NCTE’s 52 Things You Can Do for Transgender Equality:
#12 Ask Your Local Film Festival to Show Trans Themed Movies and then Go See Them.
Scrawny Shoes
The other day, just for fun, Betty and I popped our heads into a shoestore around 14th Street – not the DSW, the other one. I had envied Tom’s shoes that night at Yale, and all of my own shoes are very very scrappy-looking indeed, which is fine for daily wear, but I’ve always believed one should have at least one pair of shoes good enough for church.
I found a sharp pair of Kenneth Coles – square toe, visible stitching – and was told first that they were men’s shoes. When I didn’t scare so easily, the clerk told me they only started at men’s size 7 which is at least a women’s size 8.
[sigh] I’m a women’s 7 & 1/2, max, usually a 7. [/sigh]
So I went to the women’s section of Kenneth Cole – just for shits & giggles, since I knew what I’d find – and found all these… scrawny shoes. Thin little ballet slipper shoes with thin soles or thin heels or both. It made me sad. There wasn’t enough shoe to any of them. I miss the era of unisex, urban shoes.
But, still optimistic, I went online and checked that shoe behemoth zappos.com. Women’s shoes : Oxfords revealed about 15 pairs, not all of which were actually Oxfords. I tried Men’s : Oxfords and found plenty, but nearly all of them started, like Ken Cole’s, at size 7. The ones that didn’t were either extraordinarily expensive or looked a little too much like the shoes an out-of-touch mom might buy her teenage son for his confirmation – or a funeral. And even he’d have the good sense to not like them.
So alas, I checked Dr. Marten’s, and they had shoes. Not the steel-toed ones I’d seen at Trash & Vaudeville, but shoes made for something a little less dainy than picking flowers.
At long last I gave in and checked ebay, where I bid on (and won) a pair of stand issue, unisex, black DMs. For $5.50. I bid and won another, slighly different pair, for $9. That will hold me for a couple of years, no doubt – the shoes I wear most often I bought before I met Betty. (We’re celebrating our 8th anniversary this April.)
And crossdressers wonder why I don’t like to talk about shoes. For me, shoe shopping is often a hostile universe, where my requests are so often met with comments like “these only have a small heel” or “but it’s not much pink.” As a kid, I wanted the round-toed sneakers the boys wore, not those pointy tennies girls were supposed to wear. Ah, to un-dainty my dainty feet. At least Betty & I got to laugh over the fact that if I ever transitioned, my feet would be my “tell.” Ironically, I grew up thinking I had very large feet, because – c’mon, you can guess this one – I had older brothers who convinced me I did. When I was 25 or so, I actually said, “I know I have big feet” to a shoe salesman, who then asked how tall I was. When I answered (5’6″) he looked at me like I was from another planet. “Those are small feet, for your height,” he said simply.
Guest Author: Jill Barkley
Jill Barkley is the former partner of an FTM, femme-identified, and the very cool person I got to co-host a ‘trans relationships’ forum with at TIC both last year and this. It’s a pleasure to get to post something written by her:
Chipped Red Nail Polish
I made plans for a manicure and femme processing session when my sleepy roommate stumbled into our living room and into my arms that morning as I was struggling to put on my coat to leave for work. I had returned very late the night before from Philadelphia, where I was a presenter at the Trans-Health Conference for two workshops – one for partners of Transpeople and the other about Femme as a gender identity. The weekend before I had been at the Translating Identities Conference in Burlington doing much of the same work.
Looking at my hands as I drove across the bridge to work, I saw the remnants of stress in the chipping away of my red nail polish from each of my long fingernails. I felt the same stress in my shoulders, in the dull ache of my lower back and the pain shooting still through the balls of my feet as I climbed the stairs to my office.
My body looked and felt like I’d been climbing out of a cavern or scaling the side of a mountain or scrapping the colorful grips on the wall of a rock climbing gym.
This overall feeling of having pulled myself out of something is fitting for the last two weeks of intensity, overhaul and re-evaluation. I felt the opening of still recent wounds, the spreading out of bruises, the scars still pink and puffy. I had ended my relationship with my last partner, a Transman, in September, but decided to still attend these spring conferences and offer much needed partner and femme space to the other attendees through my workshops. As I sat at my desk, feeling the pain settle over my tired body, I wondered if it was all at my own expense.
On Friday after the partner’s workshop, I had let my body fall into a huge black cushioned chair, swinging my red high-heeled feet over the armrest. I was worn out from an hour and a half of similar stories, overlapping experiences, nods of understanding and sighs of shared hurts. These partner workshops always seemed like group therapy to me, similar to the support groups I ran for women surviving Domestic Violence in that everyone present always had an intense need for validation of their experiences, the desire to not feel so alone.
