Humans.
I just ... don't get them.
I just ... don't get them.
And when machines are people?
Well, that affinity is infinitely magnified.
So, yeah - what I'm saying here is that I really love robots.
And I've really loved robots for as long as I can remember.
But, as a kid - I didn't just love them. I wanted to BE LIKE them.
In fact - as a kid, I liked to pretend I was a robot.
It helped in a lot of ways.
It stirred my creativity. Coming up with the powers, limitations and abilities of my robot-self made for awesome mental exercises. And, if you know my history, you can probably also understand that it was, mentally, very calming and soothing for me to pretend I was a robot. It was a respite from my fears and anxieties about the emotional expectations of others, because robots generally aren't held to the same social standards of emotional scrutiny as humans.
And you know what else? It also helped me deal with some of my crushes.
It stirred my creativity. Coming up with the powers, limitations and abilities of my robot-self made for awesome mental exercises. And, if you know my history, you can probably also understand that it was, mentally, very calming and soothing for me to pretend I was a robot. It was a respite from my fears and anxieties about the emotional expectations of others, because robots generally aren't held to the same social standards of emotional scrutiny as humans.
And you know what else? It also helped me deal with some of my crushes.
I hope you're not. Because, hey, surprise; autistic kids can have crushes. And trans girls can have crushes. And when someone has both of those aspects in themselves?
Yeah, even then - kids like that can still have crushes.
Now, of course, for any kid who's growing up, crushes can be complicated. They can be messy. They can be something of an emotional train-wreck.
But when you add the factors of being a trans person and also having a mental disability onto the everyday emotional train-wreck of a crush, the complications pile on to each other. And the mess gets that much bigger. And the wreck gets that much worse. And when things get complicated, kids - and autistic kids, in particular - can get overwhelmed. And they can just emotionally melt down over it.
And autistic meltdowns can often be some of the worst; the messiest; the most wrecking; the most damaging.
But that kind of damage isn't just restricted to the world around an autistic kid going through a meltdown.
It's can be internalized to wound the autistic kid right along with the rest of the world.
And it can be incredibly isolating, which isn't a good state to be in when a person is so wounded.
And so goes the cycle, so often for so many autistic kids.
We find ourselves isolated and alone and, worst of all, lonely.
We lose control over our lack of control. And so we rage at our condition - and at not being understood, at being seemingly-incapable of the most basic connections with other people; the scenario that has led us to this state of isolation. And, in raging, we melt down.
And then. when the meltdown is over, we find that we have wounded others ... and ourselves.
And so we retreat from the source of our pain and the cause of their pain. We retreat from other people, and then ...
... we find ourselves isolated and alone and, worst of all, lonely.
And this is how it was for me. Because, back when I was a kid, there were many boys I knew and liked that I also "like-liked." And I was an absolute mess around the boys I "like-liked."
Because, around them, I felt like they had all the control. And I didn't like how that felt. It felt like I was being squeezed to death.
I even recall thinking that had to be why they called it a "crush."
But I still "like-liked" them - which also meant that I still wanted to be around them, even though it hurt.
At the same time, though, they were boys. And I was a trans girl.
And, in the bygone days of my primary school education in the 1970s and 1980s, it was an absolute fact for me that - for the most part - whatever the boys were interested in wasn't going to be the same as whatever it was that I liked at any given time.
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And, before you ask ... yes, in 1978, I really did carry a lunchbox - forth and back & to and from school every school day - that featured The Magic of Lassie.
I'm sure you can imagine how that went over with the boys.
But I didn't and don't care, because Lassie rules.
But, as much as Lassie did and does rule, that didn't change the fact that I couldn't really engage the boys I "like-liked" in a discussion about how awesome it was when Lassie traveled across the country to get back to the Mitchell farm.
There just wasn't any common frame of reference. They would look at me like I was speaking some kind of alien language - or, worse, try to beat me up for being "weird."
Certain words weren't part of my peers' vocabulary back in 1978. But they would be taught, and they would learn.
Nevertheless, I didn't lose all hope.
Because there were still a few specific subject that I could relate to the boys about, and which I could count on every time to bridge the gaps in our communications.
And one of those subjects was the subject of robots.
See, I was a huge fan of a television show called The Bionic Woman.
And Jaime Sommers was - and is - one of my all-time favorite fictional heroes. But that's another article for another day.
But it was from that show that I developed an interest in robots. Or ... more specifically ... Fembots.
The idea of Fembots had a tremendous impact on me, psychologically, when I first saw them on The Bionic Woman.
