“Search for meaning in sores

–“Sympathy” by Sleater-Kinney

I have the amazing power to make people’s heads explode.  How do I do it?  I can merely just out myself.  The problem is that this usually follows a bunch of questions that I really don’t want to answer (either because I’ve answered them before or they are put in an invasive/offensive way).  This superpower and the consequences of it could most likely primarily be traced to the audience of this information.

I may have mentioned before that I go to a pretty progressive and liberal campus.  You would think that I would take advantage of this fact by hanging around with as many understanding and informed students as I could.  Well…It didn’t really work out that way in terms of where I mainly haunt on campus (when I am not pacing up and down). Of all the places I could pick to spend my time, I picked hanging around with the Orthodox Jewish kids.

Now, this not to say that all Orthodox kids are sheltered and completely aware of LGBTQ identities, because that’s certainly not true.  Actually, my two best and most accepting friends on campus happens to be a straight, cisgender Orthodox guy and his girlfriend. Yet, on the whole, it hasn’t been a pretty picture.  There are people who have known me for almost a year, have heard people refer to me as “he” or as a guy, but still call me “she” or include me in statements such as “we have x number of girls right now”

There is now a well-known incident amongst my friends in which a person, being told that I was male-identified and that there were certain questions that are rude to ask. Well, what kind of questions am I suddenly ambushed with by this person at dinner? “So…What are you biologically?” I kid you not.  I nearly had a panic attack after that whole event because I was afraid of what kind of questions that I’d get from other people or what she’d try to get me shunned/ousted from being a part of the campus Hillel for religious reasons.  Luckily, she didn’t…But it is easy to tell that she seems quite uncomfortable with my presence.  Plus, I am rather sure her grandma gave me a weird look when her family visited recently (oh my…Did someone do the “Guess what I just met!” phone call home?).  Another, lesser-known incident (with a different person) involves being told at Shabbat dinner that Levi is a great, Biblical (and male) name and that she’d love to name her future son Levi…But then about 20 minutes later explicitly referring to me as “one of the women” that was there.

At this point, I really don’t try to correct some of these students when they get my gender identity and pronouns wrong. Partially because I don’t want a repeat incident, and partially because being the first trans person that someone has ever encountered can be pretty rough. There are some fellow queer students that keep their relationships an open secret around the same circles because they don’t want others to be uncomfortable.  So, I can’t tell whether or not they already know and just refuse to deal with it or if they are just going off my appearance and voice (which I have said before honestly does not “pass” as male very well).  It is an interest contrast to the rest of campus, where when they hear someone call me “he” enough times or a friend say “Levi’s a boy”, almost always tend to either correct themselves without fanfare, or profusely apologize for thinking/calling me otherwise.

Personally, I don’t want to be anyone’s representation for the trans community.  I don’t want to be the first person to try to explain the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation.  Honestly, I’d prefer not to have to clean up brain matter after I tell people that I’m trans and gay. But I guess that I may have to if I want my identity to be respected.

“Hold me, hold me in your arms
Well, now heal me, heal me with your touch
Your touch keeps me hangin’ on”

–”Hold Me In Your Arms” by the Black Keys

I don’t hug people. It is something that people tend to learn about me rather quickly. Every time someone comes in to hug me, I tense up, unsure of what is going on or how to react. It ends up that most of the time that I either awkwardly accept the fact that I am being hugged or that I do the ‘one-armed half-hug’.

Actually, I distinctly remember one girl flat-out telling me, “I really need to teach you how to hug properly”. She gave me instructions on three different hugs, and the next time she saw me I tried to follow her directions to the letter. “Better”, she said, “though you don’t have to be focus on doing it exactly right”. I smiled slightly, though a bit embarrassed that my mechanical nature to basic human acts had still shone through.

In high school, I would make it well-known that I disliked hugs or any kind of unwarranted invasion of my personal space. The underclassmen that were so fond of running up and giving hugs were quelled from these actions by my promises of physical harm and/or death. I eventually relented somewhat and let them pet me on the shoulder… but not before first asking if it was okay. For the most part, I would greet my friends by ruffling their hair or with a near-punch done in surprise attack. When I got to college, the approach changed to surprise raptor attacks, but at least I no longer threatened people if they tried to hug me.

My dislike of hugs has taken a new turn the past couple of years. No longer can my discomfort be strictly pinned on my life-long reluctance towards physical contact. It has definitely become a dysphoria issue at this point.

The fact of the matter is that I haven’t had chest surgery and probably won’t be able to for at least 3 or 5 years. Try as I might with layering, binding, etc… the chest exists. I can cover it up as best as I can, but I am hyper-aware that they can be felt when someone hugs me… or at least that’s what I worry. I also worry that it prevents the other person from really just thinking of me as just a guy with no adjective in front of that word (and no unwelcome flesh in front of me). Doesn’t matter who it is hugging me, the person could be queer, straight, cis, trans, whatever; it is always a concern in floating around in my head.

The queer community is a very affectionate one. As opposed to my experiences with cis and straight spaces, queer spaces are filled with a lot of kissing, hugging, and other friendly touches. It was quite a surprise to meet adults who would physically embrace me while still an acquaintance. The first time I met this one person at college the day I moved into the dorms, she hugged me while wearing only a bra and pants. It does make you feel welcome; but when you hate your body, being that close to a new person can be rather jarring. I am still trying to figure out how to handle this as well as my own bodily malcontent. At least I have a few more years to sort it all out, if you want to try to spin it positively. Damn, this sucks.

