Penner Agonistes

Last night, Gunnar sent me an article about Mike Penner/Christine Daniels.  I guess it was supposed to be a sort of post-mortem.  As such, I guess it's all right.  It does talk about Penner/Daniels' career and gender identity conflict.  


(From this point, I will refer to Penner/Daniels by male pronouns and his given name.  I do not mean this as a judgment of his gender or identity.  I never met him, so I cannot even form an opinion about that.  Plus, I don't think it's my place to decide whether or not someone is "really" trans, or gay, or anything else.  I am referring to him as male only because he was living as one, and by his given name, at the time of his death.)


However, the article shares the same flaw with just about every news story I've read about transgender people:  It focuses on the ways in which its subject fits into the traditional narrative about transgender people--almost to the point of making the subject a caricature-- and why that is ultimately the subject's undoing.


One thing the article doesn't do is to discuss the role the Los Angeles Times--whom he served as a sportswriter for 23 years-- played in his coming out, transition and decision to return to living in his former identity.  I guess that's not surprising, given that the article appeared in that same newspaper and was written by one of its staff writers.


I'm not saying that the Times is responsible for his suicide.  What I do believe, however, is that they treated his plight as any media outlet would:  as a sensational news story.  And just about any print newspaper is desperate to sell copies these days.  What could be more of an attention-getter than having one of the newspaper's more prominent writers--who covered sports, which is the most "macho" of beats with the possible exception of crime--"come out" in full view of the public?


If nothing else, it gave the newspaper "creds" with a good part of its readership.  The "quiet, circumspect" Mike became "ebullient and outgoing" Christine under the tolerant auspices of the nation's second-largest newspaper.   What newspaper wouldn't want that sort of publicity, especially in a place as cosmopolitan as L.A.?


On the other hand, Mike wanted to "quietly" transition into becoming Christine. I can fully understand why:  My own social worker, himself a female-to-male, warned me about making my transition "too public."  Turns out, he was right, in some ways:  Transitioning publicly, even for the smallest of audiences, puts you under a microscope.  Everything you do becomes evidence that you've either "gone too far" in living in your "new" gender or that you're not really fit to be part of it.   Sometimes the very same people will make those seemingly-contradictory judgments!  And, if you haven't yet developed a strong sense of who you are, it can destroy you.  Something like that happened to Mike Penner.


Also, when you are transitioning in a very public forum, institutions as well as people will try to "use" your transition for their own purposes.  One minute you make them look good and feel good about themselves for having "tolerated" you or, worse (at least when you're just starting to live in your "new" gender), you become a tool for whatever other purposes or causes they may have.  And, sometimes they'll publicize or simply expose you in ways for which you're not yet ready.   Worst of all, those people and institutions start to act as if they're entitled to use all the details of your life in whatever ways they see fit--and in ways they would never tolerate anyone using their lives and secrets.  


And everything they say about you has an undertone or overlay of sex.  That is, of course, the reason why they'll shun you or stab you in the back later on.


In brief, they build you up so they can use you and tear you down, stab you in the back or cast you aside when you've become "too big" or when you're simply no longer the flavor-of-the-month.


I have experienced everything I've described in the two preceding paragraphs--in the place where I was working during the first two years I lived as Justine, but also with an LGBT organization for which I was a volunteer.  Somehow I got through it:  I guess that my sense of who I am developed, along with the thickness of my hide.


And that is what, it seems, didn't happen to Mike Penner.  I can't say exactly why; from what I've heard and read, it seems that he found himself living as Christine before she had a chance to develop and she had a chance to understand her.


That is what people like the writer of the article never seem to understand:  The "new" gender is an identity that is developing, not just a costume to be stepped into.  Anyone who's being born and goes out into society for the first time--at whatever age--is embryonic, a work in progress or whatever you want to call it.  The way I see myself now, not to mention what I've become, is in some ways different from what I envisioned when I first started my transition, not to mention what I foresaw when I was "crossdressing."  


That, of course, is one of the reasons why we have a "real-life test."  But I think some trans people need even more than that.  I feel sometimes that transgenders are expected, and expect themselves,  to take over the role of a full-formed, full-fledged member of their "new" gender, whatever that may mean to them.  So living full-time in their "new" gender is a sort of bullfight that has to end in the death of the person in the "old" gender.  However, as we've seen, it sometimes ends--as it did for Mike Penner and Christine Daniels--in the death of both selves.  


What is needed, then, is room for someone who wants to live as the "opposite" gender not only to do so, but to really find out what that might mean for him or her self.  That way, if someone decides that he or she has a different idea about his or her  gender identity--or what living in the "new" gender may mean--he or she can modify his or her course, or abandon it altogether.  There would be no shame or accusations that he or she "flip-flopped," and it would be possible to live enriched by the experience of both selves, even if one is aborted.


These days, most people-- even most sportswriters, at least in this country--don't care much for bullfights.  So why should they encourage someone to live one--or try to live one themselves?  

Resting After The Last Seven Years, And For The Next Seven

Today was a slow day for me. I slept late and got not much done besides my laundry. The state of my unpacking is exactly where it was at the beginning of this week. I know that, realistically, I won't have this apartment in anything like a "finished" state until New Year's Day or thereabouts. I will probably do a lot of work during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, as I will not be on my job.

In the meantime, I've ordered a bike rack that, I think, will better fit this space than what I had been using in my previous apartment. It's not smaller, but it will hang the bikes by their rear wheels, which I actually prefer to mounting them horizontally on the wall. The latter way can make for a nice "bicycle art" display, but I find it more difficult to get the bikes on and off. Also, the bike is less stable that way than it is when it's hung vertically. Finally, my new rack includes shelves on which I can leave my helmets, gloves and other accessories and items I use when I ride.

