A Passing

Here is something I wrote early in my transition:

Passing

A path of fire ripples

roiling from the opposite shore.

Rays of sunsets descend

through mirrors.  Long boats are crossing

reflections too bright to be seen

leaving the sun behind them.

Clouds curl like smoke.  Ripples

reflect breezes across this river.

A wide boat is turning.

Paths of fire are flickering away.

A barge’s wake spreads the twilight.

                                                       

                                                           2 June 2005

Why I Am Not Passing Now

I am not boasting when I say that it's been a while since I've had to think about "passing".  Any time I meet someone, whether a tourist asking for directions, a store clerk or guests at someone's dinner party, I am addressed by female salutations and pronouns.

In a way, it's ironic.  The reason I say that, is not that I was born in a male body and lived the first 45 years of my life as a boy/man.  Rather, I say that because I have less anxiety about some "secret" of mine being discovered than I did when I was living as male.

Perhaps even more important, I felt more like I was trying to "pass" as male--or, at least, the idea of male that most people seemed to have--than I have felt that I was trying to "convince" someone that I'm a woman.

What's even more ironic is that I felt less like I was trying to "pass" even at the very beginning of my transition.  Even during the time I was working as male and doing almost everything else in my life as female,  I didn't feel as much anxiety about being "read" as I felt when I was living as male and worrying that someone would realize that I wasn't male after all and that there would be a terrible price to pay for it.

Don't get me wrong:  I've lost friends, relatives and other things in my life because of my transition.  When I started my transition, I knew those were possible consequences.  The only surprises, really, were that some of the people I lost weren't the ones I expected.  On the other hand, people from whom I didn't expect support gave it to me, and gave me types of support I never expected.

Somehow it was easier to imagine those things than it was for me to envision the consequences of someone finding out that I wasn't that masculine (almost hyper-masculine) guy I was presenting to the world.  I guess I was still thinking of how I was "exposed" as a "sissy" when I was a kid, and the seemingly-endless grief I got as a result.  I could imagine only an adult version of those things.  Otherwise, I couldn't foresee what would or could happen to me as a result of being "exposed". 

I did, however, have a more specific fear:  that my gender-queerness (as much as I hate the term, I don't have a better one) would be construed as an extreme form of homosexuality.  As a matter of fact, some people took me for a gay man, even if they had never seen me with another man.  Although I had been living as a heterosexual man, I knew very well how virulent and misdirected homophobia could be:  Part of my "defense" consisted of homophobia and some gay-baiting.

In other words, I feared that I would be harassed, beaten or even killed for something I wasn't.  It's bad enough to incur someone's bile or wrath for something you actually are, but I could imagine few things worse than dying over a case of mistaken identity.  I imagine that once you're dead, it doesn't much matter how you died, but I still think I'd rather not die an unjust death.

But now I am living as the woman that I am; if someone commits any sort of violence (physical, mental, spirtual or otherwise) against me because he or she finds out about my past, at least it's based on something that's at least factually true.  It doesn't make any violence committed against me more just, but at least I know that I have been true to myself and I have not denied my past.  In fact, I have not had to deny anything at all.  

That last sentence might sum up the reasons why I have not felt like I am "passing" or even have to try to do such a thing.  The effort to "pass" as someone else's idea of a man or a woman invariably involves denial; simply living as the man or woman (or member of some other gender) that you are is, as one person admiringly told me, the essence of integrity.

Well, living as the woman I am--as opposed to someone else's idea of a woman-- is as much integrity as I am capable of living.  It's the truth as I understand it, and I really don't have anything else (aside from, perhaps, a belief in a greater power) that I can use as a principle for living my life.  As a result, I may not pass perfectly, but I seem to pass well enough--and better than I ever did as the man I was trying to be.

Passing Into The Lost Generation

In yesterday's post, I started to describe some of the ways in which spending so much time and effort on "passing" has harmed trans people individually, and as a community.  I talked mainly about the ways in which it has held us back from gains other people, such as African-Americans, cis women and gay men, realized from the Civil Rights movement.  

