New Passport, New Journeys

Today I got word that my new passport will arrive shortly--around Monday, the 24th, according to the State Department. Of course I am excited about that: It's yet another sign of recognition of what I, Marci, my friends, some of my family and others already know about me. A few of them understood and accepted it as soon as I "came out," or even before.

Like I always say: If you want a government to do something, you have to do it first. And maybe, just maybe, they'll follow.

I thought my passport photo was fairly good. The woman who took it--a clerk at the Duane-Reade across from St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan--told me that the State Department frowns upon people smiling (She didn't say it quite that way, but hey, what do you expect from someone making $8 an hour?) in passport photos, so I had to turn down the wattage on that beam that's lit up my face just about continuously. Everyone who's seen me lately has commented on how happy I look. So it was pretty hard for me not to smile. But somehow I did it: After all, I'm a woman now, and women can do anything. Right?

I've already decided that during my winter break or next summer--if time, finances and my healing permit--I want to go to England to see Aunt Pat and France to see Janine (if she's up to it) and Marie-Jeanne. The new me, with a new passport!

I was tempted to ask whether I could have my new passport book with a lilac or mauve cover. Not that there's nothing wrong with the dark blue cover all of my previous passports have had. But, hey, if I'm paying $75 for something, shouldn't I get to choose the color?

Oh well. After all of my talk about the spiritual journey I've taken, now I'll have something I'll need to take a certain kind of physical journey. Except that I don't see the latter as a journey: After all, who calls travelling by plane a "journey?"

I guess it's a journey if you're changed at the end of it.

Doing Nothing Is Such Hard Work

I never knew it would take such effort to do nothing!

That's one of the things I told Bruce when he asked what I've learned from my experiences surrounding my surgery.

I knew the forced inactivity would make me a little crazy. (Then again, I've been told that I'm more than a little crazy.) It's not just the time off my bike that I miss. And it's not only my inability to pick up a ten-pound bag of cat litter or to do any of the other things I normally do that I find so difficult.

Rather, it's the time I have to spend doing things to take care of myself, to the exclusion of other things, that's so disconcerting and sometimes annoying. I take that back: It's not the taking care that I mind so much. Actually, I rather like that: It's teaching me to look at myself in a way that's, paradoxically, less ego-based than the way I saw myself before.

When you take care of any living thing, whether it's your pet, your child or yourself, you provide him or her with what he or she needs. Of course, I'm not talking only about material needs: I also mean the words, the actions and the empathetic energies that your charge (whom or whatever she, he or it may be) needs for emotional as well as physical survival and spiritual growth.

Now, I've never had children, and never will, so take what I'm saying for whatever you think it's worth. What I've said about providing means, at least for me, is that when you're providing whatever you're providing, you have to be completely present in the moment, for the sake of whoever is receiving whatever you're providing, and very often for the act of providing itself.

Sometimes parents or other caretakers fall into that state naturally, unconsciously: They describe moments with their kids when there's nothing and nobody else in this world. I've given moments like that to various people in my life, and to my cats.

What I never realized, until now, is just how necessary such moments are. They are not luxuries; they are necessary for the survival of the giver as well as the receiver. I also never realized that sometimes it's necessary to be both the giver and receiver, or how much focus on living in (rather than for) the moment that would take.

As I've mentioned in previous entries, I have to dilate for fifteen minutes three times a day for the next couple of months. After that, twice a day for another few months; then once a day. So, for now, forty-five minutes of my day are taken up with the act of dilating.

In order to dilate, I have to relax. If I'm thinking about going to the store, the upcoming semester or even writing one of these entries, my body will tense up. If that doesn't make it impossible to dilate, it results in dilation taking even more time.

And what does it take to relax? Well, as I mentioned, not thinking. Sometimes I can relax to music; other times I need silence. When I do put a CD into the player, of course Led Zepplin and Rage Against The Machine are out of the question. But even some of the less intense albums aren't helpful, either. For example, when I play anything from Vivaldi's Four Seasons or even Debussy's Claire de Lune, I can't relax because I become so involved in the aesthetic pleasure of listening to them. Then, of course, if the song has lyrics I particularly like--lots of Bob Marley, Nick Drake, John Lennon and, of course, Bob Dylan songs come to mind--there's no way I'm going to leave my mind behind.

So, sometimes I play music to which I would have turned up my nose or cringed. The "light FM" station gets another listener. Or else I put on a CD of "new age" music somebody gave me. I don't even know what those pieces are called or who composed, played or recorded them: The person who gave me the CD didn't label it. So there's no satisfaction--or, more accurately, ego-gratification--in being able to tell anyone the names of the works or who did them. All I know is that sometimes they relax me. That is to say, my body, for whatever reasons, needs them at that moment.

Another thing I discovered: When dilating, I can't read a book or a magazine. For part of the time, I have one hand free. Now, I don't know whether it has to do with my coordination or lack thereof, but even when one hand is free, I have a hard time keeping a book or magazine in it, let alone concentrating on the contents of the pages, when I'm doing the other work I need.

Ditto for reading while taking a bath. I've already dropped a book and a magazine into the water, and I've been bathing for only a month! But even more important, the reason for the bath is not only to clean those new parts of my body; it's also to relax them. That's why Marci recommends the warmest water you can stand, with Epsom salt. The purpose of the bath is to give myself something I need, not to get other things done or to satisfy the ego that I've rendered socially acceptable (at least in the circles in which I travel) by calling it my intellect.

Then, of course, it doesn't help my recovery in any way to think about whatever else I'm not accomplishing, or the ways in which I'm not being "productive" right now. What does it mean to be "productive," anyway? Contributing to the GDP? Getting an article published in a professional journal? Even if those are the definitions of productivity, I'm starting to wonder how it's possible to be productive without having at least some time in which one is "doing nothing," which is how we're taught to see that time we spend providing for the real needs of children, other loved ones, or ourselves. And, of course, as trite as it sounds, we can't give to others if we don't give to ourselves.

If that's "doing nothing," I'd like to know what hard work is!

Seven Years: No Itch, Only Change

Seven years ago today I took my first steps toward the life I have now.

It was a day very much like this one: hot, almost unbearably so. But that day seemed even hotter, mainly becuase I was moving from the apartment in which Tammy and I lived to one across the street from the one in which I now live.