I’ve been asked countless times that if by holding these workshops or moderating my on-line community for partners of Trans-people I’m trying to suggest that relationships with someone who is Trans are somehow especially difficult. I think of the things that were most painful about my last relationship having little or nothing to do with the Trans-ness of my partner. However, the stories I’ll share and the experience I’ll reflect in my workshops is about his being Trans. I’ll talk about communication and preparing one’s heart for the changes to another’s body. I’ll speak to the importance of ‘securing your own oxygen mask before assisting others’ and finding partners who will let you safely vent without screaming accusations of Transphobia.
Any relationship is going to have its issues —not just relationships where one or both parties are Trans-identified. But there are definitely issues that are unique to a relationship of this kind and having a community of support is essential to working through the hard things and celebrating the common good.
When processing out loud about running partner’s workshops as someone who is no longer partnered with someone Trans, the words ‘I could be partnered to a Transman in the future’ slipped past my lips and anchored me in the truth of that statement.
Admittedly, I had joked that I might just walk into these workshops screaming ‘run’ to everyone seated in the circle. Looking at that sentence now, I know that isn’t funny and, actually, offensive. I think that unsolicited advice was coming from some kind of attempt at grounding myself in the reality of ‘what went wrong’ in my last relationship. Truthfully, what went wrong had nothing to do with gender identity, hormones or surgery.
I would have loved to have gone into things with my last partner a little more aware, much more supported and with somewhere to create some space for what I was going to experience in terms of being a non-Trans person partnered with someone Trans-identified.
When I had asked for advice about how to deal with any change on our horizon, I was given ways to support my partner and advice for how to prepare to do so. Looking back, there are ways I needed to be more prepared for how everything might affect me. Instead, I was encouraged to grab my pom-poms and become a ‘perpetual cheerleader’, a ‘super partner’, a brave smiling face. As if one could be so strong and unwavering at all times. There were things that were hard for me and too often, I felt like there was no space for my feelings in what was suddenly my new community.
Spending time with friends from Ann Arbor, Michigan at the conference made me long for having shared a town when we shared similar couplings. He is recently transitioning from F to M and she is a non-Trans woman. To have had someone close by to relate to around the issues I was encountering around my own partner’s transition would have felt so supportive. I would have loved to have someone else to talk to about feelings I didn’t necessarily need to go to my partner with first, a ‘pre-process’ if you will, to work out the delivery and shed light on the hopeful end result about bringing the given issue to the surface.
In my experience, I was almost six months into my relationship before I met other partners at a support group my partner and I attended. One sunny fall day, we drove in silence to the middle of Maine and walked toward people seated in chairs in a circle. When we broke off into a separate meeting for just partners, I remember sitting facing two lesbian identified women who were five and ten years, respectively, into their relationships with Transmen and still experiencing struggle from time to time. I talked for two hours non-stop that Sunday as they listened, nodded and even cried with me. I am still so grateful for the gift of understanding they offered me. I didn’t know it could exist.
Since then, I’ve been in the trenches of all of this, struggling to understand, seeking validation, wanting desperately to feel not so alone. As I pull myself upward, I’m seeing the light above and trying to bring others along to bask in it.
Offering these workshops was cathartic – and not just for me, but for those who attended, I believe. It was good to be given gratitude and to feel it emitting right back at those who expressed it at the end of each session. I am convinced we all need that community – for an hour and a half at a conference and continuing support once we find our way back home. It still remains invaluable to me and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
When asked if I would return to these conferences next spring, I easily answered yes. It is still work I want to do, still space I want to offer. Over the last two years, I have been lucky to have met so many strong partners who love fiercely and generously. I wish them the same love and loyalty in return.
Jill can be contacted at femme_bull@yahoo.com.
Gender Gift Horse
A recent comment to a not-so-recent blog post required a thoughtful response. The subject was my dislike of the term “gender gifted” and while Michele pointed out some excellent reasons to prefer the term, I’m not an easy mind to change.
So let me explain a little moreso why I think the term is inappropriate, if not inexact.
I suppose there are a few reasons I think the way I do about the term “gender gifted.” One of them is that I think positivity-phrasing can often delude people in terms of the difficulty involved, and I don’t think that’s good for a few reasons: 1) the general public shouldn’t think it’s easy/a choice to be trans; 2) trans people should be aware of what they’re getting into when they open that Pandora’s Box; and 3) trans people need to be aware of what their partners, family, & friends may go through as a result of their transness.
I want to stress that I don’t believe it needs to be as simple as “it’s either a blessing or a curse.” Fire is both. Anger is both. Lust is both. Parents, even, are both. I can’t choose, and won’t.
But mostly I think what we’re coming up against is a sensibility difference: I find it easier to get through the world by knowing when my glass is half-empty, so I can start figuring out how I’m going to fill it. Others prefer to see it half-full until it’s empty. You can call me a worrywart (which I am), or the “pulls no punches” type, but either way I think that’s the real difference between what’s being said.
