Intersexed People And Faux Fascination

Recently, Faux (I mean, Fox) and other media outlets made a spectacle about the "man who found out she was a woman."  


For an organization whose "conservative" commentators preach "family values" and such, the network seems, sometimes, to have an almost-lurid fascination with people who don't fit into the traditional categories of gender and sexuality.  Of course, Fox and their ilk see us as freaks, or worse.  But the fact that they pay more attention to us than the supposedly-liberal outlets is, to say the least, interesting.

But it's the subject, I think, of another, much longer, post (or something other than a blog post).  The reason I paid attention to the story is that I realized such "discoveries," while not common, aren't exactly unknown, either. 


During the days immediately following my surgery, when I was resting and recuperating in The Morning After House, an intersexed woman came to Trinidad for Marci's help. Like Steven Crecilius, "Lindy" found out she, essentially, the entire female reproductive system inside her when she went to a hospital for another condition that nearly killed her.  Like Steven (who, I imagine, will change her name), "Lindy" felt she was not the male her birth certificate said she was.  And, the discovery of that internal uterus cleared up that mystery, and others, as Steven's visit to the doctor did for her.


Since starting my transition, I have met other intersexed people.  Upon meeting them, I always said something like, "I can only imagine how it must have been."  And they said some version of the same thing to me.  Not one of them ever thought he or she was "more" transgendered or gender queer, or thought they were authentic and the rest of us were simply trying to avoid dealing with some other issue.   Sometimes I think each of them had another heart, in addition to another set of sexual and reproductive organs, within them.

On Trans Men, Cis Women And The Passage Of Time

So...Today I'm another year older.  And the day after tomorrow, two years will have passed since my surgery.


I was reminded of the latter by two things.  One was an e-mail from Danny, a trans man on whom Marci performed bottom surgery a during the same week she did my GRS.  He and his wife--I call her that because he refers to her that way, and I won't dispute it--have been hiking and camping.  As they live in Alaska, I'm not surprised.  


When we were recovering from our surgeries at The Morning After House, I half-jokingly made him promise me that he would call me if he ever split with his wife.  Of course, I could make a joke like that precisely because I knew he would do no such thing--split with his wife, I mean.  


I can honestly say that I haven't met a trans man I didn't like.  (Would Will Rogers have said that if he were a trans woman?)  I'm not talking only about liking them sexually or in a fantasy, although I've felt that way about a few I've met.  I mean that I have never seen another group of people in which such  a large percentage of its members is self-accepting, and accepting of others.  It's no coincidence that Ray, my social worker during the first two years of my transition, is a trans man.  


Also, here's an interesting paradox in my perceptions of Ray and Danny, as well as some other trans men I've met:  While I cannot imagine them with a feminine physical appearance, I have little trouble imagining them having been females.  It may just have to do with their sensitivity and empathy.  I am not saying that they are exclusively female traits, but most of the cisgender people who've understood me in any way were female. 


One cis woman who showed me more understanding than I expected is the other person responsible for making me conscious of the passage of time since my surgery.  She is Joanne, a friend and neighbor of mine and Millie's when we were all living within a couple of houses of each other.  About three and a half years ago, Joanne moved to Florida to be nearer to family members who have since died.  As she never liked Florida (She was near Fort Lauderdale.) , she had no reason to stay, so she returned about three weeks ago.  Yesterday, at Millie's and John's barbecue, I saw her for the first time since she moved--and since my surgery.  So, of course, one of the first things she asked was how that went.


Joanne and Millie both met me during my last days of living (part-time) as Nick.  When I first moved onto the block on which we all lived, I had just split with Tammy but had not yet "come out" to any of my family or friends. It would be nearly a year before I would change my name, and a few more months before I would report to my job as Justine.


The funny thing was that I hadn't thought about any of that yesterday until Joanne and I started to talk.   Not that I minded talking about it:  After all, she'd heard about it, and had been a good friend until she left for Florida.  


Sometimes I think that if relationships do nothing else, they help to shape our perceptions of time.  

A Little Less Than Half An Hour Forward

Today I got on my Mercian fixed-gear bike for a little less than half an hour. I got one of the saddles the doctor recommended.  I know I'll need to fiddle with the position:  That's always the case, at least for me, with a new bike or saddle.  I'm almost entirely sure, though, that I'm going to swap seatposts (the seat is attached to it, and it is inserted in the frame):  the new saddle, a Terry Falcon X, sits further back on the seatpost than my Brooks did.  Consequently, I used a seatpost that angled back a bit rather than the kind that goes straight up.


