Jay's House

Lately, I’ve been listening quite a bit to WBAI, the Pacifica Radio station here in New York.  I have gone through periods of my life when I have listened to no other radio station—sometimes, during times when I wasn’t watching television.

I started listening again a few months ago because there is so little on local radio or television I can stand, even as background, while I’m working on something.  At other times when I listened regularly, there were more intelligent, engaging or simply entertaining (by my standards, anyway) options in the media than there are now.  I know that I can find some favorite old episodes and programs on You Tube and other venues, but I don’t want to spend too much time on reruns.  Besides, it’s hard use You Tube or its equivalents as background.

Anyway, WBAI has an “OUT Radio” program, which claims to be the only LGBT-centered radio program in the NYC area.  Their claim is probably accurate.  I hadn’t tuned in specifically to hear that program, though:  I’ve had the radio on most of the day as I’ve gone in and out to shop for food and do laundry and other errands—all within a two-block radius of my place.  Still, I listened.  I’m glad I did:  the producer—I didn’t catch her name—interviewed Jay Toole.

Until recently, Jay headed Queers for Economic Justice.  However, the organization is dying because it’s lost its funding.  But Jay had been working on a dream, which is now coming into fruition:  Jay’s House, a shelter/community center for LGBT people.

Jay’s vision for it was borne of experience living in the New York City shelter system and, before that, on the streets.  Like too many other young queer people, Jay became homeless upon “coming out” as a teenager.  To be exact, Jay was 13 years old at the time and would live without a home for more than thirty years afterward.

One of the things for which I am thankful is that the most difficult times I’ve experienced are nothing like what Jay experienced every day for decades.  Another thing for which I’m thankful is for which I’m thankful is having met Jay, especially at the time in my life when I did.

Not long before I moved out of the apartment I’d been sharing with Tammy, I went to Center Care, the counseling center of the LGBT Community Center of New York.  Jay volunteered as an intake counselor and was on duty the day I walked in.  Until that day, Tammy was the only person with whom I’d talked about my gender identity.  Actually, I didn’t talk about it so much as I insisted that the clothing, the jewelry and the time I spent in them were things I could simply “walk away from” if and when it ever became a possible roadblock to her career—or, more precisely, her own life based on her defying other people’s perceptions of her real and  understandable wish to escape the pain other males in her life had caused her.

Living a half- (or otherwise partial-) truth really isn’t any better—or, at least, mentally and spiritually healthy—than living an outright lie.  Well, it might be better in the sense that sometimes it’s necessary to live that partial truth—which, really, is another kind of mendacity—in order to learn whatever one must learn, or simply to survive, before facing reality.

I knew I had to end those fictions—and the ones I’d given my family, friends and anyone else who knew or questioned me—on the day I met Jay.  As I sat in the Center’s waiting area, I thought about how I would explain myself to whoever I met.  (At that moment, of course, I didn’t know that person would be Jay.)  Until that moment, nothing made any sense to me:  I didn’t know, therefore, how I could make it make sense to anyone else.

The receptionist called my name and directed me to one of the Center’s narrow but well-lit offices.  “I’m Jay.”  “Hi.” 

At that moment, I forgot whatever I’d been rehearsing in my mind.  Instead, this passed through my lips:  “I’m a woman.”

“I know.”

I would later realize that, at that moment, I knew Jay, too, even though we were meeting for the first time.  You see, I intuited—and much later articulated—this:  I was, at that moment, an inversion of Jay, who was about as “butch” as anyone could be without having been born with XY chromosomes.  But, even more important, we had both been defined by our vulnerability and pain.  Both of us had experienced sexual molestation and violence; while Jay was cast out, I alienated myself because I simply could not relate to anyone else, not even members of my own family.  Jay had spent more than three decades without a physical home; I’d spent about the same amount of time, if not more, unable to be at home in my own body, in my own mind, in my own spirit, let alone in any physical environment in which I’d lived, worked or been inculcated with notions to which I simply couldn’t conform, no matter how hard I tried or how much I loved the people who were teaching the lessons they’d been taught and, in some cases, did not understand.

