More About Bruce Jenner

According to the Corey's comment on my post yesterday, and Diana's post on her blog, we didn't have to wait for the future:  There has, apparently, been more consternation over Bruce Jenner's Republican Party affiliation than over anything else revealed in the interview with Diane Sawyer.

I am definitely with Diana on this issue.  Like her, I simply cannot understand how any LGBT person supports the "Grand Old Party".  

Once, when I was  at the LGBT Community Center of New York for some even or another, the Log Cabin Republicans were having a "meet and greet". I bumped into a few of them and they tried to recruit me--why, I don't know.  I must say, they were all pleasant, polite and well-spoken.  But they also looked like GQ covers come to life, with the credit card limits to match. So, as nice as they were to me, I simply couldn't relate to them, personally or politically.


I take part of that statement back.  I could tell that they were trying to mask, forget or simply live through some sort of pain or loss.  The difference between them and me--aside from the fact that they were gay men and I'm not--is that they had (or, at least seemed to have) more means to deal with whatever they lost, gave up or had taken from them as a result of their living openly as gay men.  You can't (or, at least, shouldn't) hate someone for that.  Instead, we can only respect and, to the degree that we can, support each other in our pain and loss.  

I have lost more than some, but not as much as some others.  The point is, as Diana says, we all go into the unknown when we "come out" or transition and, as Mara Keisling wrote in a CNN money article, every one of us loses something, and some lose everything.

Yes, Bruce Jenner has money and fame.  But she has, like the rest of us, lost a lot of time and experiences in living as someone other than her true self.  She says she didn't transition sooner because she didn't want to disappoint people who saw her as a role model of manhood.  Trying not to disappoint--which almost inevitably is a losing battle--is in itself a loss.  So is the joy she probably didn't experience from her accomplishments.  

So, while I don't support her politics, I support her journey.  That is all any of us can do for each other.

Walking With Our Heads Up

After reading Diana's post today, I checked out one of the links she provided.

That there is discrimination against transgender people is not news to me. Nor is the knowledge that trans people of color experience even more discrimination than those of us who are melanin-deficient.   If those facts were all the survey revealed, I would not be thinking about it now.

However, the researchers who compiled the report Diana linked seemed to understand the limits of so many previous studies.  Those earlier surveys and reports indicated, for example, that we are much more likely than everyone else to be unemployed, experience harassment, try to kill ourselves or to be killed by someone else.  But they missed two other key elements of our lives that "Injustice At Every Turn" conveys about as well as anyone can with statistical narratives.

The first of those elements is the cumulative effect of our experiences.  According to the report, nearly two out of every three of us have experienced a "serious act of discrimination," which the authors define as "events 

that would have a major impact on a person’s quality of life and ability to sustain themselves financially or emotionally."  Those events include, but are not limited to:

• Lost job due to bias

• Eviction due to bias

• School bullying/harassment so severe the respondent had to drop out 

• Teacher bullying 

• Physical assault due to bias

• Sexual assault due to bias

• Homelessness because of gender identity/expression

• Lost relationship with partner or children due to gender identity/expression

• Denial of medical service due to bias

• Incarceration due to gender identity/expression.

Worse, nearly one in four of us has experienced "catastrophic" discrimination, which the researchers define as experiencing at least three of those life-disrupting events.  

The second dimension of our experiences that the researchers managed to convey was what we develop in part as a result of our experiences:  resilience. More than three out of every four of us report that we felt more comfortable at work and our performance improved after we began to transition, even in spite of the discrimination and even harassment many of us experience.

And we still manage to get hormones, as well as the other medicines and treatments we need, in spite of the discrimination or structural barriers we face in getting health care.  We lose jobs and aren't considered for others because of bigotry, but somehow many of us still find employment.  We find places to live after we've been kicked or kept out of other places because of bias, and we're three times as likely to return to school after the age of 25 even after so many of us were essentially bullied out of our high schools and colleges.

But, most important of all, we keep our self-esteem--which many of us found only upon coming to terms with who we are and deciding to live in accordance with it (whatever that may mean for us)--even in the face of rejection from partners, family members, colleagues and people who were friends.  As one survey respondent said, "I have walked these streets and been harassed nearly every day, but I will not change.  I am back out there the next day with my head up."

Until We Meet Again: The Weight of This Day

Am I projecting onto the rest of the world?


It seemed that everywhere I looked, people were ready to hibernate.  Windy, chilly, overcast days will do that to people, and to other living beings.  


In the ladies' room at my main job, I saw Debra, who has a job of some sort in the administrative offices.  I don't mean to disparage her or her work; I simply forget what, exactly, what her title is or what she does.  Then again, she's not the only one I've so mistreated in my memory.


Anyway, she said she noticed the weariness, too.  "I think people are feeling the weight of the world," she suggested.  "You know, with the economy and all of the other things that are happening, people are stressed out."


I thought about it.  "Well," I mused, "now we know why the 1930's are referred to as 'The Great Depression.'"


