Photo by Miyan Levenson
Sarah Maywalt is a transwoman and comedian who will answer questions on a regular basis similar to those asked on her youtube series Ask A Tranny. Sarah is open for questions to address in her next article so please feel free to ask yours in the comments section below or email her at [email protected].
“Ask a Tranny – What Womanhood Means to Me” By: Sarah Maywalt
I am a transsexual woman, and many people are curious about that. I do my best to answer any question posed without malice. I know many trans women who are very tired of the questions, but I feel I have a duty for my welfare and the welfare of trans women who come after me to educate those who want to understand. It does help that I am a comedian and a huge attention whore.
With that in mind, I want to open the floor to you, the reader. This column will be about satisfying curiosity and clearing misconceptions about a trans woman like me, but I need your questions. Please ask your questions in the comments or email them to me at [email protected], and I will pick one or two for each column. Since we don’t have your questions yet, I will start with one of the more interesting questions I have been asked:
What does womanhood mean to me?
What a loaded question! How can I answer that without pissing off absolutely everyone? Well, my mom always told me to do what I do best, and I am amazing at pissing people off. Let’s get to it.
I should begin by defining what womanhood actually is. To do this, I could trot out behaviors and stereotypes–women are more caring, women are less strong, women cry, women like shiny things, women are better at English than math, women don’t like Hitler, etc.—but some woman, somewhere, would have a problem with my description. There is no one behavior that defines a woman, so I have to turn to the physical. There is one thing, and only one thing, that makes a woman a woman, and it’s not a vagina.
Yes, I have a penis, and yes, I am a woman. I have had so many arguments with people who feel the duty to inform me of the truth as proven by science that everyone born with a penis is a man. I know that we are all told that boys have a penis and girls have a vagina, but there is more to biology than what your 8th grade health teacher taught you.
Some say that I would be a woman only after my operation, leaving the distinction of whether I’m a man or woman up to what I have between my legs at any given time. That means, I can only imagine, that any male soldier with his penis blown off by a bomb in Iraq returns from the war a woman. I’d imagine some of our war wounded would be rather surprised to learn that.
So if womanhood cannot be defined by behavior or by genitals, what is womanhood? Womanhood is an instinct, an inborn urge to identify with other women. It is a bunch of neurons programmed with a gender alignment at birth. That’s it. There is nothing sexy or spiritual about it. There is no behavior or body style, no color choice, and no sexual preference or position that disqualifies you.
That’s what womanhood is, but what does it mean to me? To me, it means womanhood is what you make of it—no more, no less.
Maybe that seems like it’s anti-climactic or a cop-out. Am I a woman just because I say I am? Yes, and so are you! Unless you are a guy. Then, you are a guy. What if you are somewhere in the middle? Fine! Enjoy! We are all free to define womanhood, manhood, or whatever else-hood for ourselves, and any wet fart who tells you otherwise can eat a sack of peanuts.
I’ll continue to tell dead baby jokes and dream of motherhood. I’ll continue to cheer for hockey fights while clutching a teddy bear. I’ll continue to have a penis until I have the money to correct god’s mistake, because I’m Sarah Maywalt, and being a Sarah Maywalt kind of woman is the best woman I can be.
I may come off as an ultimate gender rebel with what I have written above, but I do make concessions to social norms. I wear make-up to cover up what is left of my facial hair. I have changed the way I walk and the way I speak. I tuck away “Voldemort.” I constantly analyze my own actions and try to improve other’s reactions to me. This may seem at odds with the idea that each woman defines womanhood, but unlike most women, I wasn’t handed a membership to the sisterhood at birth.
Like most women, I want to be seen as a woman. Unfortunately, I was raised as a boy, and my body was affected by testosterone. It’s not easy to change the appearance biology gave me and the behaviors society forced on me to a point where I am not ridiculed. I needed to leave my fundamental self alone, but I also needed to conform my superficial attributes to a more feminine ideal. I’m sure there are some hard-core feminists who would scoff at my struggle to be more “feminine,” but they don’t live my life. It hurts to be mocked. It hurts to be called “sir.”
So womanhood is what you make of it, but for me, I have to fight hard to have it recognized.
