The Interview: Bruce Jenner

If you’re a trans person, your friends, family , co-workers and other acquaintances are probably talking to you about last night’s Big Event:  Diane Sawyer interviewing Bruce Jenner.

Some have said that Jenner’s “coming out” is a “tipping point” for public awareness and,  possibly, acceptance of transgender people.  For one thing, very few people who were as famous in their own right have publicly transitioned.  (Although he’s gained something of a reputation as an LGBT rights activist, Chaz Bono is known mainly for having famous parents.)  For another, everyone knew Jenner as the rugged and handsome (at least when he was young) Olympic gold-medal winner and actor.  And, as the twice-married media star revealed to Sawyer,  as a male he was never attracted to other males and now considers herself “asexual”.

In other words, the interview should help people to understand, as Jenner said, that gender identity is separate from sexual orientation—or, for that matter, proscribed gender roles.   Although most people thought Chastity Bono was a cute kid, most didn’t think of her as a “girly” girl.  When she “came out” as a lesbian, she fit the image of a “butch”, albeit a more glamorous version.  Thus, it didn’t challenge many people’s notions about trans people when Chastity announced she was going to become a man named Chaz.

That is not to say that Chaz’s public transition was not courageous.  In its own way, it might have been even more daring than Jenner’s because, even though only five years have passed since Sonny and  Cher’s daughter became their son, public awareness—and, I’d say, acceptance—of trans people has grown by leaps and bounds.  I’d say that we’re experiencing something like what gay men (and, to a lesser extent, lesbians) experienced during the years just after the Stonewall Rebellion. 

To be sure, there was still a lot of ignorance and hate that too often ended up in rejection and violence—as there is now.   But by the time the AIDS epidemic broke out, almost everyone in the Western world knew that he or she had a family member, friend, co-worker or other acquaintance who was gay.   As a result, people realized that being gay wasn’t a “choice” or a sign of depravity and much of the stigma around it faded.  To be sure, there are still folks showing up at funerals of murdered gay people with signs that say “God Hates Fags”, just as there are still people who say that we—trans people—aren’t human beings.  But such people are becoming the minority and, I hope, with people like Jenner going public, their numbers will shrink further. 

Who knows?  Perhaps in the not-too-distant future,  some celebrity will cause less consternation by saying, “For all intents and purposes, I am a woman” than for saying that she is a Republican! ;-)

"The Matrix" Director Comes Out

Is 2012 the "coming-out" year for transgender celebrities?

First we had Chaz (ne Chastity) Bono, the child of Sonny and Cher.  A few months later, Against Me! lead singer Tom Gabel became Laura Jane Grace.  In the meantime, Warren Beatty and Annette Benning's eldest child Kathleen came to be known as Steven Ira.

Now Larry Wachowski--the Director of The Matrix--now goes by the name Lana.  She came out in a promotional video, in which she appears with Tom Hanks, for Cloud Atlas, her next film.

Chaz Bono and Me: Hey, You Never Know!

I'm thinking now of a man who was a colleague of mine back when I was the "before" photo.  Tall, portly and with an easy manner, he's one of those guys who's avuncular at 50 and is now almost grandfatherly.  I'm guessing that he's about 65, give or take a few years.


Anyway, back in January, I bumped into him.  We hadn't seen each other in about a dozen years.  He had heard about me because I stopped at the college where we used to teach and where his brother was still teaching.  His brother seemed more bemused, but he--I'll call him Jimmy--was actually quite sympathetic when I bumped into him.  "I was surprised, really," he said.  "I thought you were straight, you seemed pretty masculine and you were so athletic."


He thought for a moment and added," I guess you just never know who is."


I thought of that when I was talking with my mother today.  She saw Chaz Bono on a program--I forget which--on a cable network.  "She, I mean he, has such a big neck," she said.  


"I know.  It's a linebacker's neck."


"Yeah, you're right.  She, I mean he, really changed."

