Shin's Tricycle

On my other blog, I have written several posts about bicycles, and the ways they have been used, in war.  It may surprise you to learn that the reason why I am interested in such things--and in military history, with an emphasis on the history--is that I am anti-war.  In fact, I believe that the only chance the human race has of surviving-- let alone becoming a better, more enlightened species--is to render war obsolete.  Only then will we be truly able to address issues of environmental degradation and economic injustice.

That last sentence also explains why I am anti-war and pro-veteran:  To me, few things show how pointless war is than seeing a veteran sleeping under a bridge, highway overpass or train trestle, as I sometimes see on my way to work. It also explains why I see bicycling to work and school, and even for recreation --and not as a self-conscious fashion statement or a callow attempt at irony (Can it really be irony if you're trying to achieve it?)--as an instrument for attaining peace and justice.

So, in that spirit, I am posting this photograph:

Why?, you ask.  Well, on this date 70 years ago, a boy named Shin and his best friend, a girl named Kimi, were playing with it when--to paraphrase Albert Camus in The Plague--death rained on them from the clear blue sky. 

When Shin's family found him under a house beam, he was too weak to talk.  But his hand still held the red grip of that tricycle.  And Kimi was nowhere to be found.

Shin would not survive that night.  Nor would Kimi, who was found later.   Shin's father could not bear to leave him in a lonely graveyard, so he was interred--along with Kimi and the tricycle--in the family's backyard.

In 1985--forty years after the first atomic bomb leveled their home town of Hiroshima--his father decided to move his remains to the family's gravesite.  He, with the help of his wife, dug up the backyard burial ground.   There they found "the little white bones of Kimi and Shin, hand in hand as we had placed them," according to the father.

Also present was the tricycle, which the father had all but forgotten.  Lifting it out of the grave, he said, "This should never happen to children.  The world should be a peaceful place where children can play and laugh."

The next day, he would donate the tricycle to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, where it is exhibited with other artifacts, as well as drawings, photos and stories from survivors of the first atomic bomb, exploded over the city 70 years ago today.

The tricycle inspired a children's book written by survivor Tatsuharu Kodama.  Published in 1995, Shin's Tricycle is narrated by Nobuo Tetsunani, Shin's father.  It's as painful as it is beautiful.  I urge you to read it--and to take a good look at those stark drawings!  

Massacre In South Carolina: The Confederate Flag Still Flies

Today I’m not going to stick to the topic of this blog.  Instead, I want to talk about something that, I’m sure, you’ve heard about by now:  the massacre inside the Emanuel AfricanMethodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina .

One of the cruelest ironies is that members of a Bible study group—including the church's pastor, who also happens to be a  South Carolina State senator—in one of America’s oldest historically black churches were gunned down by a young white man who sat with them on the eve of Juneteenth— a few days after the 800^th anniversary of King John issuing Magna Carta.

And the Confederate Flag flies in front of the State Capitol.

A century and a half after slaves in South Carolina and Texas and other states got word that they were free men and women, a young man hadn’t gotten the message that the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees all citizens, regardless of their skin color, the rights enumerated in the first ten amendments (a.k.a. the Bill of Rights).  Heck, he didn’t even get the message thatthere’s no such country as Rhodesia anymore.  He was simply acting from the same sort of ignorance, the same sort of hate, that left earlier generations of young African Americans hanging from trees or at the bottoms of rivers.

And the Confederate Flag flies in front of the State Capitol.

More than a century and a half after the Emancipation Proclamation, in the state in which the opening shot of the US Civil War was fired, a young man entered a Bible Study group and waited for the “right” moment to shoot someone nearly as young as he is, people old enough to be his parents, grand-parents and great-grandparents.  He shattered the peace and sanctity they found in what, for many generations of African-Americans—and, perhaps, for those members of the Bible Study group—has been their closest-knit, if not their only, sanctuary.

And the Confederate flag flies in front of the State Capitiol.   

From the church's website.

A pastor was killed along with a deacon and laypeople.  Families lost sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers; friends lost friends and people lost spouses and other loved ones.  They loved and were loved; they raised families and were raised by families.  And they contributed to the lives of their communities through their professional and volunteer work, and the loves and interests they shared with those around them.

And the Confederate flag flies in front of the State Capitol.

Dylann Storm Roof, in an instant, ended the lives of Rev. (and Sen.) Clementa Pickney, Mira Thompson, Daniel Simmons Sr., Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Tywanza Sanders, De Payne Middleton, Ethel Lance and her cousin Susie Jackson. All of them, one hundred and fifty years after Juneteenth.

