WE BIKE At Smorgasburg

Yesterday I promised to tell the readers of my other blog about the event where I saw the Pashley Mailstar, which is used by the "posties" of Royal Mail in the UK.

Liz (R) showing two cyclists how to repair an innertube.

Liz Jose, the founder and president of WE Bike (Women Empowered through Bicycles) used the bike to transport a table tools and various WE Bike schwag to a repair workshop/recruitment drive held at Smorgasburg in Brooklyn.  

We volunteered our own bikes for "the cause"!

Actually, some might argue it wasn't a full-blown repair shop.  What we did was to teach some female cyclists (and, in a few cases, men who accompanied them) how to fix flats.  If a cyclist--especially a female rider-- learns to do only one repair, this should be the one.  If nothing else, knowing this basic skill can keep you from getting stranded.

Erin (facing to the side), Shelley (in pink t-shirt) and Liz (seated).

The fear of getting stranded by a deflated tire, and not knowing how to fix it, is one of the most common reasons why people won't take longer rides or use their bikes for transportation.  I think this fear is greater among female cyclists, for we (well, many of us, anyway) have more reason to fear for our safety if we are stuck in the middle of an unfamiliar or unsafe area by ourselves.  Also, I think that many women have been taught, implicitly or explicitly, to distrust their own abilities to fix even very basic things, not to mention to be self-sufficient in any number of other ways.  

Having been raised as male, I wasn't inculcated with that same distrust of my abilities.  Of course, I did not understand that until I started the transition that has culminated in living in the female gender of my mind and spirit.  I suppose that, in addition to some skills that I possess, that self-confidence might be what I can offer the women and girls who join and ride with WE Bike.

I hope that doesn't sound condescending, or as if I'm some well-intentioned  but misguided do-gooder.  I have been known to do things at least partially for altruistic reasons, and I can say that joining WE Bike is one of those things.  But the most important reason why I've decided to involve myself with it is that, since my transition, I've come to feel out of place in both the formal and impromptu men's cycling groups in which I've participated.  Even the so-called co-ed groups are dominated by males.  Not that I have anything against them:  I simply feel that I want and need other things now, as my motivations for (and, most likely, style of ) riding have changed.

Plus, so far, I'm enjoying the company of the women in WE Bike.  Isn't that the real reason to be involved with any group, whether or not it's formally organized?


As for the dilemma I faced: I managed to look presentable enough, I suppose, for the writing workshop.  I don't know whether anybody there noticed, but I was wearing a cardigan/jacket over the sundress in which I rode to the workshop--and to the WE Bike workshop.  But once I got to the latter event, I covered the top of my dress with something else:

I'd say that the fit might've been a bit snug, but the color worked!  And somehow I managed not to smudge the T-shirt or sundress in spite of the grease and dirt on my hands!

"It's Not Natural!"

It's been two weeks since I last posted. There's no particular reason for my "hiatus."  There simply hasn't been much to report --at least in terms of anything that has to do with what I've talked about on this blog--lately.  Plus, I've been doing a bit of reading and other research for some things I'm going to write and, possibly, post on this blog.


That said, I thought I might give you something "light" and, hopefully, enlightening.


The next time someone says "It's not natural!" or "It goes against nature", show him or her this photo:

Max, the older kitty, is on the left.  Marley, who was ricocheting off the furniture and walls just a few minutes before I took this photo, is on the right.


All right, I shouldn't make assumptions or cast aspersions on them.  So, I'll just assume that their union is a meeting of the minds:

Sally Ride, R.I.P.

I have just found out that Sally Ride has died of pancreatic cancer, at the age of 61.

As you probably know, she became the first American woman in space" when she blasted off  in 1983.  She took another trip into outer space the following year.  Then she was scheduled for another voyage that was cancelled after the space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight on 28 January 1986.

Dr. Ride, who earned undergraduate degrees in Physics and English, had just recently finished her PhD in Physics at Stanford University when she took her first trip.  While still a doctoral student, she answered an ad NASA had placed in her school's student newspaper.  As it happened, the space program finally decided to accept women the year before she took her historic journey.

Later, as a professor at the University of California-San Diego, she started Sally Ride Science, which, as she says, allowed her to pursue her "longtime passion for motivating girls and young women to pursue careers in science, math and technology.

One thing I find interesting now is that at the time of her space trips, no mention was made of her sexual orientation.  In fact, most people probably don't know about it unless they've seen the story I've linked, or others that say she is survived by Tam O'Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years.  

Of course, it makes sense that her sexuality, had it been know, wouldn't have been mentioned at the time.  She may well have done everything she could to hide it when she applied, and was training, for the program.  Also, she went into space at a time when then-President Ronald Reagan wouldn't even say the word "AIDS" in public.  In fact, according to a story that circulated around that time, The Gipper kicked his son out of the house when he dropped out of Yale to become a ballet dancer.  (He was good enough to join the Joffrey.)  

We all know about boys who become dancers--and girls who become astrophysicists.  They're just like you and me.  Well, maybe not me:  I don't have the requisite talents for becoming either of those. But at least Sally Ride found a way to nurture her talents, in a time when there was little support for girls or young women who wanted to be astronauts--or boys or young men who wanted to be ballet dancers.

The Dilemma Of A Transgender In Prison

Note:  At the beginning of  this post, I am going to use a male pronouns and a male name in reference to someone who identifies as female.  As a transsexual woman,I am not doing this out of disrespect to her.  Rather, as a former journalist, I am following the practice of using what is in official records.  Also, to my knowledge the person of whom I'm about to write has not changed her name or gender. 


However, I will take the liberty of referring to the subject of this post by a female name and feminine pronouns later in the post.  


This story came my way today.


Derek Sinden, who identifies as Thalia, has been incarcerated in the Wolston Correctional Center in Queensland, Australia since 1999.  After becoming involved with the transgender community in Sydney, Sinden used drugs, drinking and sexual activities with men to cope with gender identity issues.


