Nevada Assembly Passes Transgender Protections Bill

The Nevada State Assembly has just voted for a bill that would outlaw job discrimination against transgender people.


Now the bill has to go before the state Senate for a vote.  The bill's supporters believe they have the votes to pass it, but no one seems to know whether Governor Bill Sandoval will sign it.


One legislator tried to claim that there aren't legal barriers to employment for transgender people, and others pointed out that there haven't been any discrimination cases involving transgender people.  However, Paul Aizley, one of the bill's sponsors, says that the reason why there haven't been court cases because transgender people lack the legal standing to bring them.  To that, I would add that most of us also don't have the economic standing to do so.


Although I'm not a fan of big government and more legislation, I don't see how  else to make conditions equitable for transgender people who want and need to work.  While most people will do what is fair, others need incentives or sanctions to do so.  On the other hand, discrimination cases are notoriously difficult to prove.  A gay black man I know says that human resource offices hide behind claims that an applicant "isn't a good fit with the culture of the organization," or some such thing.   He is about half a dozen years older than I am, earned a PhD a long time ago and has published two books.  Yet he's still working as an adjunct instructor in a couple of different colleges.


One thing I find interesting is that a state like Nevada--which is actually quite conservative once you get out of Las Vegas and Reno--is basically on the same level, at least when it comes to transgender rights, as New York.  This State's anti-discrimination laws were passed with language to protect gays and lesbians, but not transgenders because, as more than one legislator said, "the upstate Republicans wouldn't vote for" the bill if it included protection for gender identity and expression.  And those same legislators who passed the bill claimed that once the bill became law, it could be changed.


That was almost forty years ago.  In the meantime, several other states and about 100 municipalities--including New York City and Rochester (which, believe it or not, was one of the first in the nation)--passed their own laws and ordinances aimed at protecting transgendered people.  Now it looks like Nevada might be next.  


For once, at least one group of people is hoping that something that happens in Vegas doesn't have to stay in Vegas!

We Get The Storm

I know this hasn't much to do with being transgendered, or about changes in one's self.  But I want to show you something that happened only two blocks from where I live:

The same storm system that sent tornadoes tearing through large parts of this country gave us a storm that, while not quite as powerful, pounded us with heavy rain and hail, and slammed us with wind gusts over fifty miles an hour.  Those winds tore a side off the tree and left large limbs on the other side of the street.

I'm glad I'm not the owner or driver of this car!

Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, One Year Later

The other day, someone sent me a link to a site that displayed one of my posts on this blog.  


I was a bit surprised, as the post is a year old.  But I am glad, for one thing, that someone is reading something I wrote a year after I wrote it.  My writing may not echo through the eons, but knowing that someone else is thinking, when I'm not, about something I wrote is nice.  


However, as much as I want to be a famous writer and all that, there is a far more important reason why I'm happy someone is referencing a post of mine a year after the fact.  You see, the post has had more views than any other I've made on this blog.  I'm happy for that, though not the occasion that prompted the post:  the murder of  Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar.


She was a young and beautiful woman whose given name was Edelbuerto.  Her death was ruled, not only as a homicide, but as a hate crime.  And, thankfully, her killer was caught.  But that makes her case almost one in a hundred.  According to Interpol, more than ninety percent of all killings of transgender or other gender-variant people since 1975 haven't been solved.  Some are never investigated in the first place; worse yet, no one hears about many other killings of trans people because so many have been cast aside by their families, friends and other communities.


Amanda experienced some of that rejection, I'm sure.  But people who knew her have told me that she was an outgoing, friendly woman who had a number of friends.  Apparently, she had not become alienated or hostile, as too many other members of marginalized minorities become.  That should serve as a reminder that hostile people are, for the most part, made, not born.  


I just hope that wherever Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar is, one year after she was killed, her spirit is appreciated and she does not have to experience the violence--to her body or spirit--to which she was subjected at the end of her life here, in Queens, just a couple of neighborhoods away from where I live.

Tranny Baiting

Yesterday I had one of those classes that made me wish I'd gone into business or something rather than education. 


I was showing a film version of Shakespeare's Othello, the Moor of Venice.  The class in which I showed it consists mainly of freshmen, the majority of whom are at or near the "traditional" age for students in their first year of college.  So, as you might expect, there are some who are very, very immature.


One of them showed up after missing more than a month's worth of classes.  Worse, she is one of those students who wants her instructors to "freeze" the class to bring her up to speed.  Worse yet, she hadn't read any of the play and insisted on sitting next to me and asking me to explain the play, characters and story.  


