Homophobia And The Lost Generation Of Transgenders

Parent: "So, are you going to date men or women?"

Adult child: "Men."

Parent:  (Expression of relief.) "At least you're not a lesbian."

If I ever do stand-up comedy (which is about as likely as my becoming the Pope), I will include that in my repertoire.

Now, I didn't have an exchange like that with my own parents.  But it wouldn't surprise me to learn that something like it was part of some other male-to-female transsexual's "coming out" to her parents.  

The principle espoused by the parent in that conversation--a paradoxical mixture of homophobia and a willingness to accept a trans child--actually governs an entire nation.  

The nation to which I'm referring is second only to Thailand in the number of gender-reassignment surgeries performed within its borders every year.  Yet, in that same country, same-sex relationships, and even cross-dressing, are punishable (at least in theory) by death.

That country is not governed by transgender equivalents of Janice Raymond and Mary Daly.  Rather, it's ruled by a man whom various groups tried to bar from speaking at Columbia and other American universities and who has done about as much for women's rights in his country as Raymond and Daly have done for transgender equality.

I am talking about Iran.  Not only do its doctors perform more gender-reassignment surgeries than their counterparts in the US; its government pays for up to half the cost of the surgery for those who can't pay for it themselves.  Moreover, male-to-female transgenders are allowed to live as women until they have their surgeries.  After surgery, their birth certificates and other documents are re-issued with their "new" gender and they are allowed to marry men.  

Did you notice that I've referred only to male-to-female transsexuals?  I did so, not only because I am one, but also because I couldn't find information about female-to-male transsexuals in Iran.   Also, I found, in my research, that when one is approved for surgery, one must begin to undergo treatments (hormones, psychotherapy, and such) immediately.  Anyone who doesn't undergo those treatments is considered to be of the gender assigned to him at birth.  That means that if he were to have sexual relationships with men, "cross-dress" or live as what we might call "genderqueer", he is subject to the same penalties as gay men can incur.

In other words, Iran's encouragement of GRS and related treatments is really, at least to some degree, a way of negating homosexuality.   I can't help but to wonder whether something similar happened here in the US during the 1960's and 1970's.  While those times were not easy for us, they were still better than the era of the Lost Generation of Transgenders, which spanned the decade-and-a-half (or so) following the rise of Second-Wave Feminism.  I have to wonder whether some people, in the time of Renee Richards, simply found trans women who dated and married men more palatable than men who dated other men.  

If that is the case, it certainly didn't help trans people.  If anything, it may have had something to do with the Lost Generation of Transgenders I've mentioned in earlier posts. 

Homophobia And The Lost Generation Of Transgenders

Parent: "So, are you going to date men or women?"

Adult child: "Men."

Parent:  (Expression of relief.) "At least you're not a lesbian."

If I ever do stand-up comedy (which is about as likely as my becoming the Pope), I will include that in my repertoire.

Now, I didn't have an exchange like that with my own parents.  But it wouldn't surprise me to learn that something like it was part of some other male-to-female transsexual's "coming out" to her parents.  

The principle espoused by the parent in that conversation--a paradoxical mixture of homophobia and a willingness to accept a trans child--actually governs an entire nation.  

The nation to which I'm referring is second only to Thailand in the number of gender-reassignment surgeries performed within its borders every year.  Yet, in that same country, same-sex relationships, and even cross-dressing, are punishable (at least in theory) by death.

That country is not governed by transgender equivalents of Janice Raymond and Mary Daly.  Rather, it's ruled by a man whom various groups tried to bar from speaking at Columbia and other American universities and who has done about as much for women's rights in his country as Raymond and Daly have done for transgender equality.

I am talking about Iran.  Not only do its doctors perform more gender-reassignment surgeries than their counterparts in the US; its government pays for up to half the cost of the surgery for those who can't pay for it themselves.  Moreover, male-to-female transgenders are allowed to live as women until they have their surgeries.  After surgery, their birth certificates and other documents are re-issued with their "new" gender and they are allowed to marry men.  

Did you notice that I've referred only to male-to-female transsexuals?  I did so, not only because I am one, but also because I couldn't find information about female-to-male transsexuals in Iran.   Also, I found, in my research, that when one is approved for surgery, one must begin to undergo treatments (hormones, psychotherapy, and such) immediately.  Anyone who doesn't undergo those treatments is considered to be of the gender assigned to him at birth.  That means that if he were to have sexual relationships with men, "cross-dress" or live as what we might call "genderqueer", he is subject to the same penalties as gay men can incur.

