i noticed two articles in our sunday paper regarding men spying on women while they were in the bathroom. these made me think about how some radicals feel that these types of incidents would occur should an employment non-discrimination act, such as enda, be implemented. see, men don’t need to dress like women in order to invade our sacred space. they’re quite resourceful, without resorting to demeaning themselves by dressing like us. the woman peeing in the next stall is not endangering you. it’s the guy peering through the ceiling tile, or the guy our government hires to protect you.

a while after i came out as trans to my ex, we were involved in a discussion about finances. since by that time we were divorced and living in separate residences, money was extremely tight. our main concern was our son, and we spoke of the expense of sending him to college, which would begin in maybe 6 or 7 years. the issue of my transition was broached, and the eternal question of “why” was once again raised.

“because it’s better than being dead”, i answered.

“perhaps for you, but your son would benefit as you are worth more dead” she answered.

in many ways, this was true. through my then prestigious, white collar, privileged job, i had a life insurance policy worth in excess of a half-million dollars. interesting though, that she was the sole beneficiary. she would have benefited as well. unfortunately for them, a resulting death from a failure to pursue transition would most likely have been seen as a suicide, which was one of the exclusions explicitly detailed in the policy.

i’ll add that i never liked the “transition or die” mantra, that seems so prevalent in trans circles. even so, i remember well how i felt at that time, the depression that i battled, and the overwelming hopelessness that permeated my life. transition, to me, was the way out, the only path that offered an improvement in the quality of my life. i remember thinking that if i couldn’t, or wouldn’t transition, the only alternative was that my life would have to end. it had become intolerable.

at that time, i was also in the midst of therapy, and was just about ending my weekend excursions to the local gay club scene, which would end at my apartment with a one night stand. my therapist told me that i did this in an effort to validate my identity. she told me that if a man found me attractive enough to take me home for sex, i interpreted that as validation. i wasn’t so sure. i just wanted to have sex, something that i managed to avoid until my marriage, and then again to mostly avoid until my divorce. there was no question that my weekends were dangerous. i couldn’t be bothered with protection, and how i managed to escape disease is nothing short of a miracle. my therapist and i did agree that my behavior on weekends was most certainly suicidal, yet a dealth resulting from a fatal std might very well have been covered by my life insurance. i’m not sure if it would have been covered by my medical insurance at the time. i’m glad that i never had to find out.

these days, i’m still worth more dead, from a financial perspective. due to a court order, i maintain a $100,000 policy with my son as beneficiary. he has three years left of college, and my portion of the contribution to his life, including child support and medical is probably about $50,000 over that 3 years. so he’d make about double if i died due to accidental or natural causes. and as an added bonus, he wouldn’t have to write to me any more, which is the only contact between us, according to his wishes. we haven’t spoken or seen each other in 6 years.

as far as i’m concerned, and despite the suicidal thoughts that still plague me, i’d just assume not be dead. functioning in the world as a woman for the past 10 years or so has most definately improved the quality of my life, just as i had imagined it. my husband of 2 years would be devistated, as we are very much in love with each other, and have become best friends. even my mom, who at first was very much against my transition, would miss our weekly phone conversations. my dad and two sisters would miss me i’m sure, though we speak less often these days. living 2500 miles away from them can have that effect.

when i think of family now, i think first of my husband. i can’t imagine living without him. my son is next, though in a very real way, i don’t know him at all. we were extremely close up until his teens - a year or two after my separation from his mom - and people would even comment about how close we were. that closeness will remain with me i think, despite the subsequent events. he’s my son, and i’m his father, much as either of us want to play with the semantics. my mom, dad, and sisters are also family, but i haven’t seen them since the winter of 2004, right before i moved west to be with my love.

i like to believe that on average, i am worth more alive to my family. perhaps one day, when lgbt people are actually generally seen as human (as opposed to how my ex described me - “a freak of nature”), our worth will be seen in terms of our humanity.

via kactus’ post on twisty’s anti anti-trans-ness, it looks like the radfem’s vs trans argument once again rears its ugly head.

at least this time we’re not nutjobs.

it seems to me that this discussion keeps running around in circles. the way i see it, the two camps are simply not communicating, and to me, that just goes back to a basic misunderstanding of the terminology each group uses to express themselves.

i don’t post over on i blame the patriarchy because twisty insists that commenters use the caps key, and you know, i have issues with silencing, even if it’s because i don’t follow punctuation rules. :\

in marvel comics mighty avengers #2, the first transsexual cyborg is unleashed upon the world. and why would a comic book character become a transwoman, you ask? what else would a “a criminally insane rogue sentient robot dedicated to conquest and the extermination of humanity” become? apparently, marvel’s brian michael bendis felt this would make for a good story. and frank cho renders her accordingly:

via wired’s annalee newitz:

Ultron is a totally awesome android supervillain, and two months ago she became the first male-to-female transsexual cyborg supervillain. Though Ultron has had many forms — my favorite being the giant robot one he had in Runaways — this is the first time Ultron has gone girly. And she’s quite the girl….

