Can I Stay Out And Move On?

The other night, I was part of a panel discussion that followed a showing of the film Trinidad.  


The other two members of the panel were a trans man and a trans woman, both of whom have much more of a history of activism than I have, and will probably ever have.  The trans woman, Pauline Park, is one of this area's better-known activists and was the Grand Marshal of the New York City Pride March a few years ago.  Jay Kallio, the trans man, has decided that activism and simply speaking up were the best way to "make the most" of the time he has left--which may not be much, given his medical conditions.


I met Pauline during the year when I was going to work as Nick and ducking into the coffee shop bathrooms to make my Clark Kent-to-Lois Lane change before going about the rest of my life.  I met Jay some time after that, when I hadn't been living full-time as Justine for very long.  


When I first met Pauline, I was only a few months away from living full-time as Justine, although I didn't know that.  When I met Jay, I saw the surgery in my future.  But I didn't know how far or near that future would be.


It was odd to realize that the thing to which I was so looking forward--actually, for which I was hoping--when I met Jay is now part of my past.  And the life I'd wanted to have when I first met Pauline is my life now, and when I think of my past, I don't think of Nick as the actor in it; rather, she was and is Justine.


During the discussion, someone in the audience asked us how we define ourselves.  Each of us mentioned an experience that showed us we were not of the sex marked on our birth certificates when we were born.   I said, "But I was a girl, a woman, even before that.  Most people think that I became a woman when I had my surgery and that I became transgendered when I started my process of transition.  But I was always a woman; I just had to live as male for much of my life."


Then, I had a very strange sensation.  On one hand, I was enjoying the talk, and people in the audience were mostly sympathetic.  But, on the other, a part of me was asking myself, "What am I doing here if I am a woman?"  At the same time, I realized that being a woman was the reason why I was there.


This is a dilemma, to say the least.  I can see why some post-op trans women completely leave the world of transgender activism (if they were involved in it) and the other vestiges of the trans community behind them.  Then again, I can see why some remain in a kind of transgender subculture:  We have histories that are different from those of cis-gender women--or men, for that matter.


Marci Bowers didn't approve of the fact that Sabrina Marcus allowed her kids to call her "Dad," even after her transition and surgery.  I can understand that, but at the same time, I wouldn't know what to call a transgendered parent.  As Sabrina's daughter said, she can't call her "Mom" because she already has a mother:  the woman who gave birth to her.  


So, the question is:  How much of a break can or should we make with our pasts?  Marci sees herself as a woman, and that of all the things she is, "transgendered is about eighth."  But everybody knows that she was once a man named Mark.  These days, no matter how much you distance yourself from your past, it's not that difficult for someone else to learn about it.  Even if I'd never written a word about my transition, someone with a little too much time on his or her hands would have  found me out.


Sometimes I am tempted to go to get a new job or to move to some place where nobody knows me.  But, even though I'll probably never be famous, I somehow doubt that I'll be completely anonymous, either:  It's hard to do that when the things you do for a living involve--or are--communication with other people.  And it seems that I'll always be doing that sort of work, whether or not I get paid for it--or whether or not I'm any sort of transgender activist.

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.