A Transmasculine Perspective from Sitges
A view of the ocean from La Plaça del Baluard in Sitges. View this location on Google Maps Street View. Mattie Baird, June 2023
Please note: The English version of this site/newsletter is translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence software. Therefore, there may be grammatical errors present.
Dear reader:
Good day! This is the last update about my work in Sitges. This issue summarises the findings from an interview with a transmasculine/non-binary person living in Sitges. This week was the last week in Sitges for this investigation, and it was full of encounters about trans life and community (or lack therof) in Sitges. Let's get started!
Each interview is distinct. This interview specifically aligned with some of the pre-existing themes of the research and provokes many additional questions. The interviewee was born in Israel and moved to Berlin when he was 21 years old, and reports that the environment towards trans people in Israel was horrible and he could not continue to live as he was. In Berlin, he met many people with whom he could relate in terms of sexuality- and gender-based identities. He obtained gender affirming medical treatment back in Berlin: testosterone hormones and a mastectomy (known colloquially as top surgery.) He had gotten his surgery a month before COVID-19 took over the world in March 2020. After some time, the interviewee moved to Sitges. He says he moved to Sitges because he wanted to live in a smaller, quieter place. Because of his mental health, it was very difficult to live in such a big city.
In Berlin, he was surrounded by sexually-dissident people. He says it was very important during the early steps of his transition to have people with shared experiences by his side. However, after some time, he had had 'enough' of Berlin, he says. Like many trans people, he has struggled a lot with his mental health. He struggles with panic attacks and one of his triggers is being in crowded spaces like very big cities. That's why he moved to Sitges, a town that has a lot of international culture, is quite friendly to the trans community and is a quiet place, more or less.
Before his arrival in Catalonia (the northwestern region of Spain where Sitges is located), he didn't know that the culture towards the trans community here was relatively friendly. When asked what he means when he says that the culture here is 'friendly' towards trans people, he says that incidents of outright transphobia / hate crimes are far and few between. That is not to say that there is a well-developed knowledge of the gender spectrum... "People here don't know anything, really," he says. The coexistence of these two realities is interesting because at first glance they seem to be at odds with each other. Speaking of Sitges' main LGTBIQ+ organization, he says that the only person who has any knowledge of gender diversity is the entity's president. At board meetings, for example, he reports that she is the only person who uses gender-inclusive language (she says "he, she, or they” in conversation.) As a volunteer board member, he has proposed many fantastic ideas about how the organization could increase its support for trans people. Some of his ideas include a social group for trans people to swim together in the ocean and a project to transform public toilets to gender-neutral toilets, among others. He says that most of his ideas are well received, but it is frustrating that the other board members are always surprised by his proposals... "Oh, what an idea! I've never thought of this," cis people often say in response to his proposals. He also recalled an act of aggression towards a trans/non-binary person at a public event of the organization. The organization was presenting a manifesto in a plaza for a day of remembrance and was looking for an artist to perform. Others on the board hired a cis man who does drag as a hobby and the interviewee recommended a friend of his to do an act as well. During the act, the drag queen used the wrong pronouns many times towards this non-binary person. When the interviewee and his friend corrected the worker, he responded with shouting and anger: "Why didn't you tell me before? You made me look like a fool," said this normative gay cis man who was dressed as a woman in drag. The interviewee says he was very disappointed with this event especially due to the fact that it was hosted by an organization whose main goal is to support the LGTBIQ+ community – which does include trans people.
Another issue is the challenge of finding work as a trans person. The interviewee reports that he has been trying to get a job since his arrival in Sitges a year and a bit ago. Something else he says is working against him is the fact that he is neurodiverse and has dyslexia. He says that not many people want to hire him even though he has a fantastic skill set. He says his passion is working in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion (If anyone knows of any jobs remotely, contact me and I will pass it on to the interviewee...he has an excellent CV and speaks many languages!) He has said that there are some opportunities that do help trans people get jobs in Catalonia but they are rare.
In addition, he has a lot to say about his experience with affirming medical care here in Spain and more specifically in Catalonia. As explained, he got hormones and gender affirmation surgery prior to his arrival in Catalonia but of course needs to continue taking the hormones (for trans people who want to continue carrying the feminizing/masculinizing effects of the hormones, they should never stop taking them.) He says that the process of getting them in Catalonia is much less of a process than it is in Berlin. There is an organization run by the Catalan government and CatSalut, Spain's public health care entity. The organization is called Transit (more info here.) The interviewee says that accessing the care provided by this entity is completely free for registered residents in Spain. He also knows that they do everything possible to help trans people who are not documented. According to him, this entity does everything for trans people that is related to their transness. They provide consultation services for getting prescriptions for hormones, help with getting gender affirming surgeries, psychological consultations, help with getting jobs and anything else a gender-diverse person needs. All of these services are completely free to residents. He also says the process is simple, more or less. The only requirement for hormone treatment is to get a new prescription every year. All residents have a CatSalut card and the medical provider puts the prescription on the card. Each time a prescription needs to be refilled, they go to the pharmacy, the patient gives their card to the pharmacist, and they are given the hormones. There is a fee of €4-5 for each refill. The interviewee also talked a lot about body diversity of trans people. The truth is that there is no singular cut of what a trans person looks like. Every body is different and beautiful. "I love my pussy and my flat chest," he says. "My body is perfect the way it is and there's nothing else I want to change." Like many, many cisgender people, there are some aesthetic things that he has wanted to change about his body. For example, he has wanted to remove some hair in his pelvic area. So, he hired a person to do laser hair removal. Before going to the technician's office, he talked to her about his body. "I have a trans body," he told her. "You'll have to deal with it, and if you have a problem with that, I won't come to your clinic." She told him it would be no problem. His experience at the clinic has been pretty good and he would recommend it to other trans people.
