Another Path Of My Past

Yesterday I pedaled along a route I rode often when I was a Rutgers student more than three decades ago.  I hadn’t taken that ride since I graduated and left the area.

The ride—along the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath—was even more familiar than I expected it to be.  It was also, even more surprisingly, easier, in spite of my age and weight—and the fact that the testosterone in my body has been replaced by estrogen.  

When I am truly recalling or reliving something, my senses are engaged.  Sights and sounds—and, particularly, smells and tastes—return to me.  However, on yesterday’s ride, yet another sense filled me and reminded me of why I rode along the path back in the day, and why I was riding it yesterday.

In those days, I cycled even more than I do now.  Needless to say, I was stronger and faster.  Somehow, though, the ride seemed more effortless for me than it used to be. 

Now I believe I know why.  In those days, I was cycling, as well as lifting weights and engaging in other sports, in part as an attempt to free myself from the constraints of my body.  Sometimes I would pedal, run, lift, kick or fight until—and sometimes after—I couldn’t do any more.  When I’d physically exhausted myself, I was no longer appalled at my body because I had, if only momentarily, beaten it into submission:  I was punishing it for keeping me in a prison of maleness.

Yesterday I felt no such constraint, let alone the anger that festered when I was in it.  Without trying, I passed cyclists who were younger and fitter than I am.  The path was not something to be ridden over; it was something to ride, to ride along, to ride with.

On my way back, a dog crossed into my path.  Back in the days, I would have cursed the dog—and the woman who walked her.  But I stopped and stroked the dog, who licked my hand.  The woman apologized.  “It’s OK,” I demurred. 

A man—her husband, I presume--followed with another dog. He echoed her apology;  I repeated my deflection of it.  He stretched out his hand.  “Can I offer these as penance?”

He had just picked the blackberries.  I don’t remember anything that tasted so good.

 

Riding On Race Memory

The other day, I took a ride I hadn’t taken in a long, long time.

I ended up in Long Branch, New Jersey, as I’d planned.  I rode there back in December.  But I made a wrong turn just as I was leaving the industrial and post-industrial necropolis of north-central New Jersey took a very different route from the one I’d planned.  I didn’t mind: It was a very satisfying ride that took me away from the traffic streaming in and out of the shopping malls that day, the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend.

But Sunday I took the route I rode so many times in my youth, through the weathered Jersey Shore communities that line Route 36 from Keyport to the Highlands.  So much was as I remembered it from the last time I rode it, twenty years ago, and the first time I rode it, twenty years before that. Then I crossed over the arched bridge that spans the Shrewsbury River where it empties into Sandy Hook Bay and drops into the spit of land that separates the river and bay from the Atlantic Ocean.  

At the top of the bridge, the ocean stretches as far as you can see. Whether it was bluer than any eye or stone I’ve ever seen, or grayer than steel, nothing made me better than seeing it and descending that bridge.

Here is something I wrote about the experience of doing that ride for the first time as a woman named Justine—after many, many journeys as a boy and man named Nick:

*****************************************************************************************

Yesterday’s ride brought back memories of the race.

I did not make the turn.  I could not.  I did not for many, many years.  But yesterday I did.

Either way meant pedaling uphill.  To the left I went.  Two hills, instead of one.  Between them, a brief flat, where I could regain some of the momentum I’d lost.

But the climbs were neither as long nor as steep as I remembered.  I forgot that I’m not in as good shape as I was the last time I did this ride, this race, more than twenty years ago.  

To get to the ocean and back.  That was all I had to do in those days.  To the ocean and back before dark, before the air grew as cold and night as false as the water, as the reflections on it:  my reflections.

All I had to do was get back for dinner.  At least, that’s all I was told to do.  Sunday; you simply did not miss dinner.  You couldn’t even be late for it.  So there was only so much time to get there, to get to the ocean and back.

I am pedaling on memory now.  My body’s memory:  the only kind.  The first time I did this ride, when I was a teenager.  The last time, twenty years later, twenty years ago.

Before the memory, I knew nothing.  I could only move ahead, I could only pedal.  Gotta make it.  I could not stop. My memory of this ride, this race, could not, could not let me.  You will.  I could not hear; when you’re in this race, you can’t.