In other words, Iran's encouragement of GRS and related treatments is really, at least to some degree, a way of negating homosexuality.   I can't help but to wonder whether something similar happened here in the US during the 1960's and 1970's.  While those times were not easy for us, they were still better than the era of the Lost Generation of Transgenders, which spanned the decade-and-a-half (or so) following the rise of Second-Wave Feminism.  I have to wonder whether some people, in the time of Renee Richards, simply found trans women who dated and married men more palatable than a man who dated other men.  

If that is the case, it certainly didn't help trans people.  If anything, it may have had something to do with the Lost Generation of Transgenders I've mentioned in earlier posts. 

Sterilization In Sweden

One day, one decade, one century, you're ahead of the curve.  Then the curve catches up with you.  If you're not careful, it becomes a tidal wave.

I know; I mixed metaphors a bit.  But you get the idea.  

When I was young, Sweden was seen as a progressive country in, among other areas, human rights, particularly for LGBT people.  It was one of those countries (along with Denmark) to which men went for their "sex change" operations.  (At that time, one rarely--if ever heard of FTMs.)  And Sweden was one of the first countries to include language in its laws specifically to protect gay men and lesbians.

Fast-forward to today, when the country's law regarding gender-reassignment surgery are being assailed as "barbaric" by human rights activists.

The law, enacted in 1972, says that any Swedish resident who wants to undergo gender reassignment surgery must be over 18 and unmarried--and be sterilized before the surgery.  

I used to think that no one under the age of 25 or so should undergo the surgery until I met the teenager who underwent the same surgery, on the same day, as I did.  Some might say she is unusual, but from what she and her mother told me, it was clear from an early age that she simply could not grow up to be a man.  

As for marital status:  Many people--like Joyce, my roommate at San Rafael Hospital in Trinidad--are married when they have the surgery.  Some manage to remain so.  If a marriage stays together through and after the transition and surgery, it's hard to beat for support!

But sterilization is what really has human rights activists upset.  At the time the law was enacted, that stipulation may have made sense, given what the medical establishment knew--and much of the public believed--about transgender people.  

Most of the Swedish Parliament, and public, wants to change the law.  However, there is a conservative party (sound familiar?)  that's blocking the change.  That party is said to be small; I hope its influence will be even smaller in proportion to its size.  And I hope Sweden returns to its longtime role as the small country with a big role in the state of human rights.

Two Years Later

Today marks two years since my GRS/SRS.  In one sense, it's hard to believe:  It really does seem like only yesterday.  However, in another sense, the way time has passed makes perfect sense: I had the surgery so I could get on with my life.  That means change and learning are inevitable.  Life without those things is--for me, anyway--not an option.  I don't mean that I don't want it; I simply mean that I couldn't choose any other way, really.

Danny, one of my "classmates" in Trinidad, e-mailed me a few days ago.  I would like it if we can stay in touch; his humor, intelligence and empathy make any communication from him a rewarding experience.  I really would like to see him again some day. 

As for the other "alumni" I met there, I am always open to stay in touch with them; they have, if nothing else, a sympathetic ear in me.  However, I notice that I haven't been in touch with the others in a while.  Now I understand why I am not sad about that:  They had their surgeries for essentially the same reasons why I had mine.  I hope their lives are progressing in the ways they had hoped; perhaps this shared experience will figure in some way or another in our lives in the future. Whether it does or it doesn't, that will have been the point of our having the surgeries and, more important, undergoing our transitions.  

Moving on, as we used to say when funk bands ruled the world.  (Yes, they really did, once!)  That is the reason why, I've just noticed, I'm no longer sad about the relationships I lost during my transition.  People have told me that the ones who de-friended me weren't really friends in the first place.  Perhaps that is true.  But I now realize that even if I had not embarked upon this journey (I hope that doesn't sound too quaint!), we may have gone our separate ways.  The same, I believe, is true about the relationship I had with Tammy:  It made me happy, at least in some ways, for a time in my life, but we probably wouldn't be together now even if I hadn't started my transition.  And, I think, the same is true for those relatives who broke or drifted away:  However close we might have been at one time, we simply had very little in common, even when I was still living as Nick.

So, yes, I have a vagina that looks like the ones my gynecologist has seen on cis women.  (And, yes, it looks like the ones I've seen.  I'll let you think, if you care to, how I came to see them.)  And I've been feeling good physically.  But I think the most important way in which the operation has been a success is that I am living the rest of my life, and learning what that means for me.