My two Mercians will hang on that rack. The Raleigh three-speed, which is locked to a post outside, will probably stand in the hallway between my kitchen and bedroom, as it weighs about twice as much as either of my Mercians.

Maybe it's just as well that I probably won't have that rack for another two weeks or so. I'm doing what I can to shape this place up, but as Gunnar Berg reminded me, I've just had my surgery and, as someone (Yogi Berra?) once said, I'm not as young as I used to be. Maybe I needed this day to recoup, to recharge--and to take things in.

Although my physical appearance (at least what 99.999 percent of all people see) is the same as it was before my surgery, people have told me that I look "different"--for the better. Yesterday I talked with a prof from another department with whom I've been friendly but have hardly seen at all this semester. "You're more beautiful than ever!," she exclaimed.

More beautiful than ever! As if I ever were beautiful! All right, I'll take it. And I'll let you in on a little secret I've stumbled over: The only thing better than a man who can make a woman blush is another woman who can make her blush!

Would she or anyone else say the same thing if he or she were to see me now--in my sweats, with my hair a mess, as I slouch in front of my computer? Charlie is curled up next to me and Max has just crawled into my lap. They're both purring loudly. If I'm a mess, at least I'm as happy as they are.

Seven years ago, neither of them was with me. I'd had another cat named Charlie who, like my eponymous feline companion of today, is gray and white, and a pretty calico named Candice. Sometimes I miss them: After all, each of them was in my life for longer than any except for a couple of friends I've had, and the only people who were in my life for longer than those friends were or are related to me. And I've never had any material object, lived in any place, or stayed in any job or school for as long as I had either Candice or my first cat named Charlie.

Why am I thinking about them, or the past, now? Well, I spent seven years on Ninth Street: four and a half in the house from which I just moved, and two and a half in an apartment in a building on a corner of that block. Although seven years is like the blink of an eye in the scheme of the universe, in my life, those seven years were almost a geologic age: one during which the ground shifted, settled into something resembling its current form, and shifted in more subtle, subterranean ways.

What is it about seven years? In so many cultures and traditions, lives are lived and events happen in cycles of seven years. As an example, in Genesis, Joseph prophesies that lean years will follow the seven prosperous years that were about to come to an end in Egypt. (An economist once admitted that economic forecasting hasn't gotten any better than that.) I hope that the past seven years weren't the "feast," at least for me: I'd hate to think a "famine" is about to follow (although that may well be the case for the economy). If anything, if I had to characterize the past seven years, I'd say they were intense. Perhaps they were the most intense period of my life. But that is definitely not to say they were the worst, or best--or the most difficult, although I would say that 2002, when those seven years began, was one of the most difficult years, if not the most difficult year, of my life so far. It's not the sort of time I can say I mastered or in which I achieved a victory: Somehow, I survived it. Actually, that's pretty much all I can say for my life up to that point.

But the rest I've gotten today isn't, I hope, merely a respite from what I've experienced. Rather, I would like to think that it's helping me to store up what I'll need for the coming days. Even if those days will bring joy and prosperity, I will need to be ready for them.

Fission

"Gunnar Berg" didn't wish me me good luck. Instead, he advised me to be strong. I am happy for that: It's a lot more satisfying to achieve by being strong, or simply working hard and from the bottom of your heart, than it is to have things fall in the right places.

What's odd is that lately I've felt strong: strong enough, in fact, to take on new projects, reach out to new and old acquaintances and to extricate myself from a relationship that, really, has had almost no reason to be for some time.

And now Michelle, a former student of mine, is exhorting me to be strong and not to go back. "You don't need a man to be complete," she said. "No woman does. A girl, yes. But not a woman. And that's what you are."

Michelle knows whence she speaks. And I was so happy to see her again.

The relationship from which I've liberated myself is the one I had with Dominick. Now, I'm not going to "trash" him in this post, or anywhere. I didn't suddenly realize that he's a terrible person or find out some dim, dark secret of his. Rather--as cold as this sounds--I no longer have a need he once filled, at least partially. As a result, I have had to acknowledge something I knew intuitively: We don't have much in common.

Furthermore, I feel that each of us needs to move forward in our lives. In doing so, each of us will be going in different directions and, as a result, will most likely have very different journeys in front of us.

Actually, I knew that a while ago--from when I first knew him, really. So why did I continue with him?

Well...Now I'm about to reveal my shallow side. Here goes: He's a very good-looking man, and he was at least reasonably good to me most of the time. When I was still forming my identity as Justine, as a woman, I felt at least somewhat more affirmed as such by his presence.

What I didn't realize at the time was that, in a way, he was looking for the same thing I sought: stability. I was, as you can imagine, going through a lot of change and even some upheaval. And he was trying to figure out a few things about his life--while living in a dysfunctional environment.

I haven't seen him since about a month before my surgery. The truth is, I haven't wanted to. As you know, whether or not you've been reading this blog, I had to focus so much on myself--first the preparation for my surgery, then my recovery and other aftereffects--that I didn't have the energy or time (or, after the surgery, enough waking hours) to deal with much else. And, frankly, there wasn't much he could have done.

I realized this during the time I spent in Colorado. (Something about the mountain air, right?) There was so much he could not understand about what I was going through, much less what I had gone through. I knew that, in part, because I spent my time out there with people who understood perfectly. Dominick could and would spend time with me, but he never could understand exactly how vulnerable I am or why I'm that way.

Again, I do not mean to disparage him. This sort of thing happens sometimes in relationships of any sort: What he could give me, I no longer need. And he can't give me what I need or want now, mainly because we lost what (as it turns out, little) common ground we had.

I'm not nearly as upset about this as I might have expected to be. In fact, I'm feeling stronger, knowing what--or more precisely, why.

Thank you, "Gunnar." And you, too, Michelle.