On that flat between the climbs, a woman walked toward me.  She says something; I can only see her.  She knows me perfectly well; I don’t.  She does not stop me; I cannot.

She would climb these hills many more times.  You’ll make it!  How does she know?  I have no other choice.

The climb is easier when you have a memory of the race.  It’s inevitable.  You couldn’t go any other way.  There is only the race, the climb, that ends at a bridge that you’ll cross because there is no other way over the bay, to the ocean.  

Because I made the turn. Because I couldn’t have gone any other way.  Not when a teenaged boy’s elbows and knees slung him forward on his saddle and up the hills.  Not when the memory of a woman in late middle age, the electricity in her flesh—his flesh—guides the wheels beneath her, beneath him, over the bridge and to the ocean.

The day is clear.  Reflections of the sun pulse; she moves the weight of his bones down a narrow strip between the bay and the ocean all the way to the end.  His end, where he turned around for the race.  He would have to get there and back while he could; she knew he would but he could not.  He could not have known.  He could only push; he could only pump.

The sunset is even clearer.  Weathered houses stand ready; the abandoned ones lost to the tides.  I am pedaling into the wind but my bike rolls as easily and smoothly over cracked asphalt as boats, sails like wings fluttering between ripples of water and clouds. 

They will reach their shores, whoever is guiding them, whoever guided them years ago.  I came to the end of yesterday’s ride on my memory of a race:  the teenaged boy who first followed these roads, the young man who did not know how to turn; the man who would not—and, finally, twenty years later, the woman who could not.  She crossed the bridge to the ocean. 

Yesterday I rode on the memory of that race, the race that I am.

If It Can't Be Used To Help Trans Girls, The Girl Scouts Don't Want It

It's great to know that some organizations actually stand behind their stated principles.

One such organization is the Girl Scouts--specifically, the Queen Anne Offices of the Girl Scouts in western Washington State.

Not long ago, a $100,000 donation came their way.  But in May, in the wake of all of the publicity surrounding Caitlyn Jenner, the donor sent a letter with this request:  Please guarantee that our gift will not be used to support transgender girls.  If you can't, please return the money.

That donation would have represented a quarter of the office's annual operating budget, and would have been enough to send 500 girls to camp.  For many people, that would make for a wrenching decision.

But not for CEO Megan Ferland.  Shortly after receiving that letter, she returned the money. For her, the reasoning was simple:  "Girl Scouts is for every girl."  She added, "Every girl should have the opportunity to be a Girl Scout, if she wants to."


Thank you, Megan Ferland!

I Heard About This Rumour...

There's a Rumour in the NBA...

No, that's not something a British sports journalist wrote about American professional basketball, though it could be.  (As to what that rumour might be, I'll leave it up to your imagination! ;-)).  Actually, it's the dream of a 12-year-old boy in Kentucky.

It just happens that the boy's name is Rumour. Still, this story--of a 12-year-old boy who wants to play in the NBA--would not be remarkable except for one other detail.

Since you're reading this blog, you might have guessed what that detail is. Yes, Rumour was assigned the female sex at birth. But, from the moment he could talk, he has insisited he is a boy.

The last time he wore a dress, at age 5, he insisted, "I'll never wear this again." He traded dolls for tools, and likes to ride dirtbikes and play in the dirt.  

"We fought it for as long as we could," says Brandon Brock, the stepfather of Rumour Lee Setters.  "We finally gave in" and, he recalls, realized his son wasn't going through "a phase".  Now his mother, Rachel, says, "I wouldn't have Rumour any other way."

Whether or not he makes it to the NBA, it looks like he's already experienced victory.

Avery's Story

Sometimes I wonder what kind of person I might've become had I not been bullied, or bullied others, because of what I am or what others perceived me to be. 

I wonder what my life could have been like had I the courage to be who I am at an earlier age.  

Of course, the world was a much different place--at least in its attitudes toward gender nonconformists--from what it's becoming today.  There was barely even a language to express what many of us felt, especially if we didn't fit into the stereotypes about being transgendered that early trans people, probably unwittingly, helped to perpetrate by living up (or down) to societal and cultural expectations (not to mention some pure-and-simple prejudices) about how people are supposed to live in one gender or the other.

