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The Penn State Law Talk

I’m hoping that this talk was recorded as planned and so will be available on Penn State Dickinson School of Law’s website, eventually, because there were a lot of interesting questions discussed in the Q&A after I spoke. Prof. Rains also added a lot of useful legal insight.

I started with a kind of preface in order (1) to define terms like transgender, MTF and FTM, and also (2) to explain that while people like drag queens and crossdressers are considered part of the transgender community, discussions about legal marriage issues don’t always or often effect them; that is, this talk concerns people who identify nearer to the transsexual end of things. that said, drag queens are often already gay and so deal with the same marriage discrimination all gay people do, and crossdressers often suffer with the stigma of being perverts, and one of the reasons they are not out is exactly because they don’t want their wives to divorce them, or lose custody of their children, or lose their jobs, all of which can & does happen to crossdressers who come out.

I never expected that any aspect of my life would cause me to speak at a law school to future lawyers about the odd ways that my life has become complicated by laws about gender and marriage. I’m surprised two-fold: for starters, I never expected to get married, since as a younger and Very Serious Feminist I saw it as a Tool of Patriarchy, symbolic at least of the ways women have always been chattel, and so, not for me. But I also never expected to get married because I was, starting as a teenager in the late 80s, an ally of gay and lesbian people.

& Then I met Betty, who at the time we met presented as male, and as she likes to explain, we knew, both of us, nearly from the get-go that we were supposed to be together. It’s a difficult feeling to explain, and poets have tried, but it took us a few years to decide once & for all that we were in this thing together. We decided to get married because things were so easy between us; on our 2nd date we sat together and read, one of us The Nation and the other The New York Times. When you’re something like an old married couple on your 2nd date, you know that you’re doomed.

Continue reading “The Penn State Law Talk”

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Cycles

A recent Washington Post article about a book called Cycle Savvy: The Smart Teen’s Guide to the Mysteries of Her Body, discusses the debate going on as to whether or not teenagers should know anything about when they’re more or less likely to become pregnant. Charting your cycles is intricate work that requires diligence, & for that reason alone some people think it’s not a good idea, “since a little information is a dangerous thing,” according to one woman who ended up pregnant as a result of screwing up her own chart-keeping.

I’d argue there might be teens who are more diligent – or maybe even brighter – than her.

But the usual suspects chime in about how sex information only ever encourages girls to have sex. A spokesperson for Concerned Women for America proffers “high ideals,” instead.

Come now: doesn’t that sound like “keep your knees together” all over again?

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GK’s Apology

I was saying to friends last night that I expected the problem with Garrison Keillor’s piece to have been an inside/outside problem: that Keillor felt “inside” enough to joke about gay stereotypes, but forgot that he’s actually “outside,” since he’s heterosexual, & ended up at “laughing at” instead of “laughing with” as he intended.

Which it turns out is the case, according to his apology.

More important, I think, is that the upset Dan Savage has also reported that John McCain doesn’t know if condoms help prevent the spread of HIV or not.

But at least Clinton & Obama have actually come out & said homosexuality isn’t immoral. Whew. Now there’s a strong stand. And we have to hear this ‘implied but not spoken’ or ‘spoken and to be inferred’ kind of thing for how many more years? Ugh.

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Savaged by Dan

Read Garrison Keillor’s piece in Salon about marriage & family. Then read Dan Savage’s response to Garrison Keillor’s piece in Salon about marriage & family, which he abruptly titled Fuck Garrison Keillor.

& Then let me say: the next time a show like Will & Grace comes on the air. & the media can’t stop creaming in their pants over what a great leap forward it is, maybe, just maybe, we can think twice about the painful stereotypes such a great leap forward confirms in the American consciousness.

It’s not all Will & Grace’s fault, of course, not at all. Ignorance is a great big beast in this country, and apparently it comes in both red AND blue. Garrison Keillor needs to attend Family Week in P-Town this year, I think.

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Cliff-Hanger

As it turns out, today’s All My Children was really more a tease than anything else, so another 24 hours of waiting to see how it all got edited.

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MLK Jr.

In honor & celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and work today, I thought I’d dig up some of his influences. Everyone is aware of Gandhi’s impact on King, I think, but less known is that the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr was also an influence. Niebuhr is sometimes credited with the Serenity Prayer even though there are versions of it that existed before his time; he may only have put it into the form we know now. King himself best expresses how Niebuhr influenced him:

“Moreover, Niebuhr has extraordinary insight into human nature, especially the behavior of nations and social groups. He is keenly aware of the complexity of human motives and of the relation between morality and power. His theology is a persistent reminder of the reality of sin on every level of man’s existence. These elements in Niebuhr’s thinking helped me to recognize the illusions of a superficial optimism concerning human nature and the dangers of a false idealism. While I still believed in man’s potential for good, Niebuhr made me realize his potential for evil as well. Moreover, Niebuhr helped me to recognize the complexity of man’s social involvement and the glaring reality of collective evil.”

To demonstrate one aspect of what King is referring to, Niebuhr once wrote:

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

That said, it was Niebuhr’s thinking on both pacificism & justice that helped King fine-tune his singular response to injustice – and for that we’re all thankful.

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Wear White Tomorrow

from Amnesty International:

The Sudanese government and the government-sponsored Janjawid militia have used rape, forced displacement, abductions and mass murder as weapons of war for more than three years. Darfuri rebel groups have also committed serious human rights violations against civilians. Women and children are often driven from their homes with few or no possessions and continue to be in danger in refugee and displaced persons camps and settlements.