Here were these strange creatures who were used for the purpose of covert reconnaissance and subterfuge, who had no free will to decide who they were or what they wanted to be, who were often wantonly destructive at the drop of a hat, who were always malfunctioning ...
... and who were different on the inside than on the outside.
And these robots walked among humans, indistinguishable from them except to someone who knew to look out for them.
They were hidden amongst us all.
They were, in short, robots in disguise.
But in the case of the Fembots, it wasn't a disguise of their own making.
Because they had no free will to decide on how they wanted to live their lives, their experiences in the world were limited to whatever whim struck those who controlled them. And so they were forced to roam the Earth, looking like one thing while being another, incapable of empathizing with the humans around them, following the orders of their creators that forced them to disguise themselves to be something they're not.
So, uh, yeah, you might say I kind of understood that and related to it in my own special way.
Now, if you read my previous article, you know that at the exact moment this picture was being taken I was trying to invoke the presence of Kate Jackson.
And you also know that a single thought was echoing through my head:
I'm the ugliest girl who's ever lived.
And so it went that I empathized with these robots. I felt like our positions were similar in how the world regarded us - that we were disregarded as strange, as dangerous, as unwanted and incapable of self-determination.
And so it went that, yes, I imbued the thoughtless Fembots, in my imagination, with their own identities and wishes that reflected my own.
I imagined them to be reluctant footsoldiers for the conquerors who used them on The Bionic Woman and The Six-Million Dollar Man. In my own adventures with my Jaime Sommers and Fembot dolls (each sold separately), I would often have Jaime befriend the Fembot after a fierce battle and help the Fembot gain autonomy and end up working for the OSS alongside Jaime and Steve - usually to beat the heck out of Maskatron, who was pretty much always a really serious dick.
And through this play, I engaged in self-care. I engaged in self-soothing. I healed myself, because nobody could see the root source of the wounds I was dealing with because I wouldn't tell anyone I was hurting.
And it helped ... a lot.
And, so, part of that self-care was sometimes playing pretend while going through my daily routine of real life that I wasn't just a girl, but a robot in disguise ...
But there was more to it than that.
In my game, I was, of course, a girl robot ...
.. but, more specifically, I was a girl robot who was also disguised as a boy.
Now, of course, I knew that I wasn't really a robot. I knew it was just make-believe - imagination and fantasy.
And I knew the difference between reality and fantasy from a very early age, which debunks the theories of Jean Piaget in much the same way the psychological and developmental sciences have debunked him.
But my imagination was serving a purpose.
And that purpose was that my imagination was serving as a protective buffer zone that stood between two separate and painful realities in my life, whether at-home while my parents were around or hanging out with the boys society told me I was supposed to hang out with in my off-time.
The robot fantasy was helping me bridge a very complicated gap between my very real brain and my equally-real XY chromosome. And it worked. And it helped me survive. And it helped me navigate the sometimes rough-and-tumble world of boys who saw me as a boy, albeit a weird boy who - despite his apparent softness - could give as good as he got when called upon to do so ... thanks to that whole wanton destruction thing.
Destruction, somehow, meant affection to boys. And I could be that kind of affectionate, too.
Destruction, somehow, meant affection to boys. And I could be that kind of affectionate, too.
And a rough-and-tumble attitude was important.
But the element of disguise? That was more important.
Disguise, around boys, meant survival. It was a necessity, to my way of thinking, if I didn't want to end up being attacked from all sides.
But the element of disguise? That was more important.
Disguise, around boys, meant survival. It was a necessity, to my way of thinking, if I didn't want to end up being attacked from all sides.
And it was a disguise that carried its own weights and psychological prices, too.
Hey, I never said it was a perfect solution. I was a kid.
One of those prices was that, in public and in-private when my parents were around, I had to try to throw off anyone who might detect me as a girl.
This was tough-going, the older I got. But it wasn't impossible.
And I still had lapses ...
... like the Christmas when I begged "Santa Claus" for the Strawberry Shortcake Berry Happy Home.
So, yeah, I had my moments of weakness with regard to allowing myself the luxury to enjoy things that were "meant for girls."
But I toughened myself and made changes as the years passed, maintaining this game of survival and this buffer zone of imaginary safety in my head.
There were no more Lassie lunchboxes. They were replaced with things that could maintain the disguise.
And, hey, lots of girls I knew liked scary stuff like monsters, too, right? And The Bride has always been awesome (but, again, that's another article for another day). But the disguise wasn't just about lunchboxes. It was about everything.
