WWE wrestling turned me cis, then it turned me trans

With WrestleMania 39 set to kick off on April 1, and Polygon contributor Abraham Josephine Riesman’s new book Vince McMahon, Ringmaster and The Unmaking of America set to enter the ring on March 28, we’re spending the week grappling with pro wrestling — and everything it’s shaped.

Pro wrestling was a favorite of my bullies.

In the spring 1999, I was 13 years old and attending a Chicago public school. Every day, at recess they harassed me. Though I long ago wiped my memory clean of any specific insults, the overall theme could be summed up as, “Look at this faggot.”

My defects were: I sang, wore flared pants, was in platonic friendship with girls and would jump at any opportunity to be a girl in class skits.

These were RealBoys are burly and cackling.

I enjoyed the weird British comic books and midcentury musical theatre.

They loved World Wrestling Federation.

While they tormented me each day, the faces and slogans of their favorite wrestlers leered at me from their T-shirts: “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker. There’s a special little humiliation in being gay-bashed by someone wearing a jersey that — in the words of WWF squad D-Generation X — invites you to “SUCK IT.”

I didn’t exactly have a PoliticsAt that time, there was no objection to the WWF. I was just trying to do what my boys hated, which was enough for me to be repelled.

Then, something strange happened: my sole male friend, Jonathan, caught an episode of the WWF’s weekly flagship show, Raw Is WarWhile channel-surfing. He was so impressed by the footage, he demanded I share it with him. I trusted Jonathan — he wasn’t a bully. Then I tried it.

It was love that I found.

I must have already known that “professional” wrestling was fixed, more of a scripted art form than a legitimate sporting competition. I absolutely didn’t care. It was amazing to see these people, and how they lived. MenThey defied all who crossed their paths. They were my demographic’s visions of ideal masculinity, and, suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to have their confidence.

Watching WWF programming was a habit that I developed, initially with Jonathan and then with a few other boys. Most of these guys were people I’d never met before. One kid’s parents had a huge finished basement, and we’d gather there for the sacred viewing of pay-per-view events.

One of my bullies was present at one such event. Our parents and school officials had already stepped in as junior-high non-contact orders. I knew it would be awkward. But instead, we just did what we’d come to do: We watched and talked about wrestling. Finally, we were on the same team. The only thing that separated us was our friendship: we were just buddies. It was just boys.

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As the weeks and months wore on, this group became a tightly knit cohort — the first group of male friends I’d ever had. They were full of homophobia, misogyny and racism and other provocations, which we loved. That was what we learned. This was what it meant to be a man — to be safe, to be superior, to be powerful. My bullies taught me I was a man in order to make it worth my while. Wrestling showed me the value of being a man.

My passion for the show faded over the years. However, my fandom waned after a few rabid years. RingmasterThe biography of Vince McMahon, WWF founder. To report it, I plunged back into McMahon’s product, the visions of masculinity I’d consumed with such desperation as a kid — including McMahon’s turn as the villain-protagonist that the crowd loved to hate and hated to love.

I had to admit that this time, however, I was an adult and it was difficult for me to overlook the toxic effects. In the last 20 years, even as the WWF’s popularity has plateaued, the attitudes and devices it championed have spread into every aspect of our civic life. McMahon’s close friend Donald Trump rehashed McMahon’s hero/villain act on the national stage, while employing McMahon’s wife in his cabinet, supported by a generation of voters who had accepted McMahon’s version of masculinity. I didn’t want to be accepted by the nation of bullies this time. Instead, I was ready to leave, to seize power.

But I also saw something I hadn’t seen before. Wrestling is built around masculinity, but in its own way it is also transgressive — even queer. In wrestling, men wear bold colors. In public, they touch and intimately touch each other. When they’re allied, they speak of each other in the warm terms of life partners; when they’re at odds, they issue ambiguously sexual threats such as “I want your ass.”

They are also able to show pain.

The essential, irreducible element of a wrestling match is the ability to show suffering — the very thing drummed out of every boy by high school, if not earlier. It’s the heart of the art form. No matter how skilled a wrestler is technically, it doesn’t count at all unless they can make the audience believe they’re being hurt. Raw, unrestrained agony is what every wrestler needs to show during matches. Their most vulnerable face must be exposed.

Wrestling is an art form, one that turned out to have also planted seeds in my mind about how fun it is to dress up, show tenderness, be vulnerable, and do the things you’re not supposed to.

A few days before I turned in the completed draft of my book, I told the world via Twitter that I’m not a man. I’m choosing to live as a trans woman. I go by “she” now. This is the conclusion I might have come to all those years ago if my bullies hadn’t terrorized me out of it. Wrestling taught me how to become a man. But it also gave me a second message, one that had Final words — finally — reached me. At 13 years old, wrestling taught me how to identify as a cis woman. It then taught me how to identify myself as trans at 36.

At 77 years old, Vince McMahon still works in an industry that values machismo. McMahon was faced with several sexual misconduct allegations last summer. One of them included an allegation that he had raped his female referee. He made a surprise move and got out of the limelight. McMahon doesn’t like being a loser, so it only lasted a moment. He used his influence to regain control of the company, and now he rules with an iron-matronly fist.

McMahon is limited in time. McMahon will be outlasted by wrestling. Think about all the people who love wrestling. GetIt works because of my trans and queer compatriots watching and performing it. There has been an explosion in queer-oriented indie wrestling in recent years, driven by performers who can hear the art form’s undertones. They make the implicit explicit, and it’s a beautiful thing to behold.

I’m not sure what those individuals who bullied me are up to today. All of us were children who believed in manhood, and that was what made our lives miserable. They are now being unlearnt by me, and I wish their paths have led them to that point.

Being a queer or trans wrestle fan means to oppose and grow the very industry we hate. It is not for everyone. One of wrestling’s virtues is how much it can bring disparate people together — which means there are still plenty of bullies who watch wrestling. But I’ve chosen to opt out of that demographic. I’ve seceded. I’ve shown the world my secret face. And I haven’t looked back.