Paranoid Locker Room Fantasies (mostly about naked Trans bodies)

Remember the 80’s sex comedy? This is where men learned what girls did in the locker room (or conversely where women learned what men fantasized about what girls did in the locker room). I always think back to the scene in “Stripes” where John Larroquette is using a spyglass to watch female recruits taking a shower and says

‘I wish I was a loofah‘.

Such sexy fun times the girls were having where the men were not allowed to go! In these movies, men would go to great lengths, including cross dressing, to catch a glimpse of this sacred palace of sexy fun. And so you get an entire generation that has a very specific reference point for what locker room life is for women…what bathroom life is for women.

methinks the tiger may have a penis

And you know what ruins that fantasy for them? The thought of a trans girl in their presence with, what one Daily Kos commenter called her “dangly bits” showing. Now for some men, this is their perfect fantasy. Many trans women have encountered these men. When I was pre-op, I was the object of affection of a gentleman who later showed no interest in me once my “dangly bits” were removed.

Many other men have reached the age of having daughters or having hypothetical daughters – I kid you not – and are very uncomfortable with the idea of penises in their fantasy locker rooms. There is this liberal fellow from said Daily Kos comments section:

I’m all in favor of people being allowed to use the locker rooms appropriate to their gender (and have no idea what locker room my sibling uses). I also live in this HS district though the news coverage today is the first I’ve heard about this.

That said, I feel that a penis in the high school girls’ locker room is just as inappropriate as a strapon would be, regardless of the gender identity of the person it’s attached to.

If this student has had SRS, then it’s absolutely inappropriate to bar her from the locker room. Until that time, I feel like my right to not have my (theoretical) 13-year old daughter exposed to male dangly bits trumps the right of the transgender person to be naked in the locker room.

If the class isn’t showering after PE or if the locker room provides private curtained off changing rooms for the students I’d be happy to change my stance on this, but in the open locker rooms I remember from my youth this would be inappropriate.

I like how he references the open locker rooms he remembers from his youth. Now to be fair, men’s locker rooms are pretty wide open. I hated them and even when I was on the swim team, I had a really hard time changing in front of guys. I was not alone in this. Most on the team tried really hard not to be seen naked. It’s a really uncomfortable environment. But women’s locker rooms often have a different layout than men’s, including private changing areas. I know the women’s locker room at the pool my daughter used to swim at had them and the locker room at the fitness club where I went once – before feeling really uncomfortable and not going back (and no, not because of the working out…my confidence in being in that space at that time was very low) – had them.

But this is not about reality. This is about the fantasy that men have, men like Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee:

“Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE,” Huckabee said.

“I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’

It’s this really paranoid notion that teenage boys would endure the heavy social stigma of coming out trans, would pay the cost of therapy and the many associate family traumas, to “shower with the girls.” There is no reality in this statement. Just the fantasy that boys will do just about anything to see a real live naked girl.

In a strange way, I get these folks. We have been trained by media to think this is what boys want and so it is not a far stretch of the imagination to think that some boys would try to take advantage of policies designed to make life better for a marginalized minority. I keep waiting for it to happen, for some boy to live out his father’s high school sex comedy fantasy

From the movie “Sorority Boys” Oh, come on! He’s not even trying!

But I think what gets to some of these people who fancy themselves progressives and not at all transphobes, who are totally good with trans people so long as they don’t actually want rights or to be considered the gender they are. And they worry fiercely about the idea of a penis near young girls:

  The struggle is how to deal with a 16 y/o (3+ / 0-)

transperson who has not and who may never undergo gender reassignment surgery.

How do you deal with a penis in the girl’s locker room.  If it was attached to a guy, you’d never allow it in the locker room, as that would be disrespectful of the other girls.

Tough call.  I think the District is in a real bind, and I don’t get why the student is not more willing to work with an obviously sympathetic administration.

Thoughts?

How do you deal with a disrespectful penis? And why isn’t the trans girl to whom said penis is attached playing nice with everyone and keeping that naughty, dangly bit away from the other girls? (she is, actually, because she is probably grateful for the private changing space because nothing says “I’m different from the other girls” as loudly as a disrespectful penis). What the commenter doesn’t get is that she just doesn’t want to be singled out as having to do it when no one else does. It is like wearing a scarlet P.

I always knew there was something different about that Hester Prynne!