And, as a result, it got bigger ... and bigger ... and more and more unwieldy the further along in life I went. As I grew up, I continued to upgrade the disguise as I entered new surroundings. And the more I upgraded it, the heavier on me it got ... and the less I felt like myself.
Under the weight of the disguise, I felt trapped. I felt alone. I felt ... isolated.
And the longer it went, the more I missed and reflected upon what I'd lost in life:
Myself.
I'd done such a good job hiding who I was that I got to a point where I realized that the real me ... the one within the disguise ... was unknown to everyone except me.
I had left the disguise intact and let it grow over my lifetime, far too long to stay hidden ... even with air holes here and there.
And we talked about how bad things can get when an autistic person feels especially isolated.
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So I lashed out at the world, in epic meltdown after epic meltdown. I lashed out at my parents, at people who said they cared about me, at my extended family, at co-workers, at strangers on the internet and on the street.
I behaved unfathomably poorly, because I was furiously unhappy and in terrible pain.
And, yes, I recognize that everything I did and said to be mean was entirely my own doing and entirely my own fault and is entirely my responsibility. I was filled with rage, and I expressed it poorly on the world.
And it's not enough, will never be enough for me to say I'm sorry for being a bitter and hateful person when I should have been helping the world to heal.
I can't ever take those unkind words back, nor can I fix hurt feelings.
But I can try to use the energy of what I've learned to encourage other people to find strength and confidence.
And I can use the perspective I've gained to educate and enlighten, if I may be so bold as to say so about my own work.
And, yeah, you know what? I can say that - because I am bold.
So there.
And part of writing this blog has also been to dismantle that disguise the best way I know how, by writing my history and explaining to the world who I am, and making myself vulnerable to other people along the way.
And, hopefully, I'm also educating and enlightening people who might be willing to read about imaginary robots but might never read anything about trans issues or trans people, who might not even be aware we exist. Or who might deny we exist.
Because we are here, and we do exist. Hi. What' up?
And there are people out there who say that trans people aren't really trans, you know? They think we're just playing.
There are people who claim that when we tell the world we're a "girl in a boy's body," or vice versa, that it's no different than if we claimed we were really dolphins or tigers ...
... or even robots.
And, to that, I say "How dare you?"
How dare you accuse me of being so intellectually-deficient and juvenile that you think the battle I fight every day to be recognized for who and what I am is because I can't distinguish reality from fantasy?
But, as someone who really was a girl in a boy's body, and who also pretended to be a robot, I'm here to tell you that there's a world of difference there, and one I hope I've started to illustrate. I've tried to show that identifying as a woman when your body's got an XY chromosome in there isn't just a matter of changing the font of your signature.
We're trans, yes, but we're trans people. Our lives are complex, we who were trans girls and who are now trans women - and that's true for trans men, too.
We suffer, because all women on Earth suffer in one form or another. The suffering is worse for some, less so for others, but almost all women who live on Earth are oppressed in some form or another. But that oppression isn't always the kind that takes the same shape. For some, it's about patriarchy controlling the mind. For others, it's about patriarchy controlling the body. For still more, it's about patriarchy controlling complex systems in our culture - like how money is distributed, what's taught in schools, who gets to speak on a given platform.
But it's all about control of who and what women are.
You know who's interested in restricting and controlling us, though?
And you know who is out there interested in controlling who and what women are?
The bad guys.
And that's patriarchy.
And I, for one, don't intend on letting patriarchy win. No matter what disguise patriarchy is wearing. No matter what agents patriarchy sends to stop me.
And not even when patriarchy employs other women as its agents of destruction.
Because I'm a woman who isn't here to destroy.
And it's not part of who I really am.
Because who I really am is, as far as I'm concerned, a freedom-fighter for all kinds of women no matter who they are or where they are or what they look like. Because that's what freedom for women is all about.
And that's one of many reasons that I decided to write this piece - and to make it both about my own history, and also about my favorite hero who is also a robot in disguise, one of the Transformers.
Her name is Arcee.
And she is awesome.
Arcee is a character first introduced in the film Transformers: The Movie, in 1986.
Voiced by the inimitable Susan Blu, Arcee represents the emotional core in the film's story of a rag-tag group of survivor Autobots facing a planet-devouring menace voiced by Orson Welles, which is as good a metaphor of patriarchy as any other, in my humble opinion.
And, for the movie, she helps pretty much kick metaphorical patriarchy's ass. Because that's how Arcee rolls.
Of course, I was already a fan of The Transformers by the time the TV show and toy line first appeared, so I'll admit an initial bias in loving the film.
