Me, Interviewed on What it Means to be Gender-Bendy

Laura: Hi, thanks so much for agreeing to be my first-ever interview here! So, you recently came out as genderqueer on facebook. What made you decide to do that?

Inanna: Hi there.  Great question!  There are several reasons that I decided to share my personal story as a transgendered person on Facebook, the first being that I had recently posted an article on trans issues within feminism and received a very pointed question about FTM people from a friend that I wanted to address.  It struck me that there are a LOT of misconceptions about trans folk, and I wanted to show people that gender and gender-bendiness isn’t always obvious or weird, and certainly is very personal.  That’s why I chose to share my personal story.  I feel it is harder to hold on to stereotypes when someone is opening their heart and sharing their personal story.  I also believe deeply in feminist, gender, and sexual advocacy, both in the personal and political spheres, and I want to use my writing for that purpose.

Laura: Can you tell me what being genderqueer means to you?

Inanna: Genderqueer, by definition is an umbrella term for any gender identity that exists out of the gender binary (i.e. male, or female).  This can refer to anything from a woman who, perhaps, like you, exhibits what are considered traditionally male attributes, such as drive and determination, but identifies as a female person. (I would argue that we should refrain from gendering such behaviors, but there has been a tendency to associate passivity, meekness, and submission with femaleness, and aggression, dominance, and bravery with maleness.  If that is how we are defining gender, then I am most certainly a man!)  Some other terms that I like are” genderfluid”—moving between genders, or openly expressing different gendered aspects at different times, and “gender-bendy,” which refers to someone who expresses gender differently—someone who might be male and who enjoys exhibiting feminine traits, or a female bodied person who identifies as male.
Interestingly, many trans and genderqueer people refer to their gender identity as a “third gender” and prefer to use gender-neutral pronouns such as one, ze, sie, hir, co, ey, or “they,”their” and “them.”

Laura: What’s the difference between being genderqueer and transgender? Is there a difference?

Inanna: According to GLAAD,  “’Transgender’ is an umbrella term often used to refer to people whose gender identity differs from their assigned sex at birth. However, people whose gender identity differs from their assigned sex at birth may not self-identify as transgender; some may identify as transsexual, trans, genderqueer, a person of transgender experience, etc.  Transgender people may or may not use a different name or pronoun than the one they were assigned at birth, and they may or may not pursue hormone therapy or surgery.  When in doubt, always defer to the way a person self-identifies.”  So, both transgender and genderqueer ar terms that someone might choose who defines their gender in ways that defy the gender binary.  I chose “genderqueer” because my current experience of my gender is somewhat fluid and malleable—it changes in response to my life experiences and hormonal fluctuations.  For example, if I do end up having to undergo estrogen treatments to be able to conceive my second child (this is the ONLY instance at this point that I would consider taking hormones), I both fear and expect that my gender identity and experience will undergo changes due to an influx of estrogen.  I also don’t full identify as a transgender pre-op FTM because at this point, I do not desire gender reassignment.  Though the tensions between my internal male-ness and external femaleness cause me a good deal of conflict, I very clearly identify as BOTH.  I value both my masculine and feminine qualities, and would not want to sacrifice one of them to be more fully the other.

Laura: You are a crusader for women’s rights. Do you feel any conflict between being pro-woman and being pro-trans-rights?

Inanna: Not at all.  In fact, I feel that feminism has an obligation to ally with and champion groups that are marginalized in society.  In fact, I was for a long time, a member of a women’s group for gay, bi, and straight women and have not been able to return since I discovered that the group leader refused to allow trans women into the group.  That is discrimination, pure and simple.  Furthermore, the idea that a person with a penis cannot be a woman, cannot be a feminist, and is somehow fundamentally anti-women and women’s issues is just absurd.  I feel that a person with a penis who identifies as female should be allowed in women’s groups.  Discrimination on the basis of what’s between our legs is the same as discrimination against someone for the color of their skin, and it is EXACTLY what the women’s movement was about!  Women didn’t want to be judged or forced into certain roles based on their vaginas.  Having a vagina doesn’t make a person anything other than a person with a vagina.  Whatever else they decide to be should be up to them and them alone.  In fact, my version of feminism is more like humanism—I believe in advocacy for human rights, male female and third gendered.