Queensland Correctional Department's policies allow prisoners to receive hormone treatments while in custody if they had been receiving treatment before they were incarcerated.  Thus, the authorities will not allow Sinden such treatments.  However, the prison is providing a testosterone blocker.


On one hand, I know--from my own experiences and those of other transgender people--that, for us, hormones are not merely a means for feminizing (or masculinizing, in the case of female-to-males) our bodies.  To us, they are what Prozac, Zoloft and other psychotropic medications are for clinically depressed (which many of us are before our transitions, by the way) patients.  True, they--in conjunction with antiandrogens (for male-to-females)--soften our skin, hasten the growth of the hair on our heads, slow or stop hair growth on our bodies and grow our breasts.  But, I felt that the most important effect, at least for me, was psychological:  Depression that, for me, seemed like a normal state of being lifted.  Perhaps I shouldn't say this in a public forum, but I'll say it anyway:  Had I not started taking hormones, I might be dead by now, and it probably wouldn't be from natural causes. 


If I could experience the sort of depression I felt--in my body as well as my mind--for so long, I should not be surprised that others, in such a state, would resort to crimes of one sort or another.  Some might commit them to cope with their issues, while others might break the law under the influence of the drugs or alcohol they use in their attempts to ease their pain.   For those reasons, I think that if prisons can dispense pyschotropic medications to depressed inmates or prisoners with other disorders, they should also give transgender patients hormones treatments.


On the other hand, I understand what Custodial Operations Deputy Commissioner Marlene Morrison said about Sinden's case.  Even if someone has know since age four or five (as I did) that he or she is not the "right" sex, prison is not the best place to embark upon such a transition.  No matter how certain you are about your need for a gender transition, you need to see a doctor and therapist.  Seeing, in addition, a counselor or social worker who understands the issues involved with gender transition is a very good idea.  (For the first two and a half years of my transition, I saw both a therapist and clinical social worker every week.)  Plus, you need other kinds of supportive people, whether they're friends, family members, co-workers, members of support groups or other people in the communities of which you're a part.


Medical or psychiatric professionals are not merely "gatekeepers."  What people--especially young people who are eager to transition--often forget is that the hormones and medical procedures are risky.  Also, anyone who embarks on a transition needs to have mental, emotional and spiritual resources to cope with the transition.  You might think you'll deal with one aspect or another in a certain way, but you are changing and things feel different from how they did before you started your transition.


Also, as Ms. Morrison pointed out, fellow prisoners may not be the most supportive people, to put it mildly, for someone undergoing a transition.  Most medical and psychiatric professionals--including the ones employed by correctional facilities and systems--cannot offer advice or anything else that can help someone in a gender transition deal with hostile, and possibly violent, inmates.  


So, even with all of my sympathy for anyone who faces gender identity issues, I'm torn.  On one hand, I'd like to see Sinden get the hormone treatments, which would probably alleviate some of the emotional and psychiatric problems associated with gender identity issues.  On the other, Sinden would really have to face the transition alone in ways that most of us who've had the help of competent professionals, friends and (in some cases) family members and co-workers, simply cannot imagine.  

What We Become

Note:  You may have noticed that two previous posts (Fatigue At The Beginning And The End and Stories of Men And Women) were in italics.  That is not a silly post-modern affectation. Rather, as you may have figured, they're parts of a work of fiction I started writing before my transition and have returned to.   This post is also, for the moment, part of that work


On this block, even in this day and age, most women become mothers, sometimes by choice but usually by circumstance. Some become wives--many more, I believe, than ever would have chosen such a fate.  I always wonder whether I'd end up like them had I been born female.  Would I've had a child--like the one I once was?  Would I've wished him--given him--that long garden of childhood people always seem to remember--which is to say wish--having?  For that matter, what would I make of having a boy--or girl? That is to ask:  What would I have done if I'd had a child who didn't fall between his or her own nature and what teachers, priests, government authorities and other adults expect?


Long before I knew I could undergo the transition I'll soon culminate, I swore I'd never have children.  It's one of two resolutions--getting away from this block was the other--that I've ever stuck to.  I knew, even then, I couldn't justify bringing  anyone into this world to face he same kinds of conflicts I had, or anything like them.  Not that I regret them now:  the struggle and frustrations have turned me into a person who's embarked on, I believe, the most exciting, excruciating and enerving experience one can have other than giving birth to another human being.  Since I'll never be able to do that (barring a sudden advance in medical technology) even after I've completed my transformation, I'll never know for sure.  But, as I said, I still have no wish to bring the needs of another mouth, the longings of another pair of eyes or the rupture of another skin into being.


I still can only wonder how many mothers--including my own--actually chose the role born from their children...and the role by which they're always identified.


If you're a woman and you don't give birth to, or raise, children, then the world--most men, anyway--will fix at least one of these labels on you:  bitch, whore, dyke.  In this scheme, a woman can be a bitch and a whore, but any actual or perceived lesbianism overrides everything else:  Men profess more hatred, which is to say more fascination, for the other two. 


I wonder where I'll fit in that scheme.  Ultimately, it doesn't matter, in a way, because I won't have any more to do with men than I have to.  Hopefully, I'll never have to turn tricks again, but I know better than to say "never again."  What I hope, at least now, that I'll never have to be of use to anybody ever again, for any reason or in any way--whether for their real needs or their fantasies.  Then, whatever I become will be all right

Running Here For Their Lives

In an earlier post, I described the ordeal of "Fahrida," who was in one of my first support groups.  Now I will tell you something you might have guessed from her name:  In her home country, she was a hijra.  In Western countries, they are often classified as transgender or intersexed, but those terms are not exact equivalents to what hijra are, much less the roles they play in those societies.


As a feminine boy, she was outcast by her family and community.  While she could demand fees for appearing at weddings and such, and could even extort men or do sex work, she did not want to do those things.  Anyone who's ever done, or known anyone who's done, sex work realizes the risk of experiencing violence--or even being murdered--that goes along with such work.  Those risks are even greater for the hijra, who, like transgender and other gender-non-conforming people, experience the most brutal and gratuitous kinds of violence.