That day, I arrived on this block knowing no-one. I had no job. All I knew was that somehow or another, I just had to arrive in the sort of emotional and spiritual place I now inhabit, or some place like it. I had no idea when I'd get here; I had only a vague idea, really, of how and which way(s) I'd go.

About the only things I knew that day were that my life with Tammy was done, my life as a man wouldn't and couldn't last much longer and that I could only move forward from where I was at that moment. And, oh, yeah, I had to unpack a bunch of boxes and make my new place habitable, at least for me.

If the year that preceded the move was the most desultory of my life, the year that followed was the most schizophrenic. Within a week of moving, I had work--as Nick. Soon after that, I involved myself with advocacy and various social events--as Justine. And I was careful not to be seen by my new neighbors in the identity I would, some months later, reveal to them: as the person I am, as Justine.

So, it seemed, I was always coming home very late at night--and, during the ensuing winter, through streets filled with snow and empty of people.

I suppose that if someone asked me how soon I expected to have the life I had now, I might have said "seven to ten years," even if that seemed like an eternity. Now I am surprised at how quickly that time has gone by. I am even more surprised at what I have experienced and what I have learned since then. And I am most astonished of all over the joy it--yes, all of it--has brought me.

I am not surprised that my mother could accept me even when she couldn't understand, much less approve of, what I was doing. Since those days, she has come to understand what I've done and why I've done it. As to whether she approves: I'm not sure that she does, or ever will. But, I've learned, that's not so consequential: Love matters more than approval, or anything else, really. I'm still learning to live by that lesson.

Also not surprising was Bruce: When I first told him, over the phone, what I was doing, he had his doubts. But, as he said much later, his curiosity won out over his skepticism, and he made a point of having dinners and lunches with me as I was starting my new life.

My most pleasant surprises have been with Dad and Millie. I really had no idea of what to expect from my father. On one hand, he wanted so much for me to go to the Air Force Academy, or one of the other Federal academies, and pursue a career in the military. And we often fought about how the directions my life took differed from the path he wanted me to follow. On the other, he was helpful to me when I left Tammy and at other times in my life. I guess he's like a lot of men: He doesn't know how to extend himself emotionally, but he tries to take care of, or fix, situations that arise.

There have been difficult moments--just last week, for example--and I think there will be others. But I can honestly say that he's been not just tolerant, but accepting. I even feel that he's tried to show some more affection than he has previously shown; I think he understands that, whatever else may be, he has in me a daughter, or at any rate a child, who loves him.

And Millie: I never in a million years expected to have a friend like her. Although she greeted me warmly the day I moved in--which I appreciated--I didn't imagine we'd become such good friends. When I first met her, I thought our common ground began and ended with our love of cats. But I would soon learn that she had more in common with other people I've loved, and that we shared more of the same loves and values, than I ever imagined. Most important of all, I never knew that I could just, basically, come out of nowhere into someone's life, and that someone would show me such kindness.

Then, of course, there are other people I've met, and things I've learned about myself, that I couldn't have imagined seven years ago.

Probably the most important things I've learned are that kindness--to myself and others--is not just a nice trait to exhibit; it's a survival skill. In all those years when I was skinnier than one of the rails on my bike seat and I was stronger--physically, anyway--than the iron I was pumping, I was punishing and pummeling myself and my body into submission. I wasn't a happy camper; people didn't stay very long in my camp. And who could blame them?

If some people want to see my kindness (such as it is) as weakness or naievete, so be it. It's keeping me alive. If they want to see in me someone who shouldn't have undergone my transition (because I don't fit their stereotypes of transgender people, which they use to rationalize their prejudices against us), well, it's not my job to argue them out of it. After all, winning argument isn't the same thing as being right or aligned with the truth; such victories will no more keeping one's game face on will ensure victory.

Every living being has no choice but to grow or die. (That much I remember from the Biology classes I took more years ago than I'll admit.) Growth comes about only through change. And, really, the only person, place or thing any living being can change is him or her self. Not any old change will do, however: It has to be brought about by love. And whom must we love first?

Maybe you've heard all of this before. If you have, I apologize, not for repeating it, but for being a slow learner. Then again, I am the kind of learner I am. All I can do is nurture it. And to nurture the woman I've always been. Those, for me, have been the lessons of the past seven years. Back then, I couldn't have imagined them.

Stories: The Assumption and Woodstock

Today is the Feast of the Assumption. Having gone to Catholic school, I should know what's celebrated on this date.

As it turns out, the Assumption refers to the Virgin Mary's physical ascencion into Heaven at the end of her life. Some churches teach, and people believe, that Mary never passed through death; she entered Heaven body and soul. But others believe that she died and, three days later, she was resurrected and assumed into Heaven. This is seen as an homage or precursor to the death and ascenscion of Jesus or as a preview of the Final Judgment, when all of the dead will be resurrected and, along with the living, judged.

I must say that the Final Judgment seems immensely unfair to whoever may be living at the time it happens. After all, the sins and misdeeds of the long-dead will be forgotten by that time, or the memories of them will not be fresh. Then again, I recall what Shakespeare's Antony said upon the death of Caesar: "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." So maybe it all evens out...

The odd thing is that there is no actual record of Mary's death, and people at the time did not know what happened to her. She was one of those people you see one day, and the next she's gone. Her assumption was essentially an apocryphal tale, a legend: Nowhere in the Scriptures does it specifically talk about Mary's fate. However, Pope Pius XII (who helped Nazis escape to South America) defined the Assumption as dogma for the Roman Catholic Church, and cited several scriptural verses as evidence of her corporeal and spiritual ascent. Sceptics have used those very same verses to discredit the notion of the Assumption.

Today's feast is actually a national holiday in several countries--including France, where laicite has been the official policy for more than a century. (I recall trying to cash a traveler's check once on la fete; no bank or exchange was open anywhere!) When I was in Catholic school, we were expected to attend mass on that date. I don't recall how or whether such a policy was enforced, as school was out for the summer.

Being the sort of kid I was, I wondered what people would look like when they were resurrected. Did those who lost limbs regain them? Or what about people who went blind or deaf: Would they be able to see and hear?

Now, if I believed in the story of the assumption, you know what I, as a post-surgery transgender woman, would ask!