There is really this notion that a trans girl in a locker room will go around exposing herself to other girls. It always makes me wonder if these men that are having this notion are projecting what they would do if given the opportunity to let it hang with the girls…

Protecting Our Children From Predators! (they are not the Trans you are looking for)

So yesterday the “good people” of Houston overwhelmingly rejected a measure that said:

No Houstonian should be discriminated against based on race, age, pregnancy, religion, military status, sexual orientation or gender identity

because of an ad campaign that said:

Apparently, although there are no cases of trans women assaulting anyone in a restroom, people like camohat above (who would never believe in a statistic anyhow because facts are lies) want to preemptively protect them from some dude who, after he raped a woman in a bathroom, claimed he was legally able to be in the bathroom because on that given day, said raper dude claimed protected status as Trans (discounting the fact – darned facts! – that just because you can’t be discriminated against doesn’t mean you can go around raping people).

And yet these same very worried who want to preemptively protect their helpless wimmen from a threat that has yet to occur are still sending their kids to church, where children are being abused on a fairly regular basis.

Like in Alabama:

Al.com reports Mack Charles Andrews was pastor of the First United Pentecostal Church in Thomasville and principal of Faith Christian Academy when the alleged crimes took place.

Andrews is expected to stand trial next month and is charged with multiple counts of rape, sodomy, sexual torture, attempted rape and sexual abuse.

[…]

Jane says she lost her virginity to her pastor on her father’s grave when she was just 9 years old, and explains how Andrews used religious superstition to terrorized her:

He told me if I didn’t say anything, he would come back and put flowers on the grave. If I did, he said demons would come and get me from my bed.

AL.com reports Jane was subjected to sexual torture prior to the rape, noting Andrews allegedly violated her with drumsticks, pens, letter openers, a figurine and even a flashlight, “grooming” her for future sexual abuse.

Jane reports the heinous abuse began when she was only 7-years-old, and was part of the “grooming process”  to prepare her for the rape she would endure two years later.

Oh, but this is just one case. We can’t judge all pastors and ministers on the basis of just one case (even though Trans people are judged based on no cases)

How about this in Georgia:

In Georgia, a high placed Republican political consultant and youth pastor is accused of forcing boys to perform “hundreds” of sex acts while videotaping them doing it at the First Baptist Church of Vidalia.

Jim Collins, currently a political consultant and former youth pastor at the First Baptist Church of Vidalia, is accused of telling boys in his church youth group to perform “individual sexual acts” and videotaping them doing it.

[…]

At the Bible studies at Collins’ home, Stanley says that Collins soon abandoned all pretense of Scripture study:

Under Collins’s direction, the group began to view pornography together at Collins’s home. He encouraged each boy to engage in individual sexual acts, both privately and in a group setting. On at least one occasion, Collins videotaped these sexual acts as well, causing additional harm to Matt Stanley. Collins also engaged in highly inappropriate, sexualized physical contact with many of the boys, including Matt Stanley. 29. In addition, Collins sexually abused Matt Stanley and the other boys in these ways on church-sponsored out-of-town trips during which Collins served as First Baptist Church’s adult chaperone for the boys.

Okay, you say, that’s two (this week!), but these are just a few isolated incidents. We can’t judge all youth pastors based on just a few isolated incidents…oh, wait…

In fact, there are studies that demonstrate that the faith community is even more vulnerable to abuse than secular environments. The Abel and Harlow study revealed that 93% of sex offenders describe themselves as “religious” and that this category of offender may be the most dangerous. Other studies have found that sexual abusers within faith communities have more victims and younger victims. This disturbing truth is perhaps best illustrated by the words of a convicted child molester who told Dr. Salter,

“I considered church people easy to fool…they have a trust that comes from being Christians. They tend to be better folks all around and seem to want to believe in the good that exists in people.”

And then of course, there are all those incidents with Catholic priests that have been well publicized, but we forget all of those because the new pope is so cool.

Now I really don’t believe that we should legislate against children being allowed to spend time with youth pastors or priests. That would be ridiculous because most of these folks are most likely not raping children with drumsticks to prepare them for being sexually assaulted on their parents’ graves. Most ministers are probably mortified by the idea of forcing young men to have sex with them. But statistics regarding the prevalence of sexual abuse of children in religious communities are pretty frightening.

As a parent, I have to extend a certain amount of trust to the adults I occasionally have my children interact with that they will not molest them. As a teacher, parents have to trust that I will not assault their children. Otherwise, we would never let out kids out of the house.

And strangely, there are laws that prohibit abusing children, or sexually assaulting anyone, in bathrooms or wherever and people get prosecuted for doing these things all the time and there are no incidents of trans women being prosecuted for these crimes and far too many incidents of youth pastors, priests and ministers being prosecuted for these crimes.

And yet camohat and his ilk just voted to keep women and children safe from violence that statistically never happens and do nothing to keep women and children safe from violence that happens far too often.

Fuck them.

All the Money! (Tran$ isn’t cheap!)

So The Advocate writes

Undergoing all the procedures listed by the Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery would total more than $100,000, Reuters notes.