She cited these risks in her appeal to remain in this country.  That appeal was denied, as was her request to return to this country from a third country where she now lives.


What a lot of people don't realize is that LGBT--especially T--people who come to this country are often, literally, running for their lives.  Even though they can meet with grisly, violent deaths here, the risk is somewhat lower, and there is more of a chance of finding individuals or groups of people who will accept them.  They will not be confined to living among other bands of outcasts, as the hijra are in countries like Pakistan.


Plus, if they can stay, there is at least some chance of getting an education and doing something besides sex work--even if it's driving a cab, as Fahrida did when she was here.

Josie Romero: A Child Knows Her Body, Knows Her Self

Quite possibly the most profound message of The Vagina Monologues is that the easiest way to keep someone--especially a woman--oppressed is to keep her from learning about her own body.

I was reminded of this when watching the Dateline segment about 11-year-old transgender child Josie Romero.

I missed the segment when it aired, but I was alerted to it by Kelli Busey's post on her blog Planet Transgender and Vickie Davis' post on her blog.

What struck me is how Josie was able, at her age, to talk about the kind of body she wants to have.  She knows that she was born with male organs, and knows how they are different from female ones.  

Some people would argue that she is "too young" to know such things.  That, essentially, is the argument many people use against sex education:  They believe that, somehow, keeping kids "innocent" will keep them safe, or at least keep them from doing things of which their families, communities and churches don't approve.

Young people in my generation, and those who came before me, did not grow up with the awareness Josie has, let alone the ability to talk about it as freely as she does with her parents and her doctor.  I don't want to impute too much of my own experience to other people around my age who grew up feeling that something "wasn't right" about our gender identities and the ways in which we were expected to express them.  But I suspect that if you grew up with such feelings and your experience was anything like mine, you probably didn't even know enough, at age eleven, to be able to tell a doctor or anyone else why you thought you weren't the gender you were told you were.

Although I felt I wasn't a boy, and I knew I wanted "girly" stuff, I didn't have enough awareness about bodies to be able to say that I was born in the "wrong" one.  Or, more precisely, I couldn't tell anyone why it was "wrong."  Although I knew that girls grew up to be women and that most women could have babies, I couldn't say what about their bodies made them able to do such things.  Once I learned about that, it would be many more years before  I realized that my inability to bring a baby into world didn't preclude me from being a woman; many other women also lack that capacity, and many others never had any desire to do so.  It almost goes without saying that I also didn't understand that boys and girls, and men and women, reacted differently to the same things in part because of their biological and physiological differences.  

And I couldn't even begin to ask what those differences might be until one day when a girl in my class writhed as blood ran down her leg from under the skirt of her uniform and neither she nor any of us in that class had any idea of why.  The nun who taught us was of no help:  She yelled at that girl and whacked her with a ruler.  

Now I realize--as Eve Ensler points out in The Vagina Monologues--that many of the adults in our lives didn't know very much about their bodies, either.  In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to know that some kids' parents knew only that if they had sexual relations at the right time, they'd have another kid--or that those same parents had little, if any, idea of how that happened.  In fact, some of the monologues show us that in the countries, cultures and religious traditions in which women are most oppressed, there are very few, if any, ways for them to learn about the intricacies and needs of their own bodies.  

Even though I would never menstruate (and, of course, I had no idea of why), I felt the terror of that girl in my class.  It wasn't just empathy:  I have some capacity for that, I think, but I am not exceptional in that way.  Rather, I sensed--although I didn't understand why--my body (and so much else in my life) was about to undergo changes that would be just as terrifying if for no other reason that I would be no more prepared for them or, more important, prepared to understand them, than that girl in my class was for her first period.  

Not long after that, I would undergo my own puberty: my first one.  Josie has been taking hormones, in part to forestall her the male puberty I and every other male-to-female transgender child of my generation experienced.  If she continues her treatments and has gender reassignment surgery at, say, age 20, she will not have to endure another puberty later in life, as those of us who transitioned in the middle or near the end of our lives had to experience when we started to take hormones.  

And she will enter womanhood with an awareness of her body none of us had when we were growing up, or even as adults.  And, just as she has adults in her life who can guide her in her journey of self-awareness, perhaps she will do the same for some other child--perhaps one of her own--one day.

I'm Three; This Blog Is Four. What's Next?

Today I am three years old.  And this blog is four.


The second sentence probably makes sense to you.  Maybe the first one doesn't.  What I mean, of course, is that I had my surgery three years ago today.

If you've been reading this blog, you've probably noticed that my posts are less frequent.  I guess there's less to talk about, at least in terms of my own gender identity and reassignment, as time goes on.  Ironically, I find that the few occasions on which I talk about those things are with certain people at work, and in other academic settings. Most people who encounter me will never see me again and, as far as they know, I'm a middle-aged woman.  Which, of course, is what I am.  On the other hand, people who have spent lots of time in school--especially if their field of study is related to gender, gender studies or feminism--have to fit me into some sub-sub-sub-category or other.  


It seems that, in academic circles, more people than I'd expected are reading this blog.  At least, that's what I've been told.  So, every once in a while, I'll bump into some professor or researcher who's not connected with any institution in which I've worked, and whom I've never before met, and he or she will say that he or she has heard about me.


But once I'm outside of an academic setting, my past hardly seems to matter at all.  I suppose that if I apply for something and a background check is done, or even if I'm merely asked whether I've ever gone by another name, I'll have to explain where and what I've been.  I suppose--or I hope, anyway--that it won't be seen as negatively as having been convicted of a felony.  Not that I would know anything about that!


I have been volunteering with a women's organization, about which I'll say more in a future post.  I told its founder and officers about my past.  Even though I hadn't expected it to be an issue for them,  I figured it would be better for them to hear it from me than someone else.  Also, I figured that if they didn't want a trans woman in their midst (which, by the way, some women's groups don't), it would be better to find out before I got involved.  But, as the founder of the organization said, somewhat wryly, "We're not the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival."