Now I want to mention some of the ways in which society's demand to pass (which is also turned against us) helped to create a Lost Generation of Transgender People.

When I was younger I, of course, read everything I could find about Christine Jorgensen.  At that time, she was one of only two transgenders (the other being Renee Richards) of whom I'd even heard.  In my reading, I stumbled over the newspaper headlines and stories about her.  "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty", screamed the New York Daily News headline.  Others were more salacious, or simply more vicious.  They all, however, seemed to focus on her resemblance to Marilyn Monroe and other blonde movie stars of the time.  

What I have said, and will say about Ms. Jorgensen and her role in the history of transgender people is in no way meant to disparage her.  She was indeed a beautiful woman.  More to the point, though, she was also a very intelligent, talented woman who took great pains to educate herself, and always exuded dignity and class. On the other hand, she fit into every notion of womanhood that prevailed in 1950's America.  It was a time, of course, when the standards of beauty and glamor were almost always blonde and blue-eyed.  They also had hourglass figures with impossibly small waists.  Jorgensen fit that image to a "T".

What's more, though, she declared herself as attracted only to men--and, in fact, married one.  And, although she worked as a photographer before her surgery, she wanted to settle into a quiet life as a housewife.  Perversely, the very same sorts of people who would have demanded that she, or any other woman, lead such a life were the same people who "outed" her and kept her story in the public eye, to the point that she almost had to become the entertainer she would be for much of her adult life.

In other words, people accepted, or at least tolerated, Christine Jorgensen--who was probably the first transsexual of whom most of them had even heard--in wholly heterosexist terms. Some of those people may have been perfectly well-meaning; they may have "wanted to do the right thing" but had little to no understanding of what it meant to be transgendered or transsexual.  However, their understanding--and the way Ms. Jorgensen had to conform to it, whether or not she waned to--gave people a very limited way of understanding, not only transgender people, but of their own gender and sexuality.  

As I write this, I finally realize why the alliance--however tense and strained it may be--between trans people and lesbians and gays is not only beneficial, but necessary.  Trans people will never have equal rights, let aloneopportunities,  as long as there is so much pressure to confirm to traditional roles of one gender or the other.  

In some people, this understanding of gender and sexuality, as well as their expectation that trans women would conform to "traditional" female roles, were really just very thinly-veiled homophobia.  

So, three decades after Christine Jorgensen became a "blonde beauty", the pressure to "pass" was even greater than it was at the time she started her transition.  The AIDS epidemic had, by that time, exploded in Castro, The Village and other gay communities throughout the United States.  During that time, right-wing talk radio and other media grew exponentially in popularity. They famously advocated quarantining gay men, or even killing them:  One commentator went so far as to compare gay men to the rats that carried the fleas that caused the Black Death.   

In such an atmosphere, the pressure to "pass" must have greatly intensified. Who would want anyone else to know that he or she had  been, at any time in her life, a man--let alone a gay one.  

Having such heterosexist (and,I might add, Eurocentric) ideas about gender meant that only trans people who looked like Barbie dolls would be approved for hormones or the surgery.  It also meant that only those who met such standards would have any hope of affording it--or of marrying someone who could support her after she became a "traditional" housewife.

The conditions I've described had much to do with the Lost Generation of Transgender people, and how people (including cis ones) continued to hold onto their notions of gender and sexuality,and teach them.  So, during my first year of living as a woman, a prof who knew I was going through my transformation said I was "the last person she expected" to be trans because I had expressed interest in women--including her.

I wonder how many trans people gave up on their dream of transitioning as a result of what I've  described---or, how many people delayed their dream, or simply gave up on it altogether. And I wonder how many were beaten, killed or simply demonized because they were thought to be one of the vectors of disease--or because they simply didn't fit into feminist organization, let alone the white heterosexual organizations they represstn.

"Passing" Does Not Mean "Equal"

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, previous generations of transsexuals tried to go "stealth" as much as they could.  That meant, not only looking and acting as if they were members of their "new" genders, but also erasing their pasts, often to the point of creating wholly fictitious histories (Is that an oxymoron?) for themselves.

