Are We Trannies?

It had to happen sooner or later:  Some are suggesting we stop using the term "tranny." Others say it is "our" term, and that some of us use it affectionately with each other.


It's the same sort of debate that surrounds the use of "queer" and the "n-word." All of those terms have been used to denigrate the people denoted by them. And, of course, non-trans people wonder why they're wrong for using the term when we use it to refer to other trans people.


What's often forgotten is that "tranny" is most often used as a derogatory term against MTF transsexuals as well as drag queens and cross-dressers.  So, along with its debasement of transgender people, the term also has an element of misogyny, which would, by itself, be reason not to use the term.  At least, that's how I feel.  


What do you think?

Becoming Chaz

Tomorrow night, Becoming Chaz will air on OWN.  I probably won't see it, as I don't have cable TV and, in any event, don't watch much TV.  


Even if I had cable or dropped in on a friend who has it, I'm not sure I'd want to watch Becoming Chaz, anyway.  To tell you the truth, I haven't been terribly interested in the story.  


Had he not been born to such famous parents, he would not be any different from other transgender people who have undergone gender transitions.  And, had he not been on screen, in front of millions of people, on his parents' show--back when he was a girl, named Chastity, in frilly dresses and Mary Janes--we probably never would have heard of him.


That is not to say, of course, that I don't care about what happens to Chaz.  Because I understand, at least more than most other people can, what he is experiencing and has experienced, I wish only the best for him.  And I do understand how he feels when he talks about some of the difficulties he's had with people, including some of the ones who were closest to him.


And I can even understand why his mother--Cher, a gay icon--has difficulty with her transition.  My mother has been as about as supportive as anyone can be, or can be expected to be, in my transition and new life.  Yet I know that it has not been easy for her.  After all, she has known me longer than anyone else in this world--and she knew me as Nick, her son, for longer than anyone else ever had, or ever will.  


Plus, she realizes that some relatives of ours, most of whom are long gone, would not have been happy, to say the least, over what I've done.  At least they, as we knew them, would not have been happy.   However, people do change.  Some do, anyway.  Would they have changed?  No one can say for sure, but I know that at least a couple probably wouldn't have.  Then again, the people who change aren't always the ones we expect.   I'm sure Chaz has noticed that by now.


So, while very little about the show would be news to me, Becoming Chaz might be useful and enlightening for other people.  And, I suppose, seeing such a famous person--even if he is indeed famous mainly because of his parents--having undergone a gender transition will probably cause some people to pay more attention to what we say about ourselves, and to perhaps revise their thinking about who and what we are.  So, in that sense, Becoming Chaz is probably a good thing.

Now That Osama's Gone, Can We Get Our Papers?

Call me a conspiracy theorist.  Or a cynic.  Or whatever you want to call someone who doesn't believe a Navy SEAL killed Osama bin Laden almost a week ago.


Frankly, I think he died years ago.  What does this have to do with a transgender blog?, you ask.


Well...If that Navy SEAL did indeed shoot Osama, and if his body was tossed into the ocean (Was the President's Press Secretary watching Goodfellas?), shouldn't this country be in the process of bringing its troops home from the region?  After all, the ostensible reason for having all of those soldiers and airmen and Marines in Afghanistan was to capture bin Laden.  That, of course, begs the question of why that Navy SEAL killed him.  Folks who are more knowledgeable than I'll ever be about such issues say that he would have been the most valuable intelligence asset on the planet, if not in the history of the United States, or even civilization itself.  


Now I'll ask another rude question:  Now that bin Laden is gone, will all of those "security" measures be discontinued?  Will this mean the end of the PATRIOT Act?  The Homeland Security Administration?  Will I not get patted down the next time I wear a skirt in an airport?  (That happened to me on my way home from Florida.)  

Finally...Does the murder, er, extrajudicial execution of Osama mean that the process of obtaining or changing documents will be less onerous?  To be fair, some states have actually made, or are making, the process easier.  But about two years into my transition, I learned that  Federal offices were treating anyone who changed his or her name as if he or she were doing it to wreak havoc.  A clerk at the passport office told me as much.    He said that the government feared that anyone who changed his or her name--or gender--could have done so to wreak havoc.  However, when I asked, he admitted that neither he nor anyone else he knew in the State Department could recall any terrorist changing his name and gender.  


Meantime, you still have to submit proof that you've undergone GRS/SRS in order to change your Federal government IDs and records.