It was exactly the sort of thing I'd wanted when I started my transition.  I not only knew it was possible; it was what I expected.  So, even though I knew that there were people who were like the organizers of MWMF, there were also people like the founder of the organization.  And there are many other women who've never heard of the Festival, or simply don't care about it.  I know, because I've come to know some of them, and they have friends, sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers and other women in their lives who share their feelings.  And most of them don't, or wouldn't, care about my past--or would only care about it to the extent that we like to know where and what the people in our lives have come from.  


As one of them said, it's not easy being a woman, so she has all the more respect for someone who has embraced her femaleness, and chosen to live it. In the end, that's all there really is to what I've done during these past few years, from going into therapy, taking hormones, changing my name, living in my new identity, getting my surgery, starting this blog and doing any number of other things.  


It may lead me to start another blog.  If I do, it will probably be at least somewhat related to this blog.  (How could it not be?  Even my other blog, Midlife Cycling, is--at least to some extent.)  And it might lead me to other projects and work which I can't yet conceive.  All I know is that whatever I do, I have no choice but to live as the woman I am.  And I wouldn't make any other choice, even if I could.

Stories of Men And Women

Nobody's a hero; nobody's decorated.  Nobody's remembered...at least not the men, anyway.  Now that everybody who was related to me--that I know of, anyway--is gone, I hope nobody on this block remembers me, either.  It's a privilege I could've claimed for myself the day I left, no matter where I went next.


But of course I didn't have to.  That may be the one advantage I have as a result of growing up here:  I've never had to claim privilege; I've never had to pull rank on anyone.  At least, I've never felt any such need.  You might say that I'm not impressed with people or with anything they do; I'm even less awed by men and their stories.  That isn't to say that I fear no one:  I simply have a pretty good idea of who can or can't, or who will or won't, do what, and to whom or what.


So there're lots of things I've never had any use for.  Like most of the things they tried to teach me in school--or, more precisely, most of the things they were supposed to make gestures of teaching me and I was supposed to make them think I'd learned--and everything I heard in church.  The canons of the academies and monasteries echo thousands of lies and even more exaggerations and misrepresentations.  No one you will ever meet is like anyone you read about in any history book or any epic tale, whether it's Beowulf, The Deerslayer or All Quiet On The Western Front.  The ballads I had to hear and the paintings we looked at in textbooks and school trips to museums were all about generals, emperors or mystic visionaries:  all about solitary men leading lonely young men to their deaths, in the fields or in the trenches, or at their own hands.  No man like any of those characters or figures ever came from this block--or, for that matter, any other blocks like this one that I've seen or heard about.


Who's ever written an opera about a woman and her cat?  Or a woman and another woman, or a woman and her children?  About the latter, there's the story of Mary and Jesus.  Of course!:  two people who never could have existed on this block.  Not only is he too good to be true, she...well, let's say she contradicts one of the few relevant facts that's ever been taught in any science class!


Why can't we have a religion--if we have to have one--based on the story of a woman and her cat?  At least someone could get that one right, I think.  I don't believe anyone could set down the story of a woman and her child, and whenever anybody's set down the story of a woman and a woman, it sounds like a man's fantasy.  (Trust me.  I know the difference:  I've had lots of time--and more opportunities than anyone should have--to learn.)


But about a woman-and-her-cat tale:  If someone could write it, that person is not me.  I've never kept a feline, at least not long enough to have such a relationship.  The one time I had one--a gray, smoky shadow I never named--I ended up giving him to an old woman.  It just didn't seem fair to make that cat dependent on someone like me; it was no more fair to the cat than my dependence on my mother, for so many years, was to her.  Since then, I've done my best to avoid creating any need for me in any other living being.


Even if I'd had a cat, a child, or any other permanent companion, I couldn't have written about me and him, her or it.  Maybe, as people have told me,  if I'd stayed in school, I'd've learned how to put some experiences--my own and those of others--on a page, or even between the covers of a book.  There's so much I never learned.  As a kid, I asked myself, "Why should I?"  "So I could write the kinds of things they made us read?," I wondered.  "Or to play what they taught us was music, or how to say their prayers?"  


So now I have practically no education and, as far as most educated people are concerned, I'm illiterate, or close to it.  Still, I've managed to read a bit since I stopped going to school.  I've even finished a few books, a couple of plays and a whole bunch of poems:  something I never accomplished when I was in school.  I'm not going to explain or analyze anything I've read:  Anything I could say about them isn't that important and probably has already been said.  I don't know.  Maybe I'd've stuck with school or "done something with" myself if I'd've known, while I was still in school, that such pieces of writing existed.  Let's just say that they're not about war heroes, and they're not the sorts of things that give men excuses for belieiving that women are neurotic.


I don't think anybody on this block has read them.  Living on this block isn't like being in one of those neighborhoods where people spend their Sundays talking about what was in The Times Book Review over brunch.  (I had never heard of brunch when I was growing up!)  I don't think even Mrs. Littington--who'd seen more of the world than most of us and spoke at least two languages--had ever read them.  (I can only hope that she didn't have to read some of those really awful books and even worse translations they tried to shove down my throat:  their Bible, for instance.)  


As far as I know, the male gender has produced three real poets--at least, when it comes to writing about other men.  One of them--who actually could create convincing female characters, too--wrote Othello, The Tempest and Macbeth, and of course a whole bunch of sonnets.  Another wrote some fine poetry and Les Miserables. And, finally, there's the one who wrote about Don Quixote.  I'll pass on the rest.  Just for once, I want a story about a woman opening--or closing--her window.

ConCATenation

Here is something that gives new meaning to the word concatenation:

Max is in front; Marley is behind him. They know how to deal with the heat!

How Gay And (Especially) Transgender Youth Are Criminalized

Members of "minority" groups who experience discrimination have long been over-represented in jails and prisons.  This has been documented at least since the 1960's; probably the first groups to be recognized as disproportionately incarcerated were African-Americans and Latinos.

Now a new report shows that the percentage of the young people in the juvenile justice system who are gay or transgender is double the percentage of GT youth in the general population.  