When the show started, though, the year was 1984. I was twelve years old. And I was getting my ass kicked - by puberty.
But when I watched The Transformers, my love of robots actually gave me further commonality with boys.
And, yeah, I know the whole thing was an advertisement for toys - even (and especially) the movie, but who cares?
They were incredibly fun.
And they were something boys liked that I liked.
So, here was a funny kind of paradox.
There I was ... a girl disguised as a boy pretending she's a robot - and here's a toy and cartoon show that arrives in the miserable throes of puberty, where my external body was doing everything it could to betray my core reality. And this was a time when almost nothing could make me happy.
But these robot characters and the toys upon which they were based ... well, they did.
Now, I'm not the only kid who will tell you that Optimus Prime was a surrogate dad for them.
My own father was - and is - not an accepting man. He has spent his life denigrating who and what I am even as he claims he's proud of my so-called tangible achievements in terms of career and wealth. I am proud of those accomplishments, yes, but I'd rather he were proud of who I am.
And Optimus Prime, big and fatherly and kind, was a character who nurtured a desperate need in me for the idealized father who would lay down everything to protect my rights and freedoms to be the person I was - and still am.
But I remember, even as I enjoyed the show and toys, that I wished there were a girl character with whom I could actually identify and connect.
But that didn't happen until the movie.
And when it did, Arcee quickly became as big a hero to me as Optimus, if for entirely different reasons.
Because Arcee was different from a lot of the other Transformers characters, even beyond being of the more futuristic design of the original shows' latter years versus the rugged and earthly designs that preceded with the characters who came before her.
Arcee, you see, was more nuanced and complex.
At least, she was to me.
I think a lot of it was Susan Blu's voicework, but Arcee was always imbued with an emotional resonance to what she did and said that always hinted at a depth of character that the original TV show never really got around to exploring.
But it was there, thanks to Ms. Blu.
And I felt it, and it echoed through the hollows in my heart from my own life's struggles.
And that echo also had to do with the few facts we did know about Arcee.
Like the fact that she was a dedicated soldier who had stayed behind to fight on Cybertron when Optimus Prime and Megatron took the battle between freedom-loving Autobots and totalitarian Decepticons to Earth.
And that spoke to my just-teenaged brain, reminding me of the women who stepped up to rebuild America during and after World War 2.
And we know Arcee took that job seriously.
And fought it while Optimus and Megatron lay unconscious in their spaceships, having crashed on Earth.
So, that war she was fighting back on Cybertron, awake and battling the forces of tyranny while the menfolk slept? She only fought it for, like, four million years. So, there's that.
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Of course, that's only one continuity, though.
There are others.
There are a lot of others.
And those are just some of them ...
... because, of course, these are characters based around the sale of toys ...
... and they've sold a lot of toys.
And, through her part in the saga of The Transformers, Arcee has gone through a lot of different continuities and changes, too.
And, once again ...
I mean a lot.
But in almost all the iterations, Arcee has been a faithful Autobot warrior woman who has done whatever she can to defend others and stand up for the cause of freedom ...
... with one, uh ...
... exception.
And I mention that story here because I anticipate that a few people who are reading this piece and are familiar with Arcee might point toward Simon Furman's Arcee Spotlight comic book, and I want to address it in passing.
If you'd like familiarity with the controversy surrounding this particular interpretation of Arcee, then I point you toward this and this.
As always, I'll wait.
Back? Great.
Let's continue.
So, basically, that's Simon Furman. And this is what he tried to make from "spotlighting" Arcee.
Regardless of the multitude of mistakes Furman makes in his logic about gender and sex and genetics and psychology, he's also clearly ignoring the core elements of the characters with which he's working, in a quest to transform Arcee from an emotional center to the Autobots into yet another cold-blooded extreme killing-machine.
He's doing what writers did every other month in the 1990s, and I don't really want to dignify that one story with much more time.
Fortunately, the story has been mostly disregarded as irrelevant and Arcee is recognized as a woman despite Furman's attempt to change Arcee into a trans man. It had to be addressed, so I have. Furman's wrong, and a bad writer.
Thanks for the confirmation on that, Arcee.
And, really, it's just as silly as Michael Bay splitting Arcee into a trio of motorcycles for a not-quite-cameo scene in the opening of a Transformers film.
It's pointless dehumanization of an established character for an unnecessary beat in an unnecessary story, and both are mainly mentioned here for the sake of addressing the myriad interpretations of Arcee throughout the years.
