickly, right? Elimination doesn’t mean that a cyborg from the future is going to hunt me down. I think many of the people in charge right now would be happy (at least for a little while) if I was pushed back into the closet and to never strut through a mall or a museum or anywhere else ever again. I would be eliminated from the world. This will be done through fear and intimidation and threats. I suppose there will be a law that will give police, or “concerned citizens” the right to inspect my genitals and my legal identification to determine the gender I was assigned at birth. And if this information conflicts with my presentation? Well, we don’t have to speculate too much about what could happen because it’s already happening to our country.

It’s clear that at the very least life in the United States will not get easier for queer people in the next few years. Not that I need them to specifically make my life easier but if they could stop making my life, and the lives of others like me, less terrifying I would settle for that.

We’re actually doing patriarchy very well… we’re just better at hiding it.

The bar is pretty low, isn’t it?

So-called Christians who love Jesus because He was/is all about unconditional love but will not hesitate to make the lives of others who are not like them much worse. Again, I don’t need them to go out of their way to improve things, but my god, stop working so hard to do the opposite.

All of this reminds me of lines from a poem that Leonard Cohen wrote.

…believe the word of God
Who has told you so many times
And in so many ways
To love onе another
Or at least not to torture and murdеr
In the name of some stupid vomit-making human idea
That makes God turn away from you

I think that says it best. God Himself said to love one another, yet too many “leaders” willfully and happily ignore this very simple, and very clear message.

Wow, okay. Let’s pivot away from this direction because this is getting deep and/or depressing.

I grew up with fairy tales and Disney movies where the beautiful princess was always waiting to be saved. As I grew older, Disney movies were replaced by romantic comedies where a beautiful princess was always waiting to be saved. Yes, in these movies she wasn’t waiting to be saved from a dragon, but she usually needed rescuing from a bad boyfriend and even from herself. It was implied that a man would save her and alllll her problems would be solved.

Entertainment that had a female character, whether it was an animated movie with singing forest animals or a quirky twenty-something girl who had a mundane life, almost always told a story where a man would swoop in and save her. Fix her. Essentially, women needed saving.

And until I was in my teenage years, I believed this was true. I realized how fictional these movies were when I started to date and was surprised by how independent and strong most women are. And yes, I should have realized that earlier but when you grow up on a decade of women being portrayed as forever longing for a prince (or a handsome work colleague) to save her you just assumed that’s how things were. I was very naive and very impressionable.

As I came to accept and embrace my gender identity I started to really see everything from a different perspective. I am not suggesting that I can relate to what a woman experiences, mind you. There are many, many elements in a woman’s life that I will likely never experience. I have not transitioned, and I do not present as femme full time. My professional life has, and will always be, masculine presenting. Essentially if I apply for a job/promotion I am doing this as a HIM. When I engage with my colleagues it is HE doing this.

I listen to the women in my life, my wife, my sisters, my friends… who all have experiences in the workplace or when speaking to a mechanic or countless other examples when they were disregarded, ignored, or passed over for a job/promotion based on their gender. Of course, gender discrimination tends to be more… subtle these days. I think the Barbie movie said it best:

“We’re actually doing patriarchy very well… we’re just better at hiding it.”

I don’t see myself doing the “real” stuff that a life involves as my femme identity. My femme life consists mainly of social and leisurely moments. Meeting up with friends, going to a museum, shopping…

Of course, my femme presentation does change how others interact with me compared to my masculine presentation. As “him” I can run errands and for the most part do so almost anonymously. I am just a guy doing stuff.

We must save ourselves. We must be the ones who take care of ourselves. We can’t depend on anyone else, except ourselves. We are the princess, and we must also be heroes.

But when Hannah does things? People notice. Not because I am so gorgeous everyone stares but because I am a non-passing transgender girl. When I say I am non-passing I mean that it’s very clear that I was AMAB. And that’s fine, I was AMAB. I am a transgender girl. I am clocked and I am fine with that. People know I am transgender, so good for them.

What this means is that people interact with me knowing I am transgender. How people engage with me is almost completely influenced by how they feel about girls like me.

And I know this.

Not everyone knows that transwomen are women. So some guys may hold the door open for the girl behind them, but will not do so if the girl is transgender.

My point to this is that although I can’t say I know what women experience, I do know what it’s like to be out in the world as someone other than a man.

White, cisgender, heterosexual men never had to fight for their right to vote, to own property, apply for a credit card, have a bank account, adopt a child, and other things that queer people and women and people of color may have not had the right to do without a fight.

Last night at dinner my wife talked about how much more difficult it was going to be to vote if the SAVE Act gets passed. The SAVE Act doesn’t specifically say that one of the goals is to make it harder for women to vote, but rather it impacts people who have changed their name, such as someone who changed their last name after they married. Most of the women in my life who married took on their husband’s last name. The SAVE act would impact all of these women.

Again:

“We’re actually doing patriarchy very well… we’re just better at hiding it.”

White, heterosexual, cisgender men probably won’t be impacted too much by this. Legally, and for most of my life, people assume I am a white (my skin color), heterosexual (I am married to a woman), and I am cisgender (because I do not present femme full time). The SAVE Act will not personally impact ME and MY vote but that doesn’t mean I am not outraged by it. I don’t need to be affected by something for me to care about it. The SAVE Act is meant to address fraudulent voting but it’s not a significant issue here. Rather it’s meant to suppress women voting who tend to vote Democrat. Were I to transition this would absolutely impact me.

It’s horrible to see people intentionally go out of their way to hurt others.

But I digress.

For the next few years (God, I hope it’s only for the next few years) no one in charge is likely going to make life easier, even just a little, for women, people of color, or the queer community. We can’t depend on our leaders. It’s up to us. Superman is not going to save us. Mario is not going to fight a monster to rescue the princess.

We, of course, are the princesses. We always have been.

We must save ourselves. We must be the ones who take care of ourselves. We can’t depend on anyone else, except ourselves. We are the princess, and we must also be heroes.

And this isn’t limited to our rights and our overall existence. It’s how we feel about ourselves. It’s about not depending on validation or approval from others. When I tweet a picture I do so because I like it. I like how I look or like my outfit and I think I am funny. I get comments and most of them are very nice and complimentary. I get rude commentators but I shake them off (for the most part) and block them. I don’t need that. I don’t need anyone to like my picture or say nice things. I don’t depend on that validation. I don’t care if anyone thinks it’s a cute photo or whatever. I am my own target audience. If I like it, then I have succeeded.

We all need to be our target audience. Not just online, but in the world, the mall, the office, our community, our family.
We all need to be our own heroes. Our own champions.
We need to save the princess and the princess is us.

Love, Hannah