He's Their Brother

I frankly hated college as much as I hated high school.  Actually, I hated it even more:  Even though I knew a few gay and lesbian students and was friendly with them in private, I would not be seen publicly with them.  Homophobia was rampant on campus, perhaps even more than it was in my high school.  And I knew no trans people. At least, I didn't know that I knew trans people.  Moreover, I didn't think I could be one because I subscribed to all of the conventional "wisdom" about transsexuals, which really hadn't changed in the quarter century that had passed since Christine Jorgensen's surgery made headlines.

Given the way I felt about college, it probably wouldn't surprise you to know that I didn't participate in many aspects of campus life.  To the extent that I expressed my feelings, I mocked and reviled the notion of "school spirit".  And, you also would probably would not be surprised to know that I was even more contemptuous of fraternities.  

I haven't thought about fraternities or sororities for a long time.  After all, I didn't set foot on any campus--save for the occasional poetry reading or play--for eleven years after I got my bachelor's degree.  When I finally went to graduate school it was, of course, very different for a number of reasons: I was in my thirties and had worked and, of course, I wasn't expected to--and didn't--participate in much of the social life, such as it was, on campus.  Also, fraternities and sororities, while they existed where I went to graduate school, weren't as prominent as they were in my undergraduate school.

Also, the colleges in which I've taught had little or none of the sort of campus life I saw as an undergraduate.  Even at New York University (where I taught for one semester) and Long Island University's Brooklyn campus, both of which   had dorms, there wasn't the same kind of campus experience one could find at Rutgers when I was there.  If anything, NYU students mocked the whole idea of "school spirit" in ways that even I couldn't have imagined when I was at Rutgers.  At both NYU or LIU, fraternities didn't play the kind of role on campus that they did at the college from which I graduated.  Students in those schools probably cared less about frats and sororities than I ever could have.

But now I may have to change the way I see them.  Or, it may mean that the fraternity--or the college--I'm about to mention are different from the others.

From accounts I've read, the brothers of Emerson College' Phi Alpha Tau chapter "embraced" Donnie Collins when he rushed them last year.  Not only did they include him; they raised money to help him pay for a surgery his insurance wouldn't cover.

Since you're reading this blog, you've probably guessed where this is going.  Yes, Donnie Collins is a trans man.  The surgery in question is the removal of his breasts.  His Phi Alpha Tau brothers made a fundrasing video and posted it on IndieGogo.com.  

Their efforts, so far, have brought in twice as much money as Donnie needs for the surgery.  So, he has asked that it be donated to the Jim Collins Foundation, which provides financial assistance for sex-reassignment surgeries.  (Donnie is not related to Jim)  The organization was co-founded by Tony Ferraiolo, who led a transgender youth group to which Donnie belonged when he was in high school.

It's great that the Phi Alpha Tau brothers raised the necessary funds, and more. But I think their more lasting contribution is their acceptance of Donnie Collins.  

A New Sundance Series And The Lost Generation Of Trans Men

The Sundance Channel has just list of original scripted series for the 2013-14 television season.  Among those new shows is one about a trans man dealing with his new life as a male and his past as a lesbian activist.

That outline also defines the lives of a few trans men I know.  They, like me and many trans women I know, transitioned in their 40's or 50's.  Some have had gender-reassignment surgery, as the protagonist of the Sundance series has.  Others took hormones and managed to "pass" well enough to live as male.  And I know of two who looked so masculine they didn't need to take hormones or have surgery.

The ones who lived as "butch" lesbians and were activists also described a common experience:  rejection.  One trans man I know was a lesbian activist for about three decades before he finally transitioned.  Once he started living as male, he lost  friends and allies with whom he shared hunger and meals, apartments and homelessness, and even jail cells.  An organizer with one organization flatly told him he was no longer welcome; others shunned him or simply stopped returning his calls and e-mails.

When he tells people of such experiences, he's often told the same thing I often hear:  "Well, they weren't really your friends, were they?"  While that may be true, losing the companionship and emotional "safety net" such people once provided still hurts.  And, for many of us, their support was a lifeline, literally as well as figuratively.  That is especially true for those whose families and communities cast them away, and who lost jobs or were kicked out of schools or other institutions because of their non-conformity to accepted gender roles and mores about sexuality.

Also, most of the people who think they're consoling us, or simply giving us good advice, have never had their friendships similarly tested. Most people don't ever have to know whether or not their friends are as true as they believe them to be.  Knowing who your friends is, of course, invaluable. But you can pay a terrible price for it.