Today, as it happens, is also the 40th anniversary of the first day of Woodstock. Now, I rather doubt that anyone consciously chose to start the world's most mythologized musical festival on the Feast of the Assumption.

So, other than for their coincidence, why should I talk about the Assumption and Woodstock in the same entry--one in a blog about my life as a transgender woman, no less?

Well...let's see...Half a million people went to the Woodstock festival. The youngest people who were there (save for the babies conceived during that heady time) are well into middle age, or even older. Some are already dead; in not too many years, others will die off in almost as rapid succession as World War II veterans are dying now. One day--most likely not in my lifetime--there won't be anyone left who was there, and there will be few people who could remember that time.

That means that Woodstock will become an event that will survive because of the stories told--in whatever ways--about it. Of course, we have film and video footage of David Crosby confessing to the crowd that he was scared shitless, as he and Stills, Nash and Young were performing together publicly only for the second time. We have the sounds and images of performers as diverse as Jimi Hendrix, Melanie Safka, Joe Cocker and Elvis and pictures of long-haired young people, their tattered clothes soaked from rain that soaked but did not cancel the second day of performances, chanting, hugging, and smoking.

For people who weren't yet born in the middle of August, 1969, those images and the music of those performances are Woodstock. And those young people--and anyone else who wasn't there (including yours truly, who was, let's say, just a bit younger than most of the people who was there)--reconstruct, in their minds, something they call "Woodstock." Even though the name of that music festival has become a kind of shorthand for "peace, love, dope and music." or "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll," no two people have exactly the same story about it in their minds.

Now, as for the Assumption--if it indeed happened--there hasn't been anyone who was alive at that time, much less saw the event, for about two thousand years. And, of course, there aren't any written, much less audio or cinematic, records of the event. Even if someone had been there and written an account, or if video were available (Young people have a hard time imagining a world without cell phones, which was, of course, the world of Woodstock!), records would have been made from the point of view of whoever was recording it. You remember what Cicero said: Victor Imperatus, or the winners write the histories. When you consider that, even in the most powerful nations, the majority of people up to about 150 years ago couldn't read or write their names, any and all record-keeping, much less the stories told about events, were skewed toward a rather small segment of the population.

Anyway, even if there were record the Assumption, who would have written or painted them? And, as for Woodstock, most of the attendees as well as the performers came from some degree or another of privilege. The poor kids were working to pay for school or support themselves or their families--or were slogging through the jungles of Vietnam.

And so all we have of either event are stories--told by people who come from narrow segments of society.

And if you are reading this, you are reading the story of someone who, though not born to privilege and not living in luxuries, has had at least other good fortune that enabled her transition to the life she had envisioned for herself. I mean, I'm not exactly a salt miner or a field hand. I have some education, such as it is, which has allowed me to acquire, if not a lot of material prosperity, at least some choices in my life that my parents and lots of other people haven't had.

I mean, let's face it: In order to undergo GRS, you have to have a certain level of literacy and education in order to find, much less use, the relevant information. And you need the time and means to acquire it. Finally, you have to come up with a way to pay for the surgery and other expenses related to your change, and to be able to take time off from making a living so that you can recover from your surgery. As it happens, as a college instructor, I have that time off.

So...the Assumption and Woodstock are stories rather than events for most people. And so am I, dear reader (oh, how quaint!): If you are reading this, you know me by the stories I'm telling you about myself and the world around me. Now, I have never been anything but honest. But my point-of-view is not all-encompassing, as is the point of view of anyone else. And, of course, one day, I'll be gone, and so will anyone who knew me now or at any other time in my life.

So I know stories about the Assumption and Woodstock. And if you've been reading my blog, you know a few about me. If you know me, you know others. In the end, whatever believe in and whom we love (which are really all that matters in life, as far as I can tell), all we have are those stories

Cut Out The Chase

If you are a student or a former instructor of mine, please skip the next two sentences.

I am reading a book I was supposed to have read in a course I took. Actually, I never finished the course, and there are other things I was supposed to have read but didn't.

So why am I reading Frank Norris' The Octopus now? Well, it's there--or here, as in my place. And, well, the cover of the book is so off-putting that I have to check out what's inside.

Imagine Brokeback Mountain without even the slightest gesture that can be construed as acknowledging its characters' homoeroticism. Or almost anything Hemingway ever wrote, if his male characters were just a little bit more interesting and his female characters even more peripheral. Or Thomas Wolfe, if his lyricism were only slightly less gratuitous and his characterisations were just a little bit deeper. Or John Steinbeck, if he focused on the maleness of his male characters rather than the fact that they were farmers, canners or whatever.

It is indeed a strange book. Actually, it's totally conventional for its time in the way the Norris uses language and tells the story. It makes me think of what William Blake said about John Milton, the poet who wrote Paradise Lost: that he was of the devil's party and didn't know it. Likewise, Norris's book is so obsessive in the way it portrays male characters that it would make my boyfriend (if I had one) jealous. But somehow, I get the feeling that Norris may very well have been clueless about the homoerotic undertones of the relationships--or, more precisely, the way he portrayed those relationships--in his book.

Now, since I'm not in the class for which I was supposed to read the book, I'll stop talking about what I would have been discussing in that class. Instead, I'm going to discuss something I noticed about myself, or, at any rate, the way my perceptions are changing, in the course of reading this book.

One of the many characters is Dyke (!), a former railroad engineer who was fired for union activity. He becomes a farmer, but his former employers try to take land away from him, and other farmers and ranchers, through unscrupulous manipulations of the law. Eventually, Dyke stages a hold-up on a train and hides in the mountains until agents catch up with him. Now I'm reading about the chase: Because of the way the story has been going, you know that Dyke is going to be captured.

If Paradise Lost is compelling in large part because Satan is portrayed in greater depth, and therefore more interestingly, than God or even Adam or Eve in the poem, chase scenes are almost always only as captivating (pun intended) as the character who's being chased. If the one being pursued is completely evil and does not merit, even in the slightest way, sympthy, then there's no reason for the chase.

Of course, the best example of what I am talking about is in Les Miserables, in which Jean Valjean is pursued by Inspector Javert. Even the most resolutely conservative capitalist feels at least some sympathy for Valjean as he winds his way through the Paris sewers in his attempt to evade Javert. How could anybody actually want Javert to capture Valjean?