Wow! That’s a lot of money! Not many of us have 100K taking up space in our pockets. This is pretty dire and if you are thinking about being trans, you just forget it now. You can’t afford to be trans. You’re too poor and are probably “four times more likely than other Americans to live in extreme poverty.” That’s, of course, if you are already living the life transtastic. I wonder if the same goes towards people who have been circling the gravity well of trans, hanging out on the event horizon and not quite fully committing. Are you also living in extreme poverty?

Statistics…generalities. We are painting dire pictures of our realities, dissuading you cosmic travellers reticent to get fully sucked into the trans money pit from committing because even after you’ve lost all your friends and families and jobs and stuffs, you will be faced with impossible transition costs and it’s not like you can take out a personal line of credit to pay for this stuff (well, actually, there are ways…). In any event, or at any event horizon, it is good to know what you are up against.

Now the Advocate writer blindly quotes a Reuters article who haphazardly calculated the costs of transition based on Dr. McGinn’s MTF price list (because we all know that FTM transition isn’t worth talking about, amirite?). So I went on over to Dr. McGinn’s site to have a looksee at the high costs of trans, because I didn’t pay 100K for my surgery (I only had the one…there are so many more I could have…I need to get Ubering!). Here’s the list:

Facial Feminization Surgery

Description	Surgery	Hospital/Anesthesia	Total
Blepharoplasty (eyelids upper and lower)	$ 6,000	$1,700      2.0 hr	$ 6,700
Blepharoplasty (upper or lower)	3,500	1,400      1.5 hr	4,400
Rhinoplasty	5,500	2,000      2.5 hr	7,500
Rhinoplasty  w/Septoplasty	6,500	2,300      3.0 hr	8,800
Facelift (Rhytidoplasty)	8,000	2,600      3.5 hr	10,600
Mini Facelift	5,500	2,300      3.0 hr	7,800
Liposuction of neck	1,500	1,100      1.0 hr	2,600
Chin augmentation	2,500	1,100      1.0 hr	3,600
Cheek augmentation	3,500	1,700      1.5 hr	5,200
Forehead/brow lift with brow bone
reduction and hair line advance	4,500	1,700      2.0 hr	6,200
Thyroid cartilage reduction	2,500	1,100      1.0 hr	3,600
Upper lip shortening	3,000	1,100      1.0 hr	4,400

Top (Breast) and Body Surgery

Breast Augmentation	$6,500	$1,700      2.0 hr	$8,200
Liposuction	1,000-1,500/area	varies w/ size &  # of areas
Abdominoplasty (tummy tuck)	6,200	2,300      3.0 hr	8,500
mini-Abdominoplasty (tummy tuck)	2,500	1,700      2.0 hr	5,300
Buttock Augmentation (implants)	7,500	2,000      2.5 hr	9,500
Buttock Augmentation (fat transplant)	4,500	2,000      2.5 hr	6,500
Calf Augmentation (implants)	5,000	1,700      2.0 hr	6,700
Orchiectomy	3,500	1,100      1.0 hr	4,600

Bottom Surgery (GRS/SRS) 

Vaginoplasty (one-stage with penile inversion,  clitoroplasty, and labiaplasty)

12,600

7,150*       5.5 hr

$19,750

*(Anesthesia $1,800;  OR $2,350; 3 nights in hospital $3,000.)

Prices above are current and may vary depending on which hospital is utilized and if hospital or anesthesia fees are changed.

DISCOUNTS ON SURGICAL FEES FOR MULTIPLE PROCEDURES.

 The bolded text is their emphasis, but do note that there are discounts for multiple procedures. 

Wow! That’s a lot. There are so many procedures I didn’t even think of getting, such as a $6,700 Calf Augmentation! Now I added all these procedures up and got a grand total of $140,450. Now remember, there will be discounts on multiple procedures, so…

But wait a second! Do you really need that calf augmentation? What about the $17,000 worth of Kardashian Ass Plumping? Now you certainly don’t need a $5,000 orchiectomy if you are getting GRS. Testicle removal is free with every new vagina! (and no, you cannot sell them for $50,000). Perhaps you can avoid the $18,400 facelife and mini-facelift combo (do you need both?).

And you see where I’m going with this. That $100,000 price tag begins to shrink when you get rid of some of the luxury items. Yes, some FFS might be necessary and perhaps a breast augmentation might be nice. Heck, this doesn’t even have hair transplantation, which is often more expensive than GRS (I know this from pricing…).

I don’t want you to think I am making light of the costs of being trans (okay, I’m making a little light…so much doom and gloom needs a little bit of sunshine…and we all should spread a little sunshine). It is really expensive and painful and will make you feel amazing and not fix all your problems. Seriously, don’t go under the knife if you think a new vagina or bigger breasts are going to make everything better, because it won’t. Life gets better, yes, but not all parts of life. For one, try peeing to discover no toilet paper…grrrr!