I then explained some of the effects of taking testosterone, and the fact that, because it's a stronger hormone than estrogen, the changes in female-to-male transsexuals are usually even more pronounced than those in male-to-females who take estrogen.


"But he really looks different from when he was Chastity!," my mother exclaimed.   Then, she paused in a way she rarely does; I guessed that she was trying not to mix up the pronouns.  "You know," she said, "Chastity was really cute."


"Yes, I remember her from those old Sonny and Cher shows."


Chastity, as I remember, really was cute, in an almost Shirley Temiple-ish sort of way.  But even then--about four decades ago--I saw something unusual in her.  I couldn't articulate what it was, but I somehow had the feelng it had to do with whether or not she would like boys when she got a little older.



And now he's one of them.  As they say in the old country, "Hey, you never know!"

Becoming Chaz

Tomorrow night, Becoming Chaz will air on OWN.  I probably won't see it, as I don't have cable TV and, in any event, don't watch much TV.  


Even if I had cable or dropped in on a friend who has it, I'm not sure I'd want to watch Becoming Chaz, anyway.  To tell you the truth, I haven't been terribly interested in the story.  


Had he not been born to such famous parents, he would not be any different from other transgender people who have undergone gender transitions.  And, had he not been on screen, in front of millions of people, on his parents' show--back when he was a girl, named Chastity, in frilly dresses and Mary Janes--we probably never would have heard of him.


That is not to say, of course, that I don't care about what happens to Chaz.  Because I understand, at least more than most other people can, what he is experiencing and has experienced, I wish only the best for him.  And I do understand how he feels when he talks about some of the difficulties he's had with people, including some of the ones who were closest to him.


And I can even understand why his mother--Cher, a gay icon--has difficulty with her transition.  My mother has been as about as supportive as anyone can be, or can be expected to be, in my transition and new life.  Yet I know that it has not been easy for her.  After all, she has known me longer than anyone else in this world--and she knew me as Nick, her son, for longer than anyone else ever had, or ever will.  


Plus, she realizes that some relatives of ours, most of whom are long gone, would not have been happy, to say the least, over what I've done.  At least they, as we knew them, would not have been happy.   However, people do change.  Some do, anyway.  Would they have changed?  No one can say for sure, but I know that at least a couple probably wouldn't have.  Then again, the people who change aren't always the ones we expect.   I'm sure Chaz has noticed that by now.


So, while very little about the show would be news to me, Becoming Chaz might be useful and enlightening for other people.  And, I suppose, seeing such a famous person--even if he is indeed famous mainly because of his parents--having undergone a gender transition will probably cause some people to pay more attention to what we say about ourselves, and to perhaps revise their thinking about who and what we are.  So, in that sense, Becoming Chaz is probably a good thing.

Even They--And We--Get The Pronouns Wrong Sometimes

Today, I stepped into a store on my way from lunch with Bruce to an appointment with my opthamologist.  (Dr. Noah Klein, one of the best in the business)  I can't even remember the name of the store, or why I stopped in it.  All I remember is something I saw on the TV behind the counter.

Someone was interviewing Cher, apparently for one of the TV news magazines.  She was talking about her son Chaz, ne her daughter Chastity.  It was hard not to admire her, as she admitted that it wasn't easy for her to take when Chastity said she was going to become Chaz. Coming from someone who, as she said, knew that something was "different" about her child long before she came out, and who's been an advocate of gay rights, that's quite an admission.  But what I found just as revealing was when she called Chaz "she," caught herself and said, "I'm still having trouble with the pronouns."

Next time I talk to my mother, I'm going to ask whether she saw that.  I remember how, early in my transition, she was almost aplogetic:  "I'm really trying!"  To which I replied, "I know." 

I've told her that if I've been lucky about nothing else in my life, I've been "lucky in the mom department."  Of course such declarations cannot fully convey the way I feel about the love she has always shown.  But that interview with Cher reminded me, whether or not I needed it, of how good a mother I have.  And, I suspect, Chaz Bono has a good mother, too.

Even the best of them--and us--slip up on pronouns.  There are certainly worse things.