Some of the reasons for this include the fact that many LGBT youth are abandoned by their families and rejected by their communities.  This is practically a recipe for homelessness, which is one of the leading causes of crime among young people.  Even those young people who drop out of school and leave home on their own accord to escape bullying and harassment are at increased risk of turning to crime simply to support themselves.  After all, what marketable skills do most teenagers possess?

Also implicated in the high numbers of LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system are biased school discipline policies.  Research shows that gender non-conforming youth in particular are often singled out for severe punishment for minor infractions--or for no infractions at all.  As an example, a "butchy" girl who defends herself against kids who beat and harass her is identified as the aggressor, and punished as such, solely for her demeanor.  That is, of course, to say nothing of the "sissy boys" of whom teachers and school administrators make examples because, well, those teachers and administrators are bullies who happen to be old enough to be teachers and administrators.  And--I can tell you this from firsthand experience--they sometimes punish the "sissy" or "tomboy" who's picked on because they're afraid of the kids who are picking on them.

Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the so-called juvenile justice system is that gay and transgender youth are often classified as sex offenders, even though they have not committed sexual crimes.  Being falsely accused of sex crimes, and branded as a sex offender, is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone:  Even after the person is proven innocent, he or she lives with the stigma of the charge, possibly for the rest of his or her life.  In fact, homophobic and transphobic people often accuse transgenders--especially male-to-females--of sexual crimes simply because they hate or have disputes with them.  

Once detained, trans youth are housed according to the sex they were assigned at birth rather than the one by which they're conducting their lives.  They and gay youth are also more likely to be placed in solitary confinement, ostensibly "for their own safety" but in reality because of stereotypes that persist among staff members.  Studies by the American Psychiatric Association show that such isolation leads to stigmatization, which leads to depression and a host of other problems.  The problems caused by isolation make those young people who are placed in solitary confinement more likely to return to the juvenile justice system.

The article I've linked makes a number of recommendations, all of which make sense to me.  Even if all of them were implemented, though, it will still take a long time to break the cycle of criminalization in LGBT youth.  The experience with racial and ethnic minorities showed us as much:   As long as young people have to experience unfair discrimination and attend bad schools in hostile communities without supportive family structures, they will always be at higher risk, no matter how many laws we pass or how many training programs we start in schools and juvenile centers.

Fatigue, At The Beginning And The End

I'm so tired now.  I've been tired for so long, I want to close a door and cry.  Mother used to do that sometimes.  But there's no door here for me to go behind and close.  And the tears won't come now, anyway, because I don't have the emotional energy, or even a space inside me, to allow anyone else to see them.  For crying in the presence of others is always an involuntary form of sharing, or at least diverting one's attentions.  Those activities require energies I just don't have right now.

Maybe it's the day, and my hope that it will be my last on this block , that's so drained me.  But taking hormones does that to you, too.

The first time you take them, you're expecting something to happen, even though the doctor or whoever prescribes them tells you nothing will, at least not for a while.  Two pills:  One, the anti-androgen, is white and has the texture but not the taste of an aspirin tablet.  The other--the estrogen--is small, with a hard shell in a shade of candy-coated cow piss, which is pretty much what it tastes like.  Not that I've ever tasted cow piss, candy-coated or otherwise.

After I took those pills every day for a couple of months, I couldn't notice any difference.  But Vivian did.  She called me that day, ostensibly because she wanted to return something I couldn't recall leaving at her place.  It'd been a few months since she pronounced me "too much of a woman" for her tastes and broke up our relationship.  She'd found a watch with a woven black leather band when she was cleaning, she said.  And indeed she gave it to me when we met for supper that night, in a restaurant a few blocks from where I was staying.  

But there had to be another reason for her wanting to see me; I could hear it in her voice when she called.  I couldn't imagine her wanting sex with me again.  So what, I wondered, did she want?

As I cut into the piece of chicken I ordered, I got my answer.  She called my name--my old one.  I looked up at her.  "Something's different about you," she intoned. 

"What?"

She reached across the table and dabbed my cheek, where she used to stroke with her fingertips.  "It feels different."

"How so?"

"It's...softer."

"Huh?"

"It really feels softer."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"All right," I said.  "I'll confess something:  I am taking hormones."  Her face grew longer.  "The doctor said my skin would get softer.  But not this quickly."

Then she asked me to stand up.  "Wow!  Your body's changing."

"How so?"

"None of your clothes fit you right."

"I think I've gained some weight."

"Maybe you have.  But it's in your rear.  And you're growing boobs!"

I couldn't notice those changes yet, I said.  And I felt like I needed more sleep.  "But," she cut me off, "you don't seem depressed.  Or angry.  You always were one or both, especially near the end of our relationship."

"To tell you the truth, I'm not.  I don't even feel sad very much.  Maybe..."

She cut me off again. "Maybe you accept things, or are resigned to them."

"You could say that."

She could. None of it surprised her.  Before that night, I hadn't told her I was taking hormones.  In fact, I hardly told anybody.  I don't know who could' or would've told her.  But I knew, then, that she'd asked me to supper so she could find out what I was like on hormones.  Why else would she want to see me again?

The old lady whose name I never knew is looking my way again. Who could' or  would've told her?

Make it tomorrow, please. I'm so tired.  All I want is to have my operation, then to get some rest.

The Supreme Court, Immigration And LGBT people

Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling on Arizona's immigration policy got me to thinking about someone in a weekly support group I attended early in my transition.

Fahrida (not her real name) had a smile that made people feel that everything was going to be OK.  As I came to know her, I realized that her smile didn't belie her experiences; rather, it was a kind of reward, like the rays of sun you see after a terrible storm.

No one who met her outside of that group would have guessed she had ever lived as male, or that she ever had so much as a male cell in her body.  She was so beautiful that when we were shopping, two other women sighed about what kinds of clothes they could wear if they had her body, and about what their lives would be like if they had her face.

