Trans culture is subversive, a giant “fuck you” to a society that says we should not exist. Trans culture is a refusal to hide behind closed doors to placate bigotry. Trans culture is love, both for ourselves and others. It’s acceptance. It’s authenticity — being true to your ultimate vision.

Trans culture will change the world and it cannot be stopped.

But what is trans culture?

Trans Culture(s)

Trans culture is not just one thing. Trans culture involves:

Transformation Timelines

Coming out stories

Solidarity for trials and tribulations

Hormones & surgery talk

Dealing with the medical system

Pronouns

BATHROOMS

Living in the closet

Social media

Dysphoria

Therapy and support groups

Memes

Political correctness

Struggling with suicide and depression

Dealing with the legal system

Pride, both in ourselves and our history

LGBT+ culture (rainbows, drag, etc.)

Dealing with TERFs

etc., etc.

I want to emphasize that a lot of this list is not inherent to being trans. There’s a cultural context for everything and trans culture developed in the midst of a dominant culture. If the dominant culture was different then trans culture would not be the same.

Is there anything inherent to trans culture? I don’t like this question at all. It assumes things like cultures do have essences in the first place. But perhaps there is no essence to trans culture. Perhaps it is merely the summation of a heterogeneous collection of trans people developing their own sub-cultures, and sub-cultures within sub-cultures.

Furthermore, the trans community is incredibly diverse. Just like many gay people don’t walk around with rainbows painted on their face, not all trans people explicitly participate in trans culture. Some have no interest in doing so and would prefer to participate instead in the dominant culture or some other relevant subculture. But some of the culture is intrinsic to the experience regardless of whether you are part of a community.

But what does this have to do with changing the world?

“A group of people protesting and demonstrating in Washington” by Jerry Kiesewetter on Unsplash

If you’re a cis person reading this you might be laughing, thinking “wtf does any of this have to do with changing the world?”

It’s an understandable position. After all, trans people are a statistical minority with little social power. So how are we going to change the world?

First of all, we already have changed the world because we’ve been part of human culture across the world for millennia. But we’ve largely forgotten how trans people have changed the world(and vice versa) thanks to colonization.

Second, to appreciate how trans culture will change the world, we have to analyze the deeper currents underlying the evolution of the human species.

We are in the midst of a trans-humanist revolution. Trans-humanism is the idea that human biology and technology are coming together to change the very nature of what it means to be human.

Smartphones have extended our memories and powers of analysis. Doctors can make us cyborgs with artificial hearts and extra-sensory perception. The landscape of our minds is increasingly being digitized.

Trans people are an important step in the transhumanist revolution. Or at least, the idea of trans people.

The Pharmacopornographic Regime

“A large number of colorful pills and capsules” by freestocks.org on Unsplash

Trans people pressed the medical world to invent bioidentical hormone replacement therapy to fundamentally alter our bodies.

This is what Paul Preciado calls the “pharmacopornographic” regime, which he describes as “the processes of a biomolecular (pharmaco) and semiotic-technical (pornographic) government of sexual subjectivity — of which “the Pill” and Playboy are two paradigmatic offspring.” As he writes,

Technoscience has established its material authority by transforming the concepts of the psyche, libido, consciousness, femininity and masculinity, heterosexuality and homosexuality, intersexuality and transsexuality into tangible realities. ~ Testo Junkie (2008)

And this is why trans culture has changed the world and will continue to change the world: it’s not just about memes and support groups. It’s the seismic shift in society that trans culture represents: the shift into a gender/sex techno-future.

Furthermore, trans culture will change the world because it inherently challenges the Westernized gender binary, a societal force of almost unimaginable influence. Trans people challenge basic tenets of this system such as: gender is immutable and fixed at birth, there are two and only two mutually exclusive genders, etc., etc.

Trans culture puts up its middle finger in regard to such traditions.

And things are just getting started. The self-ID revolution is also beginning. Some people might fret about the potential problems with this movement. But I propose we embrace the change with a positive attitude: we can’t predict the future of human evolution but we can at least go into it with a glass-half-full.

And last, we cannot necessarily assume society will continue evolving in a progressive, liberal direction. Social progress is never guaranteed and can slip backwards at anytime. Take nothing for granted.