Madison Godfrey inhabits gender beyond a binary, but transition isn’t what makes them trans
When I describe myself as “trans” I often feel strangers’ eyes scan up and down, assessing my appearance for evidence, signifiers of how this silhouette was built. When people ask invasive questions about my hormonal or surgical journey, growling beneath their words is another implicit enquiry: are you the “before” or “after” picture of your gender transition? But my experience of being trans is not a future destination I will one day arrive at or a version of myself I have already departed from.
Perhaps this comes down to linguistic confusion: people often assume that “trans” is an abbreviation of “transitioning”. Yet the word “trans”, in this context – as opposed to the context of, say, a public transport service or an eminent Death Cab for Cutie album – is short for transgender, which the Oxford dictionary defines as “a person whose gender identity does not correspond with the sex registered for them at birth”. On most birth certificates, there is an M or F box ticked for newborn babies. So at the level of language, to be transgender means not aligning one’s own identity with that rigid box on an official document – and there was no non-binary option on mine.