The cynic in me says that her claimed disabilities aren't real, and that she's using her claim to them so that her professors don't demand of her what they demand of other students.  I've had other disabled students, and none had the sense of entitlement she seems to have. 


And then there's a group that sits in one part of the room.  They are the most immature ones of all--though, I must say, one of them is very smart and would be even more so if he weren't always trying to sound smart.


Again, he's not the first student of that type I've had.  What I find troubling is that he and a friend (who was absent) are trying to bait me. Or, that's how I feel anyway.  They're gay, and though they'd turn purple with rage if anyone "outed" them, that's what they're trying to do to me.  They seem to be the sorts of gay men who think that all transwomen need are good boyfriends (like themselves) to disabuse us of the notion that we have of ourselves.  


How do I know?  I've run into that kind of man before.  In fact, one of them used to make jokes that would get a guy fired in another workplace. But this guy was a prof with tenure at a college in which I worked before my current schools.

Yesterday's class was at my "second" job.  I haven't talked publicly about my history and identity because, well, I got tired of doing so at my other job.  Also, I find that the very same people who encourage me to talk about those things, and to lead workshops on gender identity or some such thing, are the very same people who will use the fact that I'm talking about those things against me.  


I have to admit, though, that the class--and I--couldn't help but notice that one of those guys was eager to play Desdemona when we read two scenes aloud.  Some in the class giggled; I wanted to either use it as a "teaching moment" to reiterate something I'd said earlier about English theatre in Shakespeare's time--namely, that there were no actresses and the female parts were played by boys--or to take that young man aside and ask him something like "What's Up With That?"


I just might ask him that tomorrow.  

They All Want To Write About LGBT Issues

One of the classes I'm teaching this semester is in research writing.  All students at the college in which I teach it have to take it when they are juniors, though some wait until their very last semesters.  


In that course, I assign some readings on a common topic and have them write two papers about them.  Along the way, I give them guidance about research, planning, writing a draft, revisions and documentations.   Then they can choose a topic, write a proposal and, after I approve the proposal--or after they revise it--they begin to write their papers.  I can't remember rejecting a proposal outright; I usually ask students to focus their topics more or suggest things they might want to research within that topic.


What surprises (in a good way) and fascinates me is that about a third of my students want to write on some LGBT-related topic.  Now, at that college where I'm teaching that class, my identity is known.  I always tell the students that I don't want them to choose topics or say what they say to get in my good graces; I just want them to choose something that interests them and that's doable in the amount of time we have.  But every one of those students insists that he or she has other reasons for wanting to write about LGBT-related topics.  Two students are doing so because they're gay; three other students are writing about homophobia in Caribbean countries. (Interestingly, a Haitian-American and a Nigerian student are writing about the homophobia in Jamaica, while a Jamaican student plans to write about the phenomenon as it occurs in other Caribbean countries.)  


While I'm happy to see them take on those topics, I wonder why a much greater portion of my students this semester than in previous semesters want to research and write about LGBT issues.  Is there something in the water? ;-)

It's A Girl Again!

Another "girl" was "born" today.


Or, more precisely, a girl who was born on 7 July 2009 became who she is, again.


Actually, the event happened a couple of days ago.  But I just got the official documentation of it today.


I'm talking about my birth certificate.  I know I should've had it changed a while ago.  But somehow it didn't seem as urgent as changing my passport or Social Security cared, or my state ID.  Those last three documents are the ones used in nearly all situations requiring personal identification.  However, I can't remember the last time I had to show my birth certificate.


On the other hand, I didn't know I would feel as good as I did about getting that new birth certificate.  When I said getting it didn't seem urgent, I was telling just part of the truth.  Something about changing my birth certificate seemed even more monumental (at least in my life) than changing those other documents.  After all, most people get new passports, driver's licenses or other government IDs every ten years.  Some people even get new Social Security cards.  However, most people get only one birth certificate in their lives.


Getting the new birth certificate was easier than I expected.  It turns out that Georgia, where I was born, actually has an easier process than many other states--including New York!  I had to send the following items to the Georgia Bureau of Vital Statistics in Atlanta:

• My old birth certificate
• A certified copy of Marci Bowers' letter certifying that she performed my surgery
• The court order for my name change
• A photocopy of my New York State ID and US Passport*, and
• A money order for $35.

I sent these items via Express Mail, and included a pre-paid Express Mail return envelope.  Today, ten days later, I received my new birth certificate.

It is a brand-new certificate.  I found out that many other states issue amended copies--in some cases, with the former name and gender visibly typed over.  And some other states won't change a person's name or gender at all.