However, I don't find myself rooting for Dyke in quite the same way, although he is, in essence, no more a criminal at heart than Valjean is. It's not that my politics have so radically changed or that my heart has hardened. Rather, I think it has to do with the chase scene itself.

It's rendered in great detail, and I could feel an almost visceral sense of the movement. But even if the chase itself were rendered better--I don't think it could have been, at least not by much--I wouldn't have been so interested in it as I have been in others.

I think my lack of engagement with that scene had to do with something that Regina said: I'm not running away anymore. I used to get thrills out of chases in movies, TV programs and in other media. I identified with whoever was running from; to me, they were always victims of whatever was chasing them. And in so identifying with the ones who were chased, I "borrowed" their anger, frustration and fear.

But now I have no need to borrow other people's guilt and anger and sorrow...or anything else. So the chase scenes, perhaps, won't mean so much to me as they once did.

That's a scarifice I'm happy to make.

I Don't Want To Recruit Them; I Just Want You To Love Me

Another visit with Dr. Jennifer. She said I'm a "poster girl for post-op recovery." Everything is healing even better than it should, she says, save for a slight tissue build-up in one area. I'm going to see her again next week; she's "playing it safe," and that's what I want.

I called Mom today. She was looking at houses with my brother. She's returning to Florida on Saturday and my brother will continue her search. I honestly don't think she and Dad are going to move. For one thing, they can't agree on what they want. For another, they own their house outright; all they have to pay are taxes and the usual expenses that come along with maintaining a house. I don't think they really want to take on a mortgage, or even rent payments, at this point in their lives. Besides, they've been in Florida for long enough that a readjustment to life in New Jersey, or almost anywhere north of where they are now, would be difficult.

One thing I noticed is that she doesn't talk as much, or as freely, with me when she's with the brother who doesn't speak to meas she does when she's with one of my other brothers or her own house. So, if I can't reach Mom on her cell phone, I can't call the home number of the brother who doesn't speak to me. When she's with another brother, I can call his house and at least he is brotherly with me; if my sister-in-law Barbara answers, she pretends to be nice but at least she'll let me talk with Mom or Dad on their phone.

When I was with Mom, Dad and Aunt Nanette the other day, Mom often mentioned the things the brother who doesn't speak to mehas done, and has offered to do, for her. She and Aunt Nanette agreed that he's a "really good son." I wouldn't disagree with that; in fact, I'd even say that he's a great father. I wonder whether Mom or Dad ever tells him that I say things like that about him. I'd love for him to read this blog, especially the entries in which I mention him. Even though he's cut me out of his life, I think he's a good man and want him back.

And, really, I didn't mind Mom or Aunt Nanette talking about how good he is. To be fair, Mom did mention that I've offered to move to Florida or simply to go there more frequently than I do. Aunt Nanette said that was very kind; Mom agreed, but added that because I don't drive, I can't help in the same ways my brothers could.

Another thing: My niece will turn 16 in October. Surely she knows there are gay kids in her school; just as surely, she's heard about (if she hasn't met) transgender people. What she knows may be rumor or exaggeration, but it's still more than people of my generation knew at her age. And I can't help but to think that she and her brother have asked what happened to me, and I can't help but to wonder what, if anything their parents have told them.

I don't know whether my brother or sister-in-law fear that I will try to "recruit" their kids. Really, I couldn't do that, even if I wanted to. You either feel that you were born into the wrong body or you don't. You feel that you should have been born as the sex opposite the one on your birth certificate, or you don't. And you have to think about your gender identity, or you don't. Nobody can make you do any of the "you don't"s. It really is that simple.

Besides, I have always loved my nephew and niece as they are. Why would I even want to try to make them into something I can't make them into, anyway? For that matter, I have always loved my brother, too, just as he is. And I still do. Why can't he accept that?

Someone--I forget who--once said, "People are afraid of being loved forever. Which are they afraid of: love or forever?

OK, I'll stop whining about my family now. Besides, loving my family members doesn't make me noble. About the best thing I can say for myself is that it's a sign that I'm grateful for the life I have. Now, I'd say my mother's love for me ennobles her, simply because of what she had to endure with me. And I say the same for Marilynne and her husband, and the way they've supported their daughter.

I don't see how I'll ever be expected, or have the opportunity, to love somebody that way. For that matter, I don't think I can even be as helpful to anyone as the people who've been with me during this time in my life.

All I want is for the people I love to love me. Most of them do. But I want those others, too.

Hasn't Changed...

My fears about today turned out to be true, at least somewhat. The funny thing is that they came to pass because of something old and familiar rather than from seeing Aunt Madeline for the first time in about 30 years.

You see, I didn't get to talk or spend as much time with her as I'd hoped I would. I had expected to go to her current home, which I'd never before visited. Instead, she, Mom, Dad and I went to lunch at a local restaurant. That in itself wasn't bad, but Aunt Madeline, who's confined to a wheelchair, had to sit at one end of a table. I sat on one side; Mom and Dad sat opposite me. So, I was face-to-face with them, and Aunt Madeline was a few feet off to my side, which made it more difficult to talk with her.

Worse than that was the palpable tension between Mom and Dad. Much of their relationship has seemed to be based on mutual antagonism, for as long as I can remember. What they argue about, or the way in which they argue it, doesn't matter so much as the almost childish peevishness and antagonism--or pure-and-simple egotism--that underlies so many of their disagreements.

They've been talking about moving up this way, but each of them has different ideas about what they should move into. Couples argue about this sort of thing all the time, but when Mom and Dad do it, they dominate everyone around them. It's not that they're loud or physically violent; it's the hostile energy that envelops everything and everyone around them.

It's been years since I've been with Mom and Dad at the same time I've been with another family member, so I'd forgotten about this trait of theirs. They want to draw you into their argument--each on his or her side, of course--and they will brook nothing but total agreement. You can't say, "Well, I can see how she's right about X, but he has the right idea about Y;" by saying such a thing, you're siding with one or the other of them--at least in their eyes.

Worst of all, if you try to talk to someone else, one or the other of them will interrupt you, or simply make it difficult to talk with that other person.