Putting the "Lone" in "The Lone Star State"

Most states allow a transgendered person to get a court order to change his or her legal gender.  That court order can, in turn, be used to get a driver's license and other documentation with the person's "new" gender. It can also be used to get a marriage license.


Some states require that a person undergo Genital Reconstructive Surgery (GRS).  Others merely require certification from a doctor that the person suffers from Gender Identity Disorder (GID) or a related condition.  Here in New York, I was able to get such an order after obtaining letters from my doctor and therapist saying that I was receiving treatment, which included my therapy sessions and hormones.  That allowed me to get a non-driver's ID with an "F" in the space for "sex" before I had my surgery.


Texas was one of the last states in this country to provide such an avenue for transgendered people, having done so only two years ago.  Now some of that state's legislators are, in effect, trying to nullify it, at least in part, with a new piece of legislation.  


State Senator Tommy Williams and Representative Lois Kolkhorst have introduced a bill that would prohibit county and district clerks from allowing court orders recognizing sex changes to be used as part of the necessary documentation for obtaining a marriage license.  


If the legislation is passed, Texas would be saying, in effect, that a person's gender is assigned at birth and can never be changed, even if that person's mind and spirit are incongruent with it.   At least, that's what the state would be saying for the purposes of marriage.  And, because the Texas constitution defines marriage as being between one man and one woman, it would mean that, as an example, if I were living in Texas, I could marry only as a man, and that I couldn't marry anyone who is not a woman.  


Now, that may seem like an academic question for me, as I don't plan on getting married or living in Texas any time soon.  But, of course, that is a not-so-academic question for any number of transgender people living in the Lone Star state.  


But this development is most worrisome for an admittedly small (at least relatively speaking) group of transgendered Texans.  They are the ones who were married during the past two years.  If the bill is passed, what will happen to them?  Will their marriages be nullified?  


Ironically, Representative Kolkhorst authored the 2009 law that allows sex change documentation to be used in obtaining marriage licenses.  So far, she hasn't said why she wants to, in essence, reverse her own legislation.

Workplaces

For a while, I thought about pursuing a full-time position at my second job.  In a lot of ways, the atmosphere is more pleasant than at my regular job.  However, it's not terribly stimulating.  I get the feeling sometimes they're getting along to go along when they're not going along to get along.  


At my regular job, people are dying of stress-related diseases.  Sometimes you can feel the corrosive acrimony on your skin, or so it seems.  But at the second job, some people do battle on the listserv, but are polite and even friendly to each other in person as if they were neighbors separated by a lawn and sprinklers.   Actually, some of them are.  And sometimes the campus seems to be set up that way.  


Could it be that I've spent so much time working in tense environments that I can't work in a friendlier one?  Or, perhaps, having worked around people I simply could not trust, I'm not so sure of what to do around people who have something resembling integrity--and are being hospitable to boot. That's what a friend seems to think.

Avoiding the "G" Word

On my second job, I find myself avoiding the "g" word.  If you've been reading this blog, you know which one I mean:  gender.  


It's not that anyone there would be offended.  At least, I don't anyone would.  I've simply made it a point--at least to myself--not to talk about my identity, or the life I lived as male.  I simply didn't want to be known only for that or, worse, to have people encourage me to talk about it and have the same people use it, and the fact that I talked about it, against me.  Finally, I got tired of people trying to push me into doing another degree--in gender studies, a field most of them don't actually respect.


But it's getting harder not to talk about those things when I'm teaching.  When reading Othello, as my class at that college is doing now, the discussion always seems to get to the "g" word.  And I'm not the one who brings it up.


I guess students, particularly the younger ones, are accustomed to thinking about it.  They've probably had teachers and other professors who've taught them various subject from a women's, gay or gender studies point of view.  Plus, they all know they have gay friends, relatives and co-workers.  Some of them might even know trans people.   Certainly they know we exist, and some of them have even have see us without the blinders of the stereotypes that shaped the views of people from my generation, and earlier ones.


But I find now that I can say so much more about gender, and how gender roles and expectations shape the way we live and the things we read.  One student asked, "Professor, do you think this is a man's world?"  I could only tell her that she needs to answer that question for herself.  Then there is another student who continues to bring up the idea that Iago was not really trying to wrest Desdemona from Othello; instead, he really wanted Othello.  I don't disagree with that idea, but I try not to talk about it because there are just too many things I could say and that student, and others, would--rightly--want to know why I think what I think.  