Now I have an official Georgia birth certificate that records my sex as "female."  Does that mean I'm now officially a Southern Belle?  Well, maybe if I were a little bit more belle, I guess I could be one.

Another Campaign of H8

Even if you haven't heard of the Westboro Baptist Church, you may know about its founder, Reverend Fred Phelps.  And even if you don't know about either one, you probably know about some of the things they've done.  Back in 1998, they showed up at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, chanting "God Hates Fags."  A few years later, they would show up at the funerals of American military members who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.  There, they yammered about how God hates the military and that he would destroy the very soldiers and airmen who were fighting there.  


I guess this all shows that hate really is a cancer that feeds on everything around it.  How else could a pastor and his followers, all of whom purport to be Christians, be so filled with hate?  

When Girl Meets Girl

When you're a performer of any sort, someone in your audience is going to have a crush on you.  Anyone who's a singer or musician knows that.  So do actors and dancers.  Also, I've discovered, it's equally true for professors or teachers as it is for preachers and politicians.


Now, if that has happened to me both as Nick and as Justine, I know it can happen to anyone who teaches!


Anyway...One of my students, it seems, just can't stop looking at me--with a longing, winsome smile.  It's funny that, even though this is not the first such experience I've had, it seems even stranger--yet, in some odd way, more gratifying--than any student crush I've experienced before.  


Not to boast, but I am one of the few faculty members I know who has been the object of longings from both male and female students.  So no such attention should seem out of the ordinary by now.  So why am I talking about this particular student?


I'll call her Matilda.  She was born in Venezuela and came here as a teenager. In one of her papers, she described the day she realized she had sexual feelings for women.  She mentioned it in relation to something we'd read in class,  and she's older than the "traditional" college-age student (though she's very youthful-looking).  So I didn't regard it as a "coming out."  In fact, I somehow felt that her sexual self-identity was normal, perhaps even routine, to her.  I daresay that the way I relate to my own gender and sexual identity is probably newer for me than hers is for her.


In another assignment, she said (again, in relation to something we'd read in class) that she never has never been with a man, and never had interest (at least sexually) in them.   Before she realized she had feelings for women, she said, the other girls in her class had boyfriends and she tried to believe what her family told her: that her "turn" hadn't come yet.  


Now, when you teach a work of literature, your students (at least some of them) are sure to relate something or another about it to some experience or another in their own lives.  I do not discourage that, for that is often the "gateway" for students.  Some have told me some very personal stories.  So, in a sense, what Matilda did wasn't so unusual, at least to me.  Still, I somehow felt that she was revealing even more of herself to me than students normally do.


Then I started to think--especially after I noticed her gaze and her smile--that she was trying to tell me something more than the connection she found between her experience and the reading.


Of course, I have no intention of pursuing a relationship with her.  Certainly, I would never do it while she was my student.  But I wouldn't go on a date with her even after she has completed the course with me.  For one thing, if she's still in school after that, it would definitely lead to some awkward moments.  And, for another, I realize that my allure (such as it is) would probably be gone once I'm not her prof any more.  The fact that we are in the same class (albeit in different roles) might be the only thing we have in common.


But, even so, I find her attraction to me even more affirming than the first time a man was attracted to me after I started living as Justine. (At least, he was the first one that I noticed.)  He was a Puerto Rican artist, whom I'll call Dario,  about a decade or so older than me.  When I "confessed" who I really was to him, he said he was willing to stay with me until my operation--which, at that point, was still well into the future--and beyond.  In fact, he said, he wanted me as a woman.


Dario also insisted that, sexually, he was interested only in women.  I had my doubts then, which were later confirmed.  That wasn't the reason I didn't go out with him, though.  I just didn't sense that we were terribly compatible in other ways.


On the other hand, I am sure Matilda has never been interested in men.  I wouldn't care if anyone I dated had relations with both genders, as long as he or she were honest and disease-free.  But I know--or, at least, I've surmised from what I've seen--that she isn't interested in any manifestation of my Y chromosome.  I've run into a few women who seemed to want me to be a boyfriend, only better.  That's not what I'm sensing in Matilda.


So, as strange as this attraction is, I'm enjoying it.  We probably will never see each other again once the course is over.  Perhaps one or both of us will have come to know ourselves better as a result of this.

They Need A Few Good Bikes. The Women, Too.

A counselor at my second job is a volunteer with Neighbors Link, an organization that helps recent immigrants. He is asking people to donate bicycles and sturdy clothing and footwear (such as jeans, overalls, T-shirts and work boots) to that organization, which will give them to recent immigrants.