What the surgeries do (for those who have many…some of just have the one) is unmask all the other problems that were hiding out behind the trans. All the other crap that you didn’t deal with because trans was demanding all your time. And yes, I’m speaking to the binary and for you folks who live outside of the binary, well, you just go on and do that and you probably aren’t spending as much money on surgeries anyhow, so stop hassling me, ok?

Oh, and none of this takes into account the money spent on hair removal or voice training or hormones or clothes or shoes (clothes and shoes are different categories, thank you!), or make-up or all the various costs of replacing one gendered life with another. But life isn’t cheap and trans life certainly isn’t cheap and you will probably be in debt at the end of the day, which will depress you some more (because you need more reasons to be troubled) and you may wonder at the end of the day if it was all worth it…

I can’t answer that for you. That’s a you thing. For me it was. but’s that’s me.

(oh, and for those of you wondering, the costs of FTM procedures will run you $115K if you select the whole menu)

On Being Offended (Stop dragging my Trans around)

I’m allowed to be offended.

I just want to state that off the bat because I’ve heard it told that I should not be offended by things that offend me and if I am offended, I should at the very least keep my mouth shut about it because the act of taking offense can make people not offended feel uncomfortable because they were not offended.

Like when a TV show reinforces trans stereotypes, I should bite my tongue when others around me chuckle lest they be forced to confront the fact that I and those like me are worthy of ridicule by the media at large. I should just smile and reduce my presence so as to make everyone around me feel better. The needs of the many to laugh outweigh the needs of the few or the one to not be dehumanized. And too often, like the good girl that I am, I sit quietly and smile through the pain and try not to let my discomfort spoil everyone else’s good time.

But I’m allowed to be offended by the trans woman at the bar who the main character mistakenly hit on. I’m allowed to be offended by the trans woman in the documentary staring at herself in the mirror longingly (and all the other items that make up the drinking game often played when watching these shows). I’m allowed to be offended and to voice my offense and to make others uncomfortable for finding humor.

I’m also allowed to not be offended. I love the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was a huge part of my life once upon a time and while I recognize that the film itself is pretty terrible, it’s still a whole lot of fun to be a part of in the performance space. This article from The Mary Sue rightly takes issue with the remake with Laverne Cox (because this is a bad idea for many many reasons most notably that RHPS should exist entirely within the midnight movie space is occupies), but goes a step further in the belief that this cultural thing should fade away because the author, who has never actually been to a live performance of the film, thinks it should. I think it is because she is offended and she wants everyone to be offended even though she says that she understands that people like it, but she knows people who don’t, so it should just go away.

She is allowed to be offended, as are others. She is allowed to voice her opinion as I am allowed to when I am offended or when I am not and I want to dance and sing along with Tim Curry (not Laverne Cox, though…at least not in this…I’ll happily dance and sing with Laverne elsewhere). And I suppose people are allowed to laugh at stereotypes of all flavors, as they do even when I am offended or others are offended. And sometimes they should be made to feel badly about it if the offended party feels that lines have been crossed. And if they are offended by my being offended, perhaps it can open up a line of dialogue about what it means to take offense or to just laugh at the absurdity of a thing.

Because really, being trans is terribly surreal and absurd in all of the best and worst ways. Unless you are trans, you don’t know what it means to be trans. You can’t hang out with us and get a sense of what our lives are really like. You just can’t. Our lives are often too weird and indescribable for you to get from a conversation. But I suppose you could say that about any group that you are a part of and others are not. Except seriously, trans is weirder.

And we trans take offense or don’t and you don’t know which way we think because we are not all the same and so if you are worried we might, you should probably just assume we are.

Am I woman enough yet? (You Don’t Know Trans, Noob!)

Some question of trans life back some six years ago or so when I began this phase of my existence with a pill or two and a thought about who I was…

I used to keep another blog called “Always, No Something” (completely erased from the interwebs as far as I can tell) where I would espouse an ever changing ideology about the transiness of life and I met some good folks through it and some weird folks, and some very opinionated folks, too. And I blogged every day, sometimes twice so and held court over a very active set of comments. I’d comment on lots of other blogs about what trans was and how I could be trans but different or what it meant to be a woman after having lived as a man.

Inevitably, some old timer would tell me how wrong I was or how not trans I was. I was sometimes called names. I was sometimes accused of being intolerant or worse. Sometimes I was told I was a man and that I couldn’t really ever be a woman. I was told there was a right way to be trans and I wasn’t it or that there was a right way to be trans and I was it and should turn around and tell others that they were wrong.