Whenever I've ridden after a layoff, I feel euphoric to the point that I don't notice the creakiness in my body--at least, for a little while. I didn't ride long enough to lose that feeling; I could have ridden longer, but I didn't want to risk anything.


The point is that I'm on my bike again.  That's what I'm telling myself.  Yes, I've gained weight, and I know it's harder to lose at my age.  But I'll do it--not just for my looks, but for my health.


 I felt good because, well, it simply was nice to be on my bike again.  But I also realize that I'm not thinking about the cyclist I once was.  I never will be that cyclist again. At least, it's not likely that I'll be that kind of cyclist.  Why?  For one thing, I'm older and my body is different.  But, more to the point, I'm not the same person as I was when I raced, worked as a messenger in Manhattan or rode up and down the Alps, Pyrenees, Green Mountains, Adirondacks and Sierra Nevada.  Or when I cycled those long, almost endless days along the ocean in New Jersey, Long Island, Florida and France or along the Mediterranean from Rome to Nice, then up the Rhone to Avignon and Lyon. 


For me, it is not simply the passing of my youth--or, as some might see it, an extended childhood.  Honestly, I probably could not have done much of my riding if I had any more responsibility than I had.  But I the reason I didn't remain married or have children, or embark on one career or another that I could have chosen,  wasn't that I wanted to avoid commitment.   The truth is that the path I took was the only one I could have taken, or at least the only one I knew how to take.  And, I probably did less damage to other people's lives--and possibly to my own--than I might have otherwise.

Whatever distance I rode today--it wasn't much--was, I hope, an integral part of my new journey.  I still haven't the slightest idea of where it might lead or what kind of a cyclist (or woman or anything else) I might become along the way.  Whatever happens, I probably won't be like Paola Pezzo or Rebecca Twigg.  Then again, I don't think I'm going to be like Angelina Jolie, either.


Wherever I go, I have those past rides as memories and resources.  But I cannot go back to them, any more than anyone can go back to any part of  one's youth.  Plenty of people have tried; I know I have.  


After I rode, I went to a new greenmarket that's opened in my neighborhood.  The smell was most enticing when I entered; as I had almost nothing beyond some cereal and cheese in my place, I bought as much as I could carry.    After that, I called Carol Cometto, the manager of The Morning After House, where I stayed before and after my operation.


I immediately detected a note of sadness, or perhaps resignation in her voice.  "I'm closing this place at the end of August."


At that time, she says, Marci Bowers is moving to Palo Alto.  I knew that she'd talked about moving there; she's always liked the Bay Area. However, Carol said she wouldn't go with her.  "I've been in Trinidad all of my life.  I was born in San Rafael"--the hospital in which Marci did my, and many other people's, surgery--"and everyone I know is here."  


I feel bad for Carol, but I can't say that I'm surprised.  I love them both, but they were a bit of an odd couple, to say the least.  Part of the reason for that is their differing histories and styles.  It's not odd to find Carol in a place like Trinidad: being soft-butch/grown-up tomboy is not at all incompatible with being a sort of modern-day pioneer woman.  Carol has worked on the railroad and performed other jobs that required her to endure extreme weather and other kinds of conditions.  In a way, she reminded me of the narrator of Stone Butch Blues, who--like the other "butches" around her--were able to find work and fashion lives for themselves in the factories of Buffalo during the 1950's and 1960's.  Years later, after the factories closed, those same women could find work only in the supermarkets and department stores, if they could find work at all.  Some of them even married men.


That leads to an interesting question that some academician might want to research:  What would happen to people like Carol if places like Trinidad, Colorado (which has never really recovered from the steep decline in coal mining) and the surrounding ranch and desert areas were to become, say, a new corporate headquarters?  What would become of a middle-aged butch whose work was mostly physical and done mostly outdoors?


Anyway...I realized, after talking to Carol that the whole Trinidad experience, as wonderful as it was, is past for more reasons than simply my own experience.  In a funny way, it reinforces what I sometimes feel:  that everything and everyone else in my life is changing even more than I am.    And, it seems, the only constants have been my writing, teaching--and gender identity--and bike riding.

Beginning in Trinidad

At the Morning After House, where I have been staying since my release from Mount San Rafael Hospital, manager Carol Cometto keeps a guestbook. Here is my entry in it:

I was born in Georgia.

I have lived most of my life in New York.

But I have come to Trinidad, to begin.

Even though I had been living as a woman for nearly six years before coming here, I feel that my life as the person I am is starting just now.

