As an older trans man, do I have anything to offer the younger generation?

“Ask Kai: Advice for the Apocalypse” is a column by Kai Cheng Thom to help you survive and thrive in a challenging world. Have a question? Email askkai@xtramagazine.com.

Hi Kai,

I’m a 50-year-old non-binary trans Arab-American guy. I’m not an activist. I live quietly, I read a lot of science fiction, I work tech jobs and I hang out with my cat. I’ve been through a lot of hell, and these days I’m mostly very tired. I would like to be useful to younger trans folks, but I am struggling with a couple questions.  

First, do I have anything to offer? Are any of my experiences or insights even relevant to all of y’all? I think a lot of you are much smarter than me and my peers—you seem to have built on the insights that we had and taken them to a whole other level. (This is also complicated by the fact that I have my own trauma history and struggles with self-worth.)  

My next question is, if I do have something to offer to trans folks who are younger than me, how can I make myself available? The obvious answer seems to involve Twitter, but I have an impression that queer and trans folks on Twitter have rigid standards that I would not meet. I am not up-to-date on the most recent language for trans folks. For example, I used to use the word “tr*nny” for myself as a form of reclamation, though I have stopped since being told it is hurtful to some other trans people. I do not have an activist record that I can show to prove that I have worth. I also have a certain protectiveness when I read that the language I use for myself is wrong.  

Here in pandemic-land, is there any way to offer whatever I have to give to younger trans and queer folks? And is it even worth bothering? If the language that my generation used brands us evil people, does that mean that our insights are simply not wanted?

Uncertain Elder-in-Training

Dear Uncertain, 

The questions you are asking are deep and resonant—they are very specific to the current state of the trans community, and yet also relevant to broader questions about how an older generation relates its wisdom to a younger generation’s ideals. As I write this, I am about to turn 30, and I’ve already heard from a few friends that this makes me a trans “elder” by virtue of the simple fact that I will officially no longer be a “youth.” So your timing is impeccable!

While I wouldn’t equate my experiences to yours, Uncertain, I will say that I, too, am thinking deeply about what it means to grow older in the context of a community as intergenerationally wounded as ours. I often find myself coming back to a question queer poet Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha asks in her poetry collection, Bodymap: “What kind of ancestor do you want to be?” 

Becoming an elder, or even just older, doesn’t have to be about perfectly anticipating the needs, wants and language of people younger than us. It can be about choosing the values we want to cultivate as we step into relationships with them. The values I want to offer to trans folks both younger and older than me are kindness, courage, honesty and humility. What about you, Uncertain? 

Of course, even broad values can be difficult to transmit between age cohorts. My sense is that younger folks, as whole, are not particularly good at receiving guidance from older folks, and that older folks, as a whole, aren’t particularly good at passing on their knowledge in a helpful way. 

My experience is that this is particularly true of queer and trans people, probably because so few of us actually grow up in queer/trans households with access to queer culture. Instead, we have to find—or fight—our way to it on our own, often bringing histories of trauma with us. And to further compound matters, a generation of our people was decimated in the 1980s and ’90s by the AIDS crisis, which massively disrupted intergenerational knowledge transfer. 

“The bitter truth is that the young and old rarely appreciate one another as deeply as we should.”

The development of internet culture and its lightspeed shifts in the ways that queerness and transness are experienced in childhood and adolescence are also factors: The sudden availability (for some people) of a potentially unlimited amount of sex and gender-related information and online connection with peers has massively affected the ways in which trans people come out, find one another and develop shared understandings of what it means to be trans. 

Many trans folks are coming out and transitioning at earlier ages—some even before adolescence—and identifiers such as non-binary, agender, demiboy/demigirl and others have become vastly more popular over the past decade, while older identifiers such as cross-dresser and transvestite have acquired an offensive or outmoded connotation in many circles. Your mention of the word “tr*nny,” Uncertain, is another example of how language shifts and changes profoundly over time. While this word has always been a slur in a mainstream context, some communities have come to reclaim it. Yet, to many (and, I think, especially to younger trans folks who weren’t part of the dialogue around reclamation), that term is irredeemably offensive. 

The way that internet—and particularly social media—culture is shaped makes it extremely challenging for us to have any kind of meaningful political conversation en masse, let alone intergenerationally. Twitter, as you point out, is home to not one but many sets of extremely rigid cultural standards that can result in severe backlash and even harassment based on simple language mistakes and misunderstandings. As queer non-binary author and artist Elisha Lim points out, the algorithmic foundations of most social media platforms are designed to generate sensation, spectacle and groupthink. While younger folks may be more inclined to participate (since they are, in general, more acclimated to the social media era), I don’t believe this is an age-based problem; everyone who uses social media is affected to some extent. 

