(and a tofu banh mi you can be proud of)
(Because I’m not an asshole, you can click here to go straight to the recipe.)
It’s the best of times; it’s the worst of times.
For trans people, I mean. We’re in this crucial cultural moment where trans people’s existence is well and truly out of the bag, where in some places, transitioning is easier and arguably safer than it’s ever been before. And in other places, we’re being repressed.
At the same time as trans people are finding their way onto the silver screen and into the halls of Congress, laws are being proposed and passed all over the country at a state level (and soon at a national level, with a Republican-led Congress) that aim to erase our existence from public life, force us back into our closets, or worse: “eradicate transgenderism” entirely.
It won’t work, of course; this particular bit of toothpaste can’t go back into its tube. But that won’t stop transphobes from trying, and it certainly won’t stop them from wreaking incredible collateral damage along the way. The Democratic Party may choose to throw us trans people under their campaign buses, or it may not. It’s too early to tell (even if some results are encouraging).
Many trans people are trying to defend themselves against this outpouring of hate by doing the same thing they did before. “We’re just like you,” they’ll say. “We’re normal, we can fit in, we promise we’re not weird or gross. We’re not like those trans people. We’re the good ones.” The few cisgender people that do defend us in the media tend to use the same narrative – trans people just want to live our normal American lives.
They’re wrong.
Trans people are to normalcy what vampires or Jehovah’s Witnesses are to your home: we can’t enter without permission, and you can revoke your invitation at any time.
There’s a trick to being invited into normalcy, and it’s one some trans people have down to an art. Just don’t look or act transgender. If a trans person transitions early enough, happens to be good-looking, or has enough money to afford surgical intervention, they can look like a cisgender person. If they train themselves well enough, they can act like a cis person. Mostly.
Of course, doing that takes a toll on a person. Hiding yourself like that is a source of constant tension, constant stress. Always worrying that your secret will be found out – and boy howdy, are people looking these days. But it can work. A trans person can be invited into normalcy if nobody knows they’re trans.
For the rest of us, fitting into cisgender society is a precarious proposition. Maybe we’re too tall, or too short. Too fat, too skinny, too curvy, too angular. Maybe our voices are too deep, or too high. Maybe we don’t like the ways we’d have to dress, act, and speak in order to fit in. Or maybe we’re just sick and tired of being tentatively invited into normalcy for the hundredth time only to be thrown back out again.
The truth is, most of us aren’t just like you. If we were, transphobes wouldn’t be fighting tooth and nail to stop you from knowing about us. They wouldn’t be banning our stories from library shelves, overriding the consensus of every reputable medical organization to ban trans healthcare, stripping us of our ability to have paperwork with our real name and gender. The Republicans and evangelicals, the right-wingers and TERFs, they’re genuinely convinced that trans people pose a danger.
And they’re sort of right. We do represent a dangerous truth. Because while we might not be just like you, you’re a hell of a lot more like us than you think.
The feeling of incongruity and wrongness that – in trans people – is called “gender dysphoria”? You’ve felt it too, I’d wager. Every time a man is bullied for his interests not being “manly enough”, every time a woman looks in the mirror, her standards set by Photoshop and Hollywood, and finds herself ugly, they feel it.
The same surgery that right-wing politicians are tripping over themselves to ban for young trans men – mastectomy, the surgical removal of unwanted breasts – is something that’s not all that infrequent in young cis men. In fact, the vast majority of double mastectomy patients under 18 are cis boys.
Gynecomastia – breast development in males – is hardly the norm, but it’s not uncommon, and many men who develop breasts do end up having medical intervention. It’s only a problem when it’s trans men that want that intervention, though.
Hormone replacement therapy is incredibly common among cisgender people. Many men report a variety of symptoms, both psychological and physical, when they have low testosterone levels. Postmenopausal women have their own list of symptoms stemming from a lack of estrogen – and you’d be stunned to hear how many of those match my own symptoms precisely, when I’m low on estrogen.
One of the things that occasionally rends my soul with grief is that I’ll never be able to bear children. My body can’t do it. And some of the people who’ve shared that feeling with me most, who I’ve bonded with over that pain? I’m the only trans person they’ve ever known. A lot of cisgender women who can’t have children for medical reasons feel those feelings.
Hormones, surgery, not being able to fulfill one of the roles in the American nuclear family as my parents no doubt intended: these things aren’t just trans experiences. They’re not normal experiences, but you don’t have to be trans to have them. Trans people’s problems are your problems too, because you’re just like us.
I’ve stopped asking to be let across the threshold of normalcy; it’s not a place I’ll ever be able to stay. But I do knock on the door occasionally. Not to be let in, but to invite people out into the weird world I inhabit. There are wonders out here beyond belief, and there’s family, love, and acceptance too. You’d be surprised how much you belong out here in the transgender wildlands, whether you’ve ever questioned your gender or not.
I’m not just like you. You’re just like me.
Tofu Banh Mi
Ingredients:
- One pound of extra-firm tofu
- White vinegar (at least 3 cups)
- Kosher salt
- Granulated sugar
- 1 medium-sized cucumber
- 1 medium-sized carrot
- Either one daikon (a large Japanese radish) or 4 regular red radishes
- 3 tablespoons sesame oil
- 1/2 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1/2 tablespoon ground garlic
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds
- The juice of 1 lime
- A baguette, as fresh as you can get it
- Mayonnaise
- Sriracha sauce
- 1 bunch cilantro
Preparation:
The night before you intend to serve the banh mi, set out a large Ziploc bag and a small mixing bowl. Drain the tofu thoroughly and slice it into approximately 6 slices, about half an inch thick by three and a half wide by two tall. In the Ziploc bag, pour the soy sauce, sesame oil, lime juice, sesame seeds, ground ginger, and ground garlic. Seal the bag and shake it thoroughly until the ingredients emulsify, then place the tofu slices into the bag. Ensure the tofu slices are completely submerged in the mixture, then carefully drain the air out and seal the bag again.
Take your cucumber, slice off the ends, and slice the cucumber in half lengthwise. Remove the seeds from the center (the best way of doing this is to scoop them gently using your 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon, but do this over your garbage can, as it’s quite messy!), then slice the remaining cucumber flesh lengthwise into strips between 1/8 and 1/4 inch wide. Chop these strips into one inch long “matchsticks”, then cut the carrot and radish (daikon or otherwise) into “matchstick”-like strips of similar size.
Place these matchsticks into the small mixing bowl, then pour white vinegar into the bowl until the chopped veggies are completely submerged. Add a pinch each of kosher salt and granulated sugar, then stir gently and cover with cling-wrap or a lid.
Refrigerate both the bag of marinating tofu and the bowl of pickling vegetables overnight.
When the time comes to prepare your banh mi, slice the baguette in half lengthwise, then cut it into sections about the size of the tofu slices. Arrange the baguette slices on a baking tray.
Take your tofu slices out of their marinade. Pan-fry them over medium heat, using a neutral oil like canola, until they have a crispy texture on one side, then flip and cook for another minute.
Place the baking tray full of baguette slices into your oven, then use the broiler to toast them for about 3 minutes.
When the baguette slices have been toasted, bring the pickled veggies out of the fridge.
Cover the baguette sections with mayonnaise on both halves, and add sriracha on the half that will become the top half. Place a liberal amount of the pickled veggies onto the bottom baguette half for each sandwich, then add a slice of marinated tofu. Use one or two sprigs of cilantro to garnish, then close the sandwish.
Serve fresh.