I always wondered why someone with her looks, and her mind, was driving a gypsy cab.  Don't get me wrong:  I don't look down on such work.  But it's not work that many other women do, and I worried about her safety.  Then again, at least she wasn't doing sex work, I told myself.

Well, after knowing her about a year, I found out why she was driving that gypsy cab:  Her pay was "off the books."  That meant, of course, that she didn't pay taxes.  But more important, it meant that she didn't need a Social Security Number or any other documentation certifying that she could work in this country.

The next-to-last time we met, I found out why she needed such work.  You guessed it:  She entered this country illegally.  She couldn't have afforded to enter any other way, she told me:  She was so poor that she couldn't afford the papers she needed, which cost about half a worker's yearly pay in the country of her birth.  She got to this country, she said, by hitchiking across a two continents and stowing herself away in a transoceanic freighter. 

By the time of our penultimate meeting, she was facing deportation.  Going back to the country of her birth would have been, in essence, a death sentence:  She had no way of supporting herself there, save through sex work, and she would have faced almost certain violence.  Plus, all of her family had disowned her.

The last time we met, she told me she was going to a third country.  She hoped to re-apply for asylum in the United States, she said, because she had found a "community" here.  However, if that failed, she said, she believed that she could stay in the third country, where she had some ties and laws about immigration and LGBT people are, arguably, less restrictive than they are in the United States.

I mention Fahrida because I suspect that there are many other cases like her. Contrary to what people think, not all LGBT people are rich.  In fact, very, very few T's are.  That is one reason why they, like many other immigrants, come to this country illegally:  They can't afford to do so legally.  So they are forced to live "in the shadows," doing all sorts of low-paid work that doesn't offer any security:  that is, if they can get such work.  Others, who are less lucky, end up in sex work and other kinds of illegal and dangerous occupations.

On top of what I've mentioned, there's another issue:  Many LGBT couples are split up because of immigration policies.  I know of illegal immigrants who entered into sham heterosexual marriages so they could stay here, but why should anybody have to resort to something like that?  Even if they live in states that allow same-sex marriages (including New York, where I live), they could still be split up if one of them is here illegally because same-sex marriages are still not recognized under Federal law.

In fact, even if both members of the couple are here legally, immigration policy can still split them up.  That is what happened to my former doctor:  Her partner, a native of Scotland, came here to study and eventually started a business that employed other people.  She paid her taxes and never ran afoul of the law.  However, four years ago, the State Department would not renew her visa and the United Kingdom (of which Scotland is a part) is not eligible for the so-called "Green Card Lottery."

My former doctor went to Scotland with her partner.  She has since earned an additional degree in public health policy and has attained a position with a local ministry.  She says she and her partner are happy there, although they think about what could have been. 

To me, it seems such an appalling waste.  Think of the education, skills, talent, experience and ambition my former doctor and her partner have.  What country wouldn't (or shouldn't) want those things?  I could say similar things about Fahrida:  Though she doesn't have the formal education or credentials of my former doctor, she is very intelligent and self-taught in a number of areas.  And she's more than willing to work.  Plus, any country would be graced by her sheer presence. 

Her story, and that of my former doctor and her partner, show how immigration policies are inequitable on so many levels--particularly for LGBT people.

WE Bike And Me

What's gotten into me? 

I mean, what's this with me and volunteering?

It's not as if I haven't volunteered before.  But within the past two weeks, I've begun volunteering with two cycling organizations.  And--quelle coincidence--it turns out that they're going to be working with each other.

I've mentioned my recent experiences with Recycle-A-Bicycle.  I intend to continue working with them as my schedule allows.  It looks like I'll be doing the same--and perhaps more--with a new organization called WE Bike.

I learned of them at the New Amsterdam Bicycle Show, where they had a booth.  Liz, a bike mechanic and youth educator who started the organization only a couple of months ago was at the booth.  And she was under the arches of Grand Army Plaza yesterday, where WE Bike was holding a repair workshop.  

She immediately recognized me.  I didn't think I was so memorable.  Even more interestingly, she mentioned my blog and my Mercians.  Hmm...It's not often that my reputation precedes me.  Is that a good thing?

Anyway, I got there a bit late.  But I went to work right away, showing a woman from the Caribbean island of Dominique how to fix a flat.  She had just purchased her first bicycle, not long after learning how to ride a bicycle as an adult.  

Yesterday, I thought she was mastering what I believe to be the first thing every cyclist should learn to do.  But she apologized.  For what?, I asked.  Then I realized she was doing something I've seen many other women do--and which I've caught myself doing since I started to live as a woman:  apologizing for no particular reason.

"You are officially in a guilt-free zone," I declared. "This circle around me"--I stretched my arms--"is off-limits for gratuitous guilt."  At first, she didn't know what to make of what I said--or, I imagine, me. But then she giggled.  "Don't worry," I said, "You'll be fine."

I was thinking about her as Liz and I talked after the workshop.  We agreed that getting more women to ride, with other women, and learning how to fix their bikes from other women, could help some--especially the young--build their confidence.  Plus, I added, it would help them become more independent. 

Then I thought about my own experiences of working in bike shops.  I don't recall seeing a female mechanic and, in those days, it seemed a lot of shops--including two in which I worked--had a "shop girl" who usually was a salesperson/cashier/hostess/Gal Friday. (I hope I don't seem sexist in using those terms:  I can't think of any others that would accurately describe those roles.)  In other shops--including one in which I worked-- such jobs, along with record-keeping and such, were done by the proprietor's wife.

In recounting those experiences for Liz, I fancied myself, for a moment, as a kind of Prometheus.  Please indulge me if it seems a bit grandiose, but I realized that when I was showing two women how to remove bottom brackets and headsets, and how to true wheels, at Recycle-A-Bicycle, I was passing along knowledge that, in my day, was possessed almost entirely by males.  And I probably wouldn't have learned those skills had I not spent the first four decades of my life as a male.

Or, perhaps--here comes the baggage of my Catholic education!--I am doing penance for all of those times I was one of those awful men who spoke condescendingly to female customers and who was less than helpful with girlfriends who actually wanted to ride bikes with me.  If the work I am doing, and expect to do, is a penance, I suppose I'm lucky:  There are definitely worse and more painful kinds of atonement!

