I Hope It Doesn't Take This To Make You A Man (Or A Woman)!

In other posts, I have described how I, and other trans people, were motivated to transition by moments or incidents in which we realized that our only other choice was death.  

Other trans people have been motivated to transition by near-death experiences:  They realized that they would have been memorialized and buried in the gender to which they were assigned at birth rather than that of their true selves.

But Thomas Page McBee's near-death experience caused him to "come out" as transgender.  As the author of Man Alive tells the story, he was mugged by someone who pereceived that he was presenting himself as a man.  But, in the course of the attack, the attacker came to believe that a then-pre-transition McBee was not presenting as a male and let him go.

"I had a gut feeling that this had to do with me not being perceived as a male," he says.  That sense was later confirmed for McBee when the attacker went on to kill another man in a very similar kind of incident.

That experience, terrible as it was, helped him to unravel his gender identity and masculinity. He soon realized that the way other people were perceiving him wasn't the same as the way he was perceiving himself.  Soon afterward, he came out as transgender.

Here, he talks about the experience with Ricky Camilleri:

Kaeden Kass: Denied For A Job, His Identity Denied

Kaeden Kass was not allowed to serve as resident assistant of a male dorm at Miami University of Ohio.

Normally, that wouldn't be noteworthy:  Every year, thousands of college students apply for such a position at colleges all over America.  Most aren't selected.  At most colleges, RA's receive free housing along with a stipend, a reduction in tuition or free meals.  That's often better, financially, than working a job while in school.  For such perks, RAs usually serve as para-counselors, answer residents' questions and enforce residence policies.  Sometimes they're referred to as the "Mayors" of the residences; more than anything, they are familiar (and, one assumes, friendly) faces for student residents, most of whom are living away from their families for the first time.

However, you probably noticed that I mentioned Kass was rejected for the position of RA in a male dorm.  You see, Kass looks and acts the part of a college guy, but according to his birth certificate, he was born female.

School officials say they offered him a like position in a female dorm. However, he feels that taking such a position, or living in the college's new gender-neutral dorm, would "erase" his identity.  That is unacceptable, he says, because, "I have to fight for my identity every day, and it's just exhausting and frustrating, and it hinders my mental health every day."

I understand how he feels.  Early in my transition, I had to assert my identity in various ways, to building security personnel, prospective employers and even salespeople who wanted to sell me men's products.  I had to argue with a security guard who admitted me into a building but later confronted me about using the women's room, just as I was about to take the GRE.  And, I am sad to say, there are people who were once in my life who aren't, and in the little bit of contact I've had with them, they still address me by my old name and refer to me with male pronouns.  So, I am also sad to say that none some of the hateful and ignorant comments that appear after the linked news story came as no surprise to me.

I have never met Kass, but somehow I think he'd be a good residence counselor.  Perhaps I am prejudiced:  After all, the psychiatric social worker who helped as I was preparing for, and in the early days of, my transition is a trans man.  He's one of the best listeners I've ever encountered. 

Agoraphobia

I'd been avoiding Sara.  Actually, I'd been avoiding her friend, too, perhaps even more than I'd been avoiding her.  But she sounded distressed in the last message she left me.  I knew I might be wading into quicksand, but I called back anyway.


Turns out, the friend moved out without notice.  They'd known each other for about thirty years and lived together for twenty-five.  Each of them wanted the other.  But she wanted her friend as she is; the friend wanted her only if both of them could change:  she, her desires and her friend, her body.


You may have guessed (if you haven't looked at the link) that the friend is transgendered.  She is probably the most masculine woman I ever met; in fact, she looks and even acts the way I might have had my testosterone count been just a bit higher, or my estrogen level lower.  She just reached one of those round-number years that signals one is no longer young and more than likely has more years behind than ahead of her.  And, due to various medical problems as well as her finances, she cannot have the penis she always wanted.


It's really difficult for me to describe the friend, whom I've called "Dee" on this blog, with female pronouns.  Even more people call her "sir" or use male pronouns in reference to her than to me early in my transition.  I normally don't make such judgments, but Dee really should have been born with the equipment I had.  The shape of her body is even similar to what mine was before I started my transition, and somewhat like my body now.  


But upon meeting her, I could feel her anger toward me.  Some trans people who can't begin or consummate their transitions often project their anger toward the world, including people who have nothing to do with the state of their lives.  (That, of course, includes most people.)  I know I did.  And I realize how awful it must have been for some people who had to live, work or otherwise deal with me.


If I could do something to help Dee, I would.  But there isn't anything I can do.  And, I don't think she wants to change.  In fact, I told Sara that in leaving her, and moving in with her mother (whom she claims to detest), Dee may actually be preparing herself to die.  Given her medical conditions, that's not implausible.




