Profile: Liam
You can call me… William. Or Liam.
I identify as… Firstly, me.
A polyamorous straight/asexual genderqueer transguy.
As a person in my own right, no matter how much or how little you understand or want to understand how I am.
As far as third-person pronouns go, … He, his, him. PLEASE. They, their, them if you must but not she and definitely not IT.
I’m attracted to… people. My partner. My closest friends. Femininity. Genderqueerness. Open minds and open hearts. People who can see me as a person and understand I AM trans and this isn’t going to change.
When people talk about me, I want them to… say how funny I am or how clever I am. Or how much they love me, what a good friend I am. Talk about my work and my life and almost forget that I’m trans because it isn’t always that important.
Be frank when other people get my pronoun wrong and say “He’s a boy” rather than ignoring it or saying “He’s transsexual” and expecting them to take all that in and understand it.
Recognise that being transsexual isn’t my single defining feature. That I am more than my body and what i may or may not do with it.
I want people to understand… that they don’t need to understand. That I will still be a boy whether they can understand the how and the why of it or not.
That this is important to me and not a joke or an act of attention-seeking.
That everyone has to live their own lives and happiness is not a commodity anyone should have to do without.
That “straight” does not mean I ONLY like women (it’s just a preference. My partner is genderless and I love hir very much) and “polyamorous” does not mean promiscious (ask my girlfriend).
And that boys, even trans boys, can wear necklaces and collect dolls if they want to!
About Liam
Liam is a young writer and filmmaker studying philosophy at the University of York. He’s been out as trans for almost a year now and living as a man since January 2009.
» Define yourself. «
Category: profiles 4 comments »
December 29th, 2009 at 9:37 am |
“That I am more than my body…”
…yes, we are.
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December 29th, 2009 at 1:42 pm |
I feel like as soon as someone slaps a trans label on me I’m not a multilayered person anymore, I’m just a transgendered person and that’s all there is too me. Glad to know someone else feels like gender labels are too confining to encompas who we are as people, not as a gender(s, or lack there of.)
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December 29th, 2009 at 5:59 pm |
Why hallo there Liam.
Oh, how I hate the “he’s transsexual witter blah witter” explanation. It’s a transparent “I’m a kewl kid with a freaky trans friend” or an “This person’s genitals are so defining a feature, imma TELL A STRANGER ABOUT THEM.” Next time it happens, to anyone, I’ll make something unflattering up about the genitals of the explainer, or mention that I have a friend who has a different skin colour to my own and how OMGEXOTIC that is, except I don’t actually know them that well &c. (that’s if all present understand sarcasm).
Can I continue a small personal crusade here? I don’t want you to feel criticised, you’re my brother an’ all (and dyslexic!), and loads of people do the relevant thing…
To me it seems that the noun “transguy” rather than the combination of the adjective “trans” with the noun “guy” (so, the lack of a space) SOUNDS like trans…ness is the defining feature of a person, in a world where no-one writes “dollcollectorguy” or “gayman” or “whitewoman”. I find the lack of a space a bit dehumanising, for that reason.
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January 1st, 2010 at 11:41 am |
Why hello Oliver.
I agree bro. I wrote this quite a few months ago and have been using “trans guy” rather than “transguy” for a few months now.
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