I mean, how could anyone have understood that I loved sports just as much as I loved dresses, and that I prized nice accessories for my bike as much as I cherished fabulous accessories for my outfits?  Or that, as a female, I was still attracted to females?  (Even those who "didn't have a problem" with lesbians couldn't understand that!)

That is why I find it so heartening to see young people proudly announce who they are--and their parents supporting them.

One such child is Avery, whose story was posted the other day on YouTube:

Jacob's Journey

Here is the story of Jacob LeMay, a transgender five-year-old boy:

This Journey, With Apologies To James Wright

Whenever I ride a long road or path along an ocean--or just about any other body of water, for that matter--I can't help but to think about some of the earliest long rides I took, as a teenager in New Jersey.

Some said I was a lonely kid. Truth was, I simply wasn't thinking about the things most other kids my age were.  Truth was, I couldn't.  Oh, I worried about which college, if any, would accept me and ran different career paths through my mind.  Truth was, I was doing those things because other people said I should.

Truth is, I was on a journey on which no one could accompany, let alone guide, me.  I wanted to ride my bike across counties and countries when my peers wanted to get their licenses and pick up dates who would be impressed by such things--or being picked up by one of those new drivers.

And that was just one way in which I wasn't on the same road or path as my peers.  If you've been reading this blog--or even some posts on my other one--you know another one of the ways in which my life--or, more precisely, the way in which I saw my identity, my self--differed from almost anybody else I knew.  And I would not learn a language to express it for a long time.

But cycling was, and remains, a means of communication between my body, my spirit and all that is essential to them.  That is the reason why, even when I have ridden by myself, I have never felt lonely while on two wheels.  Some might have said I rode because of alienation.  When I didn't know any better--in other words, when I didn't know how to express otherwise--I believed something like that in the same way people believe the most plausible-sounding explanation for just about anything because they don't know anything else.

Perhaps that is the reason why I am drawn to the ocean, or to any other large body of water, when I'm on my bike.  It was while pedaling along the Atlantic Ocean between Sandy Hook and Island Beach--and along the bodies of water that led to the ocean--that I first realized that I would often ride alone, but I would not lack for companionship.  I had my self, I had my bike and at times I would have a riding partners who understood, or who at least simply wanted to ride with me. Or, perhaps, I would simply want to ride with them. 

!

Speaking Up For Her Daughter

She denies it now.  Still, I think there had to be times when it couldn't have been easy for my mother to raise me.  Given the circumstances--the ones inside my head as well as those around her--she did a great job, I'd say.

There were times she defended me.  Sometimes I needed it, other times I didn't.  And there were times I deserved it, and times I didn't.  But, even though I wasn't an angel, I'd say that most of the times she stuck up for me, I was the sinned-against rather than the sinner, if you will.  Heck, there was even a time--in eighth grade, I think--when a teacher told me to restrain another kid who was acting up in the cafeteria, knowing full well that kid would start a fight with me if I did.  Even the other kid admitted as much to the principal and the teacher got a reprimand from that principal--and an earful from my mother.

But one thing she never had to do was to defend my right to use a bathroom.  Actually, my using a bathroom in school was usually a non-issue because I didn't use the facilities in school if I could help it.  To me, the boys' bathrooms were the most dangerous place in the school besides the locker room, depending on which gym teacher was on duty.  And, of course, I would not have been allowed to use the girl's bathroom.  Nor would it have occurred to me to ask, given the times.   And, to my knowledge, there weren't any gender-neutral bathrooms in the school, and I don't think I would have been allowed to use the one in the principal's office.

Does any mother--or father--ever think that defending a kid's right to use a bathroom--i.e., the one appropriate to the gender by which the kid identifies--is in his or her job description?  Then again, does any parent have any idea of what he or she is in for if the kids' transgender?

Such are the dilemmas faced by Jennifer Surridge.  Her 11-year-old, who identifies as a girl, attends school in Sodus, a rural town on the shore of Lake Ontario, about halfway between Rochester and Syracuse.  Parents there are upset that her daughter is using bathrooms and locker rooms intended for other girls.  At a school board meeting this week, Ms. Surridge had to explain to those parents that her child's gender identity is not a "choice":  She was born a girl, albeit in a boy's body, and she would be in danger in male facilities.