Laura: How do you feel that the feminist movement has addressed the transgendered community? What have we done right? Where have we failed?

Inanna: I don’t feel that the feminist movement has addressed the trans community.  I think that trans folk within the feminist movement are trying desperately to speak up and have their voices heard, but let me tell you…in a world where lesbians and straight folk have struggled to accept bisexuality as a valid experience, try explaining the complexity of opposition between body and gender identity!  More than anything, the majority of folks don’t even understand the concept, much less the experience of being trans or genderqueer.  Furthermore, due to the extreme violence, discrimination, and stigmatization of genderbendy folks, most of us are in deep, deep hiding.  Some, like myself, were so deeply indoctrinated in societal gender expectations that we didn’t even realize until late in life who we actually are, and why we always felt such deep inner turmoil at being the wrong person, or a person who doesn’t fit.  More and more articles are beginning to pop up on the desperately needed union between women’s rights and trans rights, but I think it is going to be a long road.  What grieves me on this count is that I believe that trans people are in a powerful place between genders and can act as intermediaries between male and female experience, and can stand outside of prejudice in a way that traditionally or cis-gendered folks cannot do as a result of their inherent privilege of being gender normative.  And yet, because we don’t understand trans folk, we marginalize them and pretend as though trans folk don’t exist.  The first step is to begin educating ourselves about what transgender actually is, and creating safe spaces for people of all genders, and those who are between genders.  Then, slowly and powerfully, we can begin to build relationships and activist movements between groups.  There are already a large number of transgendered activist groups—but often, it is trans people acting in isolation.  I’d like to see the trans and feminist activist groups begin to merge into one big badass movement.

Laura: There is a lot of (sometimes confusing to me) vocabulary involved here: gender, identity,  sexuality, attraction, etc. In regards to self-identification, what do you see as the most important piece of the puzzle?

 Inanna: I don’t think any one piece of the puzzle is more important than any other.  We are complex human beings with bodies, sex organs, sexualities, minds, souls, and complex experiences of being in the world and being in relationship with others.  I think we should be careful to boil gender identity and sexuality down to the issue of what type of genitals a person has.  Yes, genitals are a part (and only a part, mind you) of gender identity, sexual identity, and sexual desire, but they are a part of a much larger whole.  Furthermore, the existence of intersex people (people born with dual genitals—with characteristics of a penis and a vagina) and asexual people—folks who are not particularly sexual, illustrates that even the proposition of attempting to understand gender or sexuality based on genitalia is inherently flawed.  And when I say that the majority of sex is actually in the mind, and that the brain is the largest sex organ, I DO hope you know what I mean!   I’d also like to take a moment here to say that, for those of you who do not know, intersex “correction” (oh god, I shudder at the term) surgeries are still being performed in the United States.  They are unlawful in Canada, but happen every day here in the U.S.  How horrific!  Why can’t we just leave a person’s genitals alone and let them develop as they may?  I think having a penis and a vagina, or perhaps a vagina with an extra-large clitoris would be amazing!  Besides, how big does a clitoris have to be in order to be considered a penis?  How small does a penis have to be in order to be considered a clitoris?  Human sex organs are all formed out of the same material.  Clits and penises are the same thing; just different sizes, the vulva and scrotum are made of the same material, as are the testicles and ovaries.  Makes sense, right?  Who cares what ultimate formation they take?