And I try to think about how the Arcee I adore would interpret these presentations of her character.
She would, I like to think, simply laugh them off and walk away.
Because that's how Arcee rolls.
And that image brings me to my favorite representation of Arcee, which is to be found in the current incarnation of the Transformers series, called Transformers Prime.
I've included images of this version of Arcee throughout the piece, because I think this series is the one that most gets to the heart of what I love about the character:
The beauty of her natural humanity in relation to the world around her.
Because the Arcee portrayed in Transformers Prime is written with a depth and complexity not seen since the character first appeared. It re-establishes the nuance I talked about earlier, but this time the writing is working alongside a very talented voice actor in Sumalee Montano - and the effect is beautiful to hear and see.
In Transformers Prime, Ms. Montano has some great stories featuring Arcee at their center in which to draw that emotional resonance.
They're crafting the character of a robot, but the writers and animators and Ms. Montano all work together to wrest real human emotion from that living machine.
But, ultimately, it's Arcee's longevity and dedication as a character that resonate with me the most.
Whether she's fighting a war on Cybertron or Earth, she never surrenders.
And she always finds a way.
She doesn't quit, even over the long haul, and exhibits incredible patience that I wish I had.
I strive to have such patience.
And I see it as something to look up to.
And, yes, Arcee has made mistakes in her life, but she doesn't let them define her - something I need to learn about in my own life.
Because I'm horribly impatient.
And it's that impatience that keeps me from having Arcee's steady hand when it comes to her aims.
And Arcee is OK with herself, no matter what shape she's in ...
... or how she changes.
Or how she's changed.
And she maintains her good nature and keeps her emotional core intact no matter what the universe does to her ...
... or takes from her ...
... or demands of her.
But she doesn't sacrifice her humanity to do so.
Instead, she wraps herself up in her humanity and uses it to inform who and what she is.
And, when she does this, she can face forward, unafraid.
And she recognizes that change will come.
And she is willing, sometimes, to let the universe change her and guide her destiny.
But she's also ready to make use of those changes to arm and better herself ...
... even when those changes come fast ...
... or seem to contradict the past ...
... or make her suddenly, at first at least, unrecognizable to those who knew her in the past.
But, most of all, to me, Arcee represents a character who is who and what she is, just like I try to be in my own life.
And she doesn't let other people make that decision for her.
When portrayed best, she is someone who demands to be seen not by her exterior appearance, but by her interior self, which remains constant in its faithfulness and loyalty and identity - no matter what she looks like on any given day. At the end of it all, Arcee is Arcee, every time.
And, as a trans woman, I recognize Arcee's need to be seen and respected that way as a fight I have to endure every day, and will have to endure for a lifespan that won't last 4 million years, but which will last as long as it lasts with a battle that will be fought as long as it's fought.
Because there will always be people denying my existence and identity.
And there will always be people who try to force me to color inside their lines.
And there will always be people who tell me I look too pink for them, or too blue for them, or tell me that those colors matter, or tell me that those colors don't matter.
And you know what?
When I think about Arcee, I realize that my message back to those people is in how I survive in spite of them no matter how I look in their eyes.
Because their eyes don't matter to me.
You know whose eyes matter to me?
Mine.
And I get that there will be people who say I'm not a woman ...
... that I'm not uterus-y enough.
Or XX-y enough.
And I need to be confident in who and what I am no matter what those people say.
I need to recognize that being a woman means so much more than just a chromosome ...
... and that it's patriarchy that builds so many societal expectations - almost all false - of what a woman needs to be or to have to be "real."
I am me.
I am a trans woman.
And that means I'm a woman.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because of my rack, or lack thereof.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm playing pretend.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm into weird kinks.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I wish I was.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm confused.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm trying to steal attention for myself or be all flashy.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm doing some secret psychology project.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm trying to get perks.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm looking to hurt people.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm deluded.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm sick.
And I'm not saying a woman because I'm just looking for something to do.
I'm not lying.
I'm not jealous.
I'm not weak.
I'm not nihilistic.
I'm not patriarchal.
I'm not spoiling for a fight.
I'm not trying to make a scene.
I'm not trying to make a stink.
I'm not looking to increase my online presence.
I'm a woman because I was born one. It's you, world, who didn't notice. But, now you see me as I really am.
And you can see me because, after what's felt like 4 million years -
- I finally took off the disguise.
Hey, I never said it was a perfect solution. I was a kid.
One of those prices was that, in public and in-private when my parents were around, I had to try to throw off anyone who might detect me as a girl.
This was tough-going, the older I got. But it wasn't impossible.
