New Jersey has become the 9th state to pass trans-inclusive non-discrimination legislation.
Preview of Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity
Mattilda, the editor of That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, has a new anthology called Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity that just came out, and I contributed an essay called “Persephone.” It’s a bit different from my usual, so I thought I’d post a small preview here.
I’ll be doing a Five Questions With… interview with Mattilda about this new book, too.
I used to be something you might call heterosexual – not straight, because straight carries connotations about picket fences and children and normalcy that have never been up my alley. It is awkward being monogamous around the poly set and legally married when I’m in queer crowds, but both of those things are as true as my heterosexuality, even if it’s not easy to see any of them. They are the old tattoos, or the memorabilia that tells me how I ended up in this new place, with this new tattoo, the same way a transwoman might see her penis as a reminder that she came by womanhood in a slightly different way than the expected route. Some women change their names when they get married; I changed my public identity instead: queer though formerly known as heterosexual, queer though married, queer due to binary, queer in context, queer by association, queer due to no fault of my own, queer as a result of cupidity.
Five Questions With… 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.
One Big Answer
A recent conversation on the boards brought up the whole ‘brain sex’ debate again, and what I want to know is why all of these studies or conclusions need to be so mutually exclusive? Isn’t it possible for one person to be transsexual via brain sex & another person to be transsexual for another reason?
I don’t think like a trans person about this stuff, but being gender variant, I “could” pin my gender variance on my high levels of T. But that doesn’t explain why I was a tomboy growing up, either. Maybe it was having a lot of older brothers. I don’t doubt, either, that some of it had something to do with the way women are treated in this culture. It could have been anything, but I tend to see it as an amalgamation.
& While I understand the necessity of “proving” it a medical condition, I don’t see why a combination of womb hormones, brain sex, karotype, etc = might not be responsible.
Why do we always want/need One Big Answer? Especially when the systems we’re talking about = reproduction, cell formation, genetics, sexual identity, consciousness, ETC = are all pretty damn sophisticated unto themselves?
Leslie Feinberg on She’s Not The Man I Married
As if what people have said wasn’t enough to make me delirious already, Leslie Feinberg read She’s Not the Man I Married, and said:
“Between the covers of this book, you’ll hear how love sounds when it’s so honest it bleeds. Trans liberation is more certain to “win” because Helen Boyd’s on the team.” — Leslie Feinberg
Thank you, Leslie. I hope zie’s right.
Confirmed Events
I will have the extreme pleasure and honor of introducing Leslie Feinberg at the State Museum of New York in Albany, this coming February 3rd.
Betty and I will also be attending IFGE 2007, in Philly, where I’ll be presenting both my Trans Sex & Identity workshop (on Friday) and doing an additional workshop on She’s Not the Man I Married (on Saturday).
& That is in addition to my being the keynote speaker for First Event this year and doing an erotic memoir reading for Rachel Kramer Bussel here in NYC.
More to come, no doubt!
After You Give Thanks
Here’s some other things you can do:
#36 Get involved in the political process: Volunteer for a Candidate
#37 Plan and conduct a Day of Remembrance event
#38 Support or create a radio show or podcast
#39 Hold a House Party for NCTE or another trans organization
#40 Make Jails Safer for Trans People
#41 Hold a Job Fair
#42 Support a Drag Community Event
#43 Engage Media Coverage of Transgender Issues
#44 Conduct a Community Needs Assessment
#45 Vote!
#46 Start a discussion group on gender related books
#47 Respond to Alerts from Other Organizations
For all of the 52 things (thus far!), go to NCTE’s website.
& Have a great Thanksgiving (for those of you who celebrate it today).
No Thanks
In case anyone’s deluded into thinking all’s well in genderland, someone named Arlene Starr decided to take me to task for my post on the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
She writes:
I must be too sensitive, be that as it may I was totally offended by Helen Boyd’s first line of her blog entry for the 20th. It read;
“Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, when we honor our dead.â€
We Helen? What gives you the right to stake any claim to this day? This is your husbands day, my day and others like me. Is nothing sacred? Let us remember our dead as only we can do. Try as you might to be one of us you are an outsider and always will be. Once again you have proven how little you really know about “Trans.â€
Charming person, eh? It’s this kind of attitude that makes partners (and family) of trans people feel unwelcome in the trans community. Of course I’m not trans, but if she thinks violence against gender variant folks isn’t my problem, she’s off her rocker. It’s true: I’m never scared for Betty. I’m never worried we’re targeted for violence as a same sex couple because of Betty’s transness. & Of course I’d never find myself needing to protect Betty if some jerk figures out she was born male.
Holy hand grenades, Batman: we’ve got a bitter dimwit on our hands.
His Hotness, Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp on the Actor’s Studio, being asked about playing Ed Wood: James Lipton, the interviewer, asks him if some of the fun of the role wasn’t dressing up in women’s clothes, and Depp responds, “Getting paid to dress like a woman? Yeah. And get away with it? Yeah.”
Or something close to that. Then when asked how he came up with the way he played Ed Wood, he said it was a little bit of the optimism of Ronald Reagan, some of the Tin Man, and – Casey Kasem.
& Only after that does he admit he played Ichabod Crane as “Girl Detective.”
& There’s one more question asked him, by a student, about women, and crossdressing, that my readers would probably appreciate his answer to, which starts with the unlikely phrase, “The most trouble I ever had crossdressing…”
& (ahem) Buster Keaton was a huge influence on Edward Scissorhands.
Overall, a great interview, going over all his major roles, & not to be missed by any Johnny Depp fan.
Transgender Day of Remembrance
Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, when we honor our dead.
Talk to your friends who are trans; make sure they’re safe and have safe habits. Exchang phone numbers, walk people to their cars in groups, travel together late at night.
Donate money to some of the people who are helping.
And be thankful, in the spirit of the season, for everything you’ve got. Life included. Celebrate who you are and work for a time when we can stop having this Day altogether.