School Rules

Speaking of trans kids in school...

By Landon Pan and Ethan Lopez

How I Fell Into It

Someone, I forget who, once said that you are truly in prison when you get used to it.  I could say something like that about being in an abusive relationship with someone who’s transphobic.

If you’ve been in an abusive relationship—or if you have spent time around people who’ve been in such relationships—you know that one reason why people stay with abusive partners is that the abuse starts to seem normal. Actually, the person suffering the abuse doesn’t see it as such, at least early in the relationship, because it comes in almost innocuous ways at first.  It starts with the put-down or other insensitive remark that its target forgives or simply allows to go by.  The thing is, the first abusive remark or gesture doesn’t seem that much, if at all, worse than what the abused person has experienced before.

So, when someone says that if you break up with him, you’ll never find anyone else—or will find someone like him, only worse—because you’re too old, fat or ugly or trans, it’s not that much worse than what you’ve heard from other people.  In fact, you might—as I did—have already believed such things, at least subconsciously.  At least, that is what I felt when Dominick told me those things early in our relationship.  I let those remarks go, in part because he is a good bit younger than I am and, as I noticed, not particularly mature for his age.  Plus, he came from a family whose members always said mean and insulting things to each other “in the heat of the moment” or when they were “letting off steam”.

Also, because he is younger—and much better-looking than I expected from my first relationship in my life as a woman, which I began in middle age—I took it as a sign that, yes, I could “succeed” as a woman.  When I began my transition, I met some really scary—and sorry—males.  They saw me as a “chick with a dick” and imputed all sorts of sexual perversions to me.  They believed that I would do, and submit to, all sorts of things they would never demand of “the girl next door” or their boyfriends.  Also—I realized this almost immediately—some of them were trying not to admit to themselves that they were gay, or that they weren’t.

 

Dominick was somewhat akin to them in that he didn’t want to deal with his own life, and his true desires, on their own terms.  Sometimes he would claim to be bisexual, other times gay, depending on what would work best for the occasion.  When I first knew him, he wanted me to “stick” him.  I politely explained that I couldn’t get an erection unless I stopped taking hormones for a few months.  (At that point, I’d been taking them for almost two years.)  When he realized that I wasn’t going to do that, he used to find things he needed a “he-man” or “alpha male” to help him with and make a point of telling people we met that I was a man who was taking hormones.

What I didn’t realize—or, actually, want to admit to myself—was that he’d never given up the dream that one night I would meet him somewhere for dinner (which I would pay for, of course) and announce that I was going to revert to my old name and life and support him in style.  I realized that as the time drew near for my surgery.  When I first scheduled it, he voiced support and even promised to accompany me to it.  But, he found other commitments, other things that had to be done.  For example, the house in which he’d lived his entire life, and looked as if it had never been remodeled in the sixty years it had been in his family, simply had to be redone.  That meant, of course, that he would have to work during the summer.  (He was a special education paraprofessional.)  All right, I said, do what you need to do.

When the summer session ended that August, I was home, recuperating from my surgery.  Millie, who lived across the street from me, stopped by every day and Tami, who lived up the street, came by a couple of times a week.  They bought groceries, helped me with my laundry, changed cat litter and did other things that my inability to lift prevented me from doing.  They even made a few meals for me.

Where was Dominick?  In Aruba.  He “needed” the vacation, he insisted.

Oh--did I mention that the last time I went to his house before my surgery, he blew smoke in my face?  Whenever I talked to him about his two-pack-a-day habit, he took it as an affront.  Now, I must say that he didn’t smoke in my apartment:  I explained that my landlady, who had young children, lived directly above me and one of the conditions of my renting the apartment was that nobody smoked while in it.  But, when I was at his house, he asserted his “right”—which, of course, he had—to puff away.  “My grandmother’s been smoking all of her life,” he’d insist.  So was everyone else in his family.  But, I insisted, if he had any respect for me as a person, he wouldn’t smoke in my presence.  I could just as well have asked him to give up sex with men.

I told him I didn’t want to see or hear from him anymore.  Then I stopped returning his calls and e-mails.  I figured he would get tired of that, as he gives up on almost anything that requires any effort on his part.  But, somehow, he found the energy to escalate his abuse and harassment.  He started leaving “tranny” jokes and the frankly transphobic dialogue from South Park on my voice mail.  After I didn’t respond, he left messages, e-mails and comments on this blog from phone numbers and addresses that weren’t his own and couldn’t be traced.  The early ones said that I’m not a woman and was trying to avoid the “fact” that I’m a gay man.  At least, those accusations were ridiculous:  He said my Adam’s Apple (which I’ve never had) or some other thing gave me away. 

I igonored his voice messages and e-mails and didn’t publish his comments.  Now, after a few months of being ignored, most people would get the message.  But, in this sense, Dominick wasn’t most people:  The more I ignored him, the more he escalated his harassment.  And the harassment turned into stalking, threats and false rumors and other lies about me. When he couldn’t find a more pointed insult or more creative way to bother me, he’d leave simply yell, “Fuckin’ bitch” into my voice-mail—from some number that couldn’t be traced, of course.