Laura: What does total equality look like to you, in any form:

Inanna: What a loaded question!  First of all, I have to be honest and say that I have no idea what total equality looks like.  I’m not even sure if it’s entirely possible or entirely desirable.  I have no desire to be the same as anyone else, I simply want the freedom to be who I am, whatever that looks like, provided, of course, that I am not doing harm to anyone else in the process.  But let me clarify— “doing harm” IS NOT pissing people off because they disagree with me, or challenging assumptions or pushing the limits of what is societally acceptable.  These things may be painful—paradigm shifts always are, but just because I am outside your limits and it causes you some discomfort does not mean I am doing anything wrong and ought to stop.  Setting aside the terrifying totality of the concept of “total equality, “ I would just say that I would like to see people on the fringes of anything and everything working together and seeing each other as fellow travelers on a similar path.  GLBT folk, polyamorists, polygamists, and many others who do not fit into society’s norms are all fighting for similar things.  Nothing saddens me more than seeing one of these groups discriminating against another.  Talk about not practicing what we preach!

Laura: What is the thing you want most for cis-gendered people to know about  you?

Inanna: Actually, what I want them to know has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with them.  I would want traditionally gendered boys and girls to know that just because they have penises or vaginas doesn’t mean that is who they are.  Sex is great and bodies are good, but who you are and who you want to become are entirely up to you.  Take what you want and what empowers you from all genders and create a fabulous smorgasbord of traits that is uniquely you—and in this way you are challenging the gender binary.  None of us is “traditionally gendered.”  We are all born with the sex organ we are born with, some of us are born intersex, and some of us chose to change our equipment, but we all get to choose who we are and who we become.  And that is the important part. Be wary of deterministic gender roles.  Don’t ever do something just because it is the lady-like or gentlemanly thing to do.  Do it because you like being kind, or because you enjoy wearing lace or frills and not simply because it is feminine or because your mother or society told you to do it.
Try cross dressing, just once.  This goes for both men and women and everyone in between.  Intentionally take on a different role.  Try it on at home, in the mirror, or in a play.  What does it feel like?  What does the role evoke for you?  What are the positives?  The negatives?  What emotions do you feel?  Women…what does it feel like to NOT be the bearer of children?  To be the breadwinner?  To be responsible for your family’s entire financial well-being?  Is it really so great to be a man?  Try hitting on a woman while dressed as a man.  Not so easy is it?  By stepping out of your chosen gender role for a night, you will learn things that never occurred to you about the other side.  You will learn things that you like better, and things that fucking suck that you never ever thought of.  And when you take off the mantle of the other gender, try and incorporate the things you liked about the other gender into your life, and be compassionate toward other gendered people who may have struggles of which you are completely unaware.

Laura: If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing (about anything), what would it be?

Inanna: If I could wave a magic wand, I’d want to make it so that we were all born without gender.  I’d love to live in a world where we could choose our sex organs and our gender at will, and move in between them freely and as we pleased.  I mean, c’mon, if you could switch genders without consequence and knew you could go right back when you wanted, wouldn’t you want to know what it was like to be a hetero man, or a lesbian woman, or anything at all?  And wouldn’t this go a looooong way towards helping us understand each other’s experiences?  Talk about cool, ACTUALLY being able to walk a mile in another person’s shoes, all Atticus Finch style.  For now, though, reading about other’s experiences, asking them about it, having an open mind, and yes, cross dressing, are the best suggestions I have for simulating this experience.

 Check out these resources:

Books

• Check out Jennifer Finney Boylan’s work.  She is a FAB writer and an inspirational human!

Stuck in the Middle (2013) by Jennifer Finney Boylan (my favorite)
She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders (2003) by Jennifer Finney Boylan

• My Princess Boy
• Olivia and the Pink Princesses
• True Selves, by Mildred Brown (A

therapist’s perspective)

• Trans Forming Families, Mary Boenke,

editor (Family members tell their own
stories about transgender loved ones)

• How Sex Changed: A History of
• Transsexuality in the United States, by

Joanne Meyerowitz (Indiana State Univ.
history professor’s introduction to how ideas
about sex and gender have evolved)

• Becoming a Visible Man, by Jamison Green

(Green relates his insights into what it
means to change from female to male)
Movies:

• TransGeneration – Eight-episode

documentary focused on a year in the lives
of four transitioning college students.

