Good evening.
Thanks for coming here.
First of all, I would like to tell you that I am very nervous
and it seems important to tell you, so I pass a bit ‘.
(Applause)
Today I would like to talk to you about two spaces of existence
that for me are necessary and very revolutionary,
but at the same time they seem complicated and residual.
I would like to talk to you about the frontiers of gender and limits
of masculinity,
and a way to dismantle masculinity
it is also to show one’s own fragility.
That’s why I tell you that I’m very nervous.
And I think I use these sheets, even if you do not like them.
I am a feminist. It seems important to tell you, because feminism
it is and has always been present in everything I do.
I’m also a trans guy,
so I lived the first part of my life as a woman
and I tried to find, inside this identity,
spaces that I could live in.
But I could not do it, so I made the transition.
And I found myself in that quagmire that is masculinity.
When the world began to recognize me as a man, I realized
of those violent behaviors that I suffered
as a child and adolescent tomboy, for example, occupy the space,
to speak, to be strong, to impose myself, to confront the boys …
Suddenly, when the world saw me as a man,
these behaviors,
it was not just what was expected of me,
but also those that made me a type of man
that I did not want to be.
After the transition, I noticed something else.
I realized that throughout childhood and adolescence
interactions with men and adolescents on the street
they were marked by a sexualization towards me.
It may seem to you that he is exaggerating.
Perhaps, if someone had told me something like that at the time,
I too would have said he was exaggerating.
But I think it’s something that we’ve internalized so much
and that I too had internalized
that I realized that it only happened when it stopped happening to me.
When men started to see me as equal to them,
and they were looking for my complicity to do, with other women,
what they had done to me.
I’ll tell you a secret: gender is a social construct.
What does it mean?
First of all, understand that gender is a social construct,
it means understanding that sex, identity, expression and orientation
they are separate things and do not have to be perfectly aligned.
First there is sex, that is the physical part:
the chromosomes, the body, the hormones …
We have been taught that there are two.
For sure you know that there are other options.
For example, intersex people.
Then there is the identity, what we are and with which we identify ourselves,
and they have always told us that there are only two.
For sure you will know that it is not so.
There are trans, some identify as women or men,
others do not identify with either one or the other.
Then there’s the gender expression, and that’s what I’d like
talk to you today.
The gender expression is the outer part.
It’s the roles, our expressions, the way we dress.
We recognize ourselves through gender expression.
Finally there is the orientation.
Heterosexuality is not the only possibility, there are others.
You can only enjoy one genus, one body type,
you may not like anyone, two people, many people,
you can fall in love with a genre, but have sex with another.
It is much more varied than what the sex-gender system tells us.
Secondly, understand that gender is a social construct
it means understanding that the concepts of masculinity and femininity,
that we perceive as natural, we have actually learned and internalized them
during a socialization process that depends on society
in which we grew up.
One proof is that these constructs have not always been the same,
throughout history, or in all cultures.
To say that gender is a social construct does not mean at all
that it’s easy to change it like clothes in the morning.
For nothing.
But, for me, understand that gender is a social construct
it means understanding that if we all agreed
we could dismantle it little by little, and maybe we could get to live
in a utopian future where gender does not exist,
do not regulate our whole life,
and we could be, for example, happy unicorns.
It would be nice.
But the reality is that we live in this society.
A binary society with a structural inequality
in which one favors those who are recognized as men.
And I say this with all the intention of the world.
We live in a binary society where those people are rewarded
that are recognized as men.
And the key word of this sentence is “recognized”.
Because that space is very small.
The hegemonic masculinity, the unicariconosciuta, is rigid,
almost suffocating, like a corset. Which is ironic, because corsets
they are not very manly.
I have spent all my life in non-hegemonic masculinity.
First as a child and adolescent tomboy,
then as a effeminate trans man.
I think it’s important to talk about these masculinities,
of these spaces of existence, because they have
some transformative potential.
The maschiacce are a threat to the binary system
because they do not meet the expectations of femininity that are attributed
to their identity as a woman.
Masculine women are a threat to the sex-gender system,
because they do not meet the expectations of heterosexual male desire.
Whether they are lesbian or not, they are out of sexual orientation.
I think everyone here can think of heterosexual masculine women
for example Angela Merkel, no?
Go on.
Tomboys are a threat to the sex-gender system
because they show that there are other corporations that can occupy
the space of masculinity, and that they can transform it.