She tapped her chin.  "I never thought about that before."


"I didn't, either, until now."


In addition to the weight of the world, everyone seemed to have his or her personal burdens to a greater degree than usual.  Again, I might be projecting:  Having just lost a friend, I feel the weight of time and the even heavier load of ephemerality.  


Today Josette, one of Janine's sisters--whom I never before met-- wrote an e-mail to me.  I had written my feelings and impressions of Janine, and sent them to Marie-Jeanne and Diana, who sent them to Josette.  She told me that she read my message to at the service held for Janine in Pere Lachaise and everyone, including her, was moved by it.  That surprises me; after all, I was just expressing my feeling for two mutual friends.  And I was worried about how they'd take it, as I wrote it in French.  


I am fluent, or at least competent, in the language.  However, there are still some nuances and subtleties that I haven't got down, and possibly never will.  But I wrote my memory of Janine in French because, for one, she was so quintessentially French, in the most exasperating and delightful ways.  Even more to the point, at least for me, is that in my mind she represents France itself, or at least my experience of it.  Plus, I owe a good part of the skill I have in the language to her.


On some level--a selfish and solipsistic one, perhaps--I wonder whether I am going to "lose" France and Paris now that I've lost Janine.  I expect to go back some day, but of course it won't be the same.


Here is what I wrote:

Janine en fait le hereusement pour beaucoup des gens, incluis moi.  Elle en portait une force vitale de vie, et elle etait toujours genereuse.  Ma vie est meilleur apres j'en fait la conaissance de Nine.

Aujour d'hui, je suis tres desolee.  Et je veux faire une consolation pour tu, pour vous, pour tout les amis et famille de Janine.

Je n'en puis oublier la journee a Brighton Beach avec Nine, Marie Jeanne, Diana et Michelle.  C'etait une jour de hereusement pour moi.  Ma vie en fait changer, et Janine m'aider comprend beaucoup des choses.

J'espere reconnaitre (ou connaitre) bientot.  Jusqu'a cet temps, je veux faire assistance pour vous, si vous desirez.

Here's a rough translation:


{Janine brought much happiness to many people, including me.  She was a life force and was always generous.  My life is better for having met Nine. ("Nine" is her nickname, it's pronounced like "Nina.")


Today I am sorrowful.  And I want to console you, and all of Janine's family and friends.


I will not forget the day Nine, Marie Jeanne, Diana, Michele and I went to Brighton Beach. It was a very happy day for me.  My life was changing, and Janine was helping me to understand many things.


I hope that we will meet, or meet again.  Until then, I want to help you in any way I can.}


Josette says that she's planning to come here with Marie-Jeanne and Michele, possibly in the summer, and that she wants to meet me.  

Losses, Actual and Possible

Yesterday and today felt more autumnal than spring-like.  This is amazing, when you consider that we had summery weather only a week ago.  It's supposed to be chilly--at least for this time of year--for the rest of the week.  


I'm tired, again.  After my classes, I had two long meetings and then students wanted help with one thing and another. And I would have spent even longer than  I did at work--As it was, I was there for nearly another five hours after my obligations for the day ended!--had I not simply decided that I needed to leave.  For that, it looks like I'm going to be subjected to a furlough.  So I'm supposed to take a unilateral 20 percent pay cut for doing the same work.  And my bills won't decrease by 20 percent.


On top of that, I found out why I haven't heard from Janine and Marie-Jeanne for a long time.  They are two friends of mine in Paris.  When they came to New York in the summer of 2003, they, our friend Diana and I took a lunch and shopping trip to Brighton Beach.  It was my first "girls' day out" and, as Diana said tonight, none of them knew what to expect:  I had "come out" to them over the phone and by e-mail, but they had only seen me as Nick, not as Justine.  Diana, recalling that day, said, "I said to myself, 'I hope she's pretty.'  Then, when I heard you were having your surgery, I said, 'I hope she doesn't become prettier than me."


"Don't worry.  You're safe," I deadpanned.


"I'm not so sure about that."


"Well, I'll never be upset with you for being better-looking than I am.  You're a wonderful person."  I could almost see her blush over the phone.


That banter was just an interlude in a litany of bad news.  Janine's has gotten much worse since the last time I talked to her or Diana.  Janine had a tumor which grew malignant.  Then she had a stroke back in the fall.  She had to move from her apartment to a hospital to a nursing home.  Of course, she's angry:  She is one of the most independent and creative people I've ever known.  Now she can't even go outside by herself and can't always remember people.  


"It must be so hard on her," I said.

 Diana agreed.  "But," she added, " it's really hard on her sister and the people around her.  It's hard to see her that way."

"It hurts just to think of her that way," I lamented.  "Whenver I saw her, I felt as if I were in the presence of life itself."  


"All we can do is hope.  But things don't look good."


Still, we hope.  Maybe, just maybe, we tell ourselves.