Of course, it is not the surgery itself that changes one's life. However, it is one of our rites of passage from what we were expected to be to what our souls yearn to be. And Marci Bowers is exactly the right person to "deliver" me through that passage.

Not only is she an extremely skilled surgeon and fine doctor; she has the empathy and compassion to understand what we feel and need, and the vision, artistry and commitment to make it real.

Another person who has that passion, commitment and empathy is Carol Cometto. The Morning After House--her "baby"--is a dynamic testament to those qualities.

It hasn't been around for very long, so it has its kinks. But Carol got the most important part right: You walk in and you feel loved, not just "the love."

When I came in last week, I said to Carol--only half-jokingly--"You really don't expect me to leave, do you? She placed me in the "Sabrina" room. It's beautiful, and I could spend days, months, years basking in the light of it.

But it's not just the wood tones or the sunlight and views of Trinidad mountain in the window that make the place so inviting. It, like no other room I've ever been in, was crafted by someone who knows exactly what you want and need to feel the day before and the day after one of the most important events in your life.

Most important of all, what Carol has done is to make a space in which a real community is possible.

I am fortunate in that when I return to New York, I will be seeing a doctor and gynecologist who treat other transgender women. I also have friends and colleagues who have stood by and behind me. However, even in New York, I don't where else it's possible to find a place in which everyone understands just how you feel. It's like having your own native language and finally meeting the people who speak it in the land in which it is spoken.

While my stay at the Morning After House, like those of most guests, is short-lived (two days before and four days after my stay in the hospital), I feel that it will be a kind of "moveable feast" that I will always take with me, and which will always nourish me.

I will have, not only the house and Marci and Carol; I will also have Marilynne, who so steadfastly supported her daughter in her surgery; Danny, with his humor and overall enjoyable presence; Becky, whose spouse Joyce was my roommate for my last two days at Mount San Rafael Hospital. And of course, the nurses--especially Martha Martinez--in the hospital.

Because of them, I am beginning in Trinidad.

The Day After

Yesterday I was released from the hospital. Joyce, my roommate during my last two days there, was about to take her first walk as a woman. I wanted to give her a good-luck kiss, but I'm not sure how much good luck my kiss would've brought her.

So now I'm back in the "Sabrina Room" of The Morning After House, in which I'd been staying during the two days before my surgery. I could stay here forever, or close to it: High-mesa light that's chimeric because it's so clear fills my windows with a nearly bird's-eye view of the mountain topped with the lighted "Trinidad" sign. To the left and right are backdrops of mountains full of the colors the high-mesa light washes out.

And this room is done in a Victorian contrast of ecru walls and dark wood window frames, closets and other furniture. In this room, the queen-sized bed is, well, really queen-sized.

Last night I made dinner for Marilynne (not her real name), whose daughter's surgery will probably be cited in medical journals for decades to come. It was successful, but it involved techniques that had never before been used--and, without them, the surgery would not have been possible.

You see, her daughter was born with a bodily configuration that maybe a handful of people in the history of the world have had. I won't get into the details, as Marilynne is guarding their privacy. Suffice it to say that her daughter's surgery took two and a half times as long as mine did.

Marilynne has given me a lot of emotional support when she had to give so much to her daughter--and members of her family were giving lots of grief and abuse to her as well as her husband and younger son. She is a saint and her daughter is a hero.

Today another one of those rare cases arrived. Lindy (also not her real name) was born male with a body that was, in essence, female in its shape. But she has the barest minimum of male genitalia, and in her words, "My body was stuck somewhere between female puberty and menopause." She's grown breasts and has some vestiges of female apparatus inside her body. But they are as non-functional as those outward vestiges of her male genitalia.

I don't know the details, but she said that this conflict within her body was destroying her liver and kidneys. And she needs the orchiotomy she will have tomorrow, not only to function as a female, but to save her life.

The most heartening and heartbreaking part of this story is that a woman married her seventeen years ago and seems to be as much in love with her today as she was then. I simply cannot imagine their lives: They have lived in poverty that I have never known, and Lindy has experienced sexual as well as other kinds of violence that make mine seem like scenes out of Lady Chatterly's Lovers.

But Lindy and her wife have two of the most beautiful children I have ever seen: a pretty blonde seven-year-old daughter who reminds me of what my niece Lauren looked like at that age, and an angelic five-year-old boy.

Lindy and her family look as if they are spending everything they ever had on that orchiotomy. Yet I have never seen any people--save, perhaps, for Marilynne and her daughter--who so exude their love for each other without flaunting it. If you cannot see how they love each other, you don't know what love is.