Someone Who "Gets It"

Someone I see regularly--the UPS truck driver-- said, "How does it feel to have the right to be married?"


I said that I'm glad the law passed, though I'm not sure of how relevant it will be to me.  He furrowed his brow.  "Well, you're a woman.  But..."

A while back, he claimed not to have known about my transsexual status until someone else revealed it to him.  So I can understand his confusion about how, whom or whether I'd marry.  So I tried to explain, in the proverbial 25 words or less, what New York State's new law means for me.


I told him that, for the purposes of employment, housing and just about everything else, the State (but not the Federal) government identified me as a woman as soon as they received notification from my doctor and therapist that I had a disorder, was living as a woman and was taking hormones in preparation for my gender reassignment surgery.  However, I could not marry a man, although I could've married another woman if she and I chose to do so.



Once I had my surgery, the State and Federal governments recognized me as a woman.  That meant I could marry a man, but not another woman, at least all but those states that had same-sex marriage and those that did not recognize sex changes.  As an example of the latter, in Idaho, I could marry a woman because I am still considered a man in that state.  In contrast, in New York, before the law was passed, I could have married a man but not a woman, while in neighboring Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, I could have married anyone.


The man seemed, not so much by the complexity, but by what he described as the "silliness" of it.  "God made us all equal. Why shouldn't you, or anyone else, marry who you want or whoever wants you?"


Well, I didn't get it all into 25 words.  But he understands.  And he's sympathetic, or at least expressing respect for a person's rights.  When one person "gets it," that's enough to make my day.

Looking At My Vagina Again

Early this evening, I got home from a bike ride I took to Point Lookout, via Rockaway Beach.  After feeding my cats and myself, I dilated.  


Nearly two years have passed since my surgery.  So I suppose I was expecting, to the extent that I was thinking about it, that my vagina to change in some way. I just wasn't sure of how it would.  


Maybe my memory of what my vagina looked like in the days and weeks immediately after my surgery has been distorted.  But I seem to recall it as more linear and vertical:  the folds surrounding the cavity seemed to cascade in layers of rosy-colored lines.  


So, perhaps it is only against that memory that my vagina seems to be taking on a more ovular shape, with the folds around it rippling and curving in arcs from it.  For all I know, the shape was more like that from the beginning and I just didn't notice or have any way of comparing it.  


Whether or not that has actually happened, I feel as if that part of my body has taken on the feminine shape I've always wanted.  It looks more and more like other vaginas I've seen.  No, I'm not going to say exactly how many I've seen, or how I came to see them. After all, this is, ahem, an educational blog!


I don't know whether or how my vagina will change again.  I suppose that it will, if for no other reason than I will.  It seems like the surgery, like taking hormones and everything else that came before it, was "just the beginning," as they say.

OK Now

Yesterday I bumped into somebody I hadn't seen in about two years.  Suzanne and I used to work together; now she's working for herself.  She seems happier--or, at least more "centered", to steal from the lexicon of the so-called New Age movement.  

Some of our colleagues thought she was ditzy.  Truth is, she is, at least about tedious, repetitive tasks--which, I've learned, are the ones you have to do well if you want to win favor with superiors and, often, peers.

But she is far more perceptive in other ways than her detractors could ever dream of being.  And, she does have a heart, even if it leads her to minor excesses.

So I wasn't surprised at her reaction when I mentioned that I've had my operation since I last saw her. Her face took on an expression I hadn't seen before:  a combination of joy and concern.  "That's great!," she exclaimed.  Then, literally in the next breath, "Are you OK?", as if I'd been through a long, painful night.   When I assured her that I've been fine, in some ways I've never been better, she gave me a long hug.  

Afterward, her question--"Are you OK?"--seemed even stranger to me than it did when she asked it.  Although the surgery, like any other, had risks, I felt that whatever I was enduring was less treacherous than just about anything I'd experienced before it.  Some of that, of course, had to do with the trust I had in Dr. Bowers and the staff at the hospital.  But the emotional distress I felt nearly every day before I started my transition was much worse, and in some ways more dangerous, because I had no idea of how or whether any of it would end. And I never saw the purpose of it:  I'm not so sure that it built my "character."  On the other hand, I at least knew why I was undergoing my transition and surgery, and had some idea of how to achieve what I wanted to achieve by becoming Justine.

Yes, Suzanne, I am OK.  I'm still learning about this new landscape I'm navigating, but it makes sense.  And, as you said, We have to keep on learning how to be ourselves.   Yes!  Thank you, Suzanne.