The idea intrigued me for several reasons.  For one, I notice that more and more immigrants--mainly from Latin America and Asia, and mainly men--are using bicycles for transportation. I'm not talking only about the guys who make deliveries for various restaurants, cafes and diners.  Others are riding their bikes to work at construction sites, warehouses and other places where native-born degree-holders fear to tread.  Some, I suspect, are also riding to classes at the community colleges, language institutes, trade schools and GED centers in the area.  

As you can imagine, they're not always riding the best of bikes.  Sometimes they're on cheap department-store bikes, most of which are not assembled properly (in addition to being of poor quality).  Others are used bikes of just about every genre.  These days mountain bikes from the early and mid-90's seem to be the most common pre-owned bikes to find their way into the immigrant communities, and there are large numbers of "vintage" ten- and twelve-speed bikes, in addition to some English (or English-style) three-speeds.  (Do you know what makes me feel old? Knowing that I rode "vintage" bikes when they weren't vintage!)  All of these bikes, even the best of them, are in various states of disrepair.  

Image from "The Urban Country"

I think the counselor who's coordinating the collections is doing a great thing. If you're in the NYC area and have anything to donate, I can refer you to him, and he will arrange a pick-up.

But now that I've undergone changes, I've become a radical feminist.  (Ha, ha!) So I notice that these immigrant bike riders are invariably male.  That is not a stereotype or sweeping generalization; I can't recall the last time I saw a Latina or female Asian immigrant riding a bike for any reason.  Every female cyclist I've met here has been native- or European-born.  

So now I'm thinking about why that is.  It seems to me that bicycling, like education, can make such women less dependent on men and less isolated.  I have had many female immigrant students, some of whom were single mothers and others who were married to abusive men.  Even those who seemed to be in happy marriages and families were living in a kind of isolation I can just barely imagine.  I mean, I've lived in a culture different from my own, and I've traveled to others. But I realize now that, when I was living abroad, and in my travels until recently, I had a great deal of freedom simply from being a single American, and from living as a guy named Nick.  But even when I went to Turkey five years ago--as Justine, but still three years before my surgery--I was able to move about in ways that I never could had I been a Turkish woman.

Oh, and I didn't see a single woman on a bike when I was there.  And I wasn't riding, either.

Anyway...Let me know if you want to make, or know anyone who wants to make, a donation to the program I described.  I'm also interested in hearing any thoughts you might have about the situation of immigrant women I've just described.

What Would MLK Do?

Forty-three years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot to death.  It's the first assassination of a public figure that I can recall:  I was nine years old at the time.


Of course, anyone who concerns him or herself with equality has to think about King.  Thinking about him invariably brings to mind the man who is often thought to be his opposite:  Malcolm X, who was also gunned down.


Most people who are working, or have worked, for the betterment of their group of people see King as an icon.  The fact that he faced the institutionalized (and, too often, legal) discrimination of his time is reason enough to venerate him.  However, I think that it's often assumed that King would be in support of some cause or another.  The same people might have wanted to claim Malcolm X as an ally, except that they see him as someone who pursued his ends through violence, and advised others to do the same.


I think it might be fair to assume that King would favor LGBT equality.  However, I'm not so sure of what he'd think of same-sex marriage, or even legal protections for transgender people.  After all, he was ordained as a minister in a conservative Protestant denomination.  Then again, his views on LGBT equality might have evolved had he lived longer.  There was evidence that some of his views, or at least his focus, was starting to change in the days before his assassination.  He had treated the fight for equality mainly as a legal and moral issue.  However, it is said that by the end of his life, he was starting to think about the economics of the issue more.  Perhaps he understood, as James Baldwin said more than half a century ago, that no community can hope to improve its lot when even the local supermarket isn't owned by someone in the community and the profits are going to some faraway place.


Malcolm X understood that from the beginning of his days as an activist.  He said that, in essence, African-Americans had to develop their own economy, which would be separate from the larger American/Western economy.  He did not want, or expect any assistance from the government or any other established institution.  Ultimately, I believe that he had the right idea:  Groups of people, if they want to better themselves, ultimately must establish their own stores, banks, schools and whatever.  However, that wasn't possible in his time because African-Americans and other marginalized communities didn't have the resources necessary to bring about such a system. 


King was beginning to understand that.  And, after the journey to Mecca he took the year before he was killed,  Malcolm was starting to realize that in order to bring about economic, not to mention ethical and spiritual, justice, unity rather than separatism was needed.  So he started to see the need for a universal brotherhood that would include alliances and friendships with sympathetic whites and people of other races.  That, of course, was Martin Luther King's territiory.