Now, you might think that his words and actions were inconsequential, as he didn’t resort to any physical violence.  I understand; that is what I thought—or, at least, told myself.  But he found other ways to escalate his verbal and psychological abuse, and it’s cost me in a lot of different ways.  I’ll talk more about those things in a future post.

What We Experience

For a decade, I've been getting my healthcare and referrals from the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center.  At times, they can be maddeningly disorganized.  But every health care provider and other staff member I've encountered there has made great efforts to be helpful.   Plus, Richie Tran is the kind of doctor I always wished I could find before my transition.  Well, maybe such doctors were out there, but I wasn't ready to talk to any of them, even if they could have heard what I wanted to say.

It seems that Callen Lorde's equivalent in Boston is Fenway Health.  They do a lot of outreach--at least, every time I do a web search for anything related to LGBT health care, I come across something or another they've posted.  And it's all been useful.

They really seem to like infographics.  That's probably a good thing:  Not everyone likes to read, or has the patience to do so, I guess.  Fenway's stuff is eye-catching, and often appealing.  If nothing else, they get their point across, as they do in this one:

If you can enlarge the infographic, look at the row of statistics to the left of the US map:  Discrimination In Public Accomodations.  Thirty-seven percent of us report having been harassed or disrespected in retail stores; three percent of us have been assaulted.  For hotels and restaurants, those statistics are very similar:  35 and 2 percent.  

I am one of the 29 percent of trans people who's been harassed or disrepected by the police, and the 29 percent who've had such experiences in health care settings.  Fortunately for me, I haven't been assaulted by police officers or in health care settings, though two and six percent, respectively, of trans people have had such experiences.

And other trans people have had it worse.  Much worse. 

Why Bullying Is A Crime

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend of mine who is showing some signs of taking hormones but has not started to live full-time as a woman.  This friend is a few years older than I am and grew up under very different circumstances from what I experienced as a child.  However, there is at least one parallel between our childhoods and adolescent years:  Each of us was bullied.


Now, some might say that we were simply having experiences typical of adolescence, particularly for males.  You know what I mean: getting slammed into lockers, being taunted--that sort of thing.  However, what makes it different is that even though no one bullied us specifically for being transgendered, mainly because most people in our milieux had no idea of what that means, we were taunted because we were perceived as people who didn't fit into what we were "supposed to be" as males.  Plus, you might say that each of us was a kind of geek, albeit in different ways. 


What I just said about each of us could also have been said about countless other young people who have been bullied and harassed. Tyler Clementi comes to mind:  He was quiet, reflective and intense (as one might expect of an aspiring concert violin player).  Those qualities made him a misfit in a male college dormitory.  I don't know whether things have changed since I was in college, but as I recall, the atmosphere in such dorms really isn't so different from high school, or even junior high school.  If you don't "fit in", you are subject to harassment, and even physical violence.  And those who taunt you will also use the stereotypes about people like you to make your life miserable in all sorts of ways, or simply as a rationale to hate, shun and slander you.  I know; such things have been done to me, and they have been done to my friend.


Some people say that those of us who are bullied or harassed should conform more to whatever is around us.  Such an expectation is as illogical as it is disrespectful.  Telling someone who is slight of build and who may have health issues to "toughen up" is a kind of taunt, whether or not it's intended as one.  As it happens, my friend did that, at least to some degree, by learning some combat techniques from her father, who was in the Special Forces.  But, although she is not physically imposing, she was healthy enough to be able to make the moves her father taught her. However, not every kid is like that.  Likewise, not everyone can change his or her personality to suit a situation.  I don't know how you turn a shy, diffident person into someone who is more boisterous and cocky.  I'm not so sure I'd even want such a thing:  I've learned all sorts of things from those shy people that I don't think I could have learned from other kinds of personalities.


Anyway, bullying and harassment aren't simply rites of passage or "boys being boys."  They are a form of terrorism, for they are ways of attempting to intimidate someone into some sort of submission to someone who exploits his or her status as a privileged "normal" person.  They are attempts to deny someone the right to be who he or she is.  In other words, they are ways of preventing a person from living simply because he or she is somehow different from others.  

To The Santorums

Last week, Annette Gross's "Open Letter to Karen Santorum" appeared on The Bilerico Project.


I've provided a link to it because I hope that you'll show it to someone who thinks that LGBT people get "special treatment."  

I also hope that you'll show it to those people who say that we wouldn't have any problems if we kept quiet or stayed in the closet.


What Gross's letter points out so brilliantly is that we are targets of discrimination, not because of a "lifestyle choice," but because we are targeted for who and what we are.  That is something most straight cissexual people never face.  When was the last time you heard of a straight person being assaulted, much less killed, for being--or simply being perceived as--straight?