Another Day After: Bumping Into A Former Student

One year and one day after my surgery...All right, I'll stop counting, at least on this blog.  Still, it's hard not to think about the first anniversary of my surgery, which passed yesterday.


Tonight I was riding my bike home from my class.  I was in Jackson Heights, about two and a half miles from my place, when someone called out, "Hello, Professor!"


I recognized the voice, which I hadn't heard in a couple of years.  It belonged to Navendra, who'd been a student of mine.  He did well, and he was one of those students who always seemed happy to see me.  And the feeling has always been mutual.


He's working on his master's degree in accounting in Queens College.  He took a class with me on the recommendation of his friend Sajid, who took three and sent me a "Happy Birthday" e-mail.  Now Sajid is at the Harvard School of Public Policy.  He and Navendra are both the kinds of people who could do anything they set out to do.   I have written letters of reference for both of them and do the same for either of them.  


It's funny that yesterday I was reflecting on how I have changed, and am changing, since my surgery.  But seeing Navendra again, I felt that in some way I hadn't changed at all--and I felt good about it.  Somehow, neither he nor Sajid seemed consigned to my past, as some people with whom I was living, working and simply spending time with not much more than a year ago now seem--not to mention those who decided, for whatever reasons, they wanted no part of me after I  started my transition.


Perhaps my perception of Navendra and Sajid has to do with the fact that they're progressing with their lives. Of course, it hasn't always been a steady progression:  About a year after he graduated (three years ago), Sajid was having a tough time:  Something hadn't worked out as he'd hoped, and he had to re-evaluate some choices he'd made.  But I always have had confidence in him, and I think he knew that.  I'm sure other people did, too. Sometimes I think he was worried that he was letting us down.  Actually, I don't feel let down by anyone who's progressing in whatever way he or she needs to--even if that means taking a step back and re-thinking something.  


And, when I see someone growing and changing, I do not have a stagnant image of him or her.  On the other hand, some people are still in the same places, spiritually and even physically, as they were when I first met them.  I realized that about one former friend of mine, with whom I reunited (albeit briefly) after a long absence.  We were having exactly the same conversations as we'd had when we were college undergraduates--or, more precisely, I was listening to the same monologue as I was listening to back in those days.  I was simply hearing it again in a cafe on the other side of the world.  (It sounds like a dystopian version of Casablanca, if such a thing is possible.)  After that, I was really glad I've never gone to a reunion of any school I ever attended.


I remember telling Marci, only half-jokingly, that I want to be her when I grow up.  I'm starting to think that what you become when you grow up isn't as important as simply growing up--or just growing, period, and surrounding yourself with people who are.

My Birthday As Myself

I am one year old today!


To be exact, I had my surgery one year ago today.  The time has passed much more quickly than I ever imagined it would.  Somehow that always seems to happen after important events in my life--or, at any rate, events that are important to me.


Some of that, of course, has to do with the fact that we're older after each event, as we are after any sort of passage of time.  The more time spend on this planet, the more quickly the time ahead moves by us.  It's simple arithmetic:  One year is a smaller portion of a 50-year-old's life than of a child who is only five.  But I also think that because major events, for many of us, mark stages of our lives, those events widen the distance between ourselves and our past and bring us closer to our futures.  I think that happens whether the event is a graduation, marriage, divorce, death of a loved one, birth of an offspring, beginning or ending a career, or any number of other things with that can change a person's circumstances.


I also believe my perception of time is shaped, in part, by the knowledge that unless I live longer than 99.9999 percent (or thereabouts) of all people, I will have lived more time as a male than as a female.  That is to say, I will have spent more years as Nick--in the sense that families, friends, co-workers and others knew him, the law defined him and I projected him--than as Justine.  Even though I feel freedom and confidence that I never felt before my changes, I am very acutely aware that I have only a limited amount of time, at least in life as I know it, as the person I have always been in mind and spirit.


What I've just described, I realized for the first time as I was describing it.  I wonder whether other transsexuals feel anything like it.  If they do, it might explain why some change everything, or at least everything they can change, in their lives after their transitions and surgeries.  Some move to new cities, or to or away from cities generally.  A few move to other countries; still others change jobs and careers, whether or not by choice.  Many also get divorced; at least I don't have to worry about that!  Others marry or remarry, or take up with new partners.  