Would they have joined forces?  (Interestingly, their widows became very close friends.)  Would their alliances and brotherhoods have include LGBT people.   Somehow the notion that they would have done those things seems not so far-fetched.  

Why We Should Be Worried About Anti-Islamic Hate

Although I still have something that resembles a belief system, I have just about no use for religion.  Still, I am very, very afraid when I see people using their influence to spread hate against other people on account of their religion.  After all, if you learn nothing else from the Holocaust, you learn that when they go after the Jews, it's only a matter of time before they go after you.


A certain amount of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment has long existed in this country; 9/11 simply pushed it to the forefront and made anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry socially acceptable, at least in some circles.  But lately, it seems that the Islamophobes have "turned up the volume," if you will.  Whether or not there has been more violence and hatred against Muslims, I don't know.  But I've certainly been hearing a lot more about it lately.


The Florida pastor who burned the Koran is just the latest example.  You just don't do that to someone's holy book, even if it's The Whole Earth Catalogue or Mad Magazine.  I mean, what if some imam in Afghanistan burned Bibles or copies of the US Constitution?  I'd be willing to bet that the same people who preach hate against Muslims would be purple with rage.  


Among those people would be folks like Congressman Peter King.  His hearings on terrorism turned into an anti-Moslem referendum.  Until those hearings, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt: I suspected that he lost someone close to him on 9/11.  However, I've met other people who lost loved ones that day and have not heard--from them, anyway--the kind of bilge coming out of King's mouth.  Yes, they're still grieving; they're probably angry and some may well hate Muslim or Middle Eastern people.  However, they're not acting the way King has acted. 


Plus, as Diana has noted on her blog, violence against Muslims and people who are (or are thought to be) of Middle Eastern descent has increased and shows no signs of abating.  The FBI says that there are now about 1000 hate groups operating in the US.  Many of them are white supremacist groups, or include white supremacy in their goals and mission.  It's not a stretch to say that the ones who haven't openly expressed a wish to make life more difficult or even to deport or kill Muslims are engaged in doing so.  


And once they're finished with Muslims, they'll come for you!

Maryland HB-235: Trans People Thrown Under The Bus, Again

What is it with LGBT legislation?  It seems that it's only for the L's and the G's.

Mind you, I don't believe that legislation is the way to achieve equality.  If anything, I think less legislation will do us more good. 

Same-sex marriage is a case in point. First of all, I think that government has no business in marriage.  If the government has no right to decide who is and isn't married, then there can be no favoritism in the tax codes or in any other part of the body of law.

But when laws are passed with clearly-defined language for lesbian or gay rights, but not for transgender people--or when gay-rights laws are "amended" by adding the words "gender identity and expression--that is worse than having no law at all, for such laws create new inequalities that didn't exist before.

Such has been the case in New York State for forty years.  And now it looks like Maryland is going to emulate The Empire State in that regard. 

HB-235 in Maryland is one of those pieces of legislation that prohibits discrimination against LGBT people in employment, housing and other areas.  However, the way "housing" and "public accomodations" are defined has more holes in it than an old pair of pantyhose.  That is part of the "compromise" that's supposed to make it at least somewhat palatable to middle-of-the-road legislators.  

So why is that discriminatory against transgender people? Well, it still means that, as the bill is written, transgenders could still be denied the right to stay in a homeless shelter or a "safe house" for women who are fleeing domestic violence.  It also means that someone who is trans--forget that, any male or female whose appearance is not in line with societal standards of masculinity or femininity--can be arrested for using the "wrong" bathroom in an office building, restaurant or other establishment.  

I am not the only one  who thinks the bill was deliberately written that way to appease the ones who think that men in dresses are going to bathrooms to molest little boys, or some such thing.  Much as it pains me to say this, Archbishop Timothy Dolan was right about something:  He pointed out that most child molesters are straight married men.   And, I would add, very few of them wear dresses or any clothing that isn't stereotypically masculine. 

(My experience reflects what Dolan said:  In my childhood, I was molested by a married man who probably never even wore anything red,  let alone pink,  in his life, and by another man who, as far as I know, was straight.) 

The thing is, no law that even pretends to be trans-inclusive will ever win the approval of anyone who thinks that way.  The few who might have been swayed by the "compromises" may have been swayed by other means.  So, if the bill passes, inequalities are enshrined in law:  another case of trans people being "thrown under the bus."