Now, I don't think of myself as a transgender first and foremost. But I can't deny that it's shaped, wholly or in part, my views about many things.  There are times when I'm tempted to mention it, simply because it would make explaining some things easier.  But then I wouldn't be explaining those things anymore; I'd be talking about my past and my identity and answering all of those questions we get when people realize who we are.  


Sooner or later, I will tell my students.  Or I will stop teaching anything that might lead to a discussion about gender. That would include, oh, about 95 percent of the plays, poems and stories I've ever taught.  And it would probably include about 90 percent of literature.


Of course, if I follow that second course of action--censoring what I teach--I would eventually stop teaching, in fact or in effect.  


At times like this, I wish that I'd been a math whiz or a technical person.  A surprising number of male-to-female transgenders are engineers.  Why couldn't I have been one of them? I mean, how does gender come up when designing a circuit or writing code?

To Tell Or Not To Tell?

Last night, while in a coffee shop, I saw the 60 Minutes segment in which correspondent Lara Logan recounted being sexually attacked and nearly killed while she covered the uprising in Egypt.

Having survived molestation during my childhood, I could empathize with her, at least somewhat.  Actually, more than somewhat, and not only because of my experience with a family friend (who was, by the way, straight and married with children of his own).

Hot tears rolled streamed down my face when she talked about her decision to publicly tell her story.  On one hand, she said, she wanted others who have been sexually assaulted to know they "aren't alone" and to help educate the public about sexual violence.  On the other, she wrestled with that "voice" that told her not to talk about it because some people, upon hearing about it, would take it as proof that women are not fit to do the sort of work she's doing. 

I might've added that every time one of us speaks up, some people brand us as "complainers" or imply--or say outright--that we brought the violence on ourselves or, worse yet, "had it coming" to us.

I speak from experience. During my second year of living as Justine, I was sexually harassed by a campus security officer.  I was new to the job--the main job I have now--and had no idea of where to turn.  So I went to the administrative offices and talked to someone--I don't recall his name; he was gone only a few months later and  hasn't been heard from since--who told me not to report it.  "This campus can't help you," he said. "And the police won't," he said.

Later, I realized this college administrator was simply trying to prevent negative publicity for the college, which had seen a nearly complete  administrative turnover, and three different Presidents, during the previous five years.

The interesting thing was that I didn't get pressure from other trans, or even L, G or B, people to keep quiet about my experience, as sexually assaulted women get form other women.  If anything, all of the LGBT people I know wanted me to speak about it publicly, and even to write about it.  All of the pressure I experienced to keep quiet came from the college's administration and my supervisor.  

Any such pressure is bad for the morale of the person receiving it, as if he or she weren't having a tough enough time.  Lara Logan seems like a tough woman, but even she needs support when she's been violated.  And, too often, that's what we don't get.  

At least I didn't have Ms. Logan's many injuries or fear of disapproval from my own community.  

The Birthers and A Transgender President: Donald Trump Should Be So Proud!

Donald Trump is proud of himself.  He said so yesterday, after President Obama showed the world his birth certificate and Trump claimed that he forced the President to do so.

Of course, The Donald had to say something like that.  He is just smart enough to know how stupid he seemed in light of his claim that Obama was born in Africa.  Well, at least now we know that TD/DT is in the 25th percentile in intelligence:  One out of every four Americans still believes that the Obama wasn't born in the USA.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  After all, four centuries after Galileo and Copernicus, and five centuries after Columbus, we have a Flat Earth Society.  They might be jokers, but they're not kidding.

The whole (non-) controversy about Obama's birth certificate got me to thinking what might happen if we ever have a transgender President.  Let's say that person has been living "stealth":  His or her previous life is unknown even to his or her friends and closest work associates.  How long do you think it would be before someone with too much money and too much time on his or her hands finds out that Madame President had been a dude, or that Mister President had been a mistress?  

Would the President ignore the rumors, as Obama did about the birther's claims?  And, if he/she did, for how long?  Obama held out for two years?  Would our tranny president ignore the demand to know about his or her past?  