Nearly all--at least the ones I know--re-evaluate something or another in their lives.  It makes sense; after all, that is what each of us has to do at the moment we face the truth about ourselves and begin to think about what we will do about it.  Along with that, of course, we have to re-evaluate our notions about sexuality and gender--our own, and that of others--and some of us have to examine our attitudes toward those whose gender identity or sexuality resembles whatever we were denying in ourselves.  In my case, it meant examining the homo- and trans-phobia I absorbed (sometimes transmitted to me unwittingly)  and cultivated out of sheer desperation.


As you can imagine, you really do find out who your friends--and, equally important, your allies--are.  It also fine-tunes your bullshit detector.   There are some people, particularly in English and other humanities departments, who want you as another token for their collection--butch Filipina bisexual: check; one-armed Native American with learning disability: check;  tranny, check.  Perhaps I should be more understanding and indulgent than I am, but sometimes I really do get tired of listening to people who try to simply must show how much they really do understand and empathise with me after taking a workshop about what I live every day. 


On the other hand, what I've experienced makes the friendships and other relationships that have endured--and the new ones I've made--all the more meaningful and pleasurable.  Even more important, though, is that I am learning to find pleasure in my own company and--now I'm going to say something I never expected to say!--beauty in who and what I am, and what I've become.  Some of that has to do with having a body that more closely reflects the person I always have been.  But it also has to do with the fact that I have had to develop, and draw upon, wells of strength, knowledge, wisdom and beauty I never knew I had, much less that I could develop.  Some people gave me all sorts of reasons--no, I take that back, they tried to intimidate me with their fears about--why I should not undertake the transition I've made, and why it would never work or why it is wrong.  And, when I was in the Morning After House in the days after my surgery, I was among other people who endured such experiences and won similar kinds of wisdom.  For that matter, such a person performed my surgery!


Anyway...One year has passed since my surgery.  It is a year--already!--and it is only a year.  I am a year old, and a year older--and older but a year:  a year past and a year in coming.  And, I hope, another and another and more to come.

Waking Up Again

I'm amazed at something I experienced today, even though I've experienced it before:  One minute the anesthesiologist was doing his work; the next minute the doctor and nurse told me everything went just fine.


Today, I didn't spend as much time "under" as I did when I was having my sex reassignment surgery.  I expected that, as a colonoscopy isn't nearly  as complex procedure.  Still, I know that I was in an induced unconsciousness for about half an hour.   It still seemed as if I woke up only a moment after I was put to sleep.  


Maybe it's a good thing I had the colonoscopy today rather than last year:  After SRS, there aren't very many medical procedures I fear.  That may also have to do with Dr. Blechman, who did my preliminary examination three weeks ago as well as today's procedure.  I guess I'm still something of a teacher after all:  One of the first things I noticed about him is that he knows his stuff very well and does a great job of explaining it, without condescension.  He also seems to have had other transgender patients before:  He asked about my procedure, how long I lived as Justine before it and other pertinent questions.  Yet, even as he asked those questions, I never had the sense that he was looking at me as "the tranny patient"


The nurse with whom I spoke yesterday assisted him.  She did some of the pre-procedure screening over the phone: She asked about my allergies, previous illnesses and procedures and whether I was taking any medications.  I mentioned that I was taking Premarin; she asked whether it had to do with pregnancy.  I chuckled and politely explained that I cannot become pregnant.  I think she sensed what I told her next:  I'm transgendered and, in answer to her question about prior surgeries, I mentioned my GRS/SRS.  She asked me to explain it, which I did as best I could.  When I saw her today, she thanked me.  


Hmm...Maybe that's what I'll do in my next life or career:  Explain the surgery to doctors who have not performed it or worked with any patient who's had it.  Imagine that:  I could teach doctors.  Wouldn't that be something?


Anyaway;  I'm starting to get sleepy.  Maybe I still have some of that anaesthesia in me.  So:  Will I sleep for only a minute?  Or will it only feel that way?                                 

Waiting

A little bit later, I get to repeat the day before my surgery.  No, I'm not in Trinidad; I'm surrounded by all the charms that Jamaica, Queens has to offer.  What I get to relive is the joys of not eating after breakfast and of drinking that stuff that tastes like Elmer's glue sprinkled with salt.  You're supposed to drink four liters of the stuff at ten-minute intervals. On The Day Before, I didn't drink it all.  I don't know of anyone who has.


At least this time they gave me a packet of lemon flavoring to mix with the stuff.  So I guess I'll find out what Elmer's glue sprinkled with salt tastes like when you add lemon-flavored powder to it.  What is it about lemon-flavored stuff that's always sweet.  No lemon I've ever tasted was like that.