And a Confederate flag in front of the State Capitol hasn't even been loweredto half-mast.

Transgender Culture: What Is It? Or Is It?

The moment you talk about a "culture", you're not part of it.

Perhaps it's trite to say that. But, like so many other statements that become cliches, it is so trivialized, not because it's not true--if anything, it's cliched because it's so true--but because it's uttered so often and so glibly by people who feel smart or wise for using it.

Anyway, the first sentence of this post sums up the problem I've always had with the use of the term "transgender culture."

Now, there are cultures--like the Hijra of South Asia--consisting of trans people.  They indeed have their own customs, rituals, mores and, some might say, language.  And their culture can be said to be a function of the symbiotic relationship the cultures surrounding them (i.e., those of India) have with them.  Returning to the example of Hijra:  They are treated as a separate caste and have suffered increasing discrimination as India has become more Westernized and Christianized. But people still call on them to officiate at weddings and funerals, to offer blessings for other occasions and to ward off evil spirits.

But, as Kat Callahan points out, almost anyone who speaks of a "transgender culture" is talking about a Western or American idea of what it--or culture generally--is.  And, as Ms. Callahan points out, the speaker is almost always cisgender.  

What she doesn't say, but probably thinks, is that most Americans, to the extent that they think about "trans culture," define it in much the same way people used to talk about "gay culture" or "queer culture":  bars, clubs, balls and such.  There used to be talk about "queer spaces" where lesbians and/or gays--particularly young ones--could meet.  While such things still exist, I think they are dying out, as lesbians and gays have less of a need to simultaneously assert their identities and integrate themselves into their schools, workplaces and such because of the wider acceptance--or, at least acknowledgment--that your favorite aunt or uncle or most talented co-worker might be gay.

As Ms. Callahan points out, we, as trans people, are taking our place in that world.  That gives us less of a need to create insular identities and customs; of "trans culture", whatever it means, she writes, "It is unnecessary before it even has come to exist."  

Most poignantly, she says, "I am not part of it."  I feel the same way. Perhaps that is the reason why I have had so little involvement with trans, or even LGBT-related "culture" or events:  I don't know of any secret handshakes or kisses, or have any particular habits, beliefs or customs that are emblematic of trans people.  We don't have particular foods, ways of dressing, a language, a body of artistic expression or geographic locations that define us.  Certainly, we don't have anything resembling a common religion:  I've met trans people who are atheists, devout practitioners of mainstream religions, Wiccans and everything in between.  For that matter, I even wonder whether we have a common history, as the current definitions of trans people didn't exist through most of human history.
  
In other words, we can be nothing more or less than trans people in the culture(s) of which we are a part.  No one else can define what that means for us.

Doing Their Good Deed Daily?

On my other blog, I've mentioned that The Bowery Boys is one of my favorite blogs that isn't about bicycling or gender. Now I'm going to introduce you to another: Old Picture of the Day.


Like Bowery Boys and Nikon Sniper (another favorite), OPD is not normally bike- or gender-related. However, today's photo featured two Boy Scouts giving rides to girls. The question is: To whom do those bikes belong?

As you've probably noticed, those bikes have girls'/female frames. Now, we've all seen guys on girls' bikes: Come on, admit it, all of you guys have ridden your wife's, girlfriend's, sister's or mother's--or some other woman's--bike. Maybe you didn't know whose bike it was. That's OK. ;-) Or, maybe you even owned the bike. That's OK, too. At one point of my life, I was commuting on women's bikes because they were completely out of fashion, so they weren't being stolen as much as men's bikes were.

But how likely is it that both of those Boy Scouts owned girls' bikes?

Were they riding men's bikes, I would have guessed that those boys were following the Scout pledge: Do A Good Deed Daily. However, if those bikes belonged to the girls, I would have to wonder whether they "picked up" those Boy Scouts. From what I understand, that would have gone against the gender norms of 1937, when that photo was taken.

And it looks like the Scouts' troop is standing in the background, off to the left in the photo. Could it be that those girls went up to that troop and picked the two boys they thought were the cutest? Now that would be a real breach of gender norms of that time!

Or do you think there's some other story behind the photo?

What Does It All Mean?

Over the past couple of days, Joanne Priznivalli, on her blog,  has written excellent essays (and here) on the real meaning of New York's same-sex marriage laws.  I was particularly struck by one point Ms. Priznivalli, who is an attorney, made:  that the law doesn't merely allow same-sex marriage; instead, it makes marriage gender-neutral.  