And now Sara needs help, at least emotionally, from anyone who can give it to her.  I'm not sure that I can.  When I've talked to her, she's sounded like one of those women whose abusive husbands just left her.  They are stunned because they have known nothing else for so long.  Whether the abuse is physical, psychological or verbal, it changes the person receiving it.  They're rather like prisoners who start to see captivity as normal; the first taste of freedom is overwhelming rather than exhilarating.  I've known women like that and in fact got involved in romantic relationships with at least two.  


I'm going to have supper with Sara tomorrow night.  I'm willing to help her.  But somehow I get the feeling that there's something she needs, and may be seeking from me.  And I may not have it.  Quite honestly, about all I can do is to empathise with her to the degree that I can understand what it's like to be Dee.  Admittedly, I can do that more than most other people could, simply because of my own experience.  But I'm not sure I have anything else to offer Sara.

Ending With Daylight Savings: R.I.P Roni

Daylight Savings Time ended today.  It really made the day go by quicker than I expected.  Too quickly, in fact. The coming days will go by even more quickly, at least in the way that something goes by quickly when it's going by you.  That will be the case for the next few weeks, as the days grow shorter.


Some people grow very depressed at this time of year.  A few years ago, I learned of something called Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Unfortunately for me--and someone else--I didn't learn about it from reading.  

Right around the end of Daylight Savings Time six years ago, Roni overdosed on pills.  Millie told me that she suffered from SAD (what an appropriate acronym!).  I also knew, from talking to Roni herself, that she was not a happy person.  She had no living relatives, or at least none with whom she was still in contact.  And, it seemed to me, her life was full of all sorts of other regrets.


I found out about one of her deepest regrets when I started living full-time as Justine.  At first, she denigrated and taunted me for it and spread rumors about me.  For months after that, I wouldn't acknowledge her on the street.  But, one day, she approached me and apologized.  "I acted as I did because I envy you," she said.


"What do you mean?"


She explained that she felt that she was a man in mind and spirit, but had to live in the body of a woman--in other words, the inverse of me. Making a transition, she said, was out of the question for her because of various medical problems, some of which were induced by her drug and alcohol abuse.  She was sober and had not abused prescription, or used non-prescription, drugs for several years when she met me, but she was still on anti-depressants and painkillers mandated by her doctors.  


Even if she hadn't had such a history, she said  "there's no point to starting a transition now" at her age--about fifteen years older than I was.  In fact, she killed herself just after turning sixty.


Although I can't say that her despair over her gender identity was the sole or main reason for her despondency--or the thing that pushed her over the edge-- I can't help but to think that it was a factor.  And it would loom larger in the chiaroscuro of the lengthening nights of this time of year.

Post-Op Hair Growth

Last night, I got home late. And I went to bed late. This meant, of course, that I woke up late.

On top of that, stiff winds drove hard rain through most of the day. So, because I didn't have to go to the college today, I didn't have much incentive to do anything. But I did my laundry anyway.

None of this brought me any revelations or insights. I guess you can't have them every day.

I'm not upset. I know that I needed this day. Bruce reminded me of this when I called to make another lunch date with him next week. "You're not getting any younger. And remember, you've just had major surgery."

About biggest thing I've done in the last couple of days, apart from teaching, was to get a haircut yesterday.

Anna has been cutting my hair for the past two years. Before her, I used to go to Toni, who had been doing my hair from the time I started my transition. Then she went to Paris to study theatrical hairstyling and makeup, a field in which she now works.

Yesterday, the day after returning from her annual trip to see her family and in-laws in Italy, Anna gave me my first post-surgical haircut. I couldn't help but to think about three-year-old Jewish boys getting their first haircuts. It's considered a milestone in the boy's life--perhaps not quite as momentous as his birth, bris or bar mitzvah, but significant nonetheless.

Anna and Maria, the owner of the shop, were even more welcoming than usual. So was Catherine, who washes and colors hair at the shop. They described me with the same words I've been hearing for the past two months: "glowing" and "radiant." Hey, bring it on!

And Anna said that my hair seemed even longer than it was the last time I came for a haircut: two days before I left for my surgery.

So that means a little more than two months had passed since my last haircut. That's more or less my normal schedule. But Anna insisted that my hair had grown even more than it did between previous cuttings. I think she was right: I could feel it.

When I started to take hormones, the doctor told me the hair on my head would grow more quickly, and longer and fluffier, than it had previously grown. That has come true. But now Anna thinks my hair grew even faster than it had before.

I haven't seen anything about post-operative hair growth. It made sense that my hair grew more after I started taking estrogen: That hormone stimulates hair growth on the scalp and sides of one's head, and sometimes reverses balding or hair line recession. Neither of those had been a problem for me, so I just ended up with lush hair that--I'm not saying this to boast--often draws attention and gets compliments. People have told me that it and my eyes are my most attractive features.