All right.  I'll stop whingeing.  Tomorrow, after I've reprised the least pleasant part of The Trinidad Experience,  I'll do something I was supposed to do last year but somehow managed to forget (though my doctor didn't):  a colonoscopy.  To all of you young people who are reading:  this is the sort of thing you have to look forward to when you get old(er).


Then, I'll probably be out of commission for a while.  Some time the day after tomorrow, I'll get on my bike and maybe I'll meet someone for tea.  The instruction sheet the doctor gave me lists a bunch of things you shouldn't do within twenty-four hours after the surgery.  Bike riding is one.  (At least I don't have to wait four months, as I did after the surgery!) Driving and operating heavy machinery are two others.  Also, it says not to make "important financial or other life-changing decisions during that time."  Hmm...Maybe I shouldn't mention that here.  After all, the wrong sorts of people might be reading this.  One of them might decide to have his way with me.


Imagine:  Some day, I could be walking down the aisle and wondering, "When did I say 'yes' to this?"  I wonder: How many other women have asked themselves the same question?  I did, but I wasn't a woman then, at least in the eyes of the state.


I have a class in a few minutes.  It's funny:  Students came to see me right before my office hour, when I was sitting through a presentation by a candidate for another job in the department.  It actually was a very interesting presentation; I just wish I weren't so tired or felt the tugging at my sleeve I always feel when I'm campus, even when no-one is within fifteen feet of me.  But during my office hour, I was reliving, not any of the experiences I've described so far, but Waiting for Godot.  I haven't thought about that play in a while.  Here's something I never thought about until now:  There are no female characters in that play.  I'm sure that some critic or someone else has cited that as proof of the play's homoeroticism. 


Maybe I should read it again.  Maybe I should read everything I've ever read again.  I know some things will seem very different to me from the way I saw them the first time I read them. 


Anyway...Time for class.  The next time I write in this blog, I might be a little woozy.   Will that make a difference? 

Number 500

So...It looks like this is my 500th post on this blog. It's just a number, I know. But I didn't envision writing so many posts. Actually, I had no idea of how many I would write. After a while, I found myself writing in this blog more or less every day...or unconsciously, then consciously, trying to. Now I feel as if I've missed something when a day goes by without my writing in this blog--unless, of course, there are extenuating circumstances and what follows them!

I also didn't know I would keep up this blog for as long as I have. I had planned on recounting the year leading up to my surgery; I wasn't thinking about what would follow. But, once I had my surgery, I couldn't imagine not continuing this blog, at least for the foreseeable future, however long that is.

You might say this has become my ritual or addiction. It's certainly better than others I've had.

Has keeping this blog changed me? I'm not so sure that much can change me, at least a whole lot, at this rather late date in my life. Perhaps I have changed incrementally in some way that one changes when one records one's experiences. Writing (or painting or otherwise making something of) them does change a person in small, or subtle, ways because, if nothing else, one has at least some sort of power, or at least control, over the experience. Plus, the record of the experience can't, and shouldn't, match a memory of it.

And what did I do today? I made crepes, ate them, went for a short bike ride, read and came home. On my way back from the ride, I took a slight detour (one block) to stop in a bodega in which I hadn't stopped in months--since some time before my surgery. I used to stop there sometimes when I was riding to or from work. It's cramped, and almost completely devoid of charm. There are two reasons to stop there: To pick up a pack of gum, candy or popcorn, and to visit a resident who's even friendlier--at least to me--than the proprietor.

That resident's name is Kiki. I'm not sure of how it's spelled; that's how the proprietors pronounce her name. She's very pretty--and could be Charlie's sister. Yes, she's gray and white, just like he is. And she's shy, at least according to the prorprietor, but very friendly toward me.

Don't believe that cats don't have memory: She recognized me immediately. And every time I was about to leave, she brushed against my ankles. I could almost hear her wondering, "Where have you been?" and insisting that I promise to come back.

Also don't believe that cats don't have any intelligence: They know a friend when they see one! Just ask Charlie and Max.

All I need is a few more days of weather like we had today: It was still chilly, but not as cold as it's been. And there was scarcely a cloud in the sky. As far as I'm concerned, it's about as good as a biking day as one can have at this time of year. And I felt good: a little tired afterward, but fine. I see how out of shape I am, but I know I can improve my conditioning with some regular riding.

After all, I want to be able to do at least another 500 posts--and have some material for them.

From Wholeness to "Juvie"

Very few things in my life have felt better than getting on my bikes this weekend. I was talking with Charlie, the owner of Bicycle Habitat, about that. He said, "Well, it's the first time you've gotten on a bike as a whole person. Of course it's going to feel better."