I've pointed out some of the fallacies and pitfalls of doing so.  For one thing, amnesia is not healthy; self-imposed amnesia can only be worse.  Also, as Victoria Brownworth says, a person who "passes" is trapped:  He or she believes the lie or is caught in it.  Yet, as long as we're not caught, society will reward, and even demand, such fabrications.

We see one of the major problems in "going stealth" or "passing" when we look at the law.  I used to believe that if I were to "pass" well enough, I would never have to worry about transgender equality:  If I had to throw my (all-too-considerable) weight behind a movement, it would be feminism.

Well, I still tell anyone who knows about my history that there's nothing like becoming a woman to turn you into a feminist.   While I may not have to worry about daycare (unless, of course, I adopt), I still have to think about other women's workplace and lifestyle issues because they affect me.  

One of those issues is discrimination. While a prospective employer may know nothing of my history from seeing me, and nothing of my experience of life from my resume and cover letter, he or she could always find out about those things without searching very long.  Even if I never wrote this blog, or any of my articles or essays about transitioning or living as a woman, a prospective employer could do a simple background check.

So, for that matter, could a health insurer, or any health-care provider.  Or prospective landlord or lender.  Even trans people whom other people simply cannot imagine in their birth genders run into discrimination and other difficulties as a result of having had to live their previous lives.

Those are reasons why I now realize that I simply cannot ignore the issue of LGBT rights, or think that including protections for transgenders in civil rights laws is not as important as some other issues.  Simply distancing myself from my old life will not insulate me from it.  I made my transition and had my surgery so I could live as the woman I am, but there is no point in denying that some of my experiences are different from those of other women.  More to the point, my body has a different history from those of other women:  Even if I am no longer at risk for, say, prostate cancer, I may still need treatment for some residual condition.  (Trans men encounter this when they need screening for cervical or breast cancer.)  On top of that--as I learned early in my transition--there are some medical care providers who won't treat you, give you inappropriate treatments or will harass and humiliate you because of who you are.

Those are just some of the reasons why, no matter how good we are at "passing" and how little semblance our current lives bear to our former ones, we still need to work for equality, whether it's by getting language added to the 1964 Civil Rights Act or our employers to adopt fair and equitable policies.  As someone who's spent more than her share of time in classrooms, I can tell you that simply passing doesn't mean that you're equal to anyone else.  At least, you haven't gotten there yet.

Health Care Professionals And Lost Generation Of Transgenders

In several posts on this blog, I have mentioned some of the difficulties transgender people have in getting appropriate medical and psychiatric care.  One of the main reasons is, of course, the high percentage of trans people who are poor, uninsured and even homeless.

As bad as the situation is now, it was much worse during my youth.  The poverty and homelessness, and the lack of insurance, probably were even bigger problems for trans people thirty or twenty years ago than they are now.  However, there was yet another factor that made it difficult, or even impossible, to get the necessary therapies and treatments, and helped to create a lost generation of transgender people. 

That factor is a trait of a particular group of people--the ones who were, in essence, "gatekeepers."  I'm talking about medical as well as psychiatric professionals.  They, like nearly everyone else, were inculcated with their culture's notions of gender and sexual norms.  That is to say, nearly all of them believed in the "male-female" gender binary and the normalcy of being a heterosexual.

What that meant, of course, is that nearly all such professionals were deeply homophobic to one degree or another, whether consciously or not.   (I will admit that I shared much of that homophobia.)  So, for example, a female-to-male transgender who wanted hormones and surgery could not give even any indication of sexual attraction to women.  She also had to exhibit what were considered "feminine" traits and desires.  Worst of all, she had to commit herself to living a life of denying her past.  In other words, she had to re-invent her life as that of a woman growing up to become a girl, in the name of "passing."

Victoria Brownworth has written, "Passing never works; the lie distances you from those who aren't a party to it.  Society may reward the lie, may even demand it, but the passing person is punished for passing--either by being caught in the lie or believing it.  Every closet is a prison, whether it is a construct of sex or class. Passing kills; it annihilates who we are and keeps us from who we could be."