I’ve always loved Ultron because he was a giant, flying robot who hated humans and paralyzed his victims with his astonishing encephalo-ray. Now that she’s a chick, I’m just not sure what to expect. Is this just Marvel’s excuse to have a naked chick beat the crap out of the Avengers (not such a bad idea)? Is she actually naked, or is her skin some kind of freaky new armor? Shouldn’t she have a new super power other than nakedness?

based on the reactions of all men who encounter a naked transsexual, i don’t think there is a more powerful super power, for a transwoman anyway.

edited to add:
thinking about it now, i realize it could have been worse. ultron could have been the first cyborg supervillain in a dress.

jay sennett has a post up entitled interview with alexis arquette that links to the newsweek article none of us are safe; actor alexis arquette on the politics of gender in america. in the article, and quoted in jay’s post, alexis arquette says:

There are a lot of people who are attracted to people like myself because they like boobs and a penis, and let’s just be honest about that. They like she-males.

this, after she says:

I’m a transgendered female who started as a male, I’m now female, you know all those things, so why do we need to go further than that?

so i find myself asking the question “then why did you go further than that?”

i guess i’m one of those uptight transwomen who dislike the term “shemale”, just as i dislike the term “jewboy”, or “kike”, perhaps because i’m also one of those uptight jews.

that doesn’t mean i don’t use the term, or find its usage inappropriate in all contexts. perhaps it’s like the “n” word in african american culture, though i can only imagine the parallels, as i see that term through the perspective of a white person, and can’t ever even bring myself to say it or type it out.

i did a google search on the term “shemale”, and it came back with:

The word “shemale” has been filtered from the search because Google SafeSearch is active.

apparently, the folks at google aren’t too fond of the term either, though perhaps for different reasons than my own. turning off “safesearch”, and selecting “100 search results per page” results in a listing of 99 porn/hate sites, and one wikipedia entry on transwoman (the 15th hit, so it would be on the second page in the default “10 search results per page” google settings).

so clearly, the term in our society has a specific meaning.

perhaps alexis is attempting to reclaim the term, and i find some value in that. though certainly, i have now permanently prevented this site from being viewed on a computer in any library, school, hospital, or other facility that has any kind of filtering enabled. alexis has her work cut out for her (no pun intended).

overall, i think her interview is a positive step, as it represents an example of the media depicting a transgender person (not “transgendered”, for marti’s sake) in a “not totally negative” way. i also agree with many of her views, though not all. i particularly liked that she works toward debunking the “man trapped in a woman’s body, or vice versa” stereotype, though i found it interesting that the interviewer framed it that way. most often, we hear the “vice versa” version, my personal nemesis.

i also note that alexis is very much an example of a much needed variation in the depiction of trans people in our culture. transwomen are always shown as broken people in search of the elusive surgery, in hopeless despair over their identity as wholly female (ok, perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not too much), where shemales are these sex-starved men with breasts. of course, transmen are never shown.

Yes, I am transgendered but I also am a cross-dresser—I dress as a woman. It’s not that I just want to be seen as a female in our society, I’m also a drag queen and a performer—there are many levels there. I started grappling with all the boxes one has to fit into and all the flags I was willing to wave, and I started to realize it’s hard to fit into one realm and be a productive member of society. I realized I’m not the kind of person who wants to go with the flow and fit in. I’m an agitator, I’m opinionated, I’m a libertine and leader. I wasn’t willing to fall in line.

she expresses a mix of identities, that are far too often seen as separate absolutes. i’d venture to say that this type of mix is more common than the trans community would have us believe. and this is my favorite part of the interview.

check out joe.my.god’s report on chicago’s hellfire bd/sm club barring transmen from membership by maintaining their 10-year policy that “there must be a penal [sic] attachment.” apparently “hellfire is one of the few bd/sm clubs in country to have an active policy against ftm’s.”

marti has written a post on the transgender vs transgendered “controversy” over on transadvocate (though since i’m now on the same domain, i don’t know that the “over on…” terminology is correct anymore). i’ve expressed my dissatisfaction with trans terminology in general many times in the past. in fact, i’d go as far as to say that i take issue with the term “trans” anything regarding those people, such as myself, who live outside the male/female dichotomy.

“trans-” as a prefix is defined as “across or through” by dictionary.com as well as most other dictionaries. scrolling down the page, it’s further defined by the american heritage stedman’s medical dictionary as a prefix as follows:

1. Across; on the other side; beyond: transilient.
2. Through: transpiration.
3. Change; transfer: transketolation.
4. Having a pair of identical atoms on opposite sides of two atoms linked by a double bond. Used of a geometric isomer. Usually in italic: trans-butene.

and as an adjective:

Having two genes, each carrying a mutation, located on opposite chromosomes of a homologous pair. Often italic.

