Tonight’s panel at Trans Issues Week at Yale was really great. It’s hard to explain, but for me – 90% of what makes a good panel is articulate, interesting people. Granted, I get the difficult job of picking those people – which is not always easy – but tonight it really all came together. I don’t think there was an aspect of body modification vis a vis trans identity that we didn’t get into, or talk about in an interesting, personal way.
My thanks to you all: Tom, Evan, Maggie, Betty, Donna, Alexandra – and my last-minute saving grace, Rachel.
And thanks too to Loren, who has done such a great job with creating & building the conference over the past few years (and who graduates this spring).
Tonight, I guess, was one of those times I was really struck by how remarkable trans folks can be. Rachel got my email *today* and said yes, and showed up, and was charming and funny. (My favorite comment of the night was her shorthand for a labiaplasty being, “and then they make it pretty.”)
Really, thank you all for making my job so much easier than it might have been, but more than that, for being willing to put yourselves on the line to make the world a little easier for other trans folks down the line. My only regret is that the event wasn’t taped.
It is truly an honor to be a part of this community.
AIS on House
Not to give the whole “surprise” of tonight’s House episode away… but since the show has already aired: the teenage heroin addict who is being sexually abused by her own father is – drumroll, please! – AIS. He doesn’t use that term to describe her – and in fact refers to her as him, but more on that in a minute – but instead says she has a kind of hermaphroditism. Once I get the transcript I’ll be sure of exactly what he said.
House did refer to her as him for a reason – and that’s because her sexually abusive father is in the same room when he figures it out. Figuring the guy is going to be a homophobic asshole as well as a sexually abusive father, it’s a sure way to get the sexual abuse to stop.
I'm #8
The NCTE has started a list of “52 Things You Can Do For Transgender Equality” campaign, and they’ve made creating a blog/online community Thing #8 – and used me as an example. There’s a quote from me about the boards & the blog, so thanks all for making this site something to keep doing.
It’s a cool campaign, and you can see 8 of the 52 Things on their site. They’re adding one a week.
Yale Tomorrow
Today is the start of the 3rd Annual Trans Issues Week at Yale – kicking off with a performance by Kate Bornstein.
Tomorrow is the panel I’m moderating on Trans Identity & Body Mods.
Do come if you can!
Outing Myself
I’ve discovered my true identity, at last.
With their endless appetite for talk and attention, extroverts also dominate social life, so they tend to set expectations. In our extrovertist society, being outgoing is considered normal and therefore desirable, a mark of happiness, confidence, leadership. Extroverts are seen as bighearted, vibrant, warm, empathic. “People person” is a compliment. Introverts are described with words like “guarded,” “loner,” “reserved,” “taciturn,” “self-contained,” “private”—narrow, ungenerous words, words that suggest emotional parsimony and smallness of personality. Female introverts, I suspect, must suffer especially. In certain circles, particularly in the Midwest, a man can still sometimes get away with being what they used to call a strong and silent type; introverted women, lacking that alternative, are even more likely than men to be perceived as timid, withdrawn, haughty.
Thanks to Betty, via Kevin Drum.
Please Donate
If you can, please donate to help us keep doing what we do. (I’d love to see I made such a fortune off of MHB and the new book that we don’t need it, but I can’t!)
Take this Test
I didn’t realize someone had put Kate Bornstein’s Gender Aptitude test up on the ‘net. This test otherwise appears in her book, My Gender Workbook, and it’s worth taking, even if just to read the various answers you *could* give.
(Thanks to Joanna for pointing it out on the boards.)
What's a Camera?
Aurora, asking earnestly.
& A Very Happy Birthday to my mom, who turns 76 today. & To my nephew, who turns 31.
Bitch Does Feminism
This month’s issue of Bitch magazine, which is celebrating the magazine’s 10th anniversary, has a tidy little article on the history and definitions of feminism. It goes from Suffrage to the “I’m not a feminist, but…” waves of feminism, describing key points, debates, activists/writers and texts. It’s very much worth reading if you’re new to feminism, so you can parse the difference between a radical feminist and a sex radical and a pro-sex feminist.
Do check it out. It looks like this:
Five Questions With… Arlene Istar Lev
Arlene Istar Lev LCSW, CASAC, is a social worker, family therapist, educator, and writer whose work addresses the unique therapeutic needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. She is the founder of Choices Counseling and Consulting (www.choicesconsulting.com) in Albany, New York, providing family therapy for LGBT people. She is also on the adjunct faculties of S.U.N.Y. Albany, School of Social Welfare, and Vermont College of the Union Institute and University. She is the author of The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide (Penguin Press, 2004) and Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and their Families (Haworth Press, 2004). Additionally, she maintains a :Dear Ari” advice column, which is currently published in Proud Parenting and Transgender Tapestry. She is also the Founder and Project Manager for Rainbow Access Initiative, a training program on LGBT issues for therapists and medical professionals, and a Board Member for the Family Pride Coalition. Her “In a Family Way” column on LGBT parenting issues is nationally syndicated.
< Arlene Istar Lev
1. You work a lot with LGBT parenting issues. What do you see as the major differences between LGB parents and T parents?
Lesbian and gay parents deal with numerous issues of oppression, and depending on the state or locality in which they live, this can be minor issues of societal ignorance, to huge issues of public and legal discrimination. However, as difficult as the issues facing lesbian, gay, and bisexual people may be, they pale in comparison to the blatant oppression transgender and transsexual parents face.
In many states, lesbian and gay people can now jointly legally adopt their children as out same-sex couples; this provides their children with many benefits and protections. However, transgender people experience discrimination in all routine areas of family life. Judges determining parental custody will rarely award custody to out trans people, except possibly in cities like San Francisco that specifically offer transgender protections. Trans people are viewed by the courts as unfit by the virtue of their (trans)gender status. Additionally, adoption agencies do not see transgender people as “fit†to be parents, and the obstacles faced by transgender people wanting to be parents can feel insurmountable.
Lesbian and gay people have fought for the right to become parents. I remember a time when simply being an out lesbian would bias a judge’s custody decision. Although there are some localities where this still would be true, even in upstate New York in rural communities, judges minimize the issues of sexual orientation in making custody decisions. However, I cannot imagine the same being true regarding gender transition. In my book, The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide, a transwoman tells the painful story of losing custody of her son after her crossdressing was used to “prove” that she was a deviant and a pervert. The legal status of trans people, regarding their rights to their children, is reminiscent of LGB legal rights 40 years ago.
However, there is good news to report. Trans parents are coming out of the closet in increasing numbers. Many trans people who have positive relationships with spouses and ex-spouses are finding ways to parent together and address the issues the gender-transpositions can have on family life. Increasing numbers of people are choosing to have children as out trans people. Some FTMs are getting pregnant, placing medical personnel in a position to work with pregnant men, creating a radical and challenging new phase of queer parenting. Additionally, many MTFs are storing sperm before transition, so they are able to have biological children as the sperm donor/father with a female partner. Clearly, LGBT people have developed innovative family-building forms, and I suspect we are only at the beginning of this process.
There is, of course, no reason that a trans person could not be as competent a parent as any other person, but like LGB people, they will likely have to “prove” that to the powers that be. In my experience, children take gender transitions in stride; it is adults who find the whole issue confusing and shocking. Older children might have more difficulties accepting gender changes, particularly as they near their own puberty. It is my contention however, that families can weather many challenging issues, and transgender status is no more, or less, challenging then other issues that families face.
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