• Ma Vie En Rose (My Life in Pink) – the

story a little girl born in a little boy’s body.

• Normal – the story of a husband’s transition

to female after 25 years of marriage (with
Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson)

• Transamerica – an MTF (Felicity Huffman)

awaiting sex reassignment surgery learns
she has a wayward teenage son whom she
bails out of jail. Together they take a road
trip across the country.

• Southern Comfort – documentary of the

final year in the life of a 52-year-old FTM in
Georgia dying of ovarian cancer that doctors
refused to treat.
YouTube:
Search “Jazz” and “Trans” and you will come up with a plethora of amazing videos about a little boy that began living as a girl early on and her amazing family.  Great stuff!  There’s also tons of stuff on YouTube and the internet with various testimonials by trans folk to watch.  Just start digging!

The Aftermath

As many of you have noticed, these last few weeks have been full of revelations--deep and earth shattering on many levels.  I've shared about my body, my desires, my spirituality, and talked about things that were buried and not fully known, even to myself.  The recent discovery of my PCOS has done a lot in terms of explaining my hormone levels, long term symptoms, and even a good deal of my gendered feelings that have begun to emerge full force as I have begun to dig internally.  However, the discovery of these truths alone has not been enough to satisfy me, nor to resolve many of my internal tensions.  In many ways I have always been a conflicted woman--one who dwells within tensions and at times (okay, often) desires things sexually that conflict with my belief system intellectually.  I posted recently about my personal experience with being on the transgender spectrum (at this time I identify as genderqueer) in response to a friend's query about switching genders as a form of "opting out" and "not fighting the good fight."  I felt called to share my story as a way of putting a human face on the transgender experience, and illustrating the deep internal struggle to reconcile a body that does not match one's inner identity.  In general, I feel called to explore my deepest truths and do deep work in the areas of gender, identity, sexuality, pornography, kink, etc. and share my research, study, thoughts, and experiences in order to educate people about things of which they are unaware, or to let another struggling person know they are not alone, even though they feel lost and isolated.  I struggle with wondering whether I am being selfish and self-absorbed to spend the majority of my time looking inward, but I think to a large extent, this is the work of being a writer.  I also spend time taking classes, attending events, and teaching, in order to gain the experience and human interaction required to actually have something to say.  If I stopped everything in order to write, the well would quickly become dry.

I have been surprised at the degree of acceptance by those that read my post (posted here and on my personal Facebook page--which is a bizarre mix of liberal college and post-college friends, and highly conservative, right wing Christians that represent the folks I knew growing up.  I still love them and share many memories of my childhood with them, but that is about all.  I find it inspiring that we still are friends on Facebook, a tenuous relationship at best, but it is an exercise in acceptance of each other's vast differences).  I post about sex, STD's, female pleasure, and transgender, and whether or not they read my posts (they certainly don't "like" my posts) they are seeing them, and they choose to keep my on their friend list.  And hey, that's something.  Some of them have even messaged me in private that they learned something and their perspective was changed.  I've also been asked by a writer friend of mine to do an interview with her for her blog on what it means to be transgender/genderqueer.  I will post that on here as well in a few days, as well as a link to her blog which address some awesome feminist, legal, and otherwise quirktastic topics.

So all that is great.  But the truth is that I am still personally struggling with these issues.  Most of my life I suppressed my masculinity, my dominance, and my bitchiness.  And it came out in all sorts of unpleasant ways.  I'm really hoping that the exploration of this side of myself in the kink world--in pre-negotiated scenes with check-ins before and after play, and work with my therapist and in my writing, that I will find a way to integrate all of these different parts of myself.  These last few days have been full of ups and downs--from euphoria at having the courage to share my story and the terror that comes from realizing you just exposed your deepest self in public, and in front of a large audience.  I've felt blissful excitement over my relationships and deep terror at the unpredictable ways they are changing.  I am excited about exploring my dominant sexual side, and have enjoyed some hot sex where I was the aggressor and imagined penetrating my partner with my cock--but at the same time I was sooooo uncomfortable with it.  It's going to take some time to get used to.  And I don't have to decide today or next week, or next year, or even in the next ten years what gender I really want to be or what that looks like.  It's okay to be me and be a lot of different things at once (even though it makes me feel like I have multiple personality disorder at times.  Not really--but the transitions between my different ways of being are still pretty choppy and awkward).

