Something in a couple of not-so-recent threads – one about growing up a tomboy & the other about kids and gender identity – had me thinking about categories, since right now, boys compete against boys and girls against girls, though there are sports where that’s starting to change.
Two thoughts resulted:
1) I wonder what would happen if overnight we had people compete based on 1) build (height, muscle tone), 2) fitness level, and 3) experience in the sport/game. That is, if we got rid of gender altogether.
2) What if right now our real problem is that we don’t have enough categories? I mean, say we split the world up tomorrow by hair color instead of gender, Blondes and Brunettes. It’d force red-haired people to choose, and argue that there should be a third hair color. It’d force someone like me (who has kind of streaky hair) to choose. What if we told the Blondes they had to be delicate, graceful, and nurturing (how I have come to hate that word!) and told the Brunettes they had to be aggressive, powerful, and strong? Would L’Oreal make a fortune? Would there be Blondes trapped in Brunettes’ bodies?
I’m quite serious. Take all the attributes we normally assign to male/masculine or female/feminine people, and apply them to people with one hair color or another.
Sure seems arbitrary, doesn’t it? My guess? The whole men/women thing makes about as much sense.
Painful Posting
Someone remind me not to get embroiled in threads about anything for a while; I’m in pain all the time pretty much and as a result, cranky.
Carpal Tunnel
A word of warning to you reading: go check out a good page on computer/desk ergonomics before you end up like me.
After years of working at a desk mostly made by me (ie, a plank of wood atop two advantageously-placed file cabinets), my shoulder has revolted. I’ve got pain in the whole right side of my back which is acute in my shoulder, just under my shoulder, and in my neck, pain that runs all the way down my arm and into my wrist and hand.
Bad timing considering I’m now two months away from my book deadline.
Alas, a couple of days ago I discovered thanks to the above diagram that my hands were too high. I bought one of those under-desk keyboard drawers, which came with a wrist rest, and so far, so good. I also aligned my monitor so it’s right in front of me – it was off to the right – and remember to sit as far back in my chair as I can. I think what got me was leaning forward, to the right, into my mouse. I’m just hoping that slowly it will go away, and I’ve immersed myself in a world of hot baths, massages, acupuncture and pain killers.
At least I’m not a hatter.
Preview from Crossing Sexual Boundaries
Last month I did a Five Questions With… interview with Ari Kane where we talked about the new anthology she edited (with Vern Bullough) called Crossing Sexual Boundaries: Transgender Journeys, Uncharted Paths. I contributed an essay to it and thought I’d give people a preview of my essay.
A relationship is always a search for balance. All couples try to find the right amounts of disparate elements: commitment and freedom; togetherness and independence; responsibility and indulgence; solitude and sociability; excitement and security; stability and growth. In a transgendered relationship, all of those types of balance are needed, but the strains an emerging TG identity can put on a couple can cause greater stress for both partners. Will my femininity decrease as his increases? Does his need to implement change threaten our stability? Will his urge to be free of his male role upset my sense of our roles within the relationship? Can keeping such a big part of himself private negatively effect our social life? If I can’t connect with, or am not also in love with his feminine self, will my independence from that part of him lead to estrangement? All of these questions – and many others like them – are ones we have had to answer for ourselves. Some balances occur naturally and others are always a little off. I found, however, that what kind of balance – if any – occurs, it is usually a result of long, honest conversation, difficult stare-at-your-feet-while-you-spit-it-out admissions. Some of the things we have to say to each other bring us back to the tension that most people feel at the beginning of a relationship. He worries that his self-expression will finally cause me to say “Enough.†I worry that the changes he needs to make to his body and/or personality will change him too drastically from the man I fell in love with and find attractive. For most people, there is a sigh of relief when someone gets to know you very well, and isn’t going to leave when you tell that dumb joke or admit some lifelong weird habit. My brother is fond of saying “The honeymoon’s over when you fart in bed,†but for most, the end of the honeymoon period leads to one of stability and the mundane that is appreciated by both partners. We never seem to arrive there, as his transgenderedness makes that kind of easy acceptance of the other an impossibility. He doesn’t know who he is yet, and neither do I. We have first dates all the time. First dates are fun when you don’t have anything to lose, but when you’re on a first date after five years of commitment, shared experiences, love and love-making, it’s like coming home every day hoping your house hasn’t burnt down.
I was amazed to find, when I re-read this essay – which I wrote at least two years ago – how much of a nutshell version of the new book it is.
Rhea has posted a lovely review of the essay on the message boards, with further thoughts and comments by others who have read it (& I added a couple of clarifications as well).
Killing the Aliens
Aeneas as a young cat, helping his other parent kill on-screen aliens.
(& Happy Birthday Brian!)
Helen Boyd Author Photos
Blog for LGBT Families
Today’s the day we blog for LGBT families!
Betty and I have had the good historical luck to be able to be legally married, but most LGBT families don’t have that right yet. Ironically, it was a lesbian friend who got so angry with me that I was taking part in an institution that she couldn’t that made me even more sure I had to have the legal rights that come with marriage: hospital visitation rights and decisions about all sorts of important life & death issues. The default of course would be family/parents, and I had no doubt that Betty’s folks would make unfortunate choices if they had to be made.
Like not recognizing her femininity, or her multiple selves, or her queerness.
The poor family of a transwomen who was murdered in Chicago have had to deal with that from the press, & the courts; but imagine how heart-breaking and disrespectful it would be if a partner didn’t have the right to insist on her partner’s chosen name and gender. It’s more than insult added to injury; it’s salt in a wound.
I’ve come to believe that it’s more important for LGBT people to have the legal rights afforded to heterosexual folks, because heterosexual relationships are already socially and culturally recognized; since LGBT relationships are just becoming visible, they especially need the legal recognition. I know that I am often “disappeared” as Betty’s partner whether she’s read as male (in which case “he” is assumed to be gay) or female (in which case she’s “too femme” to be read as a lesbian). That is, there’s too much misinformation and outright ignorance out there for LGBT couples to count on a kind soul or an educated person to give them the access and power they should have as a partner, but that’s what we have to depend on without legal rights.
Please support whatever local efforts to get LGBT people that right. It’s better for the couples, it’s better for the kids; it’s better for the whole of society.
Here’s a list of participating blogs, too.
Thanks to Deborah
I just wanted to especially thank Deborah for her kindness and help with my ongoing insanity. I’ve developed some major neck/back/shoulder pain (a combination of a bad computer setup, one fallen arch, and – oh, stress, for some reason) and we all know how hard it is to get a doctor on the phone! But Deborah is always ready with advice and help.
She’s done it before, too, and I’m insanely grateful. I literally couldn’t work for a few days there – leaning forward at all was incredibly painful but is oh, just kind of required when one is writing and editing.
Hello Cruel World
Kate Bornstein’s next book, Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws is coming out soon, and here’s the lovely cover:
You can pre-order it at Amazon, or at Powells.
There’s also a website with previews and more info.
(& a Five Questions Interview with the author in a few weeks, promise!)
Betty (Not) On the Rag
Poor Betty. The other day while wearing her trademark summer thongs, she bumped her toe really, really hard. Her doctor predicted the toenail will fall off in not too long, and so she complained to me tonight that “just as it’s about to be summer, my season for wearing flip-flops, I’m going to be missing my toenail, and I like having manicured toenails.”
Oh, sad, sad day.
I said: “Wow, it’s a good thing you’ve never gotten your period at the absolute worst time, eh?”
She stopped complaining pronto. We will buy her pretty band-aids to cover up her lack of big toenail, instead, if it even falls off, which I doubt it will. (Did someone say Drama Queen?)