Transitioning is often seen through a medical lens, marked by physical changes to the body including hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery. While transitioning clearly demonstrates the fluidity of gender, the body, and how gender and the body interact and are perceived, the locations of sex on the body are often viewed as static. For someone to have fully transitioned, their gender and biological sex would seemingly “match.” I am in support of people doing whatever it is they need to do to feel good about their gender and I am in no way against this type of transitioning. However, what I believe is problematic is how this is typically seen as the default for trans* people. Not all trans* people transition or transition in this particular way.

The Phallic Titty Manifesto, a zine by a friend Jackie Wang

discusses the ambiguity of flesh, tits as dicks and dicks as clits, erotic lactation, Judith Butler, pregnant bodies, Louise Bourgeois, the lesbian phallus, unmaking and remaking bodies, expanding erogenous zones, and queer sex.

Through a queer lens, sex is no longer isolated to biological parts associated with our sex at birth or if they are their weight no longer holds. In this sense, there is a radical capability to transition or transgresses gender norms while still seemingly embodying the sex you were assigned at birth.

This makes me think of the usage of terms “female-bodied” and “male-bodied.” I have typically heard them used in the context of referring to trans*, genderqueer, and non-gender conforming folks. While someone will refer to someone with “they/their” pronouns in one breath, they will use “female-bodied” or “male-bodied” to refer to them in another. While I think this is subjective, dependent on the specific person and how they like to be referred to, I think this is extremely interesting. From this example, it is clear how deeply embedded sex and gender are in physical bodies. I think at times terms like these can (unintentionally) reinscribe the gender binary, in which some folks clearly do not identify with. If someone is trans*, why wouldn’t they be trans*-bodied (or however they would like to be referred)? Do you think it is inherently impossible to view the body, specifically sex on the body as fluid?