Today I went to pick up the bike that's going to become my next commuter/errand bike: a Raleigh Sports ladies' three-speed. It's one of those classic English three-speeds, with fenders and a chainguard. I had them give it a once-over, as it's been a while since I've worked on a three-speed hub. Besides, would the great tranny goddesses if I got my hands dirty doing something like that? I guess they'd've understood: My nails are a mess anyway. Now, if I'd just had a nice French manicure or one of those nail-paintings and ruined it while working on machinery, well, that just wouldn't do, would it?

Anyway...I wish I could've ridden during the day today: The weather was even better than it was yesterday. At least I got to ride home from the shop, which is a distance of about seven miles.

And that ride came at the end of a strange day. Or maybe it wasn't so strange, given who I am. And its strangeness comes not from any paranormal activity or anything related to it. And nothing unusual happened in my classes. It was just the feeling that was odd, almost disconcerting. It was so, in part, because of my own doing.

I talked to two faculty members today. They've always been friendly toward me, and they were today. But I could see that they were being friendlier toward me than I was toward them. I wasn't upset at them: In fact, I hadn't seen one in a while, as he was at a conference. I felt a little guilty about not being more talkative with them, and I wonder if they're reading anything into it.

It had to do with the defenses I've built up since the goings-on of last week. I really didn't want to talk to any of my colleagues, even the ones who've been supportive. You might say I've gotten a little bit paranoid: After one person--Deena, the secretary--whom I thought was an ally treated me as she did and a purported feminist--Laura, the coordinator--accused me of something I didn't do, I'm starting to feel as if I can't trust anybody who works there. And, because the department chair seems all too willing to accept, at face value, what people like them say about me, I feel as if I don't have any support. That makes me question the value of the service (on committees and such) I've performed for the department and college.

Those very same defenses came down, or at least softened a bit, in my classes. The students seemed even more receptive to me and perceptive about what they've been reading than they usually are. We were doing fairly mundane material, but the classes were a joy to do.

Equally joyful was bumping into three students I hadn't seen since last semester. They seem to be doing well; of course, they all asked how "it" went. Not that they couldn't ask about my operation; it's almost as if "it" is a kind of shorthand in the way that "the big event" is for some other goings-on in other people's lives.

One in particular was happy to see me, as I was to see her. She's very overweight and has a harelip. One day last year (her freshman year), she told me she felt I was the only one of her professors who didn't look at her as a fat girl with a harelip. Why should I?, I wondered. She's a rather smart young woman who works hard and isn't afraid to try something new: What else should I, as her professor, have seen? Besides, I thought she was very nice. That she seems not to have trouble making friends, and even getting dates, with her fellow students is evidence of that.

So here's what's strange: When I'm around my students, I feel like I'm around grown-up people, or at least people who are in the process of becoming that way. Sure, some of them do things we would think are silly or irresponsible, but they also seem to learn when I or someone else points out the error of their ways and offers advice, if they ask for it. I also know that a few of them may have had non-existent "crises" or other "situations" that they used as reasons for missing a class or an assignment. Still, I trust them, not because I'm lenient or don't care, but because I know that the only way to help someone, especially a young person, to become trustworthy is to trust him or her. If that person knows her or she did something dishonest, I would hope that he or she would learn and do something better from the chance I give. On the other hand, if you treat people as if they're going to do wrong even if they haven't, they'll do something subversive simply because they don't trust you.

In contrast, when I'm anywhere on the campus but in my classrooms, or around many of the faculty members and administrators, I feel as if I'm in some place that's a cross between a junior-high school and a juvenile detention center. The same sorts of games that go on in those places are standard operating procedure at the college, or so it seems. There's the same sort of petty cliquishness, and the same sort of intolerance of people who are, or seem to be, different from themselves.

It's telling that every handicapped or LGBT student I've taught, advised or counseled at the college has transferred or dropped out of it. It's equally telling that Latino and Asian students don't stay, and the Latino staff members feel something one longtime administrative aide expressed to me: "more like a stranger here than I did on the day I started." That day was 24 years ago.

Furthermore, there is not a single "out" member of the faculty. Three profs told me, privately, that they are gay or lesbian and made me promise I wouldn't reveal their identities. Two of them got tenure before most of their students were born; the other, I suspect, fears not getting re-appointed. I think now of the time I went to Kingsborough Community College and New York University and saw lots of faculty members' office doors adorned with "Safe Space" signs. Students know that they can talk to those profs about their sexual or gender identity and not be judged, much less "outed." On the other hand, students know only by word of mouth that they can talk to me. And they probably don't even know about those other profs I just mentioned.