And I still had lapses ...
... like the Christmas when I begged "Santa Claus" for the Strawberry Shortcake Berry Happy Home.
So, yeah, I had my moments of weakness with regard to allowing myself the luxury to enjoy things that were "meant for girls."
But I toughened myself and made changes as the years passed, maintaining this game of survival and this buffer zone of imaginary safety in my head.
There were no more Lassie lunchboxes. They were replaced with things that could maintain the disguise.
And, hey, lots of girls I knew liked scary stuff like monsters, too, right? And The Bride has always been awesome (but, again, that's another article for another day). But the disguise wasn't just about lunchboxes. It was about everything.
And, as a result, it got bigger ... and bigger ... and more and more unwieldy the further along in life I went. As I grew up, I continued to upgrade the disguise as I entered new surroundings. And the more I upgraded it, the heavier on me it got ... and the less I felt like myself.
Under the weight of the disguise, I felt trapped. I felt alone. I felt ... isolated.
And the longer it went, the more I missed and reflected upon what I'd lost in life:
Myself.
I'd done such a good job hiding who I was that I got to a point where I realized that the real me ... the one within the disguise ... was unknown to everyone except me.
I had left the disguise intact and let it grow over my lifetime, far too long to stay hidden ... even with air holes here and there.
And we talked about how bad things can get when an autistic person feels especially isolated.
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So I lashed out at the world, in epic meltdown after epic meltdown. I lashed out at my parents, at people who said they cared about me, at my extended family, at co-workers, at strangers on the internet and on the street.
I behaved unfathomably poorly, because I was furiously unhappy and in terrible pain.
And, yes, I recognize that everything I did and said to be mean was entirely my own doing and entirely my own fault and is entirely my responsibility. I was filled with rage, and I expressed it poorly on the world.
And it's not enough, will never be enough for me to say I'm sorry for being a bitter and hateful person when I should have been helping the world to heal.
I can't ever take those unkind words back, nor can I fix hurt feelings.
But I can try to use the energy of what I've learned to encourage other people to find strength and confidence.
And I can use the perspective I've gained to educate and enlighten, if I may be so bold as to say so about my own work.
And, yeah, you know what? I can say that - because I am bold.
So there.
And part of writing this blog has also been to dismantle that disguise the best way I know how, by writing my history and explaining to the world who I am, and making myself vulnerable to other people along the way.
And, hopefully, I'm also educating and enlightening people who might be willing to read about imaginary robots but might never read anything about trans issues or trans people, who might not even be aware we exist. Or who might deny we exist.
Because we are here, and we do exist. Hi. What' up?
And there are people out there who say that trans people aren't really trans, you know? They think we're just playing.
There are people who claim that when we tell the world we're a "girl in a boy's body," or vice versa, that it's no different than if we claimed we were really dolphins or tigers ...
... or even robots.
How dare you accuse me of being so intellectually-deficient and juvenile that you think the battle I fight every day to be recognized for who and what I am is because I can't distinguish reality from fantasy?
But, as someone who really was a girl in a boy's body, and who also pretended to be a robot, I'm here to tell you that there's a world of difference there, and one I hope I've started to illustrate. I've tried to show that identifying as a woman when your body's got an XY chromosome in there isn't just a matter of changing the font of your signature.
We're trans, yes, but we're trans people. Our lives are complex, we who were trans girls and who are now trans women - and that's true for trans men, too.
We suffer, because all women on Earth suffer in one form or another. The suffering is worse for some, less so for others, but almost all women who live on Earth are oppressed in some form or another. But that oppression isn't always the kind that takes the same shape. For some, it's about patriarchy controlling the mind. For others, it's about patriarchy controlling the body. For still more, it's about patriarchy controlling complex systems in our culture - like how money is distributed, what's taught in schools, who gets to speak on a given platform.
But it's all about control of who and what women are.
You know who's interested in restricting and controlling us, though?
And you know who is out there interested in controlling who and what women are?
The bad guys.
And that's patriarchy.
And I, for one, don't intend on letting patriarchy win. No matter what disguise patriarchy is wearing. No matter what agents patriarchy sends to stop me.
And not even when patriarchy employs other women as its agents of destruction.
Because I'm a woman who isn't here to destroy.
And it's not part of who I really am.
Because who I really am is, as far as I'm concerned, a freedom-fighter for all kinds of women no matter who they are or where they are or what they look like. Because that's what freedom for women is all about.
And that's one of many reasons that I decided to write this piece - and to make it both about my own history, and also about my favorite hero who is also a robot in disguise, one of the Transformers.