I am so honored to be with partners who accept me as I am.  Both of my lovers have expressed their love and desire for me despite my admitted inner male self, facial hair, and ovarian cysts.  In fact, neither of them have seemed overly phased by it--though perhaps curious as to what it means and how to explore it with me and support me through the process.  Both of them, I believe, have know these things about me for a long time--long before I even explicitly knew them about myself.  So when I talked to T (my husband) last night about how weird it felt for me to openly acknowledge my inner man, and how lately, I can't get off unless I visualize fucking my lovers with my penis, and how I might just be a gay man in disguise (two cocks, mmmm!), he wasn't really shocked at all.  In fact, he was like, okay, let's go with that.  Why don't you be the gay man for a while?  It was me who was shocked and uncomfortable. 

So, it's going to take some time for me to get comfortable in my female skin and flesh (something that has always been a struggle--who ever completely and perfectly loves their body), and be okay with the man, or assertive woman inside me.  Here's to the journey.

Tonight I have my first dominatrix session with my mentors in their private dungeon.  I'm excited and scared.  What should I wear? ;)  I will write more soon.

Gender Identity, PCOS, and Trans Talk

Ugh.  I've been sitting on this post for days--wanting to gather the courage, knowledge, and strength to write it.  Five days have passed and I feel no different, only grumpier and more writing-angsty than ever.  So, whether this post sucks or not, I have to write it.

The topic of transgender has only very recently crossed my radar.  I was raised in a world where there were only two acknowledged genders--I can't remember when I first heard the word transgender, but it was in the last few years only.  Homosexuality and alternate lifestyles weren't on my radar either growing up, and if they did become visible, they were used by those around me as an excuse to belittle, abuse, and bash other lifestyles.  I went to a white, privileged middle-upper class private school, so once again, my horizons were narrow and I saw little diversity of any kind.

I can tell you that I have felt different my entire life.  I didn't really know how I was different, just that I was, and not even knowing there were options when it came to gender identity and expression, or lifestyle choice just made me try all the harder to squeeze my very non-squeezable self into the boxes provided for me by family and culture: female, white, Christian, good, and so on. 

Parallel to these cultural constructs hemming me in on all sides, was my own personal journey.  At age 11 (just barely), I started bleeding, the second girl in my grade to get her period.  And you know what's sad, I was pissed that I wasn't the first.  I wanted to win at everything, even bleeding, even woman--whatever that was.  Well, sure enough, I started to "win" in that department a lot faster than I, or my parents (who were horrified at my sudden extreme womanhood) would have ever wished.  That same year, in fifth grade, I went practically overnight to a curvaceous, sexy woman with wide hips, C cup breasts, a period, and acne.  Oh god, the acne.  If someone wasn't staring at my chest, they were staring at my hips.  So I was painfully, and obviously thrust into womanhood with a big bang and an ever bigger chest.  A part of me liked all the attention, though.  It made me feel powerful to know that I could command the room with just my body.  I was proud of having curves and bigger breasts than my flat-chested friends.  I was a woman, never mind that I was 11 years old.

I remained at about a size 6 to 8 with C cup breasts until high school, when several extremely unpleasant things happened.  I broke up with my boyfriend (or did he break up with me, I can't remember), my parents separated and soon divorced, and my twin sister and I were left largely responsible for my younger, 4 year old sister, while my parents tended to their wounds.

I soon dropped out of all social life except for homework and school activities, choosing instead to spend time with my sister rather than hang out or party.  I also began experiencing "situational depression," began attending entirely pointless therapy, and started to eat.  I ate to comfort myself, to stop the pain, and to stuff the waves of emotion and sadness that I felt back inside where I could control them.  I started to gain weight.  A little at first, but by the time I graduated high school, I had intimate relationships with Walt Whitman and Catullus and Emily Dickinson, and chocolate, not with friends or partners.  I was a size 18/20 at the time my senior photo was taken.