I'm starting to feel I am, on a smaller scale, like Dr. Stanley Biber (who trained Marci Bowers) when he started performing sex reassignment surgery in the days when it was still called "the sex-change operation." He had to "fly under the radar," for the nuns that ran Mount San Rafael Hospital would not have approved. And, in those pre-Internet days, people found out about him through a kind of "underground" network that consisted mainly of other transgender people.

So...I can get on my bike as a whole person now. But I can't be that way at the college--not even among colleagues who've known me since I started there, years before my operation. Or maybe now they resent me for being whole instead of just a label that they saw in one of their textbooks.

New Words In An Old Friendship

"You sound really good!"

Bruce, who is not given to speaking in superlatives, said that. Today we talked for the first time since my surgery. He'd been away and, given my nonexistent-at-this-moment sense of time, I wasn't sure of whether or not he'd returned yet.

He was on a holiday that's typical for him: a Zen retreat and some hiking. And, he capped it this weekend when he and other family members took his mother on a hot-air baloon ride for her 85th birthday.

I don't think I've ever before been so happy to talk to him in the nearly three decades I've known him. "From the moment I woke up from the surgery, I felt as if a weight had come off my shoulders."

"Really?! I can see why."

"Yes. I could actually feel it. And it's a good thing..."

"Oh, I'm sure."

"You bet it is. From all this inactivity, I have no upper body strength."

And then the patented Bruce Groan. Every time one or the other of us--or anyone else--has made a really silly joke or bad pun, I've heard it. Today it's another sign that I'm home. But now it's even better: I am the person I was always meant to be, and he welcomes her.

Now, of course, I had been living as a woman for almost six years before I had my surgery. But I think Bruce sensed, even before I voiced it, the sense of completeness, of wholeness I now feel. My journey is not complete--at least I hope not!--but at least I can move forward with more emotional and spiritual integrity.

We've made plans to have lunch on Friday. I was hoping to see him on Thursday, after my appointment with Dr. Jennifer. But, he has one of those meetings that no amount of cunning, charm or chicanery I may or may not have ever been capable of can get him out of.

Omigoddess...that last sentence. And I teach English! I hope my department chair doesn't see that one.

So why am I letting it stand? Well, I guess you can say that I care a bit more about sincerity, "heart" and trueness to myself and to the truth than I do about propriety. Deep down, I've always been that way, although I put on my stuffy grammarian's mask when it got me influence (or the illusion of it, anyway) or it simply made me feel superior to somebody else. But now....Speaking in a language that's accurate and truthful will do all sorts of things for me that perfect grammar won't. Or so I believe.

Now I wonder what it will be like to go back to the college, and to teach, this fall. It's not that I don't want to do either. I just wonder what, if anything, I will see or do differently. What will matter more to me; what will concern me less? Or will I still care about the same things in more or less the same ways?

I guess those are the essential questions when it comes to any kind of change a person undergoes. Will I come to realize that the things I've been teaching my students are even more important than I thought they were? Or will I see them as roadblocks against arriving at the truth about ourselves? Could it be the language I've tried to teach them simply cannot express the things they--or I--need to say?

I keep thinking about Michelangelo's David. Michelangelo kept on chipping away until he found David; all of the work and the surgery were about getting to the woman within me. Could it be that--as I've suspected--it's necessary to chip away all the dead language, all of the words, phrases and other structures of language that have grown obsolete, or simply tired, in order to get at the truth? Sometimes I feel that my education--and whatever education I've imparted to my students--is based on the premise that our truths can be fashioned from the words we learn. Or, worse, we receive the message that more words, more phrases, more pages are better.

Enough theorizing for now. I'm thinking about Bruce again. He may well be the only real male friend I've ever had. Take that back: I consider Millie's husband Johnny a friend, too, though I probably wouldn't have met him if I hadn't met Millie. Anyway...I expect my friendship with Bruce to continue. But I can't help but to wonder whether anything about it will change. Maybe it won't be dramatic: It seems that he and I stopped relating to each other as one male to another a long time ago, if indeed we ever had such a relationship. And I don't think the changes will be negative, either: After all, he's seen me become happier and more integrated over the past few years, and I feel that it's deepened our friendship.

And now he says that I sound better than I ever did before. I can't wait to see him on Friday: We've planned a lunch date for then.