I have to remind myself of what I've just said because for a time, I couldn't help but to wonder whether their behavior was a backlash against me. After all, there are people who were very friendly to me over the phone or via letters (whether the e- or snail-mail variety) but who didn't like me so much when they saw me in the flesh, as Justine. As two examples, of course, I'm talking about my male friend Jay (not Jay Toole) and Elizabeth.

But I remembered that Mom and Dad treated me warmly when I saw them last week. And Aunt Madeline, although we didn't talk much, seemed happy to see me.

Another thing: Mom and Dad are now staying with the brother who broke off his (and his family's) relationship with me after I "came out." Last week, they stayed at the home of my other brother. He's been very busy lately, and his wife and my mother haven't always been on the best of terms. So they didn't feel particularly welcome there. I don't think the brother who doesn't speak to me or either of the sisters-in-law are particularly happy, to say the least, when Mom and Dad talk to me from their homes, even if Mom and Dad are using their own cell phone.

It didn't help that I arrived late, even if through no fault of my own. Things like that annoy Mom and frustrate Dad to the point of not wanting to deal with the situation. Even after I calmly explained that the subway sat in a tunnel for god-knows-how long, causing me to miss the first bus I'd intended to take, and the driver of the bus I took didn't notify me of my stop (I asked and sat right by him), they were annoyed with me. I could read their thoughts: Well, even after the surgery, he's still a fuckup.

I dunno. I'd like to think that the way they acted had to do with their own issues. But it's hard not to wonder.

I Just Had The Surgery. Why Am I Nervous About This?

Human nerves are possibly the strangest things ever evolved or created (depending on your beliefs) in the universe. At least, I feel like mine are.

Marci told my mother that on the day and in the moments before my surgery, I was "remarkably calm." Now, I know that last word, an adjective, applied to me: It's how I felt. Marci supplied the adverb that is the penultimate word of that sentence (Do I sound like an English teacher, or what?); given her experience, I trust her judgment.

Other people have faced much worse things. Still others have faced things that were more traumatic, if not more dramatic. Yet I was ready; I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it. There really didn't seem to be any reason for fear, or even a whole lot of drama, at that moment. I mean, really, at that point there were only two choices: to move ahead or turn back. And I know that the latter has never worked for me; it didn't even cross my mind at that time.

I wonder if I'd be so calm if I knew I were about to die. Not that I foresee that: I just wonder whether I'll kick and scream, or simply accept it. I don't think I cast Yeat's "cold eye" on life, so I'm not sure that I could cast it on death, either.

But that's neither here nor there at the moment. I mention it only because the prospect of something much less life-changing--at least, I would think it's less life-changing--has me a bit jittery.

At first glance, I "shouldn't" feel that way. Yes, I am going to see someone I haven't seen in about thirty years. And we were out of touch for probably about twenty of those years. It's not as if we didn't know of each other's whereabouts: She asked about me and I asked about her. And the same person answered both of us.

That person who kept each of us posted is my mother. And the person whom I didn't see, but whose whereabouts were always known to me, is Aunt Nanette. Actually, she's my mother's aunt, but I always spoke of and to her as if she were my own. That's how my mother's relatives always were.

For the past few years, Aunt Nanette and I have stayed in touch over the phone. My mother told her about my transition; she asked my mother to ask me to call her. Although I hadn't talked to her since I was at Rutgers, I dialed her number the first free moment I had.

I had no idea of what to expect, but with the way Mom said, "She wants to talk to you," I didn't think I would be condemned or even admonished. Still, I had no idea of what to expect.

Well, the conversations with her have been even more loving and supportive--mutually, if I do say so myself--than I ever would have dared to hope. She asked a lot of questions about what I was doing and what brought me to the point of doing it. Like my mother, she didn't seem really surprised at what I was doing. Perhaps neither of them foresaw a gender transiton: I mean, not many parents before Marilynne have seen such a thing in their kids' future. But, given my history (or lack thereof) in long-lasting intimate relationships, at least a gender-identity conflict made some sense as an explanation for my conflicts, and for any number of things I did and didn't do. I guess knowing about my "disorder," or whatever scientists and mental health professionals want to call it, was better than wondering what disastrous relationship I would get into next, or what dreams I wouldn't fulfill.

For them, knowing the secret I'd kept through all of those years--virtually all of the time either of them knew me--was, I suppose, like knowing that someone who had been suffering was now in a "better place." Perhaps I wouldn't fulfill some hopes or dreams they or others had for me, but at least my life would, hopefully, be no more desultory than it had been, and that I would no longer act out of desperation.

In every conversation I've had with Aunt Nanette, she has been loving and affirming. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. After all, she is my grandmother's sister. And the only person who has ever been closer to me than my grandmother has been my mother.

So why am I feeling nervous about going to see her tomorrow?

Even with all the misgivings and doubts I've expressed about teaching at the college, or about working in the academic world generally, I don't think that she's disappointed that it's my career, or part of it, at least for now. And I know she's not judging me for not having children or for not being more religious. (That was always important to her.) She's unequivocally said she wants to see me.

So what am I worried about?

Well, I guess the usual things one thinks about when meeting someone he or she hasn't seen in a long time. What will she think of me? Will she think I've become too....fill-in-the-blank? Have either or each of us changed so much that we cannot relate to each other as we once did?

People who haven't "changed" gender ask themselves those questions. And, of course, the fact that I've done that, and had my surgery, adds another layer of questioning and anxiety. Will she think I'm not enough--or too much--of a woman? Not feminine enough, or too girly? Will I come across as just a guy in a dress?

(I did plan on wearing one, or a nice skirt and blouse. I have a couple of outfits in mind: People always tell me I look good in them.)

Deep down, I don't think she'll make those judgments. Or if she does, she'll keep them to herself. Still, I hope that my visit to her will be a gift for both of us. After all, she turned 85 just before I had my surgery, and who knows when I'll get to see her again.

Maybe that's what's making me nervous. But I've gone through the surgery, dammit. What is there to fear now...especially from the sister of your grandmother who loved you to pieces.

Which of These Things First?

Right now, I'm listening to Nick Drake's "One of These Things First." It's on Bryter Later, his second and least downbeat/most optimistic album. That might be a bit like saying that Smiles of a Summer Night is Ingmar Bergman's least depressing film.