Would someone demand to see the original birth certificate of our great two-spirited leader?   Remember that in most states that issue new birth certificates (including Georgia, from which I got mine)  keep the original on file.  The original, of course, includes the gender to which the baby was assigned and the name he or she was given at birth.  So, even though my current birth certificate has the name by which you know me and an "F"  for sex, in Atlanta there is still a copy with the name I was given on the day I was born and an "M" where there always should have been an "F."  So, if I were to be elected President and someone who hasn't read this blog (How likely are both of those to be true?) heard about or suspected my past, would he or she demand that I show my original birth certificate?

Hmm...What if we were to re-fight the Civil War and I ran for President of the Union?  Would the fact that I was born in the Peachtree State make me ineligible?  

And would Donald Trump (or his future equivalent) be proud of him (or her) self for "forcing" me to show a birth certificate that indicates my birth as a boy named Nicholas in the state of Georgia?

I think he would.  I would let him be.  

Not Our Kind Of Place

Here's one of the most disturbing videos you'll ever see:

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhiHb913Lf4TpU4q5m

The next time someone tries to tell you that we're looking for "special privileges," show him or her this video.  How can anyone say we're trying to get "preferential" treatment when too many of us have to risk our lives to do something that every person--straight, gay, trans, cis or otherwise--needs to do every day? 

How safe are we when an employee of the McDonalds in which the beating took place cheers the attackers on?

And don't get me started on the rates at which we experience unemployment, poverty and homicide. 

If You Watch Something With Your Mother, Does It Turn Into A "Chick Flick"

All right.  I'll admit it.  I actually watched Titanic tonight--well, the last 2-1/2 hours of the movie, anyway.

I first saw it not long after it came out.  Someone had asked me to get a copy, and I watched it before sending it off.  If I recall, that copy was a VHS and I got it on Canal Street. 

But tonight I watched it on a wide screen TV, on one of the cable channels.  And I watched it with Mom, who's seen it a few more times than I have.

When I first saw it, I made a point of sneering at it, at least when it was over.  Everyone, it seemed, gushed over it, and I, being the macho snob (Is that a contradiction?) I was, or was portraying myself to be, wanted no part of it.  But, deep down, I was enjoying the spectacle of it more than I admitted.

So, you ask, did I see the movie differently tonight?  I did, but first I'll mention something in my view of it that hasn't changed:  I was not impressed with the acting.  To be fair, Leonardo di Caprio was a baby, or so it seemed.  And his innocent cuteness is what, for many viewers, evoked the sadness they felt when his character sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic.  And Kate Winslet wasn't much older, though she looked it.   I think that was used to make the audience feel sympathy for her character:  a very young aristocratic woman who was following the imperatives of her milieu.  However, I felt that she was more of an objet d'art, or a model that might appear in one. 

They're like all those famous actors who always remind you that they're the Famous Actor playing the Important Character.  To me, most A-list Hollywood actors fall into this category.  If I'm not mistaken, their performances are examples of what Uta Hagen called "indicative" acting:  they indicate what you're supposed to see or feel, rather than embodying--or, even better yet, revealing--the essences of those characters.  (I still think one of the best examples I ever saw of the latter was Sean Penn's performance in Dead Man Walking.)

OK, I'll stop being a snotty critic and cut to the chase:  I took some not-so-guilty pleasure in watching the movie tonight.  Tears rolled down my cheeks as Leonardo di Caprio's character could no longer maintain his grip on life that was even more ironclad than the ship's hull, and disappeared into the icy darkness of the water.  And the trickle turned into a stream when I saw the old woman Kate Winslet's character becomes, and when one of the people who interview her says that there was no record of the young man who sank into the cold and darkness.

I know that the movie impressed lots of people with its special effects, as James Cameron movies tend to do.  And I know there was lots of emotion that is to the human heart as the stuff played by music boxes is to music.  But somehow it felt good to experience it as I did tonight.  Now I wonder:  Was it because of the hormones, the surgery, or simply being with Mom at what is now seeming more like a late stage in her life (as much as I hope and wish it isn't so!).

Arriving To The Passage Of Time

I'm at my parents' house in Florida, having gotten here last night and almost immediately dozing off.  The latter is not so much a commentary on Mom or Dad as it is on how tired I was last night.

Anyway, today I went for a nice but familiar bike ride and had an equally nice and familiar dinner of Mom's lasagna.  Tomorrow is Easter Sunday; Mom is going to Mass and later we will have dinner.  The day after that, Mom and I are planning to have lunch with a friend of hers with whom we had lunch the last time I was here, at Christmastime.