Why is this an important distinction to make?  Well, as I understand it, the law doesn't merely "give" gays the "privilege" of marriage.  Instead, it says that any two people of the legal age and sound mind can join, for whatever purpose.  What the law really is, if I'm reading Priznivalli in the way she intends to be understood, is an acknowledgment that marriage as a legal institution is not merely about reproduction and continuing the species.  Rather, it's about allowing two people to make the sort of commitment that allows them to be each other's guardians (as, for example, when one of them is lying in a hospital bed and unable to make decisions on his or her own behalf) and to pass on property in the ways each of them sees fit.


I am not, and will probably never be, a lawyer.  However, I can say with confidence that, as a result of my reading and study, I know a bit more history than the average person.  And I know enough history to realize that marriage, as we know it, is actually a fairly recent invention among human institutions.  


Because the Church and State were inseparable in most European societies at least until the Enlightenment, the institution of marriage was codified in a way that not only specified who could be married to whom, and who could inherit what, but also ensured the propagation of the human race.  At a time when people married in their early teen years, had ten kids--of whom four or five might survive into adulthood--and died not long after turning thirty,  concerns about the survival of the human race, particularly in the face of such phenomena as the plague, made sense.  Also, because most of Europe's population shared the same faith (as most of the world's societies were mono-religious), the Church had an interest in seeing the population increase.


Today, almost nobody thinks that the human race is in danger of dying out--unless, of course, we do something stupid, like start a real World War.  If anything, most people would agree that we should slow the growth of, or cut down, the population.  So there is no rationale for allowing only the sort of unions that will help to increase the number of people in the world.


Likewise, the fact that women have claimed our natural rights in much of the world invalidates at least some of the premises behind marriage, as it has been structured.  As Priznivalli and others point out, so-called traditional marriages are based, to some degree or another, on misogyny.  And, really, how can anyone rationalize that when conservatives--whether of the religious variety in Pakistan or the economic type in Britain and Germany--have elected women to lead their countries?  I'd love to see how the same folks who support those women will tell their families, congregations, schools and other communities that women should submit to men.   Will Michelle Bachmann--if, Goddess forbid, she is elected--defer to the wishes of her husband when she makes decisions about national security?


Whatever happens, I don't imagine that the nature of sexual relations within those, or any other, marriages will change.  I suspect that very few couples today have sexual relations solely for the purpose of reproducing.  (Maybe that has been the case for most couples throughout history.)  And, as Priznivalli points out, many older couples stop having sex altogether but remain committed to each other.  So, really, the rationale of enshrining a particular kind of sexual relationship in marriage never had any rational or moral basis.  And that is the very reason why, contrary to the fear-mongering of so-called traditionalists,  marriages based on those kinds of relationships will not be undermined by allowing people to marry whomever they want, regardless of gender.

Understanding Our Stories

So..Tomorrow is this country's most sacred, if you will, holiday.  Actually, I don't it's so odd to call Independence Day "sacred" because, as George Monbiot has written, America is a religion.


Today's news reports were filled with the shocking statistic that more than forty percent of US citizens polled couldn't answer "1776" to the question of when this country gained its independence.  And another large number, I forget exactly what, couldn't name the country from which this one gained its independence.


Even though "1776" and "England" are both parts of recorded history, they are parts of a canon and mythology.  No religion has ever existed, much less been propagated  without those two vital elements.  That is because no religion has ever been sustained without belief, and mere facts are not sufficient for that.


Although a myth is a fiction, if you will, it will never gain believers if it does not have at least an element of truth.  That a group of men on this continent convened and declared the place in which they lived to be a sovereign nation, independent from the one from which their forebears or they themselves came, is indisputable.  However, the idea that they created an "independent" country by breaking away from what was then the world's most powerful empire is, while a teriffic story, a not-quite-accurate description of the truth.




The fact of the matter is that this country was, at that point, thinly populated, save for Philadelphia and Boston:  Most of the original inhabitants of this country had already been, by that time, wiped out.  And the number of Anglos, and all Europeans, who settled here was still a fraction of the number of people in England, or any other European country.  Plus, outside the two metropoli, this country was still mainly agricultural, while England was the most technologically advanced country, as well as the one with the strongest navy.  


There is simply no way this country could have ceded from Britain independently.  Were it not for the French, Dutch, Spanish, Polish and some volunteers and mercenaries from other places, this country might still be a crown colony.  And, for decades after winning the War of Independence, a.k.a., the Revolution, this country was still dependent on those other countries.  And more merchants and farmers, as well as other people, had economic as well as cultural and familial ties to England than is commonly acknowledged. 