The funny thing is that if something's really good, it doesn't depress me. It might make me feel sad or melancholy, but it doesn't ruin my day or week the way something really bad can.

Anyway, hearing it now makes me a remark Marci Bowers made on the documentary Trinidad, which I watched a few days ago. In essence, she said that she's an artist first, a surgeon second and that "being transgendered comes in eighth," if I remember correctly.

Here's the first stanza of Nick's song:

I could have been a sailor, could have been a cook

A real live lover, could have been a book.
I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock
As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock.
I could be
Here and now
I would be, I should be
But how?
I could have been
One of these things first
I could have been
One of these things first.

I still can't get what Marci said out of my head. Then again, I'm not sure that I want to. I guess knowing what you are "first" is a sign of a successful transition and life.

The interesting thing is that not knowing what you are first is not necessarily a sign of not knowing who you are although, I admit, it's pretty hard to know what you are first if you don't know who you are.

Before her transition, what would Marci have said she was first? What do/did other manque trans people see first when they saw themselves?

I know that during all of the years I was living so far in the closet that I lost even the sense that I was in one, I couldn't have told you who I was, much less what I was first. Of course I could have given you my given name, whatever I was doing for a living, whatever I was doing when I wasn't doing what I did to make a living and a few other facts about myself. But I could not, with any conviction, defined my essence, or even what I "could have" been.

For many of us who come out of the closet, we are--at least for a time--whatever label(s) we were trying to avoid when we were hiding. Some of course, spend all of their time and energy asserting that identity that they've recovered by emerging from the shadows, whether for a year, two years or the rest of their lives. So they become full-time gays, lesbians, transgenders or whatever; a few even make careers of it, whether as advocates, academicians or something else.

I suppose there's nothing really wrong with that. After all, two full-time activists, Jay Toole and Pauline Park, have much to do with the way I emerged from my closet. And others have helped to make various aspects of my life possible.

But now I see myself in a dilemma: I left my life as Nick, made my transition and had my surgery so I can live in accordance with my essence as a woman. In order to begin to change my life, I had to see myself as a transgender woman first for a few years of my life. In fact, during the first couple of years I was living as Justine, I could see and think about almost nothing else. Particularly at the beginning, the transition takes up much of your conscious energy; as you transition, many of the people around you can think about nothing else, either, at least when they're in your presence: They, too, are changing as you're changing.

After I talked about undergoing the surgery--about three or four years before my transition, although I had been thinking about it long before that--Mom said that if that was what I wanted, she hoped I would get the surgery so that "you'd really be a woman" instead of "living in-between."

So, in her eyes, what was I first? I am willing to believe her when she says "my child."

And, certainly for her, I am willing to see myself that way. And maybe that's what I am first--or, as some would say, a child of God.

But as for what I am first, to myself: There lies at least part of my conflict. As I said, I underwent my transition and surgery so that I could live as a woman. But somehow I don't think many women see themselves as women first, just as many men don't see themselves as men first.

If I had to choose, I would say that I'm a writer or a teacher (not an educator) first. At first glance, neither of these seems to be in conflict with my identity as a woman. However, as I see it, a writer has the responsibility to write (whether in a literal or literary way) that to which he or she has borne witness; even the most completely fictional or lyrical works are in some way shaped by the writer's experience of living. And the teacher has the responsibility to teach whatever he or she has learned.

Now, of course, I've experienced all sorts of other things besides my transition and surgery. And I've learned a few things, both inside and outside of classrooms. Yet, no matter what I may teach or write about, I don't see (at least right now) how I could not convey the sense of alienation and isolation that one expereinces when living to keep a secret, the sensations of loss, grief, relief and joy that one can feel in the process of "coming out" and moving forward, the experiences of despair and hope one can have--together, sometimes--when resolving the dilemmas of one's life and the sheer, undiluted terror and joy that comes from becoming completely one's self, and from realizing the ways in which that can burden and empower a person? And finally, how could I not at least make some attempt to help other people understand why someone who has such an experience of life cannot trade it for anything else even if he or she wants to.

I have already, in small ways, helped people from the very young to crusty middle-aged men understand what I've just talked about. Yes, I can say that with confidence, just as I've given comfort and understanding to people who've seen their loved ones endure what I've described. And when I've done those things, there's really been no seperation between myself as a writer and myself as a teacher, whether I was doing one or the other, as(I think) there's no seperation between Marci the artist and Marci the surgeon.

Of course, if I'm going to write about or from my experiences, and if I'm going to help people understand them, the fact that I had to have surgery to bring my body in accordance with my spiritual essence will always be known. Then again, these days, it's a lot harder to keep one's past secret than it once was. Gone are the days, described by people at least a few years older than me, when people could change their identities simply by moving to a place where nobody knew them. Today, the paper and computer trails are longer and more detailed. So, no matter how well I manage to avoid detection by strangers on the street, lots of people will know what I've done.

And some will see me as a trans woman first, no matter what. Others, on the other hand, will see me as a writer, teacher, daughter or friend first. They are the ones with whom I will go along, if I go along with anybody.

More Changes Coming?

Yesterday I posted a new photo to my blog: one that Regina took. I think I can see what she and other people mean when they say that I look "calmer," "happier" or "better" since the surgery. Certainly, I feel all of those things, even with the uncertainties I see in my future.

The uncertainties include my career, where I will be next year, the year after or at any other time in my life and who will or won't be in my life. I know that surgery isn't supposed to change your life all by itself. But I think about those people who left, and came into, from the time I started my transition. And I also wonder whether some of my priorites will change, and how they might affect what kind of work I do and where I live. For the moment, I like my neighborhood. And I enjoy teaching, although I wonder whether the battles over utterly arcane pieces of mental turf that seem to be part of the academic world will make me wish for something else--or whether, as Regina and I were discussing, I might focus my efforts on writing and on educating people about gender and sexuality issues.

I'm not sure of how useful it was for her, but talking to Marilynne when her family was giving her grief over her daughter's impending surgery is one of the most satisfying things I've ever done in my life. I didn't get only emotional gratification from it; I also gained spiritual nourishment, which, I am sure, helped me as I was going through my surgery. I also enjoyed talking with the ones who were about to expereince what I'd just experienced.