Moreover, he shared a lot about the experience of being perceived by the public on the street, his thoughts on masculinity, how transmasculine people are redefining masculinity and finally, his experiences with cisgender people in the LGBIQ+ collective. When a is misgendered, "it feels like being stabbed with a knife," says the interviewee. For most of his life, he was not passing as a man. Only in the last few years has he been passing as he identifies. What he didn't anticipate before his transition was the fact that people would treat him very differently in society. Well, of course he thought that people would see him in a different way - as a boy - but what he didn't anticipate was how other men would treat him or the ways in which he and women would interact with each other. He says that when he is in public, ordering something in a restaurant for example, other men talk to him in a very different way than before. They talk to him in a more 'nice' way and treat him like a brother, it seems at times. He says, "This shows me that many people make a choice to be mean towards people who are not perceived as men." This observation has greatly changed his perception of masculinity in general. He explains that, to him, masculinity is a construct that men chose to embody. He also acknowledges that there is an aspect of socialization here... it's not strictly a choice, but there is certainly an aspect of choice there. He agrees with the idea that trans men have a unique perspective... for at least a portion of their life, they were socialized as women. With that, they have a perspective that gives them more insight into what it's like to be treated as a woman in this society. It's not to say that they were women - trans men are men and that's that. It's to say that, most of the time, they have a unique ability to not perpetuate the toxic aspects of masculinity. For example, something that happens very often in crowded places in Spain is that when men are passing behind a person they perceive as a woman, they sometimes touch the person's hips as they are passing. It is undeniable that it is less likely that trans men commit this act of violence (Yes, it is an act of violence to touch another person without their consent - always, no exceptions.) The interviewee describes his identity as a non-binary transmasculine person. He says he does not feel like a man, but is perceived as a man in society. At 37, he is still considering what it means to be a man in the world he lives in. He believes he and many of his trans brothers are reclaiming masculinity, stripping away the toxic aspects and reinventing it.
He also has a lot to say about his interactions with LGBIQ+ people who are cisgender. As he has come to be perceived as a man, he has noted that cis gay men interact with him in a way that he perceives as threatening. Prior to his physical transition, they treated him as nothing – as if he didn’t exist. Now that they perceive him as a man, they have a sudden interest in him. He says, "They perceive me as one thing - a gay cis man they want to have sex with. But what I am is not what they think. And this scares the hell out of me. It's very threatening." He recounted an experience during his first weeks in Sitges. He was staying in a shared rented apartment while he was looking for his own apartment, and there were 3 other guys staying in the apartment. He says he thinks they perceived him as a straight cis man, but one day he asked them if they knew anything about the pride events in Sitges. "I noticed a distinct change in how they were interacting with me after I asked this question," he says. "Then they thought I was one of them – a cis gay man. But I'm not. They invited me to the beach to hang out but I didn't go because they would have seen my scars." He explained that he would be living with them for two more weeks, and "sometimes cis men can be very violent." He didn't tell them anything and didn't go to the beach because he didn't know what would happen if he went. The last thing he discussed was the drag culture of gay cis men. He says that too often cis gay men who do drag ridiculize femininity in a way that causes harm to trans women.... "Too often, the public interprets drag queens as trans women. These are two different things and it causes a lot of harm to the transfeminine community." A future inquiry may be, who bears the responsibility for controlling/changing how the public interpret the gender embodiment of others in the public? A strong assertion of this research is that everyone has the right to express (or not express) their gender (or lack therof) as they wish, without exception.
In conclusion, this interviewee confirms one of the main assumptions of this research about Sitges... there is not a trans community here. "Most trans people, and especially young trans people, flee from Sitges to larger towns/cities from Sitges. It's easier to blend in and be queer in a bigger place." Interviewee, if you are reading this, thank you so much for sharing your story with me. You will always remain in my heart.
I have now arrived at my second research site: Malaga, Andalusia. It is a beautiful city. I have already uncovered some compelling data, and look forward to sharing it.
Until next week…
Mattie
I'd love to hear from you. You can leave me a message in the comments area below, send me an email (hola@mattiebaird.com) or get in touch through my contact page, which you can find in the navigation panel at the top of any page on the site.