As a transwoman, I have a sexual attraction towards women and men, which people call “Bisexual”. I am happy to have gained my identity which I love and to have started my sexual transition phase, and I know that this is when I am most myself, not only because of my identity but also my orientation…
I used to face pressure all the time for having to explain my orientation and identity well, individuals whether from the queer community or not aren’t able to differentiate between sexual orientations and gender identities, and the effect each one has on the other. Sexual orientation is simply your emotional or sexual attraction towards people with their variety of genders. Gender identities on the other hand, are how we identify ourselves, and our feelings towards ourselves and our bodies.
Unfortunately, the predominant culture in the Egyptian society, and with it the queer community since it’s originally part of the bigger society, makes this weird connection between sexual orientation and gender identities, which results in the pressure I mentioned before in explaining myself to individuals from different circles.
Whether in the lesbian and queer women’s or the gay men’s circles, I need to explain all the mentioned before; what my identity is, what my orientation is, and the difference between the two. All of it in preparation for the discrimination and molding attempts that are being forced on me as a girl with an atypical orientation and identity, starting from facing the question “You’re trans? Why did you transition then since you like girls? You could’ve remained a boy!!”, as if people’s attraction to individuals with a certain gender is sufficient to determine their gender identity! Knowing that there are trans individuals who don’t have any attraction whatsoever, whether sexually or emotionally, towards any individual, and they are perfectly capable of determining their gender identity.
The bigger problem is in dealing with psychiatrists specialized in gender dysphoria. In Egypt, in order for us as trans individuals to be able to obtain our medical reports that permit us to complete our transition, and modify our official documents, we need to go through therapy sessions with one of the psychiatrists that are responsible for the role of evaluating us psychologically, and determining in all arrogance if we are eligible to obtain the required reports or not. One of the much repeated incidents in these sessions is that when they know about my orientation and my attraction to women they treat me as a homo firstly, hence I become in need of conversion therapy for my homosexuality, and my diagnosis may be delayed, or the doctor might look at me differently.
When it comes to dating, meeting girls and boys according to my sexual orientation puts me into trouble with both sides, when I meet girls they see me as an incomplete girl, because I haven’t finished my operations yet or because my voice hasn’t become a girl’s voice in the stereotypical manner that the society forces on us, which causes me dysphoria and unease because they have certain criteria for what constitutes a complete girl. In the queer men’s community on the other hand, most of the time they treat me as if I am a fetish to them, and a tool to have sex, and they categorize me as a shemale or a ladyboy, although this doesn’t reflect my identity as a woman, and results in so many mistakes from their side in using the correct pronouns that they’re supposed to use with me, and I find myself in a place where I have to explain to them what gender dysphoria is and about me being trans.
The explanation thing itself is emotionally exhausting to me, and along with it are my feelings of anxiety when I meet new people because most of the time I have to explain myself…. Hence, I will use the following part of the article to introduce people to what gender dysphoria is.
The word “Dysphoria” is a derivative of the Greek term “Dysphoros” which means agitation or difficulty, and also dissatisfaction and unease; thus we can identify the term “Gender Dysphoria” as the feeling of dissatisfaction and distress with one’s gender role, which is coming from the society’s categorization in accordance to the sex registered in the birth certificate.
The queer community in Egypt in the meantime is full of different sorts of stigmatization, discrimination, and phobia towards one another, and this affects our psychological safety and health as a whole, and causes harm to many, especially that members of it find justifications to practice violence against others… and the survivors from this violence don’t have many spaces that they can resort to, and escape the harm cast upon them.
One of the methods of violence and discrimination is the community’s outlook in general to the bisexual and pansexual individuals, which is at times a discriminative outlook based on the idea that they aren’t “Pure” enough like them, and it comes to light in phrases and terms full of biphobia, and stereotypical judgments; For instance, the judgment that because I am bisexual then I will have sex with both men and women which will make me unable to be in a relationship with the same person.
The idea of molds and criteria that are being forced upon us from inside the queer communities or from the bigger Egyptian society, always refrains and scares us from exploring ourselves on all levels, and from practicing our freedom in expressing ourselves. The molds and criteria reinforce the actualization of things like people and groups discriminating against and categorizing one another, and since we as a minority suffer from the bigger society’s discrimination against us, then such acts of violence shouldn’t be in the list of our practices towards one another.
In the end, despite all of this I was able to find safe surrounding circles that were capable of accepting me; the people that I don’t have to explain myself to like I had encountered with other people, the circles whose actions give comfort to those around them, they avoid hurting them, and they take the initiative to accept without making judgments… the circles that support our choices and respect them. I wish these circles would multiply, and the normal thing would be for us to live our lives and preferences without being anxious, afraid, or agitated from any harm that we may encounter.