I also noticed a small amount of facial hair appearing as I gained weight--thicker sideburns, mustache, and hairs on my chin, which was concerning, but I was already too ashamed of everything about myself to bring this up with my doctor.  What if something was wrong with me?  What if I was really a man? (Help!  Pass the chocolate!)

In college, I gradually lost weight again--finding an environment where my kind of weird was normal and not having access to much food dropped me down to a size 12-14, and in general, I was happy, in relationships and so on.  And as I said before, being weird wasn't anything out of the ordinary at St. John's College, so if I was strange, I didn't notice.  What did start occurring, however, was that I began to realize that my behaviors, socially and romantically, were largely quite different than those of the other women around me (though less so than out in the world--Johnnie women are a different breed altogether).  I was bolder in pursuing ideas, passions and dreams than the average woman.  I was more aggressive in the bedroom and in pursuit of sexual and romantic partners.  I tended to initiate the beginnings and ends of relationships.  And if someone tried to bring me down by challenging me (in the bedroom or out), I took it as a call to get better, and to kick more ass.  I also asked out and pursued just as many guys as pursued me.  I found out that men found me sexy and terribly intimidating, which was all quite baffling to me.

Since graduation college six years ago, I have experienced pregnancy and childbirth, as well as a significant amount of weight gain and loss.  The facial hair increased, as did my, at this point, nearly insatiable libido.  The father of my child was an extremely aggressive, dominant and abusive human being, who refused to allow me sexual or personal dominance in  my life, and in the nearly 4 years since leaving that situation, I have uncovered a massive amount of knowledge about my identity that had been buried for 14 years under cultural indoctrination, abuse, and simply a lack of knowledge about different ways of being.

Since being in a healthy, nurturing relationship with my current partner, I have discovered the following about myself: I am a bisexual, polyamorous, gender-queer person and I have poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).  For years, I have fantasized about having a penis, but have never wanted to give up my female body.  This has never been out of sense of woman-hatred, or love of patriarchy, or any such nonsense, but rather a desire to experience life from a male perspective, both physically and emotionally.  What is it like?  What are the fears, pressures, and joys?  And what does it feel like to make love from the other side?  To be the penetrator rather than the penetrated? 

I love being extremely feminine and curvy (see?) but inside, I feel like a man.  I am strong-willed, risk taking, impulsive, eager, driven, and approach sex and relationships like a dude.  I have an insanely high sex drive, and prefer multiple partners and a variety of sexual and intimate love-styles. Still, I didn't know what transgender always was.  I just joked about how I was more like a man than a woman, but it didn't matter since my body was more woman than most.  I've struggled when it comes to dating and pursuing a woman because I don't operate in that push-pull, hot and cold sort of way.  I'm like, "do you want me, or not?" 

But once I read Jennifer Finney Boylan's account of raising her children through and post the transition process, I knew I had hit on something.  Of course, it scared the shit out of me.  But I deeply related with JFB's accounts of her identity, and of simply feeling different inside than the ay you are outside.  It isn't about judging which gender or body parts are better--it's about a deep knowledge of which ones you feel you should have, and that sometimes what you feel is quite different than what you were assigned at birth.  JFB didn't want to be a woman because she felt that women were superior, she just WAS a woman.  As simple as that.  Are you going to judge a man and blame him for not being a woman, or accuse him of being anti-feminist or anti-women just because he has a penis?  Not all men are bad, and not all women are good.  One thing we all are is human.

At the recent AASECT conference, I attended all the sessions I could on the transgender experience, including one particularly powerful one on adapting sex education to be inclusive of trans experience.  I plan to write up an account of this session in a future post, but just to quickly sum it up--changing our language around sexuality is extremely important. We can no longer refer to sex as between a man and a woman, nor can we assume that all women have vaginas and all men have penises.  MOST women have vaginas, but not all.  MOST men have penises, but not all.