Jay and I would later volunteer on one of the Center’s projects and remain in contact, if episodically.  Although Jay is very busy, the time in which we didn’t talk or write much to each other was also my fault:  I withdrew from almost everyone with whom I didn’t have to be in contact when Dominick was doing everything he could to destroy me.  I didn’t have to make the apology I offered when we bumped into each other, for the first time in a couple of years, back in June:  After all, almost no one else I know understands what it’s like simply to survive the day and the day before as well as Jay does.

The Next Frontier, Then And Now

Today, Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday is being commemorated.  I am thinking now about how he spent the last days of his life working to help the sanitation workers of Memphis to gain better pay and working conditions.  I am also thinking about the speech he gave on 4 April 1967—exactly one year before he was gunned down.  In it, he denounced the Vietnam War and the ways in which the United States was turning into the kind of repressive colonial power against which it fought to gain its independence.

Nearly half a century later, his words and actions remain relevant, if for different reasons than they were when they were new or, say, twenty or thirty years ago.  I concur with those people who see them as evidence that he was turning his attention toward economic inequalities and how power—whether military, political, capitalist or corporate—is used to initiate and reinforce such inequities.  Interestingly, Malcolm X was turning his interests toward those very issues before he was shot to death in the Audubon Ballroom.  Some have posited that it’s a reason why the widows of the two men became allies in the struggle for social and economic justice as well as close personal friends.  Having met Sister Betty Shabazz, however briefly, a couple of years before she died, I would accept such an explanation.

Whatever their motivations, I think she and Coretta Scott King offer valuable lessons for transgender people.  I am not the first person to say that our state is about what that of gays and lesbians was in the 1970’s or nearly all African-Americans until the 1950’s.  The gains made by the Civil Rights movement did not improve the lot of all people of color; that is not a fault of the work Matin, Coretta, Malcolm or Betty did.  While it’s great that my hometown—New York City—and some other jurisdictions have human-rights laws that include language to specifically include transgender and other gender-variant people, such laws—as Martin and Malcolm discovered—will not, by themselves, bring about social justice.  That is because they cannot bring about economic justice.  They might say that a would-be employer cannot discriminate on the basis of race, gender or other qualities, but they do not address the conditions that put us at a disadvantage when we apply for those jobs—or that relegate us to inferior jobs at lower pay and longer periods without jobs and, in some cases, housing. 

Beside Themselves

A friend of mine read the article I posted the other day.  She was involved in the struggle to legalize same-sex marriage in New York State.  Several years before that legislation passed, she was married to her longtime partner in Canada.

This friend and I were talking about what’s happened in Utah, and about civil rights in general.  She reminded me of something which—surprisingly, given that the legislation in New York passed only two and half years ago—I had forgotten.

Here it is:  One of the arguments made against passing the same-sex marriage law was that it would discriminate against straight people, as it would not guarantee their right to marry gay people.

I wondered what it is about same-sex marriage that drives supposedly well-trained and talented legal minds to such contortions of logic as the one she recalled-- or the argument, made by same-sex marriage foes in Utah, that if diversity is a valid criterion for college admissions, it should also be a criterion in deciding whether or not people should be allowed to marry.

My friend had an explanation:  When people who don’t have much else, they will grasp onto whatever it is that (at least in their minds) separates them from people who are even lower on the socioeconomic ladder than they are.  Politicians like George Wallace, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan exploited this; folks like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are trying to do the same.  How else can they consider poor and working-class white people in the South and Midwest to vote for candidates like themselves:  the ones who align themselves with the plutocrats who imperil whatever separates those white people from the perpetually destitute blacks and other members of “minority” groups.

It sounds, to me, like a good explanation of why, in spite of the gains we’ve made, the condition of transgender people is still like that of gays and lesbians thirty years ago.

I'm Not A Scientist. Neither Is Bryan Fischer.