And when do straight married people have to defend their right to have the relationships they enjoy, and the privilege society affords them for doing so?


To the Santorums, and everyone else who feels bullied by gays and lesbians and transgender people, I say: Get over it.  Toughen up.  Grow thicker skin.  Grow up.    Hey, people told us those same things, and look how fierce and intimidating we've become!  

And remember:  If the queers are bullying you now, go and get an education and turn the tables.  Tomorrow can be a better day for you.

Post-Post Op; After An Ex

I suppose it was inevitable that I would stop the practice of posting daily (or nearly daily) I developed during the weeks and months leading up to, and immediately following, my transition. 


But I don't think I ever envisioned going weeks without posting.  Now that I think about it, I never could have predicted the state of mind in which I now find myself.  That is not to say I'm unhappy about it, for it is, I believe, a sign that my life has gone in a direction I'd hoped it would take.


Although once in a while I mention to someone or another that I'm transsexual, and I often encounter people who witnessed parts of my transition or read about it on this blog, I don't think of myself as post-operational anymore.  In fact, I hardly think about the surgery.  I haven't made any effort to forget about it, or my transition--or, for that matter, my life that preceded it.  Rather, I just see them fading into the background, and myself moving onward.  I am a woman living mainly among women, although I am different in many ways--especially in some of my past experiences--from those women.  Although my face and body have feminized to some degree, I look different from them, if for no other reasons than I'm taller and bigger.  


And, although I have become more friendly with the prof I mentioned in a previous post, I don't feel it's entirely a result of my experience as a transwoman.  Yes, I can empathise with her as her body is changing along with some of the ways she deals with her past.  I have great admiration for her partner, who is not only standing by her, but helping her in various ways, through her transition.  Nevertheless, I find myself becoming friendlier with this prof mainly because I am drawn to her intelligence, integrity and generosity of spirit.  And, of course, we can talk about the college and various experiences we've had in it.  Oddly enough, that makes me even less conscious of my trans background.


I also have another reason why I haven't been posting much:  Someone with whom I'd had a relationship is now stalking me electronically.  This person has managed to find out work-related and other information that was supposed to be confidential, and has tracked down the identity of the prof I mentioned.  This ex has threatened to make false accusations against that prof, as he made against me.  I'm talking about the sort of stuff that gets people run out of jobs and homes, and subjects them to violence, whether or not the accusations are in any way factual. 


To that ex, I say, I know you're reading this, and you know that I'm talking about you, and if you don't leave me and that prof alone, I'll reveal your identity on this blog.

Walking With Our Heads Up

After reading Diana's post today, I checked out one of the links she provided.

That there is discrimination against transgender people is not news to me. Nor is the knowledge that trans people of color experience even more discrimination than those of us who are melanin-deficient.   If those facts were all the survey revealed, I would not be thinking about it now.

However, the researchers who compiled the report Diana linked seemed to understand the limits of so many previous studies.  Those earlier surveys and reports indicated, for example, that we are much more likely than everyone else to be unemployed, experience harassment, try to kill ourselves or to be killed by someone else.  But they missed two other key elements of our lives that "Injustice At Every Turn" conveys about as well as anyone can with statistical narratives.

The first of those elements is the cumulative effect of our experiences.  According to the report, nearly two out of every three of us have experienced a "serious act of discrimination," which the authors define as "events 

that would have a major impact on a person’s quality of life and ability to sustain themselves financially or emotionally."  Those events include, but are not limited to:

• Lost job due to bias

• Eviction due to bias

• School bullying/harassment so severe the respondent had to drop out 

• Teacher bullying 

• Physical assault due to bias

• Sexual assault due to bias

• Homelessness because of gender identity/expression

• Lost relationship with partner or children due to gender identity/expression

• Denial of medical service due to bias

• Incarceration due to gender identity/expression.

Worse, nearly one in four of us has experienced "catastrophic" discrimination, which the researchers define as experiencing at least three of those life-disrupting events.  

The second dimension of our experiences that the researchers managed to convey was what we develop in part as a result of our experiences:  resilience. More than three out of every four of us report that we felt more comfortable at work and our performance improved after we began to transition, even in spite of the discrimination and even harassment many of us experience.

And we still manage to get hormones, as well as the other medicines and treatments we need, in spite of the discrimination or structural barriers we face in getting health care.  We lose jobs and aren't considered for others because of bigotry, but somehow many of us still find employment.  We find places to live after we've been kicked or kept out of other places because of bias, and we're three times as likely to return to school after the age of 25 even after so many of us were essentially bullied out of our high schools and colleges.

But, most important of all, we keep our self-esteem--which many of us found only upon coming to terms with who we are and deciding to live in accordance with it (whatever that may mean for us)--even in the face of rejection from partners, family members, colleagues and people who were friends.  As one survey respondent said, "I have walked these streets and been harassed nearly every day, but I will not change.  I am back out there the next day with my head up."