I think it’s been too long that people have considered transpeople crazy, reckless, or just out of touch with reality. And most people – if faced with any decision that might require the loss of job, partner, and home; a change of every piece of ID; tens of thousands of dollars of surgery and/or hormone maintenance – would say, that’s a f*** of a lot to go through for anything, much less a gift. So the whole idea of calling it “gifted” rings false for anyone who isn’t trans; remember, we’re not inside your heads and can’t (and probably won’t) ever understand any anything that would motivate a person to go through so much. And you do go through that much, whether you transition or not. – I assume that’s one part we can’t disagree on, yes?
To me, using the term “gender gifted” is much like being the kind of person who stands in a doorway when it’s raining and is thankful that the flowers are getting a good long drink. They may be honest, they may be sweet, they may love flowers. But the other people in that doorway who have been kept from getting to work, or home, or wherever they’re supposed to be, will think that person is just a little too out of touch, and a little well – touched, as well.
It doesn’t mean they’re wrong; it just means that their perspective may be perceived as a little left of center – which is okay on its own. I have no doubt that transfolks need upbeat types around to get through a day (or a life). I don’t think a unified message is necessary; I think the trans community needs its many voices, and many perspectives, in order to get everyone what they need.
Pod Betty
It seems we’ve made it to podcast… a Detroit-based podcaster and blogger reviewed My Husband Betty recently (and her advice to people near death is very, very funny, & unfortunately, very close to the mark for many people). You can listen online or download the mp3.
Check it out here.
Hollywood
I’m a little upset that they (Lifetime, and Sony Pictures) have chosen a male actor for the role of Gwen Araujo. I just don’t get the point of it – why not have a girl play her? Gwen did not experience 20 years of testosterone, and she never lived as a man at all. Maybe as a boy, but even that – very briefly. Shoot, she didn’t get to live long at all, much less as either gender.
Not only does it make me sad but it frustrates me, too. I just think, after all she went through, we might have given her that. But of course, not everyone agrees with me.
The guy they cast may do a good job, but still.
Years ago I wrote a paper about how I was tired of books about women where the heroine of the story died at the end. I think I’d just read Chopin’s The Awakening, but it could have been lots of others. When do strong women get to live? was the final line of the paper, and now, (ahem) years later, I find myself asking the same thing about transpeople in movies.
The Boys
Aren’t they beautiful?! And today, they’re Irish, but they’re definitely not marching in NYC’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. When is the AOH going to get over it already?!
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Five Questions With… Josey Vogels
Josey Vogels is the author of the nationally syndicated relationships column My Messy Bedroom and the dating advice column Dating Girl. She has published five books on sex and relationships – the most recent is entitled Bedside Manners: Sex Etiquette Made Easy. Her fourth book, The Secret Language of Girls, has been published in several languages and was made into a documentary. Her website – www.joseyvogels.com — is visited by thousands monthly and she is a popular speaking guest at universities and colleges across Canada.
1) I was a little amazed at the ‘revelation’ of She Comes First – considering women have been basically saying the same thing as Ian Kerner (the author of She Comes First) did, for years. Why do you think it took a guy to say it before anyone seemed to listen?
It’s funny, I felt exactly the same way. In fact, this is what I wrote in a column I did about the book: “That Kerner comes off as the Neil Armstrong of oral sex is a little insulting when you consider how many women (several of whom he refers to throughout the book) have been saying for years that intercourse alone doesn’t cut it for the ladies when it comes to orgasm. But the fact that Kerner is on a mission to turn men into enthusiastic cunning linguists like himself is a welcome one. Because, clearly, they aren’t listening to us.”
I think sadly, the fact that it was a man made the mainstream media take notice. It was truly a bizarre thing. I thought it was interesting how though also how Kerner’s language in the book was very “male” which again, might have made it more palatable for a media that likes that kind of male authoritative approach to things.
As I wrote at the time:
“She Comes First may have indeed changed the focus from intercourse to oral sex but it’s still all about male performance. Kerner’s just shifted the pressure from the penis to the tongue. He even describes the tongue as the best “tool” for the job.
In fact, at times, with all the references to hoods and shafts and some rather creepy technical illustrations, She Comes First, reads more like a car manual than a guide to becoming a good lover. So while Kerner now describes himself as “happily married and able to make love successfully” (wonder what a good cunnilinguist pulls in these days?), being a “successful” lover isn’t just about having a skillful tongue — though that is, of course, welcome. It’s about knowing how to stimulate a woman’s mind, to make her feel amazing and sexy in bed and out. I’m all for improving your technique. But like a good mechanic, a good lover doesn’t just know how to operate the machinery, he knows how to make it purr.”
TransNations Columns: Significant Others
The TransNations column that Jake Anderson-Minshall wrote about me got picked up by another LGBT paper – this one in Ohio but also online, called Outlook News.
Go to week 2/16/06, then page 10. Then zoom a few times to make it legible.