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Giving Birth (& Other Metaphors for the Creative Impulse)

I chose to take my road without children. It doesn’t make me shallow or immature, it makes me realistic. If I had children it would be to satisfy other people, not me. I am a lover, daughter, sister, writer and friend. I don’t need the label of mother to make me more. I am enough.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this article since Marlena posted a link to it, because it is so often my own experience (except that I never moved to the West Coast and most of my friends are right here, in the tri-state area, and still I see them about as often as she sees hers). That said, I know that having children is a lot like a new relationship in the way it can completely occupy someone, becoming their sole focus for a while. But I also know they come back; maybe they don’t come back as the same person they once were, but they do. Older, wiser, fatter, perhaps.

For me there’s been a simultaneous self-occupation, in my writing, which is a kind of trade-off. My friends with children understand that my writing occupies my mind and my time better than anyone else. But what bothers me about women “disappearing” into having children is when they expect the rest of us to want to, or otherwise to think that everyone cares about the details of what their kids did. I mean, I know I bore people because I have gender on the brain. I don’t assume spending eight months writing a book is a universal experience.

Most of the women I know certainly know that child-rearing isn’t either, but other parts of our culture do assume that. For us childfree types, it becomes kind of tedious, explaining that we don’t want children or don’t feel incomplete or that – god forbid – we are completely oblivious to any biological clock that’s supposed to be ticking so loudly in our heads.

You’d think, what with overpopulation, those of us who choose not to have children would be encouraged – but we’re not.

Often what I hear from parents is something along the lines of “It’s the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done,” as if my life is without meaning because I don’t have children. My standard response these days is, “Well apparently you’ve never written a book.” Smug Street can go both ways, after all.

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Dr. Keith

We taped an episode of the Dr. Keith show last week, and I’ve been sorting out my thoughts since then. I found the experience exhausting. From all reports (Donna, my sister, another friend) we were good. But some days it’s hard to consider the toll that’s paid.

I’m not sure yet what that toll is exactly, but it feels something like a distilled version of all the other work we do for college audiences & at trans conferences except the audience is so different: at one point during the taping I looked at a woman in the audience whose jaw was literally hanging agape.

It doesn’t help that I’ve replayed it all a million times in my head, hoping I said things that make sense. Before that I worried for days beforehand about whether I could really get something across of what this life is like for both the partner and the trans person. It’d be nice to be able to shut off my brain, to stop wondering what the whole show will be like, since we weren’t on alone: we had the company of a trans man & his ex as well as an intersex person.

Overall, I liked Dr. Keith’s take: his general tone was one of “Wow, that’s one hell of a hand you’ve been dealt,” and although the show was a little too anatomically-focused for me, people DO want to know about body mods and I think it was handled about as well as it could have been. It couldn’t have been thorough – transition, transgender, and intersex are a lot to cover in an hour – but it wasn’t sensational.

So I can only wait to see what the rest of you think. It should air before mid-March, and of course I’ll post info about the airdate as soon as I get it.

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Guest Author: Katherine

There is a part of me that would like to rename this, “How to Estrange the Love of Your Life” or even “How Not to be Trans” but I think Katherine’s original title, “8 Easy Steps,” is a touch more delicate. Katherine is an mHB boards veteran.

I’ll teach you all this in 8 easy steps
A course of a lifetime you’ll never forget
I’ll show you how to in 8 easy steps
I’ll show you how leadership looks when taught by the best
–Alanis Morrissette

One: My trans-needs and experiences will always be more exotic, painful, and interesting than your existence.

Two: Excessive narcissism can look like, “Hey, I’m just finally taking care of myself here!” but is every bit about creating the I-It relationships that Martin Buber warned us about.

Three: “I’m trans. You don’t understand me. I am complicated and, like—for sure, you’re not,” so you don’t have permission to judge me even when I am fully deserving of your judgment, even when your life is equally if not more complicated. I scored the ultimate “get out of jail free card” in life’s version of Monopoly. “Do not pass ‘Go,’” etc., and get your ass back on Baltic Avenue. My life is Boardwalk and Park Place, special.

Four: My martyr complex is so much fun for others! Thank you for hating me and disapproving of what I am doing; it makes me so much more special than you and is the ultimate buzzkill toward having a meaningful conversation about how and what I am doing is scaring and confusing to you, is scaring and confusing me.

Five: Let me be wonderfully sympathetic about your weight gain, about your angst, about your doubts, about your sense that this isn’t right for you, but let me still manage to appropriate your feelings and help you feel guilty again for having them.

Six: Oh, you want something to say about how my identity change is affecting your identity too with our friends, family, and co-workers? How shallow of you. Let me make you in these matters too feel guilty about caring for such things.

Seven: Let me attempt to appropriate the womanhood experiences you spent a lifetime living, reacting to, and making peace with in this sexist culture and act as though your role no longer matters and that the space you earned as wife, daughter, and sister can be appropriated by the “How to be Transsexual for Dummies” manual.

Eight: Let me shirk my responsibility to you by spending more time online, on the phone, and in person with my trans acquaintances than I do with you, designing for example cutesy posts about eight steps, while you are in the other room alone and afraid, facing as you do so often another day with bravery and grace.

I’ve been doing research for years
I’ve been practicing my ass off
I’ve been training my whole life for this moment (I swear to you)
Culminating just to be this well-versed leader before you
–Alanis Morissette

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Christmas Mo(u)rning

Betty and I went shopping at Macy’s the other day because we’re going to be taping a television show later in the week (more on that when I get around to it), and the windows at Macy’s were really spectacular. The entire 34th street side is an ode to the movie Miracle on 34th Street. The Broadway side is much more magical, and in one window, a huge roaring lion is absolutely gorgeous. You could see the kids just glassy-eyed, full of wonder, reflected in the glass. I felt the crying coming on, tried to hold it back, and then Betty asked me what was wrong – and out it came. My grandma used to bring me in every year to see the windows, just me & her, & then we’d go to the Radio City Christmas Show. She died in early December & Christmas has felt a little wrong since then, even though it’s been twelve years now. It surprises me that a moment like that can get me, but you know,you throw in a big lion & there’s Narnia in the mix, and it’s like all of my childhood laid out in front of me. I become a huge puddle of a person, still missing her company, still sad to have lost – to some degree – that glassy-eyed wonder at the world.

Christmas is a rough season when you’ve lost someone close to you. My love goes out especially to the Heskins this year and to a few mHB posters who have lost loved ones this year (you know who you are).