Anyway...I have a feeling that interesting times are ahead for me.

P.S.  Liz has said that she wants to make WE Bike "inclusive."  So she wants transgender women to participate.

Keelin Godsey: Competing As A Woman, Living As A Man?

Keelin Godsey wants to make the US Olympic team in the hammer throw, and compete in the Olympics in London this summer.

Normally, that would not seem like such a remarkable story.  However, Keelin is trying out for the women's team.  But wait:  It's not what you think.  Keelin was born female, and named Kelly, at birth.  He has been living as male but does not plan to take testosteone, or undergo any of the other medical aspects of his transition, until some time after the Olympics.

His dilemma is the exact opposite of what we're used to hearing:  a male-to-female who wants to compete as a woman.  Also, the MTF athletes of whom I'm aware didn't begin competing as females until their surgeries were complete.

So, in essence, Keelin is competing as a female, and once he stops doing that, he is going to live the rest of his life as male.  

There doesn't seem to be quite as much of a fuss over Keelin as there has been over the MTFs I've mentioned.  That may be, in part, because he is not considered a favorite to make the team.  But I think that, even discounting that, his situation isn't deemed as controversial as the MTFs who want to compete as female.  One reason is that because, as a female-to-male who has not begun to take testosterone, he is not perceived as having an advantage over other female contestants.  That perception is probably accurate:  If Keelin has any advantages, they would have to be in superior training or native ability.  


On the other hand, some female athletes--as well as many fans--believe that male-to-female athletes shouldn't be allowed to compete as females, even after they've had SRS/GRS.  Of course, some hold such a belief because of their general perceptions about gender.  However, many more believe, somewhat erroneously, that a MTF athlete has physical advantages over those who were identified as female at birth.  


It is true that on average, males are taller and heavier than females.  While I was average on both counts as a male, I am probably around the 80th percentile in both categories (although I mate be in a somewhat higher percentile in the, ahem, weight category!)for women my age.  But my transition had one very typical effect on me:  I continuously lost strength, muscle mass and physical endurance from the time I started taking estrogen and anti-androgens.  And I know that even if I were to ride and train as much as I did in my hyper-male days, I would not be as strong or fast, or have as much endurance, as I did in those days.


There is medical and other literature to corroborate what I've just said.  The changes I have described happen with remarkable consistency.  So, one doesn't need semantics or any other fancy rhetorical footwork to argue that MTFs have little, if any, advantage over most females in most sports.  Conversely, because the changes FTMs experience are even more dramatic and consistent, it's easy to see that because Keelin hasn't begun to take testosterone, he has no advantage over the other female contestants.


Personally, I hope Keelin makes the time.  His mother says it's been a lifelong ambition of his.  I'm guessing that he has wanted to live as male, if not all of his life, then for a long time.  Lots of people don't even get to live out one dream; I will be happy to see him live out both.

Kylar Broadus Testifies Before The Senate

An activist once told me, "It's all about visibility."

In this country, it's hard to beat testifying before the Senate to make one's cause, as well as one's self, visible.

That is what Kylar Broadus did last week.  That made him--a lawyer and professor from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO-- the transgender to do so. 

Appropriately enough, he testified before Senate Health and Labor Committee hearings on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act  (ENDA).

Although he is a lawyer and professor, he is not in an easy financial situation.  In the 1990's, he transitioned while he was working for an insurance company. For that, he was harrassed and fired.  "While my supervisors could tolerate a somewhat masculine-appearing black woman," Broadus recalled, "they were not prepared to deal with my transition to being a black man." As there were no laws on the books to protect transgender people in the workplace, he found that he had no legal recourse.

As you might imagine, a long stretch of unemployment ensued, from which Broadus says he has not fully recovered financially.

What I hope the Senators realize, as a result of hearing Broadus' testimony, is that if someone with his education and work experience can have such a difficult time, things are that much worse for someone who's poor or less educated, and probably even worse for a trans teenager who was kicked out of his or her home after "coming out."   I would love for the Senators to hear testimony from them, as well as more from Broadus and transgender people in situations like his.  

Thapelo Makutle: Transgender Pageant Winner Murdered In South Africa

I am glad to see countries that had repressive regimes not so long ago are making progress when it comes to LGBT right.  As examples, I think of Argentina's new law that, in essence, allows anyone over the age of 18 to choose his or her gender.  I also think of how gay marriage has been legalized in Spain which, under Franco, had one of the most conservative Catholic regimes in the world.  And a country that was long associated with the racism and violence of its Aprartheid policies--I'm talking, of course, about South Africa--legalized gay marriage in December of 2006.


While the latter country has taken a remarkable turn, at least officially, from its past, there is still a lot of work to be done.  Just because a country--or city or state or province--legalizes gay marriage or passes legislation to stop discrimination, it doesn't mean that old attitudes change, particularly in those communities far removed from the centers of power.


That point was brought home with the murder of Thapelo Makutle, who had been living as a gay man but recently began to identify with transgender.  


Makutle had been arguing with two men about his sexuality.  Those men followed him home, broke down his door and slit his throat.  They then severed his penis and shoved it in his mouth.


He had been active in the LGBT community of the Kuruman region, a rural area in the northern part of the country.  According to a 2011 Human Rights Watch report, LGBT people in that region, and other rural areas of the country, still face "extensive discrimination and violence in their daily lives, both from private individuals and government officials."  


Something similar can be said about those US cities and states that have legalized gay marriage and passed laws to fight discrimination against LGBT people.  Even here in New York, there are neighborhoods in which an LGBT person is not safe, and the police will do nothing to help someone who has experienced violence based on his or her actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Leslie Mora was beaten, and Amanda Gonzalez Andujar murdered, in such communities, which are home to large numbers of conservative religious people.  Even some of the colleges here are far from being "rainbow havens."  