all of these definitions frame the term trans in the context of a binary. and since trans refers to sex and/or gender (another set of terms that disturb me greatly), the presumption is that the general population of humans can be unequivocally divided into two sexes. that one is either male or female, that everyone is either male or female wholly, that no one exists outside the state of being male or female, and that the states of being male or female can be completely defined medically, scientifically, legally, socially, and any other “-ally” that controls our lives.

and unless you’ve bought into the brainwashing that suggests god created “adam and eve, male and female” only, and you’ve had your eyes and ears closed singing “la, la, la” while example after example passes by, we all know that the sex binary is totally false.

so i’ll take the transgender vs transgendered discussion a step further and object to both terms as being totally inaccurate and perpetuating false and harmful stereotypes.

in the mean time, i use “trans” as a noun to describe myself, only because people seem to know what i’m talking about. yet, if isna can lobby to change the term “intersex” to “disorders of sex development (DSDs)”, we ought to be able to come up with a term that at least describes who we are in a medically accurate and socially unstigmatized fashion.

i’ve seen a few posts in the blogosphere about peeing in public accommodations so i thought i’d repost the link to safe2pee.org - “a resource where people who do not feel comfortable with traditional public restrooms can find safe alternatives, and to support advocacy and research to further the cause of gender free, inclusive bathrooms.”

here’s the link: safe2pee.org

i’ve blogged a bit about one of my favorite musicians, namoli brennet, a few times in the past, and have been looking for her older, out of print cd’s. i found a copy of welcome to the afterglow on the internet, and received it just yesterday. it’s even a signed copy.

my collection will be complete after i find boy in a dress for less than $58.84, which is what it’s selling for on amazon.com.

beside the fact that she’s a great songwriter, musician, and performer, namoli represents a rare breed in the trans community. trans role models are difficult to find, especially outside the context of activists or authors. many of us are broken to a certain degree, perhaps as a result of the way trans people are seen in our society. it makes for a difficult life at best when you are formed and grow in an environment in which you are seen as “mentally ill”, and “dangerous, sinful and not in keeping with basic morality”.

lynn conway maintains a page on her website with many examples of successful women who have fully transitioned, and that’s a great start. but to most people, we are hardly human, no less successes. i fully support namoli’s efforts, not only because she’s a wonderful musician, but because she personifies just one example of a successful person, who just happens to be trans.

i was reading autumn’s blog post regarding the concerned women for america recent post about the enda thing. matt barber says:

This bill would force Christian, Jewish or Muslim business owners to hire people who openly choose to engage in homosexual or cross-dressing behaviors despite a sincerely held religious belief that those behaviors are dangerous, sinful and not in keeping with basic morality. ENDA would essentially force employers to check their First Amendment protected rights to freedom of religion, speech and association at the workplace door. It’s absurd! For instance, female employees would have to endure both systematic sexual harassment and a hostile work environment by being forced to share bathroom facilities with male employees who get their jollies from wearing a dress, high heels and lipstick.

it’s the classic “man in a dress” syndrome; the idea that a transwoman is a man that “cross-dresses”, a behavior that is somehow “dangerous, sinful and not in keeping with basic morality”. i can see how it might be considered dangerous in that wearing heels for me has always resulted in lower back pain and foot cramps, which is why i almost always wear flats. of course if this is their reasoning, then wearing heels should also be considered dangerous for women.

the “man in a dress” syndrome also involves the idea that transwomen “get their jollies” by engaging in this behavior. in light of the aforementioned back pain and foot cramps, i can assure them that i “get no jollies” from wearing heels.

regarding lipstick, or any makeup for that matter, i “get no jollies” from those behaviors either. in the dry heat of the desert, my lips tend to dry out, so i’m applying chapstick several times a day. lipstick interferes with the moisturizing effects of the chapstick, so i’ve long ago dispensed with the practice. and eye makeup tends to end up on my fingers, as i often rub my eyes during the day. it’s been a while since i’ve worn any makeup at all.

and finally, the last time i wore a dress was at my wedding, almost two years ago. and i don’t remember the last time before that. and at work, the a/c is cranked up so high, that bare skin tends to freeze, so i always wear pants and my hoodie. i often take out my blanket to add a layer of warmth.

now, i do know a good number of transwomen who do wear makeup, heels, and dresses. but i also know a good number, like myself, that don’t. perhaps by not wearing the uniform, i’m inadvertently blending into the background, thereby saving myself from judgment.

i am reminded of this article in the phoenix new times, featuring this graphic:

as if women’s bathrooms have open toilets. as if a transwomen who is attempting to integrate into society would stand to pee in a public restroom.

no, as far as the public is concerned, there is one, and only one type of transwoman, rendered above. a monotype, uniform across our population. and while any woman who happens to be built strong and solid, who is above average in height and build, who takes the time to work out in the gym and build her body up, is viewed with suspicion at best, and harrassed to death at worst, many of us who are privileged to enjoy a presentation that deviates from this can hide in plain sight.

and for those people who believe that they always know a transwoman when they see one, our privileged population is all the more safe from harrassment.

there’s no doubt that stereotypes are harmful. but there’s also no doubt that in some cases, they provide a safe haven for others.