Her name is Arcee.
And she is awesome.
Arcee is a character first introduced in the film Transformers: The Movie, in 1986.
Voiced by the inimitable Susan Blu, Arcee represents the emotional core in the film's story of a rag-tag group of survivor Autobots facing a planet-devouring menace voiced by Orson Welles, which is as good a metaphor of patriarchy as any other, in my humble opinion.
And, for the movie, she helps pretty much kick metaphorical patriarchy's ass. Because that's how Arcee rolls.
Of course, I was already a fan of The Transformers by the time the TV show and toy line first appeared, so I'll admit an initial bias in loving the film.
When the show started, though, the year was 1984. I was twelve years old. And I was getting my ass kicked - by puberty.
But when I watched The Transformers, my love of robots actually gave me further commonality with boys.
And, yeah, I know the whole thing was an advertisement for toys - even (and especially) the movie, but who cares?
They were incredibly fun.
And they were something boys liked that I liked.
So, here was a funny kind of paradox.
There I was ... a girl disguised as a boy pretending she's a robot - and here's a toy and cartoon show that arrives in the miserable throes of puberty, where my external body was doing everything it could to betray my core reality. And this was a time when almost nothing could make me happy.
But these robot characters and the toys upon which they were based ... well, they did.
Now, I'm not the only kid who will tell you that Optimus Prime was a surrogate dad for them.
My own father was - and is - not an accepting man. He has spent his life denigrating who and what I am even as he claims he's proud of my so-called tangible achievements in terms of career and wealth. I am proud of those accomplishments, yes, but I'd rather he were proud of who I am.
And Optimus Prime, big and fatherly and kind, was a character who nurtured a desperate need in me for the idealized father who would lay down everything to protect my rights and freedoms to be the person I was - and still am.
But that didn't happen until the movie.
And when it did, Arcee quickly became as big a hero to me as Optimus, if for entirely different reasons.
Because Arcee was different from a lot of the other Transformers characters, even beyond being of the more futuristic design of the original shows' latter years versus the rugged and earthly designs that preceded with the characters who came before her.
Arcee, you see, was more nuanced and complex.
At least, she was to me.
I think a lot of it was Susan Blu's voicework, but Arcee was always imbued with an emotional resonance to what she did and said that always hinted at a depth of character that the original TV show never really got around to exploring.
And I felt it, and it echoed through the hollows in my heart from my own life's struggles.
And that echo also had to do with the few facts we did know about Arcee.
Like the fact that she was a dedicated soldier who had stayed behind to fight on Cybertron when Optimus Prime and Megatron took the battle between freedom-loving Autobots and totalitarian Decepticons to Earth.
And that spoke to my just-teenaged brain, reminding me of the women who stepped up to rebuild America during and after World War 2.
And we know Arcee took that job seriously.
And fought it while Optimus and Megatron lay unconscious in their spaceships, having crashed on Earth.
So, that war she was fighting back on Cybertron, awake and battling the forces of tyranny while the menfolk slept? She only fought it for, like, four million years. So, there's that.
Of course, that's only one continuity, though.
There are others.
There are a lot of others.
And those are just some of them ...
... because, of course, these are characters based around the sale of toys ...
... and they've sold a lot of toys.
And, through her part in the saga of The Transformers, Arcee has gone through a lot of different continuities and changes, too.
And, once again ...
I mean a lot.
But in almost all the iterations, Arcee has been a faithful Autobot warrior woman who has done whatever she can to defend others and stand up for the cause of freedom ...
... with one, uh ...
... exception.
And I mention that story here because I anticipate that a few people who are reading this piece and are familiar with Arcee might point toward Simon Furman's Arcee Spotlight comic book, and I want to address it in passing.
If you'd like familiarity with the controversy surrounding this particular interpretation of Arcee, then I point you toward this and this.
As always, I'll wait.
Back? Great.
Let's continue.
So, basically, that's Simon Furman. And this is what he tried to make from "spotlighting" Arcee.
Regardless of the multitude of mistakes Furman makes in his logic about gender and sex and genetics and psychology, he's also clearly ignoring the core elements of the characters with which he's working, in a quest to transform Arcee from an emotional center to the Autobots into yet another cold-blooded extreme killing-machine.
He's doing what writers did every other month in the 1990s, and I don't really want to dignify that one story with much more time.
Fortunately, the story has been mostly disregarded as irrelevant and Arcee is recognized as a woman despite Furman's attempt to change Arcee into a trans man. It had to be addressed, so I have. Furman's wrong, and a bad writer.