Damien Furtch Speaks Up and Out

What happened to Damian Furtch is terrible.  He was leaving the McDonald's at Sixth Avenue and West Third Street in Manhattan on Saturday night when he was attacked.


Sometimes I think LGBT people are actually less safe in the "gay ghettos" than they are in other areas.  Damian Furtch was attacked in the heart of Greenwich Village, just doors away from stores and other establishments owned by, and that cater to, gay men as well as other non-heterosexual and non-gender-conforming people.  


The particular stretch where Furtch ended up with two black eyes and bloody nose is the site of one of the biggest subway stations in the New York City system.  Seven different lines stop there, on two levels of track separated by a mezzanine.  Lots of young people from New Jersey, Long Island, Connecticut and other places outside the city get off the train there, especially on Saturday nights, as it is only one stop away from Penn Station and two away from the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Times Square.  I know because more times (and more years ago) than I'll admit, I was one of those young people.


Now, the majority of them go to the Village to hang out, and perhaps to catch a movie or go shopping.   But others are go there specifically to harass gay people.  After all, they're a lot more likely to find a target there than in Moonachie or Mahopac or Meriden.  


I'm glad that Damian Furtch is speaking up.   He is performing as valuable a role as all of those young LGBT people in the "It Gets Better" videos and commercials.  He and they are survivors and, hopefully, testaments that their love for whomever they love is greater than whatever hate someone else might have for them.

Hearing It All Again

Sometimes it all seems too familiar.  There is a particularly gruesome attack on a transgender person, and the media splashes it all over their pages and screens.  Or they do one of their "Bet You Didn't Know They Were Trannies" segments.


The problem is that reporters, producers and others who are supposed to inform the public forget about us the rest of the time.  They will never, for instance, talk about Injustice At Every Turn:  A Report of The National Transgender Discrimination Survey.  If they did, they would express shock or possibly pity.    But they would be surprised only in ways we can't be upon finding out that 78 percent of gender non-conforming people experience harassment in grades K-12 and half of us were harassed in our workplaces, while seven percent of us experienced outright violence there.  


And for trans people of color, it's all worse.  But when was the last time you saw a gender non-conforming person of color who wasn't named RuPaul on TV or in a movie?


I wonder whether anyone has done a study about how much media attention we actually get.

Sometimes You Just Have To Ask

Today I parked my bike in a place where I never before parked it.

The funny thing is that it was a place where I used to go almost daily for about two years.  That was about a dozen years ago, at least, and I hadn't been back since.  I had no bad feelings about the place; I simply hadn't been in its vicinity.

The reason I never parked there is that I never needed to.  I worked just across the street from it and parked in a storage area of the building.  So I never knew whether or not the place would allow my bike to accompany me.

And I found out that the proprietor would let me park there the same way R.J. Cutler, the director of The September Issue got to talk to Anna Wintour:  he asked.

Actually, the proprietor is  nowhere near as ferocious as the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Vogue editor.  But he is an intense man who seems not to have aged at all since I last visited the place.  For that matter, the place hasn't changed since then--or, it seems, since the 1970's or thereabouts:

I mean, when was the last time you saw stools with Naugahyde in that shade of mustard-beige, and lampshades to match?  

The menu seems not to have changed, either.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't changed since the 1950's, if the place has been around that long.  And most of its patrons--including yours truly--wouldn't want it to.  It consists of the sorts of sandwiches and dishes diners in New Jersey and New England (away from the Route 128 corridor, anyway) would have served during that time: things like spaghetti with fish cakes, meat loaf, roast beef sandwiches and some Greek and Italian specialties.  

Back in the day, I would buy a cup of coffee and a corn muffin on my way in to work. Sometimes I would go there for a sandwich.  It was all really good.  But today they had sold out of muffins and donuts and looked ready to close:  apparently, on Sundays they stay open long enough only to serve people going to, or coming from, church and the ones finishing up the weekend shift and the nearby bus yard. 

So, I had a baklava and cup of coffee.  These days, I don't normally drink coffee, but this was one good time to make an exception.  It was as good as I remember from back in the day.  And the baklava was not soggy, as it is in too many places:  The buttery texture of the flaky pastry really tied together the tastes and texures of the nuts and honey it contained, and the slight taste of cinnamon was the perfect "foil" for the rest of it.

The funny thing is that the proprietor was looking at me as if he were trying to remember where he saw me before.  Finally, I said, "I used to work in this neighborhood, and I used to come here."  

"When?"

"A long time ago.  About twenty years ago."  I stretched the facts a bit, but the truth is that it seemed even further in the past than that.  It was, almost literally, another lifetime.