The trans men (and trans women) who have transitioned in middle age during the past fifteen years or so are, as I have mentioned in previous posts, part of the Lost Generation of Transgender people.  These trans men and women share the experience of being cut off from earlier and subsequent generations of trans people.  Many of our contemporaries who transitioned (or, at least, started dressing and otherwise living as members of the "other" gender) when they were young are dead now. Others are broken in various ways.  And then, of course, there are those who never transitioned or who lived "underground." 

Those of us who survived long enough to transition in middle age were sustained, in part, by whatever relationships and organizations we had in our lives.  I was living as a male in the straight-to-bisexual part of the spectrum of sexual orientation; thus, even though I had gay male friends and acquaintances, I really wasn't involved with LGBT political or social movements.  But other sorts of relationships with individuals and groups, some of which I lost during my transition, sustained me.  Those who were involved in LGBT movements--particularly trans men who were lesbian activists--may have depended on them for emotional, intellectual and spiritual sustenance, or even their very identities to an even greater degree than I had to depend on my involvements and entanglements.

So, when those trans men transitioned, they had to build new friendships, communities and other support networks, much as I had to do when I did in my passage from living as Nick to life as Justine.  Sometimes young trans people are willing to be friends or at least allies, and I love them for that.  However, they don't understand what it's like to be the person who is nearest, rather than the truest, to what they are.  The ones who are transitioning while they're in college, or in other relatively supportive (or at least non-hostile) communities, aren't going to understand what it's like to give up those to whom they have given, and who have given to them.  And they won't have to experience those people giving up on, or rejecting them.  

While I am happy that those young people may not have to face the same kinds of loss and rejection my trans friends and peers have faced, it's sad to know that they'll never truly understand that the gaping chasm of loss, rejection, abandonment and death that stretches between them and us.  I am glad that Sundance plans to fill at least some part of that gap.

On Trans Men, Cis Women And The Passage Of Time

So...Today I'm another year older.  And the day after tomorrow, two years will have passed since my surgery.


I was reminded of the latter by two things.  One was an e-mail from Danny, a trans man on whom Marci performed bottom surgery a during the same week she did my GRS.  He and his wife--I call her that because he refers to her that way, and I won't dispute it--have been hiking and camping.  As they live in Alaska, I'm not surprised.  


When we were recovering from our surgeries at The Morning After House, I half-jokingly made him promise me that he would call me if he ever split with his wife.  Of course, I could make a joke like that precisely because I knew he would do no such thing--split with his wife, I mean.  


I can honestly say that I haven't met a trans man I didn't like.  (Would Will Rogers have said that if he were a trans woman?)  I'm not talking only about liking them sexually or in a fantasy, although I've felt that way about a few I've met.  I mean that I have never seen another group of people in which such  a large percentage of its members is self-accepting, and accepting of others.  It's no coincidence that Ray, my social worker during the first two years of my transition, is a trans man.  


Also, here's an interesting paradox in my perceptions of Ray and Danny, as well as some other trans men I've met:  While I cannot imagine them with a feminine physical appearance, I have little trouble imagining them having been females.  It may just have to do with their sensitivity and empathy.  I am not saying that they are exclusively female traits, but most of the cisgender people who've understood me in any way were female. 


One cis woman who showed me more understanding than I expected is the other person responsible for making me conscious of the passage of time since my surgery.  She is Joanne, a friend and neighbor of mine and Millie's when we were all living within a couple of houses of each other.  About three and a half years ago, Joanne moved to Florida to be nearer to family members who have since died.  As she never liked Florida (She was near Fort Lauderdale.) , she had no reason to stay, so she returned about three weeks ago.  Yesterday, at Millie's and John's barbecue, I saw her for the first time since she moved--and since my surgery.  So, of course, one of the first things she asked was how that went.


Joanne and Millie both met me during my last days of living (part-time) as Nick.  When I first moved onto the block on which we all lived, I had just split with Tammy but had not yet "come out" to any of my family or friends. It would be nearly a year before I would change my name, and a few more months before I would report to my job as Justine.


The funny thing was that I hadn't thought about any of that yesterday until Joanne and I started to talk.   Not that I minded talking about it:  After all, she'd heard about it, and had been a good friend until she left for Florida.  


Sometimes I think that if relationships do nothing else, they help to shape our perceptions of time.