Author: Helen Boyd

Betty posted this to her blog, but I wanted everyone to see it.

The Wolves, The Pit & The Play

In which I try to formulate some kind of rational response to the last few months of being intimately involved with old family (adopted) and complete strangers in the context of doing a really cool play in New York City.

…as a – drumroll – transperson. A tranny. A T in the LGB.
Cheers! Well done! You’re so brave!
Slow down.
I didn’t think any of it through. I never imagined just how weird it would be on a level I hadn’t even remotely imagined. And believe me, I liked the script so much I’d already done a great deal of imagining, just not enough.
I just really liked the play and the part. And I was right. It was a really great play. And I’d never worked with a playwright before.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a more, gulp, acting-as-religion, put-your-fist-in-the-air, let-your-eyes-weep, imagination-rocks!!!, moment in all my years doing theatre. There are a couple of moments I shared with people that just defy explanation. And yes, one of them was with a lovely woman who happened to go from hardcore-green to faded greenish-yellow, to well, “normal” colored – whatever that means. The acting, for me, was really quite rewarding.
I did my first scene shirtless, covered in dirt, a loose bag made out of fishnet over one shoulder, a wicker basket for holding water creatures over the other, hair pulled back in a disheveled ponytail, wearing big giant rubber boots and pants that were this close to falling apart.
Shirtless.
See! I wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t on hormones!
And yes, that’s a weird thing to type. It’s weird to be very much trans but have to tell people I’m not on hormones. Not because I don’t think about it – I do – but that people already think I am. Weird also because it means I have to ask myself, “Just what are people seeing?” And, “Have I changed that much already?”
I sometimes feel like if I was more invested in the common stories – the myths – of the transexperience I wouldn’t even be writing this. You know, “People already think I’m a girl! WhaaHoo!!!”
Grr.
Because you’re just you, you know? Jason, the actor at the Cocteau who had a nifty little run for a while there. Right. Him. Right, yes, well you know he’s also known as Betty and is a transwhatchamacalit and well folks should know that because it’s just a reality and he’s also a really good actor and well, don’t worry about it. Wait ’til you meet him.
Which, actually, I’m kind of OK with. People know you for how you were when you were around them and it’s like kicking yourself in the mental nuts to pretend anything different. I tend to think that you earn the words that people call you and arbitrarily saying, “Hi, I used to be Jason but now I want to be called Fucknut” doesn’t tend to endear you to people who are already predisposed to like you. I’m not wrong on this, really. I say “Fucknot” partly because as far as I know, I made it up, and because when you tell someone with your baritone acting voice, “Call me Betty” you might as well have said, “Call me Fucknut.”
So yeah, to my acting family I’m Jason.
Jason, who’s also known as Betty and will answer all of your emails using that name as well. Betty.
And they’re really quite lovely, decent people who are like, “Yeah, cool. We like and treasure you, you can call yourself whatever you want, it’s ok. It’s cool.”
And you’re playing a poor fisherman who sees something wondrous and believes in it. But in the world that is the play, he really needs to be a man. Because, um, the character is one. And no matter what everyone else knows about you, on the stage, for the purposes of this play: you really must be a man.
Man. Grr.
How ’bout just drawing on all the years of my existence? That’s easy. And yes, it is. I’m good at some of the guy stuff. Quite good, actually. Most of it I never asked for, but I’d be an idiot to deny the fact that it’s there and has been for a goodly long time.
But I’m so out about my transness and my, sigh, life as Betty and it’s all become so utterly intertwined with who I am in the world – not in my head, in the world (that’s what happens when you appear on the cover of a book: be warned) – that in a very real way, I am Betty.
And doing art with people you’ve known for so long you consider them as family – one of them presided over your marriage! – the shift from Jason to Jason/Betty (or Jasabeth as a wise person coined me a few years ago) is jarring. Well it is to me.
I’ll explain more. Promise.