Sometimes I thought I was helping and sometimes I knew I that I wasn’t. I trolled with the best of them and flamed better than most. I know what words can do and know how a simple twist of a sentence can chap hides. It was all in service to my identity and the growth from who I had been to who I would be and in my search for what that was, I pondered what it all meant and when it was ever enough. Would I ever really know what trans meant or what it meant to be a woman.

It’s been over half a decade now and half of that time since my surgery and I have thought about all that interaction and all those words spent on this journey, many of which I consigned to the garbage bin of my personal history…regretfully in some cases, I miss being able to read what I wrote and thought about. And though I try, I cannot remember in any real sense what it was live as a man. I remember things, but not the experience. Images, but not the feelings. I wonder if I put on men’s clothes and tried to pass as a man, would I be believable to myself (others are easily fooled). Would I look in the mirror and see the man I once saw or feel foolish, as I did when I first began to transition?

I wonder what the Sisters who once chided me for not being woman enough, not knowing what trans was, would say to me now? The Miz Know It All’s and the Annie Ro’s. How would I measure up to their high standards? All these years later would they still accuse me of playing at trans (which they did at times, accepting me at others) because I still think on what it actually means?

When I encounter trans newbies, I try to remember what that was like, thinking I would be different or having no real idea of what I would become, but knowing I would become something. I’m not a butterfly…more of a koi dragon, having fought up the river and been transformed into something far more powerful than an ephemeral bug.  I want them to be koi dragons, too. To make it through this difficult test and become more powerful and beautiful from the challenge. I don’t want to tell them things I know they are mistaken about because I am wrong when I think it. My journey was mine and theirs will be theirs and while I might think I know more than they do, while I might actually, I also cannot tell them not to make mistakes or that what they are making are mistakes. It’s just not my place.

I can share, though. The river is big enough for us all to swim in and up…

You can change your DNA!

I keep reading people on the internets that say that you cannot change your DNA and this means something about anything. These people aren’t scientists, mind you. Just people looking for any reason they can to negate the existence of other people that they really have no concept or clue about. For the record, I know a lot of things about a lot of things, but I don’t know everything about everything and don’t pretend to be an expert on things that I have a vague notion about. If the subject interests me enough, I will research it. It’s a thing people do to try to understand something rather than tossing out reactionary insults to make themselves feel better about something, of which I cannot be certain. I don’t know what it means to be them and to be so highly ignorant and intolerant. It may be genetic, but I cannot say to any degree…

Speaking of genetics, back to the topic. Science! Some people who know a few terms and whatnot like to throw those terms out to make themselves seem all legitimate. These people say trans people cannot be considered their proper gender because DNA or some such thing (ignoring the incredible variance in DNA, etc…science is deeper than the shallow pool they’ve been swimming in…I could make insulting remarks about their DNA pools being somewhat shallow as well which may result in some manner of negative mutation. I could make those kinds of remarks, but I’m not going to. Not me, no.).

Anyway, I asked Google if DNA could be changed by, let’s say, a bone marrow transplant. Here’s what I found right away, from The Tech Museum of Innovation, a project “supported by the Department of Genetics, Stanford School of Medicine” in an article written by Dr. Azita Alizadeh, who works for Stanford University in their Department of Genetics, which, to me, would tend to make her more of an authority than some person on the internet who says something about the immutability of DNA. But that’s just me.

So Dr. Alizadeh says, “A bone marrow transplant turns the patient into a chimera. What I mean is that the DNA in their blood is different than the DNA in the rest of their cells.” Now this means if you get a bone marrow transplant, you now have two sets of DNA, which is something of a change. Hmmm. Let’s delve further and see if one can change their DNA otherwise…

Look at this! When I asked Google if DNA could be changed, I got a plethora of links, many referring to something called “epigenetics.” Now I won’t pretend to be a scientist (not like others on the interwebz who pretend to be scientists all the time when they talk about science as if they were scientists). Here’s a link to a story in the New York Times about epigenetics and how exercise can change a person’s DNA. Cool stuff. Over my head, mostly. But I’m not a scientist. Then again, I’m not trying to negate the existence of others by claiming that science supports their position. I only claim that science adjusts its views based on what’s observed…That’s actually Tim Minchin’s line, but I agree with Tim.

Science, like DNA, changes over time. We’re not too far off from a future where a trans person’s transition will include genetic therapy to make a Y and X or vice versa. This is just speculation on my part, but I’ve gone to genetic research centers with my son, who wants to be a genetic researcher in the future and has researched being a genetic researcher…I’ve seen the things these folks are working on and to discount what they will or will not discover and speak only in absolutes is contrary to the very basic truth of science as a field of discovery.

Next time someone tells you science supports their position, ask them for documentation. They may not know what they think they know.