The proprietor's wife, who had been putting away dishes of butter and jars of jelly, overheard us.  

As I left, she said, "Come back, will ya?"

I promised her that I would, next time I'm down that way.

What I Learned From Geraldine Ferraro

Is this turning into a blog about famous recently-departed women?


Today Geraldine Ferraro died.  If you're reading this, you probably know that she was the first woman (and first Italian-American) to be nominated as a major political party's Vice-Presidential candidate.  I remember it well:  It was 1984, and in a sadly ironic way, Presidential nominee Walter Mondale had nothing to lose by choosing her as his running mate. After all, incumbent Ronald Reagan was one of the most popular Presidents of all time (It pains me to write that!) due to the economy-- or, rather, people's perception of it--and the fact that Iran-Contra and other scandals had not yet come to light.  


A few people praised Mondale's choice.  But there was far more criticism, which ranged from ignorant to outright vicious.  Much of it included the old (but, in some quarters, still-persistent) stereotypes about women and our un-fitness for public office or much else besides domesticity and child-bearing.  Some saw her as shrill; given the attacks on her, I thought she was a model of restraint and dignity.


The interesting thing about her is that not many people can point to any significant legislations or policy that bore her imprimatur.   Yes, she was an Assistant District Attorney in Queens at a time when there were almost no other women in such offices, and she headed the office's Special Victims Bureau at a time (the mid-1970's) when rape and other crimes against women were starting to get the attention they needed and victims of those crimes were starting to get the compassion they deserved rather than the blame they unfairly received.  And, later, she was an effective advocate for women who were raped during the ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia.  As commendable as those efforts were, they were hardly ground-breaking.


What she will always be known for is for having been a "first."  Of course, the importance of that cannot be underestimated:  even Sarah Palin has acknowledged a debt to Ferraro.  And now I will.  You see, if one woman is allowed to go where her talents and ambitions take her, it's possible for other women to do the same. And in doing so, we have more possibility of, and more possibilities for, being ourselves and not having to fit pre-conceived notions and, therefore, proscribed roles.


That is one reason why I have been able to make my gender transition.  When the definitions of what a woman is, and can be are expanded, it makes it easier for a woman to realize the person she is--even if she happens to be in a male body.  I did not have to become another Marilyn Monroe (as if I ever could!) or June Cleaver; when Christine Jorgensen made her transition, those seemed to be the only options for women.  And so she had to fit into one after she had her surgery, and the other as she lived, got married and continued with her life as Christine.  Today I can choose to be a different sort of woman. In fact, I have no choice but to be. And from Geraldine Ferraro I learned about some of my possibilities for doing that.

Violence Against Transgenders On The Rise. Why?

Lately, I've been reading reports and editorials that indicate or imply increasing violence against transgender people.  Some people might say that these crimes are simply reported more than they have been in the past; the same claim has been made about the increasing numbers of sexual assaults and incidents of domestic violence in some areas.  However, there are some areas--particularly in the Middle East and Latin America--where even the authorities say that all forms of violence, from verbal assaults to murder, are on the rise.  In fact, seven out of every ten reported murders of transgender people occur between the Rio Grande and the Tierra del Fuego.


The easy explanations include "machismo" and Islamic fundamentalism, as if those things were definitions of Latin American and Middle Eastern society. Somehow I think there's more to the increasing incidence and brutality of crimes against transgender people.

R.I.P. Elizabeth Taylor

As most of the world knows by now, Elizabeth Taylor died today.  


As old as I am, I can just barely remember her heyday as an actress--or, more precisely, the days when she was more or less defined by the roles she played on stage and screen.  Those days have long passed.  


However, I do not say that to disparage her.  In fact, it's rather a point of honor, in her case.  That's not to say that I don't love to see a star playing a big role in a great (or at least big) movie.  Instead, that is to say--as others have pointed out--that her life transcended even those highlights, and was so much more than what we heard about her marriages, battles with addiction and other experiences.


For one thing, she will be remembered--and will have my respect--for her courage.  She stood with Rock Hudson when he was diagnosed with AIDS in a time when infected people were routinely shunned and even beaten or killed when their status was disclosed, or even alleged.  And she is probably the only person in the world who could have gotten away with supporting Michael Jackson the way she did.