Before my surgery, I was taking a testosterone blocker in addition to my estrogen. Now I'm not taking the blocker and am taking a lower dose of estrogen than I was before the surgery. I wonder whether the fact that I no longer need the testosterone blocker has something to do with the hair growth Anna noticed.

The answer to that question probably won't change the world. But it has me curious, anyway.

Mrs. Dalloway? Clarissa Vaughn? Myself In An Inverse Mirror?

Have you ever seen yourself in an inverse mirror? Or a photograph negative of yourself? Or, simply, what you would be in an alternative, if not parallell, universe?

I feel that I experienced all of those things last night. Yes, in the same person. And this person's friend made me think of what sort of friends I might have had had I been a hippie.

To digress for a moment: I share the hippies' (the real ones') distrust of authority and disdain for the pursuit of prestige and power, but for completely different reasons from theirs. To be honest, I came to mine mainly through my own anger at various authority figures in my life rather than through any principles. I still hold on to much of my distrust of authority in part because I've been part of it, albeit at its lowest levels. On the other hand, my disdain been replaced with the realization that I won't get anything I actually want in life, or help to make my world a better place, by pursuing power and prestige.

Anyway...about the two people with whom I spent last night: Sara is the latter-day hippie who is very interested in mysticism and believes in some version of Buddhism-- a belief system that I am not at all willing to dismiss. It makes as much sense as any other possible explanation of why I ended up in a male body with a female spirit.

I met Sara in the laundromat a few weeks before my surgery. We talked about lost socks, or some such thing that you might talk about with a complete stranger in a laundromat. We'd exchanged phone numbers, but neither of us called the other. I didn't think we'd meet again until I saw her about three weeks ago, when I was walking from the East River promenade into the Costco parking lot, which abuts Socrates Sculpture Park.

That night, two of her friends accompanied her. One of them, Dee, lives with her and stayed up half the night talking, talking and eating cheese and breadsticks, with us.

Dee and I are almost exactly the same height. We have a similar build and facial structure, and we both have the same reddish-blonde or blondish-red hair. Her eyes are blue; mine are blue-hazel. And our skin colorings--a pale ruddiness or a ruddy pallor--were all but identical. Saea noticed that we even have almost exactly the same freckle patterns on our arms!

Even more striking than our physical similarities was the inverse parallellism (Is there really such a thing?) that seemed to be our relationship to each other. You may have guessed it by now: She has always felt that she's male. And she acts the part, even in ways that I never did.

Is she what I would have been had I been born as a male in a female body?

Although I like Dee, I hope the answer is "no." She's a few years older than I am and, even if she could afford the gender-reassignment surgeries, she couldn't have them due to various medical problems.

So, while she and Sara were very kind, it was hard not to feel Dee's anger. She didn't direct any of it my way: I can simply understand that it's a large part of what she feels. But I could also see, in the little time that I spent with her, how that anger leads to some self-destructive behavior (Been there, done that!) and can make life difficult for Sonia, and perhaps other people.

During the course of the night, I learned that Dee and Sara have lived together for more than twenty-five years. I don't doubt that there is, or was at one time, some element of sexual attraction in it, as Sara describes herself as a bisexual who likes men and it isn't hard to see how petite, dark-haired Sara would appeal to Dee. However, I also doubt that they are sexually involved with each other now, or that they have been in a long time, if they ever were.

In an odd way, Sonia reminded me of Clarissa Vaughn, the character Meryl Streep played in The Hours. Vaughn is, and lives with, a middle-aged lesbian and is a doting friend to, among other people, "Richie" Brown, an AIDS-afflicted poet for whom she plans a dinner to celebrate an award he's just won.

By the way, I really didn't like the film at all. Yes, it had some great performances, like Meryl's (Nicole Kidman didn't convince me that she was Virginia Woolf, not even for a second!) and some nice cinematography. But I found it neither entertaining nor challenging, and felt that it made critics feel smart because it gave them the opportunity to recommend to the hoi polloi a film that ostensibly has something to do with Virginia Woolf. Never mind that said film avoided art, literature, politics, feminism, sex and all the other topics that one would expect to relate to Virginia Woolf and the people who read her works.

Back to Sara: One reason why she reminded me of Clarissa is that she is that same sort of doting friend. Also, and perhaps more important, is that undertone of de-sexualized (or, at any rate, sexually sublimated) lesbianism that seems to be a foundation of Sonia's relationship with Dee. That's what Clarissa's relationship what her partner seemed to have become. In the film, when it's even hinted that Virginia Woolf is a sexual being, she's always depicted as a kind of dyke manque, and that is presented as the driving force behind her relationships with people as well as her depression, work and suicide.

And, I think Sara herself would even admit that she was drawn in, and is now entangled by, someone who's an inverse image of me--or, perhaps, herself.