About the only beneficiaries of this emphasis on "passing"--which is to say, living in an enforced closet--were the Four Horsemen of our community:  AIDS, drugs, suicide and violence.  They all reached staggering proportions during the 1980's.  Although good, let alone exact, statistics on trans people from that period are nearly impossible to find, I would guess that an even larger percentage of trans people died from those causes than are claimed by them now.  In a literal sense, they are the reasons why we have a lost generation of transgender people.  But even the survivors of that generation--who include me--had to endure decades of depression, isolation and, in many cases, substance abuse, as a result of not seeking the care we needed until much later in our lives.  That left us as isolated from each other as all of those transssexuals who "passed", or tried to, were from each other.  The result was that, really, we didn't have a community for at least a decade, and could therefore not offer each other the advice, mentorship and other help we so desperately needed.

In other words, even those of us who wouldn't begin our transitions for another two or three decades had to live with the same lie as those who told doctors, psychiatrists, endocrinologists and surgeons what they wanted to hear.  They, of course, told those lies because the health professionals themselves believed, if not the lies themselves, then in the homophobia that made them necessary.  Those of us who survived are still dealing with the aftermath, and will probably do so for the rest of our lives.

How Do You Do, Ma'am?

This is the third time I have come to Florida to see my parents as Justine.  And it's my first visit since my surgery.

Each of my first two visits lasted a week. This is my third (fourth, if you count my arrival) day of this visit.  And I noticed something that I noticed on each of my previous visits:  Everyone addresses me as, "Hello ma'am,"  "How do you do, ma'am?"  (Are they asking for instructions?  Little do they know...I can give them!)  or "Nice day, isn't it, ma'am?"  Once in a while, someone refers to me as "miss."  But every other time, I am presumed to be a woman of a certain age--which, of course, is what I am.

Now, I am long past the thrill of "passing."  In fact, I am grateful that even during my last visit as Nick--the one in which I "came out" to my parents--I didn't even get a second look, much less a squint or furrowed eyebrow, from anyone who asked how "ma'am" was doing.  You see, I have no idea (and, frankly, don't want to have any idea) of what could happen if anyone had any inkling that I was once a native of Mars, so to speak.

It doesn't matter whether I'm wearing a skirt and makeup, or whether I'm in baggy sweats like the ones I wore today.  I still get the same greetings and responses.  The women are almost invariably cordial, and the men are be polite, chauvinistic or solicitous.  Have I become who I am as deeply as I like to believe I have?  Or are people down here less savvy about these things?

Or am I just a parochial Yankee who still carries, in her mind, stereotypes about people in this part of the world?  If  I am, I apologize!

Another Storm

Yesterday morning, the wind drove the rain and whipped the snow around. That, of course, made the weather seem even colder than it actually was. The rain and snow melded into something wet, heavy and frozen that was neither rain or snow but turned, instead, into needles that pricked the cold, wet wind into the pores they opened.

Toward evening, those raindrops/snowflakes puffed into white, almost cloudlike clumps that were still too dense and wet to be called flakes. Surprisingly, students in the last class I taught actually paid attention to the lesson. Of course, once that class ended, most of them left campus as quickly as they could.

I stayed for a while after class ended. I had work to do, and I figured that the snow wasn't going to affect the subway, at least not too much. I normally don't mind being out in the snow, at least when it's fluffy. But last night's precipitation was merely slush in whiteface, so I wasn't especially eager to venture out into it, even though I wanted to leave the college and go home.

In a way, my desire to go home was ironic. This winter has seemed, if not brutal, at least endless, as it seems to have grabbed us on Thanksgiving weekend, when I moved into my current place. My friends are elsewhere. So, I feel, are the allies and friendly colleagues I have had at the college. The prof with whom I talked most often is out on maternity leave. Others seem less friendly. I thought that was merely my own perception, or misperception, but Anita, who used to work as an office manager in the writing program, also seems to think so. She brought it up during our conversation after we bumped into each other in a ladies' room. I hadn't seen her in at least a year, since she was transferred to another department in another part of the campus I have almost no reason to go to.

