"We don't need science to confirm our identity, we exist without it," says agender man Fipah
You identify as an agender person, which practically means you don't identify with the concept of masculinity or femininity. How do you (and those around you) manage to deal with being addressed when Czech is - compared to English, for example - a very gendered language?
I generally don't really care what anyone calls me. In high school I used to use the middle gender, but nowadays I mostly use the masculine gender in public life and even at work. Because I am gender conforming, visually I try to match what people expect to a certain extent and to a certain extent not complicate communication. But those who are close to me use the feminine gender in communication with me, and that's because it describes me personally much more. Feminine is perceived as "hotter" - which of course doesn't make me feel like a woman, it's just a choice of gender expression.
So is gender conformity your free choice, or is it rather a kind of "concession" to the majority society?
The truth is that I am afraid. So I conform more out of fear, to protect myself. Even though I like authenticity and I would like to be like that in my self-presentation, I have authenticity coupled with fear. I don't want to experience that stress. So I choose safety, but of course this is a very individual choice. For some people it can be much more stressful to give up that authenticity.
You currently live in the Czech Republic, but you are originally from Slovakia. When you describe your fears and anxieties about expressing yourself, was the fear factor also behind your leaving Slovakia? After all, the atmosphere there is not very LGBTQ+ friendly...
Unfortunately yes, Slovakia is very transphobic. Even though I'm in the Czech Republic more or less by "mistake" and would like to move to Sweden eventually, I feel that the situation is better here. In Slovakia, things are taking a turn for the worse. Unfortunately, changing people's minds is a job for many years. Although I understand that there are "positive examples", I cannot imagine the fight against windmills myself. And it is impossible to live in a country where one is concerned about one's own safety.
I'm guessing that your identity has caused you to have some not-so-nice times...
My experiences may not be that dramatic, but that's because I'm careful, and I come from a fairly privileged family and we lived in Slovakia in the centre of the capital. Still, I experienced bullying and teasing at school. But the interesting thing is that it was always the younger or the older ones who mocked me - my classmates liked me. And this was actually true during my studies in biochemistry here in the Czech Republic. Even people who I never thought could understand me, after a few months addressed me in the feminine and we became close friends.
So isn't that personal experience the key to understanding who you are and actually accepting difference? Similarly, this is not infrequently true for lesbians and gays - many homophobes also "flip" when they get to know them better...
Maybe I've just been very lucky with people (laughs), otherwise I would say that acceptance also has a lot to do with education. To elaborate, if kids were already growing up thinking it's totally cool to have any identity, not many things would change. I'm convinced that the system is to some extent responsible for the hate. When someone shouts abuse at me in the street, it's not excusable, but it's primarily caused by the system - if children aren't handed empathy and are subsequently denied even an open education, it only leads to more hate. Yet if you inform children from a young age about the diversity of human identity, they will accept it without any problem. Otherwise, however, they grow up in a very toxic environment, because even 'traditional masculinity' as it was perceived in the past is hurting many boys and men today - just as much as the 'traditional feminine' formula is hurting women. The problem is also the lack of sex education and the willingness to talk openly about related topics. It's different in the Czech Republic, after all, you're moving on, there's gay literature for children, and homosexuality in general isn't such a topic anymore. Instead, there are now trans and agender people (laughs).
You mention toxic traditional masculinity and the diversity of human identity expressions in general (not accepted by many people yet), aren't all these categories ultimately harmful rather than "helping" us to navigate the world?
I feel like there is a lot of opinion from the straight and cis community (people whose biological sex is in line with their gender, ed.), even from those who support us, that we don't actually need these labels and that there are too many of them. In fact, I would say that the term 'label' is being inflated unnecessarily, as if it were some big issue. But I think all of us who aren't part of the straight cis community are just happy to be able to name who we are. But it's not a big deal. We just have a word that describes our identity.
I was more alluding to the potential harmfulness of gender binaries in general, the pigeonholes of "woman" and "man" from which all further categorization in the eyes of said hetero and cis majority derives...
It is true that we traditionally judge people according to two categories that are in opposition. It's actually a method of standardizing social status and I think it's completely unnecessary. Moreover, I personally don't favor legitimizing identity through science. There is evidence that the perception of the gender dichotomy is very arbitrary. The classical stereotyping and binary of women and men is simply a concept imposed on other societies in many parts of the world, yet they often lived very differently until colonial times, and our traditional performativity of women and men did not appear in any way.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by 'the legitimization of identity by science'?
Many times even people who support trans people use the claim in that support that there is scientific evidence that trans people exist and their identity is 'legitimate'. It's like we're constantly looking for some heterosexual cis scientist to confirm that all of us who are heterosexual and cis don't even exist. As if that confirmation from science is an affirmation of the authenticity of our identity. But our identity is not something that needs to be confirmed by countless disciplines and studies, we do exist and are valid, even without the confirmation of someone studying us!
You are one of the actors in the documentary series Trans* and in this context you also receive media attention. However, for the texts that have already been published, there are mostly a number of hateful comments in the discussions. Did you anticipate this kind of response?
I've received a few negative messages in the last few days, and of course it's hard to read that someone wants to kill me. I was bullied as a child, so it's difficult to relive it. On the other hand, I'm getting a lot more messages that are positive. At the same time, I'm getting a lot of young people writing to me who maybe because of my visibility haven't committed suicide, so I'm willing to go through with it. I believe it's one thing to openly hate speech in the anonymity of the internet and another to meet face-to-face.
In your opinion, what is the essence of hatred towards you? After all, I don't suppose death threats are a common thing...
Maybe the reason is these people's own insecurity and fear, which is related to the fact that someone is suddenly threatening the traditional "order". But often it is also misunderstanding - which I have already alluded to in the context of education. For I notice that even if, for example, a comment is not directly hateful, it is clear that it is the result of a misunderstanding. A lot of people wonder why I refer to myself in the masculine and feminine when I don't feel like either. Similarly, the claim that everyone is a woman or a man - so I must be too - is common. I try not to talk about my gender, I mean the biological one now. I am only talking about gender identity.
Maybe that's the problem. Unfortunately, not everyone has accepted this concept - and the fact that gender identity is something different from biological sex - and is aware of the topic...
That's a fact, then under every article there are people who don't really understand the subject. But they still have to discuss it. The important thing here is the realization that there is a set status quo of majority that is perceived as legitimate, and anyone/anyone who deviates in any way seems to constantly have to justify themselves. Yet members of the majority have enormous privileges, no one restricts them in anything, they have their lives, their jobs, their security, the system allows it, and yet they still have to dissect everyone else - those who are not part of the majority. I'm not questioning their identity either...
So what do you expect from your participation in the Trans* project? Do you believe that it will at least open someone's eyes?
I think visibility is very important. Although I don't follow the Czech media very much, as far as I know, no similar documentary has been made in the Czech Republic. We were given the space to tell our stories authentically, without stigmatization and harmful framing - there are no questions about penis and vagina, we were able to say what we wanted to express quite openly. And I would say that it's those kinds of statements that are very important today.
The documentary series Trans*, produced by Stream, provides extensive intimate portraits of people who don't conform to received ideas about the two genders. You can watch individual episodes on TV List and online.