She was able to do those things, in fact, for the same reason she became as much of a star as she did:  her presence.  Whether she was on stage or on screen, she was compelling.  It wasn't just a matter of her theatrical abilities: She had them, but other people had more, and better versions of, them.  Nor was it solely about her incredible beauty or her unique eyes.  Rather, she was one of those rare people who simply seemed to belong on whatever stage she stood.  That was also what allowed her to reign as an old-fashioned screen and stage idol long after "celebrity" seemed to become a synonym for "richer and more fucked-up than you or I."


That is also what allowed her to become one of the best public friends of the LGBT community we've had.  It's hard not to think that more than a few people  thought, "Well, if they're good enough for Elizabeth Taylor, they must be good enough for us."  


She loved diamonds, too.  


Anyway, we'll miss her.  But then again, who won't?

Please Don't Approach Me As A "T"

Today two different people approached me to help with something called "Safe Zone" training.  And I reacted in two completely different ways.


No, I haven't suddenly gone bipolar.  At least, I don't think I have.


At my first job, I heard someone rasp, "Hey, Professor" a few feet behind me.  The voice belonged to a longtime prof who, a few years ago, swore me to secrecy when she told me what I already knew:  She is a lesbian.  Today she denied that she ever extracted that promise from me.  Well, whether or not she did, I assured her, whoever knows about her didn't learn about it from me.  She thanked me for that, and mentioned that she wanted to do the Safe Zone training.


"It's for the benefit of LGBT people," she explained.  "And we don't have a T."  


I explained--truthfully--that I couldn't do the training session because it conflicted with a class at my other job.  "Well, we hope to have another training soon after," she said.  "Hopefully, you can do that one.


I didn't respond to that.  Thankfully--for me, anyway--a student approached me to ask when I would be in my office.  Thank you, student!


At my second job, I met, for the first time, a prof with whom I'd had an "argument" on the online Community Dialogue for the college's faculty and staff.  Actually, he agreed with most of what I said, except for one point in which I compared the way the Democrats take "minority" support for granted to the way the faculty union treats adjunct instructors.  He admitted that he would like to convince me otherwise.  He also said he wanted to talk about the ignorance and hate that, he feels, are part of the faculty and staff culture.


"I've read your blog," he pronounced, "and it confirmed what I thought after reading your comments--you're a courageous person. And I'm drawn to corageous people."

After that, he mentioned the idea of Safe Zone training.  By that time, I had about two minutes before the start of my next class. "Let's talk some more about that," I said.


I'm not sure of whether I did the best or dumbest thing I've done since I started working there.  Or maybe I did neither.  All I know was that I felt less like I was being approached as a T and more as a W or F.  Or maybe as J.

It's Her Party, So Why Am I The Center of Attention?

I went to a party a couple of nights ago. For most people that wouldn't be terribly remarkable, I guess.  And, in the scheme of things, it wasn't for me, either.


But it's the first gathering of its kind I've attended in a while.  A colleague at my second job invited me; she was celebrating a round-number birthday. Some other colleagues attended, too, including two of my favorites.  But most of the attendees were longtime friends of the birthday girl.  And they were very friendly to me.


Some were college friends; others attended high school with her; still others knew her for even longer.  I think that may have been the reason I felt comfortable with them:  They love and trust each other and aren't cliquish, which itself was remarkable, at least to me.  But what really struck me is that some of them told me that they'd heard about me.  "She talks a lot about you," a few of them said.  


I made my usual jokes about that.  But I realized that their discussions weren't about my history--specifically, my adventures in gender and sexuality.  Or, at least, that's not what they cared about.  "She really admires you," two of them told me.  

We were in a bar on Long Island, where the birthday girl has lived all of her life.  I hadn't been in a bar in a long time.  At first, I was "hiding" in our group.  But some of the other bar patrons were striking up conversations with me, including one man who complimented me on what I was wearing and two others who made more direct overtures to me.  At that moment, I wasn't wondering why they were paying attention to me.  Later, I thought it might have had to do with the fact that I was drinking Diet Cokes and they were drinking stronger stuff.  Or did they "read" me, even at this late date?  Was I an object of curiosity?


Sometimes I was, even before my transition.  In some situations, I could attract attention without trying.   Back in the day,  some people, including practically everyone who ended up in bed with me, said I had an "intense" look.  I wonder if anyone thinks that now.  I have been told--by people who claimed not to know my history until I revealed it--that I have a "distinctive" look.  Perhaps they're right.


Maybe I can't do camouflage as well as I might want to, at least in certain situations.  When I walk down the street, I'm usually not noticed and prefer it that way. But in social situations, I seem to get more attention than I seek.  At least it turned out well this time.  And maybe I needed to be in a situation like that.  After all, I'm in a new phase of my life and still learning how to live in it.