#travelingwhiletrans

So this happened…

I had my GRS back in May of 2012 (I really wanted to get it done before the world ended in December of that year…do you remember when the world ended? So cool…). I had it done in Montreal because Dr. Brassard and his staff at L’Asclepiade are amazing and wonderful folks. And Montreal is quite lovely in late May/early June. It was a reminder why I love that part of the world.

In any case, rather than fly directly into Montreal, which would have been quite convenient, I flew into Manchester, NH. One of my best friends who I had not seen in a long time lives there and he and I thought it would be fun if my spouse and I stopped in with him and his wife for a day and then road tripped up to Montreal together, driving through Vermont, which is one of my favorite places on Earth. Now I had no troubles flying into New Hampshire from Phoenix (where I lived at the time). The folks at Phoenix TSA apparently had no issues with me, even though I was somewhat nervous about traveling while trans (so nervous in fact that I got a camera ticket for rolling through a stop light a mile from the airport).

All went well to, in and from Montreal back to New Hampshire (except we all needed to pee really badly somewhere between the Canadian border and Montreal and there was the worst traffic going into the city and very little in the way of publically available accommodations). I was still in early recovery on the way back, meaning a steady oxycontin high and ice packs. The drive wasn’t a lot of fun, but I made it back to my friends’ place in tact and spent the night sleeping on their amazingly comfortable bed, much more comfortable than the recovery bed I had been sleeping in for the past week or so. The next morning, I packed up my stuff, made sure my dilators were in my carry on (couldn’t risk the airline losing those!) and my friend bid me a fond farewell at the airport.

I actually thought that now the anatomy was corrected, TSA wouldn’t be an issue and walked confidently through the full body scanner. And was promptly flagged. Promptly pulled aside for additional screening. I explained that I had just checked out of the hospital after major surgery, which was why I had medications. I didn’t want to have to explain why it was traumatic that the TSA agent was handling my dilators and swabbing them for chemicals. After a few misgenderings (even after seeing full body scan), they told me I had come back chemical positive for some kind of banned substance and would have to submit to further screenings in a private room. Meanwhile my plane was about to board. I showed them my paperwork from Dr. Brassard, that I had just checked out of the hospital and opined that it was more than likely the banned chemical residue was a result of my recent hospital stay. While the female TSA agent was kind to me as I was bawling because I hadn’t seen my children in two weeks, was in pain, and was certain I would not only miss my flight, but be added to some kind of banned list, the other TSA agents offered no such comfort and treated me most terribly. Finally, some clear headed individual decided I was good to go, but my plane was about to end boarding, so rather than send a courtesy vehicle for me to get there quickly, they ran me across the terminal (try running a week or so after major surgery, especially in the area in question, while carrying a heavyish bag and crying…it’s all kinds of crazy fun).

I was only a little injured…

But I did make it home. The thing is, pre or post or non, if you catch a TSA agent with a bug up their ass about trans, they will calmly go about fucking up any chance you had at making it through an uncomfortable situation with anything like your dignity in tact.

Fear and Loathing Outside the 7-11

I generally move through the world without too much worry about being clocked or being attacked or mocked after being clocked. I do this simply because it hasn’t happened to me in the 4 years and change since I found the courage to just stop worrying and present myself as myself. Over time, I generally stopped seeing every look as somehow knowing and generally stopped ascribing malice to others where no such thing most likely existed.

Generally.

There are specific times, however, where I genuinely fear that I may be subject to some measure of malicious intent on the part of others. Sometimes it is just the same cautious fear that many women have in the presence of a potentially dangerous situation. Sometimes it is specifically a fear of being attacked for being trans. It happens. It hasn’t happened to me, but it happens and I am not so pollyanna to believe that it will never happen to me. I generally don’t worry, but when given cause, I do.

Last weekend, the closing weekend of my very successful run of Richard III (I produced, directed and designed sets and lights), I had to purchase a few bottles of red wine for our lobby from the 7-11 a block away (they have a selection of wine that will do for our non-paying connoisseurs). As I approached the store, there were a number of young men sitting outside and I got a serious danger vibe combined with a serious “clocked” vibe, some snickering and not quite sotto voce commentary that may or may not have been about me, but in that moment of feeling danger, I had to assume it was and act accordingly.

I quickly entered the store, made my purchase and exited specifically to avoid the gathering outside. I’m not sure if they saw me leave as I made every effort to avoid looking in that direction. I quickly returned to the theatre and was able to breathe again, before I processed my fear and panic. I pulled my spouse aside and shared the moment with her and was able to let it go in the moment.

But the thing is, moments like that happen. My fear is real and sometimes the danger is real. While I try to avoid potential danger, I don’t live my life in avoidance of life, and therefore there is risk. I am not so naive to think otherwise.

Which Stereotypes of a Woman are Acceptable?