That is why passing laws to give LGBT people the same rights other people take for granted is only a first step, and not something that, by itself, will guarantee equal rights, much less safety.  The real work begins after that.


Even though I am on the other side of the world and have never met any of Thapelo Makutle's loved ones, they have my condolences.  And I hope you, Thapelo Makutle ends up in a better, more enlightened place.  

13 Myths And Misconceptions About Trans Women

In light (!) of yesterday's post, I am linking "13 Myths And Misconceptions  About Trans Women."  I just came across it today.


Read and enjoy! (heh, heh)

Why Do You Want To Go To The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival?

You know it's summer when....you start hearing about the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.


Thinking about it--to the degree that I do think about it, which isn't much--reminds me of what Groucho Marx said:  "I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member."  What that means, of course, is that people (some, anyway) want to belong to clubs that wouldn't have them as members.


I can think of no other reason, at this point, why a trans person would want to go the Womyn's Festival, or would even bother protesting its policy of excluding us.


I mean, really, why should any of us want to spend time with hateful, bigoted people to listen to performers who are interesting only to the extent that they're part of the Festival organizers' agenda?  Or, to put it more plainly, why should we want to spend any of our precious time listening to (mostly) mediocre musicians play for stupid, nasty people?


Those organizers, as best as I can tell, are stuck in the 1970's--or, at any rate, a sitcom parody of that time.  Even in those days, most people--especially women working in almost any environment besides the then-nascent Women's Studies departments of colleges and universities--saw the so-called radical feminists as comic-book versions of fighters for equality.  


But their most toxic quality is their absolute rigidity about gender identity and expression.  The so-called Archie Bunker blue-collar conservatives of the 1970's--who used to be most of the make population of neighborhoods like the one in which I now live--found out they had gay grandchildren, and had children or nieces or nephews who "changed" gender.  So, some of them were able to change their views about what "men" and "women" are, and came to realize that's it's not all a matter of the genitalia people are born with (which, by the way, are not always as clearly "male" or "female" as people assume they are).  The Archie Bunkers of this world--some of them, anyway--have therefore allowed themselves to become more educated than Festival organizers and other so-called Second Wave Feminists.


That means all of those nominally conservative people who've allowed themselves to realize that people like me are indeed women (and folks like Chastity Bono are men) are actually less defined, in their thinking, by the patriarchal gender norms than Lisa Vogel and other Festival organizers and Second Wave Feminists claim to oppose!  


So, to be blunt, and perhaps a bit crass: What use, exactly, do we (transgender people) have for the Festival, its organizers and the mentality behind them?  Other than excluding us from the Festival, how do they affect our lives?  Few, if any, of them are in any position to hire or fire us, to rent, sell or deny us housing, or even to allow us to attend, or prevent us from attending, any college, university or institute.  They aren't in a position to give us, or help us get, the health insurance that the majority of us don't have.  They're not even the ones voting for or against non-discrimination laws in local, state or federal legislative bodies.  Heck, almost none of them can deny or allow us access to anything besides the Festival!  So, why should we even bother with them?  


Hey, we can even go to places where we can hear much better music than we'd hear if we were allowed in the Festival!  There are much better reasons to take a trip to Michigan:  There are places in that State (which was the first in the US to outlaw capital punishment) that would be far more welcoming to us, and everyone else--including the organizers of the Festival!

How Low Will Cathy Brennan Go--And For What?

In spite of the evil I've witnessed, I still have had hope for this world.  That hope was based on, among other things, that folks like Cathy Brennan and Janice Raymond didn't have children.  


Actually, I haven't thought that much about them, until recently.  Years ago, long before I started my transition, I read The Transsexual Empire and thought it was one of the most ludicrous things I'd ever read.  I still do.  Next to it, any of Professor Leonard Jeffries' rants about "Ice People" and "Sun People" seem like Nobel Prize-worthy science.


As I read further, one of my suspicions was confirmed:  Raymond, Brennan, et al, have no influence outside of a very small circle of so-called Second Wave Feminists.  Ironically enough, even though their hatred has more in common with that of folks like the Reverend Fred Phelps and certain members of the College of Cardinals and the Supreme Court, even they would never pay any mind to the nonsense Raymond and Brennan were spewing.


However, as demented as their so-called theories and arguments may be, I simply can't laugh them off anymore.  At least, I can't do that to the estimable Ms. Brennan.  You see, now she's doing what, in my old neighborhood, would be called some "real bad, real serious shit."


From Kelli Busey of Planetransgender, I have learned that Ms. Brennan has viciously "outed" a transgender teenager.  We saw what happened when Dharun Ravi, in essence, outed Tyler Clementi.  Making a trans teenager's identity public puts him or her at even greater risk  for being subjected to violence, and committing suicide (whether in the way Clementi did or slowly and more painfully through substance abuse or other means) than "outing" a gay or lesbian teenager would .




As vile as his actions were, at least Darun Ravi could claim, and many people would agree, that his actions were childish pranks gone horribly wrong.  However, Brennan can make no such claim.  In fact, she has no defense at all.  The only rationale she has is her own hatred, whatever its sources and purposes.  


In other words, it was a purely malicious act.  What I find really reprehensible is that she is trying to use the fears and stereotypes some people have about trans people to destroy a young man's life.  That stereotype is the transsexual-as-sexual-predator whose modus operandi--in sex and everything else in life--is deception.


Call me selfish, but one of the reasons I think what Brennan did is especially vile is that I have been victimized in the same way.  Someone I've mentioned on this blog tried to destroy my life--and succeeded in causing me health problems which are just now coming under control--by falsely accusing me of sexual crimes against other people.  


So, when I read about that seventeen-year-old trans boy whom Cathy Brennan  "outed," I felt as if she had assaulted me personally.  And, I would expect, a lot of other non-cisgender people felt the same way.


After pressure from Busey and others, the courageous Ms. Brennan removed the post in which she "outed" the young man from her website.  However, one of Kelli Busey's friends, Stephanie Stevens, saved it, and Busey published it on Scribe.  I am grateful to, and for, Ms. Busey and Stevens.