Another thing that, to my knowledge, is never mentioned in American History classes and textbooks--at least not the ones taught and written in the US by Americans--is that there were actually fifteen colonies.  Thirteen rebelled.  The other two, Nova Scotia and Quebec, really couldn't:  The former was the North American base for the Royal Navy, while Montreal and Quebec City were, for all intents and purposes. garrisons of the Royal Army.



There is no denying that Americans have accomplished much, and that this country has made a number of positive contributions to this world.  However, Americans, for all of their initiative and willingness to work hard and take risks, never accomplished those things alone.  Of course, we cannot forget that the people who made those contributions came from some place else, or descended from people who did.

I find myself thinking about myths and beliefs after the passage of same-sex marriage legislation.  Much of the opposition to it here and elsewhere has to do with a belief in a mythology--about relationships and families, as well as the nature of this country.  Religions die when the mythology can't be reconciled with changing realities.  Although I grew up Catholic (Hey, I was an altar boy!), I haven't considered myself a Christian in a very long time.  However,  I will say that is one thing Christianity had done better than most other religions.  That is not to say, of course, that other change isn't necessary, and that people won't continue to oppose such change.  The same might be said for Judaism.  And, whenever change becomes inevitable, there are those who will oppose it, sometimes violently.  That is why fundamentalist movements, like the ones we see today in Christianity and Islam, are really--if unwittingly--an acknowledgement that the myth has met a new reality,and change is inevitable.  


The notion that a family consists of one man, one woman, and fill-in-the-blank-number of kids is one that came about at a time when people started having kids at thirteen or fourteen and  didn't live to be much past thirty, and when most of those people had to grow, slaughter, sew and build whatever they used. That reality no longer exists, at least in industrialized countries.  Longer lives and specialized labor gives people the time and means to understand that there are indeed alternatives to, or at least variations on, the stories they've been told about family structure, gender roles and other things.  Thankfully, more people are coming to understand this.

Twenty-Five Years Ago in Soho

Today I had lunch with Bruce. He works in Soho and we went to a very Soho-like restaurant that featured high ceilings with lots of wood and brick. It's a bit like standing in one of those mirrors that makes you feel taller because it makes you look skinnier but is only about six inches wide.

It's a pleasant, if sometimes noisy atmosphere. And the food is also pleasant, or sometimes even better: a dozen or so varieties of Asian noodle soups. Bruce had an Indonesian curry; I indulged myself in a fragrant Vietnamese soup with beef and bean sprouts.

Afterward, we walked along Spring and Prince Streets to Broadway. Along the way, we passed a lot of trendy shops and recalled the days when they weren't. At the northwest corner of Spring and Broadway is a kind of sidewalk mural that looks a bit like something Keith Haring might have done had he picked up a chisel. According to Bruce, there is a series of such murals on various corners in the neighborhood that are aligned with each other. They were done by an artist that neither of us has seen in about twenty years.

That artist used to hang out with me, Bruce and a writer who used to work with me in the Poets In The Schools program when Bruce was the program manager. That was back in the days when one could run into a prostitute along one of those streets, as I sometimes did when I was going to leaving my job at American Youth Hostels when it was on Spring and Wooster Streets. Many of those stores were studios, some of which housed the artists themselves as well as their work, as well as galleries.

The writer who used to hang with us was ostensibly an art critic as well as a poet. I don't recall whether the guy who did the sidewalk murals had a day job. Anyway, we--sometimes all of us, other times some combination of two or three of us--would go to the exhibits and openings that lined those streets the way sales line them today. Our writer friend could get us into the more "exclusive" ones with his press credential: the one and only thing that made me believe he might actually be an art critic.

We would spend some time looking at the paintings or sculptures. Bruce, although not always as outgoing as I sometimes am, would get into a conversation with an artist or some other interesting person. Meantime, the writer and I would load ourselves up with wine and cheese, and then some more wine. Then, another glass of wine in hand, the writer would hit up on some woman who had absolutely no interest in him. I might spend more time looking at the paintings or sculptures, but I would definitely drink some more.

Then, we--or I alone--would go to Fannelli's, which was still something of an Italian-American working class bar that just happened to be frequented by some of the artists. Some of those artists had tabs (Remember those?) there.

After Bruce and I parted, I realized that those days were now a quarter-century past! In other words, we've all lived (assuming the artist and writer are still alive) another lifetime in addition to the one each of us had lived up to that point.