In the New York Times on Sunday, a feminist writer worried that we trans women stake our “…claim to dignity as transgender people by trampling on [hers] as a woman.” She is worried that trans women and some men are redefining women by putting them “into tidy boxes, to reduce us to hoary stereotypes.” She goes on to discuss what are apparently the essential differences between women and men thusly:

Their truth is not my truth. Their female identities are not my female identity. They haven’t traveled through the world as women and been shaped by all that this entails. They haven’t suffered through business meetings with men talking to their breasts or woken up after sex terrified they’d forgotten to take their birth control pills the day before. They haven’t had to cope with the onset of their periods in the middle of a crowded subway, the humiliation of discovering that their male work partners’ checks were far larger than theirs, or the fear of being too weak to ward off rapists.

Oh. Okay, so her stereotypes are somehow less hoary (meaning ‘old and trite’ and not ‘grey and white’)? So while being a woman in the world, to this writer, should not be reduced to definitions regarding “our brains, our hearts, our bodies, even our moods,” it should be reduced to definitions regarding workplace struggles (regarding our bodies), sexual worries (still bodies), menstruation (bodies again), and the potential dangers of being raped (bodies bodies bodies).

So just to be clear, while I have not had to deal with the birth control thing nor menstruation issues, I have dealt with men talking to my breasts (made worse by my height, which places them at eye level or above for most), being thought less of at work (pay only an issue in that the teaching profession is traditionally a career chosen by women and, thus devalued and underpaid as a whole when the salaries of similarly educated professionals are taken into account). Most trans women, having given up their male lives, travel through the world as women, experience the world as women, fear rape as other women do – perhaps more (6’2″ women get raped as well and trans women are often murdered after the rape if they are discovered to be trans).

She takes great pains to state that she supports trans women, but doesn’t want us to be defined as women because our apparent “disregard for the fact that being a woman means having accrued certain experiences, endured certain indignities and relished certain courtesies in a culture that reacted to you as one.”

Now I have been living as a woman full time since 2011. I have accrued 4 years of experiences, indignities and courtesies. Is that enough for me to be a woman now? Can we add the additional indignities of being a trans woman to my score sheet? How many years does one need in the game to earn the title? She says, “the very definition of female is a social construct that has subordinated us.” But she has defined it and I find her definitions to be equally guilty of subordination of the female experience.

Worse, she breaks out the tired argument that being trans, suffering being trans, can be compared to a white person who thinks they were born black. She does this because she does not accept structural differences in the brains of males and females, even those these things are documented. She tries to make an argument that if cab drivers and musicians have aspects of their brain structure enhanced by lived experience, it is proof of nurture over nature. Having no experience with dysphoria, she simply negates it.

What she really wants to do in this article is make an argument that only cis women can be called women and that trans women should refrain because we don’t have the right kind of experiences. She brings up a few other points about her dissatisfaction with trans activists whilst ignoring that many of the arguments being made are being made by and for trans men or gender queer folks. It’s easy to leave them out of these kinds of articles. They are inconvenient to feminists such as this author, just as they are to to those making bathroom arguments.

What this is really a response to is Caitlyn Jenner’s pretty cover photo and the false argument that trans women reinforce gender stereotypes regarding expected appearance and behavior. It fails to acknowledge that for trans women, if we wish to blend in and not be clocked, attacked, or mocked, we have to pay extra attention to gender indicators such as hair, clothes, make-up. Yesterday at my theatre, a trans person came to see the play who, to me, was not making an attempt to blend and I had that little judgey voice in the back of my head criticizing that I had to quiet. It’s not my place to judge. Just because I want to exist in the world a certain way or be treated a certain way, it doesn’t make my truth or experience the essential one, just as this writer’s experience with birth control panic does not make her experience essential.

The fact is, she does not know what kinds of pressure are on Caitlyn Jenner to appear as she does or embrace very femme stereotypes. She does not live in that spotlight of judgement. Nor do I (thankfully!). It’s also easy to blame Jenner and trans woman in general for reinforcing femme stereotypes, but I notice that at no time at all does she take any cis woman to task for doing the exact same thing. There are many more cis women on magazine covers and in photo spreads who talk about and present aspects of being very femme that are often unattainable to anyone. While I am sure this author has aimed her feminist gaze at these women as well, in this article, she is presenting an indictment of trans women as being in league with Men to subordinate women. It is entirely unfair and does not even begin to take into account our lived experience as women and how we are at best a sub-class of women, treated far worse and subordinated to a much greater degree. She and her fellow feminists that she speaks of can shake their hoary heads (meaning ‘grey and white’ and not ‘old and trite’ – I assume she does not dye the grey from her head to satisfy the societal expectation of women to remain youthful in appearance for as long as possible) at Jenner’s remarks about nail polish, but they do not get the metaphor that being able to wear it until it chips away is a signifier for not having to hide being a woman anymore, not having to constantly put the male costume back on.