One reason why I have not talked more about going to church, at least on this blog, is that my reasons for doing so are highly personal, perhaps even idiosyncratic.  I don't pretend that my reasons for going to church apply to everyone, and I'm not ready to say that everyone "should" go to church or follow any sort of formal religion.

Also, I must admit that I didn't want to be lumped with some of the people who use their "religion" or "faith" to rationalize all sorts of bigotry--including their notions that people like me don't belong in their churches or can be "cured."

In the latter category is a fellow named Bryan Fischer.  Here is someone who, from what I can tell, has even less background in science than I have.  (I last took a science class in 1978; although I try to stay abreast of some developments, I can't claim to have any more than an average lay person's knowledge.)  Yet he is claiming the role of a scientist--specifically, a geneticist and an evolutionary biologist--to reiterate the tired canard that if you have male DNA and anatomy, you can't possibly be female because "God doesn't make mistakes."

What a lot of people don't know is that Charles Darwin studied to be an Anglican parson.  But he was astute enough to realize that the most startling phenomenon he encountered could be explained, if not resolved, only through scientific reasoning, not through faith.  He knew that faith and reason could not be substituted for each other and that a question of science cannot be answered with religion any more than a belief in the supernatural can be justified with empirical evidence.

The funny thing about folks like Fischer is that the more they use the word "science," the more irrational and even specious their explanations become.  That's because when they say things like "all of the science I've seen tells me", you know that they know about as much science as I do.  When someone asks them for citations, they change the subject or accuse the questioner of being misled by Satan, or some such thing.

Perhaps some day someone will come up with a scientific explanation for people like me. And someone else might come up with a cogent pyschological explanation, or even a religious or theological one.  Until then, I hope that enough people realize what the kinds of reasoning used in each of those fields can and can't do.  And people like me can tell our stories and, perhaps, create interesting and useful artistic and literary representations of our experiences.


 

The Diversity In Marriage Act (DIMA)

Back to serious, sober gender stuff today.

All right, perhaps not so serious and sober.  In fact, you might actually have fun (Whoda thunk it?) reading my latest Huffington Post piece.

I'll reproduce the text here:

The Diversity In Marriage Act


The state of Utah has just ruled that I can marry a black man. Or an Hispanic or Asian male. Even a Native American is acceptable, under the state's ruling.

But I can't marry a white man, let alone a white woman. Oh, I can't marry an African-descended, Latina or Asian female, either.

Now, you might think I've gone over to neighboring Colorado and partaken of their newly-legalized recreational drug. Truth is, I'm nowhere near that Rocky Mountain mecca. I've been there only once, and that was to avail myself to the services of one Dr. Marci Bowers. And I've never set foot in the Beehive State. I'm safely ensconced in the very state that kicked out someone named Joseph Smith, who is largely responsible for the Utah we know and love today.

Time was, not so long ago, someone who used "Utah" and "same-sex marriage" in the same sentence would have been suspected of inhaling Boulder's Best -- and I'm not talking about the pure mountain air. Or he or she would have been directed to take his or her medication.

But what would have been seen as a hallucination or fantasy less than a year ago actually came to pass, however briefly, last month. Judge Robert Shelby -- a conservative Republican -- ruled Utah's same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional. So, for a few heady days, Johns joined Jims and Willas wed Wendys in Salt Lake City and a few other locales in the state.

Of course, Utah being Utah, there were plenty of politicians and lay people who simply wouldn't let such a situation be. So they appealed Judge Shelby's decision to the Supreme Court. They made all of the predictable arguments citing long-discredited studies (or pure-and-simple folklore) about the "benefits" of being raised by one biological parent of each gender and the ways in which heterosexual marriage promotes "responsible" sexual behavior.

Now, such arguments couldn't sway someone like Judge Shelby. But, apparently, Utah's foes of same-sex marriage thought they might work in that liberal bastion known as the United States Supreme Court, where such left-wing stalwarts as Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia occupy the bench.