On December 10th, thousands of activists from more than two dozen countries will stand up for the rights of women and girls in Darfur. We hope you’ll stand with us and write in white. Wear white, a global color of mourning, in solidarity with Darfuri survivors of sexual violence and write letters calling for an end to rape as a weapon of war in Darfur:

http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M7219332210661857438353065

Now is a crucial time for action on Darfur: funding for African Union peacekeepers in Darfur (AMIS) runs out at the end of December. Until the United Nations arrives, AMIS is the only available force that stands between Darfuri civilians and deadly violence.

Many of you have sent messages and placed calls to your Senators, urging them to help ensure the safety of civilians in Darfur. We are sincerely grateful for that. We hope you’ll continue to stand with us and write in white on December 10th:

http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?ID=M7219332310661857438353065

You can help put an end to the ongoing violence against women and girls in Darfur. Thanks again for everything you do.

Sincerely,
Naoma Nagahawatte
Stop Violence Against Women in Darfur Project
Amnesty International USA

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Five Questions With… Max Wolf Valerio

max wolf valerio

It’s been a while since a Five Questions With… Interview, but I can’t imagine a better re-entry interview than one with Max Wolf Valerio, the author of The Testosterone Files. Max and I “met” as a result of us both being published by Seal Press, and because we were both friends with the late, great Gianna Israel. His Testosterone Files are a fascinating account of his move from his life as a radical dyke and poet to being a ‘straight guy.’

1) I often joke that I only ever “passed” as a straight woman, and there were parts of The Testosterone Files that made me feel like you “passed” as as lesbian. Is that even close to right? How do you feel about your former identity now?

Yes, I definitely did “pass” for a lesbian, a dyke, whatever you wish to call it. I was dyke-identified for at 14 years, and more, if you count my adolescence. Early on, I realized I was attracted to women, and so, a lesbian identity made the most sense to me. It was all I knew to name myself. The idea of transitioning in 1975 and before, when I was a teen, was completely off the map.

I am proud of the person I was as a dyke, and I learned a lot in my years as a lesbian. I understand many of the finer points of feminism, in all its permutations. Through lesbian feminism, I also came to an understanding and empathy for other types of radical politics. It was quite an education, and an amazing immersion in female life. Ultimately, dyke life is about immersion in female life I think, and it provided an axis for me as well as a point of departure.

However, as I show dramatically in The Testosterone Files, I was much more than simply a lesbian feminist or dyke. I was, actually, just as involved in the punk rock scene, as well as in being a poet who crossed all lines of identity and just “wrote” and read for an audience that appreciated poetry as an art form period. So, this involvement gave me an “out” from dyke life and provided a portal to the fact that there is so much more out there in the world than simply lesbians or feminism. This portal would prove to be invaluable as I came into male life.

On the other hand, I think my perspective was a bit constrained anyway from being a lesbian all those years. I have had to re-examine many of my feminist beliefs and attitudes anyway, even if I was not entirely cloistered within the dyke perspective. Some of these attitudes no longer fit my male life, and I find them to be restricting. More importantly, I also have come to see that certain of these ideas were just wrong-headed, even if they served a purpose for me then. I mean, some of the anti-male attitudes, and anti-het attitudes that I absorbed. These attitudes and ideas not only do not serve my present life, they are not rooted in truth. I think I was often coming from a place of defensiveness, and I have learned, and am learning, to drop that.

Even so, I have many fond feelings about my past dyke life, and about lesbians in general, and will always feel related.

Continue reading “Five Questions With… Max Wolf Valerio”

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Grey’s Anatomy (of a Wife)

Last week, our downstairs friend who is a huge Grey’s Anatomy fan, called us at the very start of the show, telling us only “there’s a plot line you’ll want to see.” So we watched as a trans woman character came to the hospital for her GRS surgery, and were quite surprised – as were, no doubt, lots of viewers – that her wife had accompanied her there.

(You can read more about the episode, and even view it online, at the Grey’s Anatomy website. Spoilers below, so go watch it first.)

That fact of it alone was a great education for a lot of people, making the clear point that plenty of trans women prefer females, thank you very much.

While some of the informaton on the show was a little off – like when they implied that if she went on hormones her beard would come back, completely eliminating the likeliness of laser hair removal or electrolysis – it was absolutely an empathetic portrayal. The monogues by the wife were especially accurate, that odd combination of gallows humor and anger and sadness and sympathy that so many trans partners express about transition.

Most accurate, I thought, was a key moment when the trans woman is being told the hormones she’s taking to be a woman are giving her breast cancer & she doesn’t want to give them up, and the wife – frustrated & scared – uses her partners male name to tell her to “Wake up!” and flees the room after she does. Not much later, she talked about going on dates only to find that she wanted to talk to her “best friend” about those dates – like you do – and finding her husband, male or female, was her best friend. Which is how she ended up holding her hand for surgery.

It’s that “best friend” bit that’s most problematic to me. Betty is my best friend, has been since the minute we met. She’s also my teacher, my role model, my mentor, my child. All of them. And all of those things could and would stay in tact post transition. But it’s that other role – lover, husband, monogamous pervert – that’s the problem. Desire is desire, and it’s very hard to predict what might make it go away.

I talk about this at length in the new book of course – of course! – but I did want to thank the writers of Grey’s Anatomy for doing an excellent job portraying the feelings of het partners of trans women.

Feel free to come discuss the episode further on our boards.