Becoming a Visible Man Quotes

“Gender identity belongs to the person who lives it, but one cannot deny that observers will make assumptions about us based on their understanding or comprehension of gender signals.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“Being true to oneself creates the integrity and self-respect we need to have if we are to extend that respect to others.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“Imagine... You feel great about yourself, but when you look down, your body is the opposite sex from who you know yourself to be. Imagine what it would feel like to live with that descrepancy.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“If we have to worry about following any prescribed path in order to be ourselves — no matter who prescribes it: the trans community, the medical establishment, or the non-trans assumptions of stereotypical (and therefore socially validated) gender behavior—we are only setting ourselves up to be judged by an arbitrary standard that can be changed at any time by those to whom we've delegated authority over our own authenticity.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“Identity is not a rigid, monolithic psychosocial box that we can each place ourselves into and permanently remain.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“Politics is the art of negotiation among divergent goals, and cooperation is difficult when people are unaware of their own motives or goals, or unable or unwilling to reveal them.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“We were never included in any salutations—it was well into the late 1990s before we would hear anything other than “Welcome, ladies” spoken from the podium at most conferences of this sort—and for the most part our workshops were in isolated rooms, away from much of the conference goings-on.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“What the doctors hear is filtered through their own belief that the body
tells us who we are, and this transman in front of them wants to change
his body so he can change the abhorrent nature of his lesbian sexuality. These clinicians don’t understand that it isn’t necessarily his sexuality that is abhorrent to him. Even if this patient fell in love with a man, it wouldn’t necessarily change his relationship to his own body: in his own self-perception he might then be homosexual after all, even if his body were still female and the body of his partner were male. That wouldn’t necessarily change his need to transition.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“What the doctors hear is filtered through their own belief that the body
tells us who we are, and this transman in front of them wants to change
his body so he can change the abhorrent nature of his lesbian sexuality.
These clinicians don’t understand that it isn’t necessarily his sexuality that
is abhorrent to him. Even if this patient fell in love with a man, it wouldn’t
necessarily change his relationship to his own body: in his own self-perception he might then be homosexual after all, even if his body were still
female and the body of his partner were male. That wouldn’t necessarily
change his need to transition.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“What the doctors hear is filtered through their own belief that the body
tells us who we are, and this transman in front of them wants to change
his body so he can change the abhorrent nature of his lesbian sexuality.
These clinicians don’t understand that it isn’t necessarily his sexuality that
is abhorrent to him. Even if this patient fell in love with a man, it wouldn’t
necessarily change his relationship to his own body: in his own self-per-
ception he might then be homosexual after all, even if his body were still
female and the body of his partner were male. That wouldn’t necessarily
change his need to transition.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“Doctors at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions have stated, “[F]emale-
to-male transsexuals appear to be individuals who are fundamentally
homophilic but cannot consciously accept their sexual orientation” (Fagan,
Schmidt, and Wise, 1994). I can see it now: in a clinical setting, a transman
desperate to be allowed to transition tries to express his “normal” sexual-
ity by asserting his attraction to women and denying that he is a lesbian.
Yes, he’s telling the truth from the perspective of his gender identity. But
what the doctors hear is filtered through their own belief that the body
tells us who we are, and this transman in front of them wants to change
his body so he can change the abhorrent nature of his lesbian sexuality.
These clinicians don’t understand that it isn’t necessarily his sexuality that
is abhorrent to him. Even if this patient fell in love with a man, it wouldn’t
necessarily change his relationship to his own body: in his own self-per-
ception he might then be homosexual after all, even if his body were still
female and the body of his partner were male. That wouldn’t necessarily
change his need to transition.”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man

“Isn't it a blessing when the Lord shows us the path to who we really are?”
― Jamison Green, Becoming a Visible Man