Around the time of this conference, I received results from my endocrinologist.  I had made an appointment with my local endo to discuss my irregular period, facial hair, and struggles with weight gain, despite the recommendation from my PC that "everything was fine."  And guess, what?  I have PCOS.  Folks with PCOS have cysts on their ovaries that cause increased production of androgens (testosterone) and inhibit ovulation, cause weight gain, and facial hair growth.  And, not surprisingly, most trans FTM folk wither have PCOS before transition (increased androgen leading to male ideation), and then, those that do not have PCOS often develop it from testosterone treatments.

So all this is to say, that there is a huge variety of gender identity and sexual expression in this world.  You may look at someone and assume a certain gender.  Take me, for example.  Breasts, hips, curves--feminine in body and dress.  However, my hormones tell a different story, as does my self-defined gender identity (my "affirmed" identity).  We need to start thinking beyond our genitals when it comes to gender and sexual identity.  It's also beyond time to start making assumptions about behavior or belief structure based on this supposed M or F identity determined at birth by what's between our legs.  There are more "masculine" women, such as myself (and perhaps Cleopatra or Elizabeth I, I like to think), and more "feminine" men and a whole range of everything else in between.  We need to give our children and each other choices when it comes to who they are, how they feel, and how they choose to express themselves.  Why does gender even matter so much?  How about just human?


And to answer the recent question of a friend:

"What's your take on trans men, though? I am very conflicted about how to think about women who transition to the male gender, because to me that seems like it's saying "I cannot be a woman because
women are X and I am not that" - which is a very limited way to view women. It's also effectively "passing" - buying into the male power structure, rather than resisting it. Men who transition to the female gender are fundamentally disenfranchising themselves: not so, the other way round. It seems anti-feminist and even anti-woman to reject female-ness and all it connotes in favour of joining the boys' club."

I think it's important to identity some the assumptions, and perhaps, prejudices that are at play here.  For one, you seem to hold the belief that it is better to be a man than a woman, or certainly that there is some value in the struggle of being a woman in a society that does not always value female-ness.  There is also the assumption that a person chooses to transition from female to male because she is dissatisfied with her role in society.  While I can see how it might look that way on the outside, most trans folk aren't attempting to make a larger societal statement with their transition.  They're just being who they are and who they've always been.  Transition is just about making the outside consonant with the inside.  A trans man IS a man, and has always been a man--or perhaps, developed into a man at puberty.  It isn't so much about choosing to be someone else, as choosing to be oneself fully, inside and out. 

Furthermore, I have great respect for transfolk and genderqueer people because, often, they have had to do a lot of inner work to discover who they are and figure out how to manifest that in the world.  Can you take a just a moment and imagine what it would feel like to be born into the wrong body?  To be you on the inside, but a chimpanzee or a giraffe on the outside?  How would you express yourself?  How would you let others know that you were really human, even though you appeared giraffe-like?

In my experience, most transfolk are incredibly gender respectful and tend NOT to stereotype others based on appearance, gender, or societal roles as a result of what they had been through.  So to your concern about a trans man opting out, or joining the "old boys" club--that seems highly unlikely to me.  Again, I would challenge your assumption that a trans man going through transition is attempting to make a statement against women, feminism, or anything of the sort, but is on a very personal journey to make one's insides match the outsides (damn pronouns!)

I think that transfolk offer us an incredibly opportunity to see humanity beyond the gender binary, and to appreciate a wide variety of gender and cultural expression.  If anyone is going to get us beyond the limited idea that feminism is just for women, and all men are evil, its a person who has been both genders, or who chooses to live a life somewhere in a gendered no-man's land, as both man and woman.  Please, do everything in your power to allow others to define their own gender identities and advocate for transgender rights, sexual education, and more.  Trans people are still the at the highest risk for suicides and bullying in the United States, and they are one of the greatest gifts we have been given.