But I didn't find myself becoming, as Kurt Vonnegut would say, woozy with deja vu. It's hard to do that in Soho these days: So much has changed! But more important, there didn't seem any point to it.

That's not to say I wasn't remembering some of it warmly. Soho certainly had an interesting "vibe" in those days and you could actually do quite a bit on little or no money. And, in working at American Youth Hostels, I got discounts on equipment and airline tickets. So, even though I wasn't making much money, I managed to take a bike trip from Italy into France that September and another trip to California at Thanksgiving.

But today I was neither pining for those days nor trying to forget or disavow them. I am not proud of everyting I did: Even the trips I did were a form of running away from what I actually needed (and wanted) to do; I guess I don't have to say that all the drinking I did in those days was a form of escape as self-medication.

Yet I found myself, today, wanting to embrace, to hold, that person who did those things. No, I don't want to be him again. Rather, I found myself valuing him for the things I was able to learn from having lived his life. It made me into someone who would like to see that writer and the sidewalk-carver again, just to know that they're safe and well--and, hopefully,doing interesting, productive, creative and helpful things. And, of course, I came out of that life as Bruce's friend, and with Bruce as a friend. Both have left me a very privileged person.

Yes, I am happy to have had my operation. I'm even proud of it: For a change, I didn't back down from something I needed to do. But I realized today that I have even more pride in the person I'm becoming. And I feel even more privileged to be her, to be Justine, to be myself.

After all, I had to live, literally, another lifetime after those days as a young man who drank and let his friends chat up artists and chase women. And I've had to learn that to move forward in life, there is no choice but to love whomever you have been, or lived as, as well as those who were part of the life you lived.

And then, after all that, I went to work: I was talking about poetry with my students. I love poetry because it is, and my students because they have helped to define the person I am and am becoming. After all, I didn't have any --nor did I imagine I would ever have any--hope of becoming who I am in those long-ago days in Soho.

Three Articles of Memory

You know that you're very, very lucky--or that you haven't much of a social life--if you actually look forward to seeing your doctor.

When you're recovering from surgery, you don't get out much, to say the least. Even though you might spend lots of time on the phone, as I have been spending, you don't get to see very many people.

Anyway, I saw Dr. Jennifer again. She is very pleased with my progress, she says, and she wants me to return in two weeks for a follow-up. I'm looking forward to it.

As for the part about being lucky: I get to see Dr. Jennifer. I was mentored, and had my surgery done by Marci. I've talked to Mom and Millie every day, and to other people along the way.

And I am having these experiences at this point in my life, at this point in history. I was reminded of the latter when, after my visit with Dr. Jennifer, I walked around in the Village and stopped in the LGBT Community Center of New York.

It's no surprise that they're dedicated to celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. All around the Center were exhibits containing photos, other kinds of artwork and copies of newspaper articles related to the history of the gay-rights movement.

One of the articles, and a photograph that accompanied it, reminded me of something that Jay told me: There was once a law that stipulated that anyone wearing fewer than three articles of gender-appropriate clothing could be arrested.

So let's see...I was wearing a feminine-cut lavender tank top, a denim skirt and..uh, let's see...oh, yes, I am wearing a girly pair of panties. Although my flip-flops were also kind of girly-looking, I'm not sure that they'd count as "gender appropriate." And we don't want to take any chances now, do we?

Seriously...under that law, there were many days when I could've been arrested. Like when I wore a bra (without padding, of course), lace panties and a garter underneath my chinos and button-down shirt. Or when I wore panties underneath one of those one-piece lycra cycling bibs.

I guess that meant that cross-dressers wore undergarments "appropriate" to their gender. I confess, I did that a few times--like the times I went "in drag" for Halloween. You have to admit, it is kind of funny to be wearing boxer shorts and a wife-beater underneath a dress. At least I was never strip-searched.

But lots of people were. Jay remembers. It's amazing to think that within my lifetime, places like New York still had laws on the books that were remnants of the Victorian era. I've told my students that when I was nine years old, interracial marriage was still illegal in Virginia and other states.

It's even more amazing, though, to think of how we were when we were younger. For me, it's still a shock to think that a little more than three weeks ago, my body was different. Yet I cannot imagine it; I cannot imagine my body any other way but the way it is now.

And people too young to remember the days of Stonewall and Jim Crow laws cannot imagine that sort of world: the one of which people like me and Jay still have memories.

Of course, we do not want people to forget history. I myself don't want to forget what I've experienced of it, such as it is. But now I wonder just how much of our own pasts we must remember, and which things are important.

I guess that will all become clearer in time.