Plus, I can already see that I am living in a world of women to an even greater degree than I did before my surgery, or my transition. The funny thing is that I am actually becoming, I think, more sympathetic to men than I was--which, I guess, isn't hard to do, considering that before my transition, I hated most men. But, as a woman among women, I find it enjoyable and healthy to spend time with all sorts of women, from the ones who home-school their children, whether for religious or other reasons, to the ones who've spent their entire lives in educational institutions; from school bus drivers to molecular biologists and from butch dykes to the most femme transgender women. And, I've come to feel that in the academic world, people are expected to talk about, but not to empathise, with them.

The more I see of it, the more it disturbs me that motherhood is so stigmatized in the academic world--by women. I've met women who've become department chairs and have risen even higher than that, in the academic as well as in the corporate world. And, it seems that in the hallowed halls, the women who are in positions of authority--at least the ones I've known--were childless and usually single or divorced. And, I've seen too many instances when an adjunct instructor's child had a medical emergency or needed more time or attention for some other reason, and the female department chair or other supervisor was grudging or unwilling in allowing the instructor whatever accomodations she needed.

Even tenured professors who take maternity leave or have to sacrifice for their children are not looked at favorably by their chairs or their college's administration. Their work is taken less seriously, and they are often kept off those committees and projects that could help their careers.

I'm not saying that this sort of thing doesn't go on in the corporate world, or in other fields of endeavor. But I find it disheartening that women who, I'm sure, faced a lot of prejudice and other difficulties should inflict more of the same on another woman who's doing what she needs to do, and is probably doing her job better than most other people are doing theirs.

Maybe it's odd that I, who will never be a mother (unless I adopt), should think this way. Maybe it has to do with the relationship I have with my own mother. At times in my life, I downplayed it, and even distanced myself from her, at least somewhat. But, not long ago, I told her that if I had to change anything in the life, the very last thing I'd want to change is that she's my mother.

Having that sort of relationship is probably the reason why I gravitate toward women like Regina, Millie and Marilynne. Having a good mother, I know one when I see one, and realize what good and valuable people they are. Plus, as Regina says, I've given birth and am caring for a new life. I expect that, and other things, to influence the rest of my life. So I expect to change in other ways, even if I don't yet know what will change, or how.

Still, I'm looking forward to it all--yes, even to returning to the college. After all, that will be part of those changes and will be an early step on the road of "the rest of my life."

After One Month: Today

Today I turned one month old.

And I can't believe a month has passed already. Now tell me, how many people say "Time flies!"--or, even better yet, "Tempus fugit"--at the age of one month.

I don't think even Catullus or Cicero could've said "Tempus fugit" at the age of one month. Nor, for that matter, could they or Victor Hugo have said "Comme le temps passe vite."

So, does this make me the smartest one-month-old in history, or what? ;-)

OK, enough bragging. That's so unbecoming of a lady. I have to uphold what Regina says about me: that I "reaffirm femininity."

She and I had lunch at Uncle George's restaurant today. If you're ever walking (or pedalling or driving) along Broadway in Astoria, Queens, you've got to eat there. They serve real Greek food, not what you get in a diner. And the food's excellent, plentiful and relatively cheap. Best of all, on a day like today--sunny and warm, but not too--they open up the window/doors on the 34th Street side of their resataurant, and you can sit at one of the tables in the semi-open area. So, you have something like the atmosphere of a cafe's sidewalk terrace, but you can still have a conversation with whomever you accompany, or whoever accompanies you.

Regina explained, in her gentle way, that I am still really an embryonic woman. (How would the world be different if my brothers and I had spent our formative years watching a program called The Embryonic Woman instead of The Bionic Woman?) My body is still becoming acclimated to what Marci brought out from within me, and my mind is sorting out all of the new sensations in old places and old sensations in new places I'm feeling. That process, I suspect, will take quite a while longer.

And she reminded me of something she'd said months ago: I'd been giving birth to myself. Now that the new life I had been carrying within me is living in this world, she said, I am, and am becoming, a different person from what I was before my transition. "Any time you give birth, you're not the same as you were before," she explained. "You really divide your life into 'before' and 'after.'"

That, she said, is the reason why things I expereinced only a few weeks ago seem as if they happened a lifetime ago. The spring semester at the college seems like aeons ago; if I talk about the day I graduated college (if indeed I can still remember any of it!), I may as well be talking about the day Panagea started to break up.

Regina and other women I know who are or have been mothers have told me that once you give birth, your life is not only yours anymore. They all said exactly those words, or something very, very close to them. I wondered whether that made me different from, and not quite equal to, all those women who bore sons and daughters into this world.

While I am not yet ready to compare myself to my mother, Regina, Millie, Sonia or anyone else who are or have been mothers in the way most people would define the role, I can say that I have this in common with them: the sense that because I gave birth, my life is somehow not mine alone. Even though I gave birth to the person I've always known that I am, I didn't do it solely to satisfy my own ego. Furthermore, I now have a responsibility--one that I have taken on gladly--for the life to which I've given birth.

Anyone who fulfills that responsibility is a nurturer. Lots of people don't want to be seen as one because it's not a respected role, particularly in milieux that are dominated by men. Women who live and have sacrificed everything else for their careers--whether in a corporate boardroom or the halls of academia--so often look down on women who, by choice or circumstance, are mothers. They seem to think that somehow the work they do is more rigorous and demanding than what mothers, or other nurturers, do.

"Nurturing" is not necessarily synonymous with "coddling" or "feeding." Sometimes nurturing can involve those things. But to me, it's really about giving, or helping to attain, whatever that life to which you've given birth needs in order to survive, much less thrive. And, in doing so, the nurturer finds mental and spiritual sustenance for his or her own journey in the act of nurturing as well as in the life he or she nurtures.

I can't think of anything more rigorous or demanding than that. I've told my mother that no matter how hard or long I work, I will never have worked as hard or long--not to mention given or sacrificed as much--as she has in raising me or any of my brothers.

She's still nurturing me. Regina is, in her own way. Millie, too. And they all have nurtured, and continue to nurture many, many other people.

What they do makes our lives possible. Today it's my turn, even if I'm only one month old.

The Gender-Variant Breakfast Club

John Hughes died today.