What she can never understand or experience is what it is to have to fight for her right to be accepted as a woman.

Science Projects and the Problems with Believing

For the record, I’m an atheistic humanist who holds that science will someday work everything out, including the “spirit world,” which may or may not be the result of quantum entanglements and residual energy (my current unproven/untested theory of choice). I’m not a Bright. But I get them.They make a lot more sense to me than theists.

And also for the record, I generally have no issue with theists. When they pray for me or mine, I thank them. It is a positive thought action and I’d rather the world be full of positive thought actions than negative ones.

Where I do have issues is this:

I am supposed to accept that their beliefs are as valid as my reality. I do not accept the Bible as anything other than a collection of words written by a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons, many of them synchronically political, and finally compiled by a collection of clerics to reinforce their primacy in a regressive society. Anytime anyone tells me that they believe it is infallible or the literal “Word of God,” I know who I am dealing with and act accordingly. More often than not, to disengage from conversations about religion, which are dodgy at best and mostly belligerent because even Atheists fight over what it means to not believe in a deity (see the Brights).

I am supposed to accept that they can believe I am some sort of science project or my existence as a woman in negated because their deity is infallible and made men men and women women (and we won’t ask these folks to think too long on intersex people or any other non-binary, non-image-of-deity way in which people are born). I am supposed to accept their beliefs about me and other Trans folk because they are allowed to believe what they believe and I am supposed to smile and continue to have them in my life in any manner when their belief is a fundamental denial of who I am based on nothing more than their intractable position that someone who read an old book told them the old book said something that they should believe.

Sorry. You don’t get to be in my life. I accept that you have beliefs, but I don’t have to accept you in my life.

I accept that people have superstitions and need the comfort of religion. And I love many folks who are believers in deities and it may seem like I am being a judgemental ass or that I feel that I am superior having achieved a deity-free enlightenment (for the record: I am a judgemental ass and do feel that I am superior, but not because of my lack of deity-dependencies…just because I’m particularly awesome), but I can love them and have them in my life because they do not use their beliefs as an excuse to negate my pain and what I have had to do to live as authentically as I can. I also don’t talk about religion with them. It not my job to convert people to humanistic atheism (although if you are interested, message me and I will share the good word) and as long as it is not their job to try to make me believe in whatever they do, I can enjoy their company and friendship. It’s what I love about humanity at its best.

Now let’s speak for a moment about science projects.

Is my current state of being the product of scientific advances in medicine and body modification?

Yes.

You know someone who has had chemo and then a tumor removed?

Them too.

Cataracts replaced by IOLs?

Science!

Root Canal?

Yup.

The point being that medicine is the product of scientific advances that often require body modification to achieve the desired effects of a longer, healthier, happier life.

There’s a silly meme about a rapper bringing solar power to poor folks in Africa being more newsworthy than the very public transition of a formerly feted Olympian and reality show star whose primary occupation for the last decade has been to be the subject of media attention. In that meme, Jenner is referred to as a “science project” and people were offended. I was also offended, but more because a friend of mine shared the meme (he has since taken it down). The point was that there are more important things to focus on in the world than Caitlyn’s clothing choices and hair style. We should instead focus on famous people are acting more in the service of others.

Yeah. Okay. But seriously. We live in a tabloid world that revels in distractions…where people are killed because of paparazzi and those who invited paparazzi into their lives in their quest for the benefits of fame trying to escape from those people who make a living helping the famous make theirs (don’t try to make a living from fame if you’re not willing to accept that fame comes with camera-wielding lampreys who make their living from you).

I wish we lived in a world where people were more concerned with what is actually happening than what the media is doing to distract them from what is actually happening. If the media circus bothers you… If the inconsequential lives of the famous (although to be perfectly fair, for Trans folk, the coming out of a major personality is a big deal for the non-famous among us because it brings us that much further in from the fringe and more likely to be accepted without worrying about troubling legislation…baby steps). I’d rather people focus on the very terrible lives of most Trans people, especially those without privilege…heck, the pretty awful lives of most people without privilege, Trans or Cis.

If you’re truly upset that Caitlyn Jenner is pulling pop media focus from another famous person who, in an action apparently out of character for famous people, did something altruistic, then you are spending too much time looking at pop media. And, yeah, it shows up on your FB feed, but so do adds for cars or shoes or whatever else it was you were looking at and accidentally moused over a tracking pixel. You can take the click-bait or ignore it. You live in this social media world. To paraphrase Rush:

You can choose a ready guide in some commercial voice.

If you choose not to engage, you still have made a choice.

Choose free will.