So what did those righteous folks who wanted to save us from the spectacle of Mr. and Mr. or Ms. and Ms. do? They did their homework and came up with a set of germane court rulings. And -- I must give them their due -- they used those rulings in a way that I never, in a million years, could have imagined.

Various courts have ruled that publicly-funded colleges and universities can use "diversity" as a criterion for admissions. Educators and related professionals have long argued that contact with people from nations, cultures and religions different from one's own enhances a student's educational experience. In other words, the prep school kid, the scholarship student from the slums and the young woman from Asia will all gain social and thinking skills they might not otherwise would have acquired in the classroom.

Ergo, a kid will learn more from two parents who are different sexes than from parents of the same sex -- or only one parent.

Now, I don't know whether Utah's same-sex marriage foes gained such reasoning skills (or, for that matter, learned the word "ergo") in the hallowed halls of their fair state's esteemed institutions of higher learning. Perhaps they're just naturally brilliant. I mean, how else could they have argued, in essence, that "diversity in marriage" is the ideal and will teach kids what they need to learn? At any rate, I never could have constructed such a logical tour de force.

What they said, in essence, is that the state should mandate diversity in marriage. Well, they want gender diversity -- or, more accurately, polarity. But imagine that the legislatures of Utah or other states -- or the federal government -- were to pass a comprehensive Diversity In Marriage Act.

Would DIMA simply mandate what DOMA proscribed? Or would it go beyond DOMA and specify other ways, besides gender, in which each spouse must differ? Must they be of different races and cultural backgrounds? Will they be expected to speak different languages and practice different religions? (Perhaps only one member of the couple could be a theist.) Would dreamers only be permitted to marry schemers? Omnivores to vegans? Would I have to marry a mathematician? (Not that I wouldn't.) Or someone with Type O blood?

If Utah were to pass DIMA, a lot of people might not marry at all: It's one of the whitest states in the union. It's also one of the least religiously diverse, and one of the most socially homogenous in all sorts of other ways.

If I were feeling lonely, I guess I could go to Colorado. Even if they were to pass DIMA, I could brighten up my days in other ways. And, if I were to marry someone of my own race, gender or cultural background, or with a skill-set like mine, I could plead ignorance: Everyone looks the same when you're on a Rocky Mountain High. Or is that when you're drunk?

If you are, you've got to marry someone in a 12-step program. Otherwise, you'll be in violation of the Diversity In Marriage Act. You don't want to get stung with the penalties for such an infraction, especially in the Beehive State. Do the birds marry the bees there?

 

 

Contemplation

OK.  Today I’ll take a break from “gender stuff”.  And I’ll give you a break from it.

Instead, I’ll give you a chance to contemplate.

What do you think this winsome creature is thinking about?  Do you think she’s pondering her own existence?  The finiteness (Is that a word?) of life?  Or is she just trying to make a decision?

What’s she thinking now?

Freedom Rider

On this date in 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was born.   His birthdate will be commemorated on Monday, five days from now. We also observe the births of Presidents Washington and Lincoln, as well as other holidays, on Mondays in this country.

I guess if you want to become famous enough to have a holiday dedicated to you, you have to be born on Monday.  Or, perhaps, being born on Monday will lead you to fame.

But I digress.  I don't often hear or see MLK and bicycling mentioned on the same page, let alone the same sentence.  The biographies I've seen tell us that he enjoyed riding his bike as a kid but make no mention of him cycling as an adult.

From Dan's Globe Bike

So why am I mentioning him on this blog?  Well, I believe that my cycling is one major reason why I began to think about issues of social justice long before I would be affected by them in the immediate and visceral ways I would experience them when I was transitioning from male to female.  Riding my bike through New York--where I have lived much of my life--and other cities, I have seen, close-up, the stark differences between neighboring communities.  Just minutes after spinning by the opulent townhouses and boutiques of Manhattan's Fifth and Park Avenues--which rival Rodeo Drive, Kensington Gardens and l'Avenue Montaigne--I descend the ramp from the Triboro Bridge to the southern tip of the Bronx.  It's part of the 16th Congressional district, the poorest in the entire nation. There, I am as likely as not to be the only woman on a bicycle within a radius of several miles.