The prof whose office is across from mine has been rather friendly since we broke the ice early last semester. However, I hardly talk to some of the faculty members with whom I used to spend time. That's happening as I--and they--spend more time on campus, partly because our class sizes and the demands placed on us have increased, and partly because of the weather. Under those conditions, I feel sometimes as if we were in a modern-day iteration of Hitler's bunkers.

When people are hunkered down in the same place away from the same storm, that doesn't always produce camaraderie, much less empathy or friendship. But weathering the same storm might. At least, that seems to have happened on my way home last night, when I met a young trans woman in the ATM vestibule. She's new to town, and I told her where to go for counseling, medical care and other things.

She is in--or, at least, she is entering--storms like the one I've weathered. Perhaps we will meet again. Perhaps the storm will pass, or at least lessen, for her.

Passing Jewish

Late this afternoon, I took a walk that extended to well after dark. That's not hard to do at this time of year, just a few days before the Winter Solistice.

My walk, which began with no particular plan or direction, took me to the northern end of my neighborhood, where a Con Ed power station is the only thing between the rowhouse-lined side streets and the almost metallic waters of Long Island Sound, near the point where it meets the East River.

I stayed on the side of the street with the rowhouses, many of which were garlanded with strings of lights. Reindeer and sleighs made from chicken wire, around which spiralled more strings of those lights, stood guard at some of those houses. Most of the people who live there are second- or third-generation Greek-Americans or Southeastern European immigrants who, by whatever means, scraped together the down payments. Some of them have more than one generation of family living in them.

The one exception was a house on the bay side of the avenue, a few blocks past the power station and a row of other industrial buildings. It's just around the corner from the old Steinway piano works and looks as if it has been holding out the same way for the past fifty years or so.

In each of the second-floor windows was a Magden David made from blue, white and silver lights. And, in one of the ground-floor windows stood a lit figurine of what appeared to be a cantor.

For a nanosecond, I thought of knocking on the door. They were most likely the only Jewish family in that neighborhood, and they were displaying their identity on...well, if not their sleeves, at least in their portals to the rest of the world.

It made me think of what it is like to "come out." Or, more precisely, I found myself reflecting on what it means to have one's identity known, how that comes about and what the consequences might be.

Now, being a Jew in Queens, or anywhere in New York, hasn't been so unusual in about, oh, 15o years or so. To be sure, there are anti-Semites here, and the part of Queens in which I was walking has never exactly been known as a bastion of Judaism. Still, I don't think very many people who know them give it much of a thought.

Then I realized why: Among all of those highly-, sometimes gaudily-decorated houses, I saw very few people. They were walking their dogs and they probably lived those houses. But as soon as their dogs do whatever they need to do, they go back into their houses.

Maybe what I saw isn't typical of that part of the neighborhood. Still, I couldn't help but to wonder how much people were getting out and interacting. If they weren't, that might well be the reason why that Jewish family could display their faith so publicly during their holiday: Perhaps nobody was there to see it. Or they just didn't notice.

If that's the case, then I'm struck by how much that parallels what many trans people think of as "passing" and what many of us want in our lives in our "new" gender: for others not to notice. So we get dressed in a nice outfit and put on our makeup--so we won't be noticed.

Of course, it's odd to talk about that in my blog. Then again, most of the people I see--and will most likely never see again--have no idea about me or my history and, if they got a glimpse of me, will not give me a second glance. That is normal; that is what I experience most of the time. And, honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way.

I guess it's a variant on an old fantasy of mine (which I still sometimes indulge in): that lots of people would read my writing, but only a few would recognize me on the street and even fewer would give me a second glance.

Well, I guess the second part of that fantasy has come true. To most people--if they catch sight of me--I'm just another middle-aged woman passing by and passing through. Not that I'm complaining about that.

Now, to get that book published...