Thanks for the confirmation on that, Arcee.
And, really, it's just as silly as Michael Bay splitting Arcee into a trio of motorcycles for a not-quite-cameo scene in the opening of a Transformers film.
It's pointless dehumanization of an established character for an unnecessary beat in an unnecessary story, and both are mainly mentioned here for the sake of addressing the myriad interpretations of Arcee throughout the years.
She would, I like to think, simply laugh them off and walk away.
Because that's how Arcee rolls.
And that image brings me to my favorite representation of Arcee, which is to be found in the current incarnation of the Transformers series, called Transformers Prime.
I've included images of this version of Arcee throughout the piece, because I think this series is the one that most gets to the heart of what I love about the character:
The beauty of her natural humanity in relation to the world around her.
Because the Arcee portrayed in Transformers Prime is written with a depth and complexity not seen since the character first appeared. It re-establishes the nuance I talked about earlier, but this time the writing is working alongside a very talented voice actor in Sumalee Montano - and the effect is beautiful to hear and see.
In Transformers Prime, Ms. Montano has some great stories featuring Arcee at their center in which to draw that emotional resonance.
They're crafting the character of a robot, but the writers and animators and Ms. Montano all work together to wrest real human emotion from that living machine.
But, ultimately, it's Arcee's longevity and dedication as a character that resonate with me the most.
Whether she's fighting a war on Cybertron or Earth, she never surrenders.
And she always finds a way.
She doesn't quit, even over the long haul, and exhibits incredible patience that I wish I had.
I strive to have such patience.
And I see it as something to look up to.
And, yes, Arcee has made mistakes in her life, but she doesn't let them define her - something I need to learn about in my own life.
Because I'm horribly impatient.
And it's that impatience that keeps me from having Arcee's steady hand when it comes to her aims.
And Arcee is OK with herself, no matter what shape she's in ...
... or how she changes.
Or how she's changed.
And she maintains her good nature and keeps her emotional core intact no matter what the universe does to her ...
... or takes from her ...
... or demands of her.
But she doesn't sacrifice her humanity to do so.
Instead, she wraps herself up in her humanity and uses it to inform who and what she is.
And, when she does this, she can face forward, unafraid.
And she recognizes that change will come.
And she is willing, sometimes, to let the universe change her and guide her destiny.
But she's also ready to make use of those changes to arm and better herself ...
... or seem to contradict the past ...
... or make her suddenly, at first at least, unrecognizable to those who knew her in the past.
But, most of all, to me, Arcee represents a character who is who and what she is, just like I try to be in my own life.
And she doesn't let other people make that decision for her.
When portrayed best, she is someone who demands to be seen not by her exterior appearance, but by her interior self, which remains constant in its faithfulness and loyalty and identity - no matter what she looks like on any given day. At the end of it all, Arcee is Arcee, every time.
Because there will always be people denying my existence and identity.
And there will always be people who try to force me to color inside their lines.
And there will always be people who tell me I look too pink for them, or too blue for them, or tell me that those colors matter, or tell me that those colors don't matter.
And you know what?
When I think about Arcee, I realize that my message back to those people is in how I survive in spite of them no matter how I look in their eyes.
Because their eyes don't matter to me.
You know whose eyes matter to me?
Mine.
And I get that there will be people who say I'm not a woman ...
... that I'm not uterus-y enough.
Or XX-y enough.
And I need to be confident in who and what I am no matter what those people say.
I need to recognize that being a woman means so much more than just a chromosome ...
... and that it's patriarchy that builds so many societal expectations - almost all false - of what a woman needs to be or to have to be "real."
I am me.
I am a trans woman.
And that means I'm a woman.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because of my rack, or lack thereof.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm playing pretend.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm into weird kinks.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I wish I was.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm confused.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm trying to steal attention for myself or be all flashy.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm doing some secret psychology project.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm trying to get perks.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm looking to hurt people.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm deluded.
And I'm not saying I'm a woman because I'm sick.
And I'm not saying a woman because I'm just looking for something to do.
I'm not lying.
I'm not jealous.
I'm not weak.
I'm not nihilistic.
I'm not patriarchal.
I'm not spoiling for a fight.
I'm not trying to make a scene.
I'm not trying to make a stink.
I'm not looking to increase my online presence.
I'm a woman because I was born one. It's you, world, who didn't notice. But, now you see me as I really am.
And you can see me because, after what's felt like 4 million years -
- I finally took off the disguise.
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