"Transgender is not a choice," she explained.  "I don't care what anyone in this room says, it is not a choice.  Nobody would choose to live this kind of life."

Spoken like a great mother.  Trust me, I am familiar with the species.

More Jazz: A New Series On TLC

Oh, the lives we could have led...

I think about that whenever I hear about some young trans person who's living in--or, at least, transitioning to--her or his true gender.  It seems that their declaration of themselves is just the beginning:  They always seem to be doing other interesting things I--and most trans people of my generation--could not have imagined at their age.

Jazz Jennings is one such young trans person.  I talked about her in an earlier post, just after her "I Am Jazz", the transgender children's book she wrote, was published.

Now TLC network has announced that it will air The New Face of Transgender Youth, an 11-episode "docuseries" showing her daily life as she enters high school, approaches dating and avoids male puberty--and her parents encouraging her to be who she is while worrying about what's next.

Not only is she a reminder of the lives we could have led, she's also the example we could have had!

If I Knew Then...

If I knew then what I know now....

From Deviant Art

The Bravest Among Us

Now that listings for poetry readings, concerts and apartments for rent are available online, I rarely pick up a copy of the Village Voice, even though it’s free.  For that matter, I don’t look at the Voice online.  The number of pages in any print edition is maybe a third of the number one would find, say, thirty years ago.  And the amount of sustenance in any issue has fallen even more.

But this week, something on the front cover caught my eye.  There was a photo of a tall, rawboned trans woman with the headline, “New York’s Bravest”.  That’s the nickname of this city’s Fire Department. (The police are known as “New York’s Finest”.)  On the left-hand side of the cover was this caption:

FDNY

Firefighters

By Gender

Males: 10,000+

Females: 44

Trans:  1                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Now, whenever someone categorizes gender in that way, it upsets me even more than someone trying to squeeze everybody into the “M” or “F” box.  Most of the time, when I see categorizations like the one on the front cover of the Voice, I think the categorizer could just as well have called us “it”:  Such a person thinks we’re not really one or the other, or anything human at all.

 

So, of course, I picked up a copy.  Actually, I might have anyway, as the cover story recounted the saga of Brooke Guinan, the city’s first known trans firefighter. You might say that she has taken up the family trade:  Her father is a current FDNY captain and her grandfather retired as a lieutenant.  Had she become a firefighter as a male, she would have been like thousands of other firefighters who followed their fathers, grandfathers, uncles or other relatives into the department.

Ironically, I liked the article more than I expected, and for a reason its writer (Irene Chidinma Nwoye) probably didn’t intend:  Ms. Nwoye covered, however briefly, Brooke’s struggle to come to terms with who she is. 

Being tall and burly isn’t the only way she doesn’t fit the stereotype of a trans woman.  As a child, she loved her dolls, but she loved comic books just as much.  In fact, she was drawn to one particular genre: that of superheroes, her favorite being Marvel’s X-Men.  Not surprisingly, her mother thinks that being a firefighter is, for Brooke, like being a superhero. 

But in other ways, she was the effeminate boy who got picked on by other kids.  And—here’s something I could really relate to—for years she identified herself as gay because she wasn’t like the boys but was told by many people that she never could become a woman.  She was effeminate, yes (and, not surprisingly, got picked on for it) but, in the eyes of others, not feminine because of her appearance and voice, among other things.

Attempts to get her involved in sports failed almost comically.  However, she was very drawn to theatre and performing.   In fact, she went to college as a theatre major but switched to sociology and gender studies. One of her professors, impressed by her communication and other interpersonal skills, tried to encourage her to get advanced degrees in gender studies and become a professor.  Her mother saw her as a teacher.   When she and her husband couldn’t dissuade Brooke from signing up for the FDNY, they tried to convince her to “butch up” on the job. (By that time, she had gone back, briefly, to living as a gay male.)  But, she was determined to go into the Fire Department on her own terms. 

She’s been there for seven years now.  She won’t talk about the medical aspects of her transition or her relationship status.  I can understand that.  However, being on her journey has inspired her to help other trans people with theirs. “I can’t enjoy my life if there’s all kinds of other problems that other people like me are facing,” she says.  “I can’t live with the guilt of ignoring that.”

Spoken like a true super-hero!