In both neighborhoods, people sometimes compliment the bike I'm riding, or (on rarer occasions these days) my riding itself.  In either neighborhood, I am keenly aware of my privilege:  Even if I am riding to work or an appointment, I am riding my bike by choice.  And I am riding a bike I choose to ride.  Even if I have no money in my purse, I still occupy a higher rung on the social--and, yes, economic--ladder then those who are riding bikes that no one else wanted so they can deliver pizzas or get to an appointment with a case worker.

As long as I can ride, and choose to do so, I am privileged.

Overturning Same-Sex Marriage In The Name Of "Diversity"

"Well, it was great while it lasted."

It's easy to think something like that after the Supreme Court halted same-sex marriages in Utah--barely two weeks after the first ones were consummated in the Beehive State.

On the surface, it almost seemed surprising that Utah allowed same-sex unions even for such a brief period.  After all, when you say "Utah" to most people, the first word that comes to their minds is "Mormons."

The Church of Latter-Day Saints, not surprisingly, does not want to encourage same-sex unions.  But, as I mentioned in an earlier post, in Salt Lake City--the State's capital and largest city--a higher percentage of same-sex couples raise children than in any other city in the nation.  Ironically, it is a result of the city's and state's social conservatism:  People there come out later in life, often after siring or birthing a child in a heterosexual marriage.  

Judge Robert Shelby--a conservative Republican--ruled that the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.  He consulted with a number of professionals, including clergy people, who assured him that allowing same-sex marriage has absolutely no effect on whether opposite-sex couples consummate their unions in marriage before having children.  Nobody could have been more succinct when he said "no one is harmed" when people marry others of the same sex.

State officials succeeded in having his ruling overturned by abandoning their earlier claims that heterosexual marriage encourages "responsible" sex and procreation.  Instead, they made one of the most bizarre arguments I've ever heard.

In essence, they drew upon earlier Supreme Court decisions supporting "diversity" as a criteria in deciding who may attend public universities.  They said, in essence, they were pursuing "diversity in marriage."

It's almost funny to read that such an argument was made in one of the whitest states in the Union. Perhaps someone else--say, a Supreme Court judge--will see it that way and Utah will follow California in legalizing gay marriage, overturning it and re-instating it.  Perhaps the last part of that process won't take as long in the Beehive State as it did in the so-called Golden State.

 

The CDC Catches Up

If you are transitioning from male to female, you may have discovered something I've learned:  The world of medicine was created by and for males.

If you didn't already know that, you will understand it when you climb into the "stirrups" for your first vaginal examination--if you hadn't already learned it from getting a mammogram.  That machine they use is almost as tortuous as the stirrups, and both devices were invented by, ahem, men!

Still, you need to do both.  OK, I'll admit:  I'm overdue for a mammogram.  But at least I'm procrastinating because of the unpleasantness of the experience, not because I can't pay for it. Or, more precisely, I don't have to pay for it.  That makes me one of the lucky ones.  Lots of other trans women--both pre- and post-op--don't have insurance policies that cover their mammograms or access to any medical provider who does them for free.  

One reason for that lack is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (commonly known as the CDC) provided free screenings only to those designated as females at birth.  Even those of us who have had surgery weren't provided with examinations from the CDC. And other health care providers, insurers and related organizations take their cues from the CDC.

However, last week, the CDC changed its policy after a trans woman in Colorado sued.  

One would think it shouldn't have come to that.  After all, one would expect that the folks at the CDC would be conversant in current research and literature.  According to decades' worth of investigation and practice, trans women who are taking estrogen are at a higher risk of breast cancer than they were before starting treatments, though their risk is not as great as that of "born" women.  And our risk of breast cancer increases after our surgeries.