Although this is all fine, and I enjoy it, I am feeling rather strange about it all.  Yes, Mom and Dad raised and supported me.  But who was that "me?"  And all those times in my I adult life I came to their house, wherever they were living, are among the reasons I am here now.  But who was that person who spent those holidays, those weekends and those days and nights with them?  That person had a different name from the one I now have, and made all sorts of choices and decisions I would not make now.  Some of that, of course, is a matter of what nearly everyone feels upon reaching the age I am now:  Nearly all of us have done things that, knowing what we know now, we wouldn't do.  I am sure both of my parents feel this way.  But, as you can imagine, for me everything was complicated by the fact that I was living, literally, as a different person from what I am now.

I can't help but to wonder whether they would be living the lives they're living, in this house, had they raised me as a girl--had any of us known that such a thing was even possible, as foreign as it would have been in the places and time in which we were living!  I can't help but to think--even if I can't explain why or how--there are things they might've done differently if they had been raising Justine rather than Nick, and those things would have affected other choices they made.  Perhaps I would have been better off, or at least I wouldn't have to learn the things I'm learning because I would have learned them earlier in my life.  But what of my parents, and my brothers:  Would they have been better or worse off?  Or would it have made a difference?


Maybe it's just the realization that they have less and less time left in this life that's causing me to realize how much time I lost or wasted.

Diana Discovers The Real Tea Party Agenda

The other day, McDonald's took applications for 50,000 positions they plan to fill.  

Some are saying that's a sign the economy is "turning a corner."  Perhaps it is if you're a McDonald's executive, or perhaps the owner of one of its franchises.  However, I don't think that the people who waited all night outside those restaurants to fill out an application would tell you that things are getting better.  Granted, some of them are young people who've never had a job before. But there are many others who had jobs that paid well, or were even professionals of one sort or another.  Now they're lining up for jobs that pay minimum wage, or not much more.

I guess the economy is turning a corner.  Here in New York, turning a corner can bring you into an entirely different neighborhood--and world.  And it isn't always for the better.  

So what are we entering?  I am not an economist, historian, futurologist, sociologist or any of the people who get paid to comment on this sort of thing.  But I don't think it's an economy that's going to benefit very many people.

We've heard it all:  First the manufacturing jobs went overseas.  Then customer service went to call centers in India.  Now we're seeing lawyers', engineers' and other professionals'--not to mention clerks'--work sent to countries with low wages.  Those last jobs were thought to be the ones that would never be "outsourced."  

So are there any "safe" jobs or professions?  Some have mentioned health care and law enforcement.  The former (even the so-called private facilities) are largely paid for through public funds, i.e., taxes.  And law enforcement is almost entirely financed that way.  We're seeing the consequences of that now:  The other day, Paterson, NJ laid off one-fourth of its police force.  

I think that what we're seeing is the real Republican/Right/Tea Party agenda.  If people are willing to do anything to get on the lowest rung of the employment ladder, those who are hiring can demand just about anything from them.  So the would-be employers are creating a buyer's market for labor.  And guess who the buyers are?

There is, however, a far more insidious manifestation of the Tea Party agenda. In fact, it's been all but unnoticed.  But it goes hand-in-hand with reducing large parts of the workforce to wage slavery.

On her blog, Diana described an example of what is happening.  In Michigan, the Governor essentially gave himself the power to throw out locally-elected officials and appoint his own people.  Those appointees, in turn, can toss out other officials and, in essence, run their localities by edict. 

This scenario has already played out in one city.  It just happens that city is the poorest and blackest (Yes, even more so than Detroit!) in the state.  I'm talking about Benton Harbor, which has been the subject of a number of articles and a book ("The Other Side of The River" by Alex Kotlowitz) in which the city is depicted as a poster child for post-industrial decay.  

If that could happen there, it's not hard to imagine, for instance, Chris Christie doing something similar with Camden or even Trenton, the state capital.  Newark wouldn't be out of the question, either.  

That is a corporate fascist's dream:  Large portions of the population without money and without a vote, or any other form of recourse.  (Think of what they're really trying to accomplish by de-funding Planned Parenthood.  It's not, as they say, about "reducing government." )

Some days it's just unbearable to be teaching college students who still believe that their degrees are going to get them wonderful, high-paying jobs.  I just hope that I'm helping them to open their eyes and that it leads them to vision rather than disillusionment.  Otherwise, what is the point of their time in school?

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.