Calling MTF CUNY Faculty Members!

Last night, I had dinner with a friend who's in a late stage of her transition.  She teaches in the City University of New York (CUNY), as I do.  Although our situations are somewhat different, we have faced many of the same challenges in navigating university system.  

Aside from transphobia and pure-and-simple pettiness (and, to be fair, gestures of support) from unexpected as well as anticipated sources, we both have had to deal with administrators who didn't know or understand policies--or, in a few cases, chose to ignore them--in matters ranging from changing our names on our records to time off.  

My friend has said she learned a few things from my experiences, and that she hopes things will go more smoothly for the next faculty member who transitions on the job.  I said that we need to communicate with, not only those who are about to transition, but those who have already done so, while working in CUNY.

The problem, she said, is finding those other faculty members.  CUNY consists of eleven four-year colleges, six community colleges, The Graduate Center and a few other schools, scattered across a few hundred square miles.  

She thinks we should have an association of male-to-female transsexual/transgender faculty and staff members in the CUNY system.  I think it's a great idea, whether we are an informal association that meets for tea and discusses our experiences, or morph into a more formal organization sponsored or chartered by CUNY.  

Consider this post the first announcement of our intention to form such a group.  If you are an MTF faculty or staff member in any CUNY school and are interested, please let me know.  Also, if you know such a faculty or staff member, please feel free to pass this announcement on to her.  

The only real restriction we want to place on the group is that its members are actually in, or have completed, their transitions:  This is not a group for those who are questioning whether or not they are really trans. (There are such groups at the LGBT Community Center and other places here in New York.)  So, my friend and I thought that it would be best to limit membership to those who are, at minimum, taking hormones and have at least the intention of continuing their transitions.  We are not trying to be exclusionary; we simply want the group (in whatever form it takes) to be focused on some of the experiences shared by those of us who are transitioning, or have transitioned, while teaching in CUNY schools.

Jay and Janine

Perhaps it's not a coincidence--at least for me, anyway--that Janine died during the workshop I co-led at the Graduate Center on Friday.  


Jay Toole co-led that workship with me.  She was really the first person to whom I "came out", when she was an intake counselor at Center Care.  She was also the first friend I made in the LGBT community in what was, in essence, my new life.  Actually, I sometimes think that my new life started with my "coming out," with her.  


Janine had absolutely nothing in common with Jay save for a determination that can border on, or become, stubborness.  Not much could get between either of them and anything they wanted to accomplish.  But, in her own way, Janine had a role in my entering the life I am now living.  


Just as I was starting to live full-time as Justine, Janine came to town with Marie-Jeanne and Michelle.  They, Diana and I went to Brighton Beach--on a collective whim-- on a bright, breezy late August day.  The night before, they saw me for the first time as Justine when we went, with Diana's husband, to a performance of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.  She later confessed, "That night, as we were waiting for you, I said to Janine, 'I hope she's pretty.'  And she said, 'Ne t'inquietes pas, ella sera ca.'  And you were, even more than I expected!"


Now, coming from someone who looks as she does and hangs around with women who are at least equally attractive (In my next life, I'm going to have Marie-Jeanne's legs!), that was very generous!


Anyway, we took the train to the beach and, as it turned out, they were all wearing bathing suits under their clothes.  I wasn't:  I didn't even own a women's bathing suit.  Michelle just happened to have a one-piece suit that, with more than a little stretching, fit me. The only problem was that we weren't in France, I reminded them, so there was no way I could change clothes on the beach.  


What followed was a bit of inventiveness that only women could come up with.  They'd brought a blanket with them and surrounded me with it.  They stood, holding it, as I pulled down my long Indian print skirt, pulled off my jewel-neck T-shirt and bra, and pulled on the bathing suit.  For the rest of that afternoon, I was one of a bunch of middle-aged women who were having fun.


Afterward, we went shopping along Brighton Beach Avenue, underneath the elevated train, where many of the stores have signs only in Russian.  It was my first time there as Justine, and men were noticing us.  Janine and Marie-Jeanne pointed out that the men were looking at me.  "Oh no," I thought, "They know about me!"  But, as I would learn on later trips there, I am often taken for a Russian or East European woman.  That was confirmed when one came up to me and asked me if "the beautiful Russian lady"--meaning me--wanted "to have a good time."


Some would argue that it wasn't a real "girl's outing," because none of them were jealous of me.  At least, they didn't seem to be.  Later, Diana would say, "You go, girl"  And Janine gave me one of the best hugs I ever got.


Now she's gone.  I suppose that means I am, whether I want to or not, entering another stage in my life.  I also had that feeling after that workshop I co-led with Jay.  Somehow I believe that my role in the LGBT community (if I indeed had a discernible one) is changing, and so is my relationship to the female world.  Soon I'm going to find out how, I think.

To Sleep

Tomorrow's the conference at the CUNY Graduate Center.  I'm leading a group there on Aging and Ageism in the LGBT community.  Nothing like tapping my areas of expertise, right?


I'm so tired.  I hope it doesn't show while I'm there.  I'm going to meet some people I haven't seen in a while as well as some people I've never met.  The funny thing is that it's that, and not the fact that I'm leading a group, that has me a bit nervous.l  


Oh well.  I guess all I can do now is get the sleep I haven't gotten during the past couple of days.  It's not the prospect of leading the group that's been keeping me awake.  It's just the sheer volume of work I've had.

Weekend Forum, Coming Up

On Friday I'm going to co-lead a forum on aging in the transgender community.  I guess I'm qualified to lead it:  After all, I am transgender and I am, well, aging.


The forum is going to be held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.   The following day, a larger meeting will be held as part of a conference at the Graduate Center.  


I'm looking forward to it, as it will allow me to see some people I haven't seen in a while, including Jay, the very first person to whom I "came out."  When you become an aging tranny (or an aging anything else), you are amazed at how much time has passed, so quickly, between various landmarks in your life.  However, when I see people like Jay or Tom (the director of SAGE), I feel as if whole eras have passed.  It seems that between encounters with them, I change in some way or another.  And, I feel as if they, too, change.  For me, the reasons are clear:  I am still in an early stage of my new life, only a year and four months removed from my surgery.  But I feel as if Jay, Tom, Pauline and some of the others are also changing.