All this exacerbates our individual and collective trauma responses, which is good news for capitalism (because it keeps our eyeballs glued to screens and thus advertisements), but bad news for grassroots communities. So, Uncertain, I would have to say that while Twitter may seem like the obvious place to make connections with the younger generation, I don’t believe it really is a place where generative conversation can happen. (This has never stopped me from trying, but I’ve had, shall we say, limited success.) Like Tumblr before it and perhaps Facebook before that, Twitter is a place where much is said but little is heard—and where many people have been emotionally harmed as a result of ideological clashes and flat-out bullying. 

So where can we go instead, Uncertain? Well, in the pre-pandemic time, I would have suggested getting involved with local LGBTQ2S+ community centres or groups. Events like drop-in dinners, volunteering events and other in-person gatherings can be a great place to start friendly relationships because, honestly, people tend to be much better behaved and more thoughtful when not hidden behind a screen (which isn’t to say that bad faith conflicts don’t still happen!). I also think that intentional efforts must often be made in order to bridge the youth-elder divide, as happened in Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s Youth / Elders Podcast.

I think similar initiatives could be adapted for an online, pandemic-era context. You would need some key elements, like: Outreach (i.e. connections with youth and elders who might be interested);  an online platform to have real-time discussions in, such as Zoom; and a structure. 

You could probably get pretty creative with structure, but I’m imagining that you might have a weekly or monthly meeting where a trans elder (or just an older person) tells a story about their experiences in a previous decade, and younger trans folks respond by asking (respectful!) questions. You can often get pretty far with a simple format like that—think of how volunteer-based community building models like PFLAG and Alcoholics Anonymous have grown and spread around the world! If you’re serious about something like this, Uncertain, you could get together with some friends to discuss it, or ask queer/trans service providers or organizers that you know to help you figure it out. 

Of course, Uncertain, this doesn’t necessarily answer your question about whether your experiences and insights are relevant to us—nor does it resolve any underlying fear or hurt you may have about being rejected by a generation that doesn’t seem to value the language and ideas that you used to survive. The bitter truth, Uncertain, is that the young and old rarely appreciate one another as deeply as we should. The young decry the old as out of touch and irrelevant, while the old bemoan the young for being hot-headed and dismissive. This not a queer problem or even an internet problem, but rather a human problem.

“What young trans person hasn’t longed for the guidance of a wise mentor figure?”

Here, I think we can come back to the question of values: What is it that you want to pass on to us younger folks, Uncertain? Because yes, I do believe that your experiences, insights and wisdom are important. I believe they are relevant. I think they matter, very much. The question is how you can frame them in a way that the average trans young person can actually hear without thinking that they are being condescended to or told what to do. Storytelling and history-keeping can go a long way here, I think: A lot of folks want to hear about the details of how things were for our elders, how you survived the toughest times and what you celebrated (here, I am thinking about the wonderful work of trans historian Morgan M Page and her podcast, One From the Vaults).

I suspect that the antidote to generational hostility is the spirit of humility and curiosity. When elders approach younger folks in that spirit, they are more likely to reciprocate in kind. And while the young sort of have a prerogative of bratty behaviour, it’s the job of elders to show them what it means to be gracious and wise (lucky elders, right?). That isn’t to say that older folks should put up with disrespect and abuse. I just mean that respect for a diversity of opinions is probably one of the first and best lessons an elder can teach. 

You matter, Uncertain. Your stories are important, and I believe they are wanted on a deep level. What young trans person hasn’t longed for the guidance of a wise mentor figure? The thing about wayward youngsters—especially those of us who have been hurt the way many trans folks have—is that we’re not good at showing what we want. We resist wisdom and snap at the hands that are trying to feed us because life has shown us we never know when those hands are going to hit us instead. 

For these reasons, it is not easy to be an elder. It is one of the great tasks of gaining life experience and age. And not everyone has to do it—you are allowed, Uncertain, to enjoy a quiet life with books and cats. If you’re up for an adventure, though, I believe that you could give some younger trans folks a great gift, and receive one in return. That’s worth the struggle, isn’t it?

Want more Kai? Check out her latest Quick Tips video, where she advises a gay reader on how to talk to his partner about sex work.

Kai Cheng Thom is no longer a registered or practicing mental health professional. The opinions expressed in this column are not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content in this column, including, but not limited to, all text, graphics, videos and images, is for general information purposes only. This column, its author, Xtra (including its parent and affiliated companies, as well as their directors, officers, employees, successors and assigns) and any guest authors are not responsible for the accuracy of the information contained in this column or the outcome of following any information provided directly or indirectly from it.