I have always one beef with him: Most of the teen films for which he was known were set in Chicago. Yet there is nary a black person (at least not that I can recall) and scarcely a Latino in any of his films.

To be fair, one could change "Chicago" to "New York" in the previous paragraph to make exactly the same criticism of Woody Allen.

However, as much as I enjoyed Annie Hall, Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters (which, by the way, is the name of the nail salon I frequent) when they came out, I don't feel any great urgency to see them again. And I thought Allen was operating out of his depth in Interiors.

On the other hand, I intend to see The Breakfast Club again. It's often dismissed as a "teen" movie: a label perhaps more fairly applied to most of his other movies. But that film, as I recall it, has elements that I think I could appreciate even more now than I did when I first saw it--Was it 25 years ago already?

The story itself is very basic and won't appeal to a snob or cynic. I guess that's proof that I wasn't really either; I was just a poeur hipster. Long live poseurism! And long live you if you're a poseur: You'll outgrow it eventually, and when that happens, you'll get a great laugh at your own expense. If you can do that, I've learned, you stand a greater chance of loving yourself, not to mention other people.

All right: Off the soapbox. At least I wasn't wearing high heels. I haven't worn them in weeks; the sandals with three-inch wedges I wore the other day don't count: they were too comfortable!

Anyway...In BC, a few kids end up in Saturday detention. Among them were a jock, a brain, a princess, a criminal and a pure-and-simple basket case (my favorite character, played by Ally Sheedy) who's in detention mainly because she had nothing better to do.

They find ways to pass the time and, in the process, reveal secrets to each other and discover commonalities in the narratives of their lives. At the request of the other students, Brian, the "brain" of the group, writes the essay the principal assigned them. For that essay, each student was to answer the question "Who do you think you are?" Brian writes the esaay as a letter to the principal, challenging him to look past his pre-conceived notions of them. One version of the letter is read near the beginning of the film and the other toward the end.

The first version goes like this:

Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois. 60062.

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us... in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at seven o'clock this morning. We were brainwashed.

The later version of the letter is:

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is

...a brain...Brian Johnson

...and an athlete...Andrew Clark

...and a basket case...Allison Reynolds

...a princess...Claire Standish

...and a criminal...John Bender

Does that answer your question?... Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

Call me a sucker, but just for that letter, I'm willing to forgive, if not overlook, the omissions and other deficiencies of Hughes' work.

So why am I thinking about that letter, or The Breakfast Club, now? Well, as simplistic as the plot and the expressed point of view of that movie are, that letter--and the way the actors portrayed their characters--shows at least an awareness of the blind spots not only of the characters, but of those who created, played and directed them. That, I think, is more than can be said of anything Woody Allen ever did. And it's certainly shows more awareness than most writers, directors and others involved in film and TV show when it comes to the way they portray people of color, not to mention transgender or other gender-variant people.

"Transgender," "transsexual," and "transvestite" are among those "simplest terms" to which Brian Johnson alludes in his letter. At least, they are in pretty much every film and TV program I've seen that has a gender-variant character or in which gender variance is a theme or sub-theme. And, because they are the "simplest terms," they can only convey "the most convenient definitions."

And that is why David Reuben's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask and Woody Allen's eponymous movie were so wildly popular. If I recall correctly, Dr. Reuben's book spent a year or so on the Times best-seller list and the film was Allen's most commercially successful up to that point. (I suspect that people who liked it probably weren't fans of Annie Hall, much less Interiors.)

It's been decades since I read Dr. Reuben's book or saw Woody Allen's movie. But, as I recall them, they both reinforced the ideas most people had about transgendered people: that they were guys in dresses who had sex with prepubescent kids. (How ironic was it that Woody Allen was engaged in, uh, extracurricular activities with his stepdaughter?)

As near as I can tell, part of being "in the closet" means accepting, and even reenforcing those stereotypes that are presented as verities and accepted as archetypes. By that definition, I reckon, most of us have been in the closet at some point or another. Although I lived in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood until I was thirteen, I rarely, if ever, saw an African-American, Latino or Asian person. And, although I called other kids "queers," I had no idea of what that meant, much less that, according to some people (and the American Psychiatric Association), I am one. So I didn't realize, until much later, the degree to which people of those backgrounds were stereotyped in the TV shows and movies, not to mention the cartoons, I saw when I was growing up.

One of the first TV shows I recall that seemed to make any attempt to break away from the dominant characterisations of non-white as well as other "minority" people was All In The Family. But even in that program, as good as it was, black characters like Jefferson as well as members of other groups, the old and the infirm were used mainly as foils for Archie Bunker's hang-ups rather than developed as full-fledged human beings. In the end, those characters were still defined by their labels, just as Archie Bunker was as a bigot, albeit a lovable one.

The TV show I recall that featured a man who wore women's clothing on a regular basis was One Day at a Time. We watched that because, actually, it was pretty good and my brother had his first crush on Valerie Bertinelli. (He could have chosen worse.) Although people got used to the transvestite character, the show did not in any way challenge the ideas most people, including me, had at the time: that such men were gay and more than a little creepy because they wanted to be women because they didn't know how to be men. And, of course, the cross-dressing was always played for laughs.

I must say, though, that in making "comic relief" out of cross-dressing, One Day At A Time was probably no worse--mainly because it was no different--from other shows and movies that featured any form of gender variance. "Guy in women's clothes" became the convenient definition for the simplistic terms of "gay," "transsexual" (No-one, to my knowledge, was using "transgendered" then.) or "transvestite."

If I recall correctly, The Breakfast Club came out about a decade after One Day At A Time premiered, and One Day appeared about half a decade after All In The Family made its debut. And it has been about a quarter-century since BC first came to the silver screen. It's fair to ask just how far movies--or we--have come in understanding people who are too often circumscribed by those "simplest terms" and "most convenient definitions." Even Trans-America, at times, falls prey to that sort of thinking, which is the reason why that what most people remember about it is "that Desperate Housewife playing a guy who becomes a girl."

In a way, I feel sorry for John Hughes. People always seem to have thought of him as a "teen" film director, and the vogue for that type of film seems to have died somewhere around 1992. What if he had found a new subject? Could he have made films that took up the challenge Brian Johnson posed to his principal?