They are a threat to the status quo and for this they are punished by men
and from the “doc” women.
Masculine women are a continuous mònito
that remember to maintain the status quo because our society
he is endorsing it.
But at the same time they remind us that there are cracks in the system
and we must make sure that these cracks are livable.
Feminism has already done a great job.
I think the crack where the tomboys are found is more accepted,
you can live a little bit easier,
even if it continues to be punished.
We can not say the same about masculinity.
I invite you to reflect:
try to count how many men or people recognized as men
you have seen on the street, in the last year, wearing skirts and dresses
or with makeup and nail polish.
They may seem simple aesthetic choices,
but anyway, you can count them on one hand.
The queues, the effeminate men are such a betrayal to the genre
that do not even come to represent a threat to hegemonic masculinity,
which is a privileged space, and as such it is protected.
For this reason, those people who run through cracks are not recognized
fully men.
I repeat: all this goes beyond sexual orientation.
It does not matter if they are homosexual or not.
But it reproduces a harmful system, the binary system,
harmful even for very virile men.
Men do not cry.
We have not come a long way since the Cure sang in the eighties.
Men do not show their emotions.
Men who do not react with anger and violence to attacks and pain
they are less men.
Men who touch or embrace each other platonically
and without any sexual connotation, they are less men,
because they are suspected of having homosexual desires.
And we all know that homosexual men
they are less men.
Hegemonic masculinity must relegate all these dissident expressions
of masculinity in the space of men less men, is his way
to claim and maintain his position of command in the social hierarchy
which involves gender binarism.
Our society must start rethinking,
to enlarge, to make all these dissident expressions possible:
it is the only way to eliminate inequalities
that derive from it and to dismantle this privileged space.
It is necessary for everyone, even for very virile men.
It is very difficult to recognize your privileges,
the situations, which we live, of social advantage.
Thinking about it can make us feel uncomfortable, and even when it’s obvious,
it makes us feel uncomfortable to recognize them.
But we have to do it,
because hegemonic masculinity is damaging us.
He’s killing us, literally.
From this point of view, we trans feminist men
we can play an important role.
I think during the transition, especially if we do it
in adulthood there is a possibility:
we can make the transition without asking questions
and thus contribute to strengthening the system, as you certainly do
all of you here present.
But I believe that in this process of identity construction,
especially if in adulthood, we can choose
what kind of person do we want to be
or what kind of masculinity we want to live.
Also, I think we trans guys have the “luck” of living
on our skin what the binary system does to those people
recognized as women.
And we should not repeat it.
I am not saying that anyone can consciously change
their gender identity.
But we can decide how to express our identity.
Many of us trans men come from the margins, that before
we occupied as maschiacci.
And it is logical that, after the transition, we find ourselves at the center,
in the hegemony, and we feel at ease.
But we must consciously resist it.
And we can not do it alone.
Transition is a complex identity process, often traversed by pain,
insecurities and inconveniences.
The transition space is very vulnerable, and it is logical
need your identity to be recognized continuously.
And it’s much easier for this identity to be denied when you’re dealing
one of the margins, one of the cracks.
In fact, many men say
to me and to many other trans that in reality we are not men
and we’ll never be.
I’ll never get tired of telling him that it’s not like that, we’re not and we do not want to
be men like them.
We are trans men, and for me we are wonderful.
(Applause)
That’s why I say we can not do it alone.
We trans are not the only ones able to look at ourselves in the mirror
and think about how we would like to be.
I believe that everyone is able to look, recognize and decide
what kind of person or gender they want to express.
I remind you that sex, identity, expression and orientation
they are separate concepts and do not have to be aligned.
I think we would be much less vulnerable if during and after the transition
we found space and company in the cracks,
A company to spread these cracks a little at a time all over the world,
made of men, women, maschiacci, queers, trans, genderqueer …
all.
I believe we can build a healthy society
only if these expressions will have space and will be livable.
I also believe that if we widened gender expressions,
the possibilities of existence, we could also expand the range
of habitable bodies.
Women with beards could stop being laser
or dyeing a mustache, and men with breasts like me
they could stop wearing a headband to hide it.
Even the various genitals, all this must have space in a healthy society.
Our bodies, our expressions, our identities
they are many more than what the sex-gender system tells us.
Some of us spend a lot of time working on these experiences
they are more livable and more real, and today I have come to tell you
all this stuff to ask you to join our fight.
Because it is only through the cracks that light passes.
Thanks so much.
(Applause)
”
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