A definition of normal:

[packbat]

I feel like the definition of "normal" is that we are expected to not question it. Everything else, we are expected to question.

(Content warnings: hypothetical social awkwardness, anti-trans prejudice, allusion to murder and suicide.)

If I stepped into a crowded elevator in the US and stood facing the back wall and not the doors, I could reasonably expect people to give me strange looks. To stand facing the doors is normal and not to be questioned - to stand facing the other way is not normal, and therefore must be assessed for its motives. Perhaps no-one on the elevator could explain why elevator riders expect passengers to face the door (perhaps it is so they can see immediately when their floor arrives, so as to not miss their chance to disembark? I'm guessing, I don't know), but to do the normal thing requires no explanation, so this lack is not felt. Inversely, I might be able to offer a reason why I am doing what I am doing (say ... "I'm not at my destination floor, so turning around isn't necessary yet"), but that doesn't matter either - facing the back wall of the elevator is not normal, and whatever reason I give is simply more surface area that can be questioned. ("But what if you miss your floor?" "But what if you lose count of the beeps that indicate each floor?" "But if you're turning your head to look at the indicator anyway, why not just turn around?")

(We've never tried the experiment - social awkwardness is terrifying.)

When we came out as trans to our mom (long before we knew we were nonbinary or plural or much of anything else), she asked, "Are you sure?" We did not then, and do not now, have any reason at all to think we are cis, but that doesn't matter - being cis is normal, and therefore she was expected not to question it. It was not until we said we were trans that there was any reason to question.

Is being normal common? How could it be otherwise? Anything can be questioned, anything can be doubted, and any doubt is proof that the thing we are to not question - normal - must be true. We wrote every day - or even multiple times a day! - our mental assessment of our gender, and saw that it was not the same ... but the pressure to question genderfluidity was pervasive, and there was not even a word for the alternative to give us a focus to our questioning of it, so for months we just continued writing. It is a revolutionary act to make a website with the URL am i trans dot org, or am i nonbinary dot com, or are we plural dot com that says with giant letters "yes" - and it is both possible and necessary to do that because normal is not to be questioned.

Possible, because it is so difficult to reach a point of asking, "Am I other than normal?" that almost everyone who ever gets there and seeks an answer is among us others. Necessary, because us others are so full of question that we need someone who can hear us ask and answer without hesitation - for whom our selves do not need to be questioned, are allowed to exist without question.

We have no reason at all to think we are cis. If normal can be questioned, if the idea that we are cis can be assessed for its credibility, then the questions answer themselves - a medical professional filled out a birth certificate decades ago and no reason exists to think they filled this space out correctly. If "normal" were merely "usual", the existence of trans people would be no more noteworthy than the existence of motorcycles among motor vehicles - not the most common, but hardly so rare that people would ask, "Are you sure it wasn't a small sedan?". If "normal" meant "usual", the existence of the unusual would remain undoubted. Normal does not mean "usual". And a lot of people die at the hands of those - themselves or others - for whom a normal cannot be questioned.

Comments

[sigmaleph]

<3

i had many of the same thoughts after coming out to my parents

[packbat]

<3

*offers virtual hugs if wanted*