I was recently asked a few questions by Ron Hogan (of Beatrice.com and GalleyCat.com) about the news that JT LeRoy is a sham.
He asked:
As a writer in a relationship with a transgendered person, what is your reaction? Have you and Betty ever wished you could simply send a “stand-in” to deal with all the hassles of going out in public, let alone the threat of attack? And what’s your take on “Leroy’s” taking up an identity which, for Betty and other transfolks, is a real day- to-day struggle and, apparently, using it as a cover for a pseudonym?
For that matter, I should ask: Did you have any awareness of/contact with JT Leroy prior to these revelations? If so, have your feelings about his writing/your acquaintance changed?
It turns out that JT LeRoy is not only not trans, but she was never a he in the first place. (NY Times, New York magazine, SF Chronicle).
“‘As a transgendered human, subject to attacks,’ the statement read, ‘I use stand-ins to protect my identity.’ In the past, JT Leroy has invoked transgenderism to explain confusion over his identity.”
I’m not sure if I’m more frustrated as a writer or as a transgender educator – probably a combination of both. That JT LeRoy used transness as an excuse for this sham just adds to the heap of misinformation about transpeople. The association of transness and ‘big fat liar’ – when transpeople are everyday accused of being deceitful, and often harmed as a result of that perceived deceit – is supremely irresponsible. I think once the dust settles, some of the money she collected from celebrities should go to organizations like NCTE and the IFGE – organizations that help diminish the myths surrounding transpeople and work on legislation that makes harming transfolk hate crimes.
Because of stuff like this (& the various negative portrayals of transpeople, in general) Betty and I don’t have the luxury of sending someone else in our stead. As talented, reasonable people, we feel a real need to go out there and present any kind of example that isn’t so negative.
As someone who writes about trans subjects, it’s even more frustrating. So many good books about transness don’t get light of day – no reviews in the Times, no reviews in magazines, etc – yet people can’t stop talking about JT LeRoy because of her transnes. Believe me, the irony isn’t lost on me.
But then there’s the history of women writers and pseudonyms, and for that I can’t really blame her for using any kind of “cover.” Being reminded of being a “woman novelist” or a “woman writer” is enough to make any woman who writes borrow whatever front she might in order to stop hearing that. “Helen Boyd” is a nom de plume, after all, and I chose it in order to protect my family from the kind of transphobia that JT LeRoy claims she was protecting herself from.
Does being trans mean you’re subject to attacks? It can. Especially for less priveleged transpeople, trans people of color and those lower on the economic scale. None of us feel especially safe, but you take the risks you have to in order to educate people as fast as you can.
JT LeRoy certainly didn’t do trans people at large any favors.
What if JT’s an FtM? Female bodied but male identified.
The claims JT made about hir’s sero-status is problematic if true.
If you read the NYTimes article, you’ll see that as she (the actual writer’s sister-in-law) tried to pass herself off as JT LeRoy, and someone at a hotel thought that JT LeRoy was a man, instead. That was when she said she’d had a sex change, so the indication is that she was passing herself off as an MTF.
The childhood stories are all about a male child, to boot.
“When hotel employees told Ms. Albert they were under the impression that JT Leroy was a man, they said, she told them that she had had a sex-change operation three years before and was now a woman.”
- from the NY Times story
It’s perhaps a bit of a cliche, but this strikes me as about as offensive as a white man fronting himself as an african american woman in order to sell a book or gain some kind of momentary celebrity. Pah.
FTM, my foot. The real writer is Laura Albert, who’s married to Geoffrey Knoop, and it’s Geoffrey Knoop’s sister Savannah, a model, who’s been posing as JT Leroy in public (and saying she’s “on hormones” when asked why she looks so female). But it was Laura Albert herself who claimed to be JT Leroy at the hotel in Paris when she was there with her husband and son, and claimed she’d had a “sex change” when someone at the hotel said they thought JT Leroy was a man. Besides, as Helen said, the novels and stories and interviews all portray JT Leroy as an mtf tranny — you know, your typical child-tranny-hooker-HIV positive-drug addict-turning tricks at a West Virginia truckstop “narrative.” The whole thing is a repulsive scam designed to make money have entree to celebrity circles, and, you know what, there’ll be people applauding Ms. Albert for how damn clever she is. Some kind of “postmodern peformance art” thing. If all she wanted was to write under a male pseudonym, fine. But don’t invent an entire fake persona to sell your books. This isn’t as reprehensible as what Benjamin Wilkomierski did a number of years ago (and I have to say I was suspicious of *that* book long before it all turned out to be fake, since, sorry, 4-year olds didn’t survive Nazi death camps), but it’s still pretty bad. And there’s no acceptable excuse.
Donna
As someone who doesn’t have much interest in this issue I can easily see JT as a femmy, gay FtM. It does give an interesting spin to the book Sarah (the only one of his books I read).
Frankly If were to criticize anyone about how they portray transpeople that would be Felicity Hoffman. I really don’t think she is helping trans-people at all with her part or her interviews. That is getting more airplay. Most people don’t know who JT leroy is in the first place.
Gee, thread drift on Helen’s blog comments. That’s a first!
I never heard of JT LeRoy before this. Good thing I didn’t waste my time on “it”.
KofA, write something about Felicity Huffman & why she’s not good for trannies & i’ll “guest author” it here, okay?
I’d like someone to articulate the reasons because she’s been bugging me too, along the lines of “well intentioned straight person” stuff, but i haven’t been able to sit down & write it.
As to Felicity Huffman, she is bugging me too Helen. I have watched her when she received the Golden Globe award and also on Larry King live. ( He bugs me too because he reads his questions from a prepared list rather than authentically engaging his guests, too often). Although Felicity praises Trans people as being courageous- she only refers to them obliquely. You know- “This award is dedicated to the people who….” She never said the word “transsexual” or “transgender” once in either place- nor did she name on Larry King’s show- the two transwomen who helped her understand what being a trans- woman was all about- and worked with her on the script as well. Their names slip my mind but one of them was the transwoman whose husband was murdered in the military for his relationship with her- an horrendous event which was made into a movie. (Soldier’s Story?)
I feel it would behoove Miss Huffman if she was more open about transgenderism/transsexuality by name. It’s almost as if she’s afraid to utter the “T” word publicly for fear that she will be too associated with us, or even worse contaminated by it.
Perhaps she’s feels she has to “regain” her womanhood after portraying a trans-woman. However, I feel slightly offended by her “distancing”.
Mandee Fine, Ph.D