In anticipation of the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Liz Feuerbach takes a look at the series’ leading lady and feminist, Hermione Granger, and the supporting women of JK Rowling’s wizarding world. Beware of spoilers.

Last November, fresh off a screening of the latest Harry Potter movie, I finally caved and cracked open my sister’s worn copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. A mere five weeks later, I closed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in the series, and placed it on my nightstand. Thus another Harry Potter fanatic was born.

The final movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, opens this weekend, and will undoubtedly rake in millions, if not billions, at the box office. With more than 450 million copies sold worldwide, and six billion dollars more made at the box office over the past decade, Harry Potter is the highest grossing film and book series of all time. The reach of the series is unprecedented. Everyone loves the story of “The Boy Who Lived.”

And what’s not to love? JK Rowling provides a fully realized fantastical world bursting with magical creatures, wicked wizards, hundreds (seriously) of well-developed supporting characters and perhaps the most loveable teen trio ever written. One third of that golden trio is Hermione Granger, and I can’t think of better role model for young readers.

Hermione is the brightest witch of her age, courageous (she is in Gryffindor, after all) and principled. She is deeply empathetic. She is studious and serious, although she allows herself to revel in the humor of others, namely Ron Weasley. She fears failure (but little else). In her younger years, she is labeled a know-it-all. I’d argue the others are simply intimidated by her intellect, and she is right not to dumb herself down for their benefit. All in all, I wish Hermione were a real person so we could exchange BFF charm necklaces and brunch it every Sunday.

Rowling wrote Hermione to eschew stereotypes. She doesn’t end up with the hero; she is never there to function as Harry’s love interest. She prefers Arithmancy to Divination in school. Hermione is also a total badass, despite her prim and proper reputation. When Hermione discovers that a nasty reporter who spread lies about herself and Harry is an unregistered animagus (a wizard or witch who can morph oneself into an animal), she traps the reporter in Beetle form in a jar and blackmails her. The next year, she tricks the totalitarian, ministry-planted Headmaster of Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge, into a trap in the Forbidden Forest to escape unjust punishment. So often, female characters are allowed to be aggressive or rebellious, but in exchange are stripped of any traditionally feminine qualities and instead are forced to pick up traditionally masculine traits. However, Hermione is never made to do that. Most notably, she is written to be highly logical AND emotionally expressive, a combination not commonly afforded to most of today’s leading ladies.

Best of all, Hermione is a true feminist. At first glance, Hermione appears to stick strictly to the rules. However, the truth is Hermione is constantly challenging the system and pushing others to consider the deep-seeded inequality faced by the non-privileged members of the wizarding world. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Hermione comes up with the idea to start a clandestine student resistance movement called Dumbledore’s Army. In Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, when Hermione learns of the existence of enslaved house elves, not only does she call out her best friend for defending their enslavement, she establishes a student organization dedicated to demanding freedom and fair pay for house elves. The movement isn’t popular, but hey – Hermione isn’t here to make friends.

Hermione is surrounded by dozens of complex female characters that inhabit the Harry Potter universe. These women fill all sorts of roles: mothers (Molly Weasley, Narcissa Malfoy, Lily Potter), professors (McGonagall, Pomona Sprout, Sybill Trelawney), highly trained aurors (Tonks, Alice Longbottom), Dumbledore’s Army members (Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, Hannah Abbott, Susan Bones, the Patil twins, Lavender Brown), nurses (Madam Pomfrey), Triwizard champion (Fleur Delacour), and Quidditch players (Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell, Cho Chang).

Still, the Harry Potter universe isn’t some progressive utopia for women. Patriarchal pureblood families have a monopoly on wealth and influence at the ministry. Within the corrupt ministry and Voldemort’s Death Eaters, women find themselves outranked and outnumbered. Even those women with power, such as Voldemort’s #1 groupie Bellatrix Lestrange or Dolores Umbridge, are forced to work within a power structure that values first and foremost the needs of men. The only woman on the “dark” side who ultimately holds any power is Narcissa Malfoy, and this is because she defies Voldemort and the Death Eaters. In the safe spaces of Harry Potter’s world, however, women fair far better. Women in the Order of the Phoenix makes decisions and spearhead dangerous assignments. Professors, particularly McGonagall, hold substantial influence over the education of students at Hogwarts. In fact, Lord Voldemort is defeated twice because he underestimates the power of a mother’s love for her child. Ultimately, Voldemort’s defeat rests on Harry’s shoulders, but it is the choices the women in his life make that enable him to do so.

After this summer, when the magic ends, we will be left to wonder just how long it’ll be before we get another series quite like Harry Potter. Even our beloved Pixar movies lack the quality female characters found in Harry Potter. The series, free of the princesses, underdeveloped love interests and shallow attempts at girl power that plague most of today’s blockbuster franchises, feels like a mug of Butterbeer on a cold winter day; a treat that must be savored. Will Harry Potters’ success be deemed a fluke, or a sign that moviegoers have finally fallen prey to the powerful spells cast by fantastic female characters?

Submission by TNG Contributor K. Kriesel

When people see me with a bioguy lover, the few who say something will say one of two things:

1) that I’ve turned straight

2) we might be two gay guys

The main difference between those groups is that 1) sees sex and 2) sees gender expression.  Group 1 perceives “opposite sexes” (and don’t know that phrase makes no sense) and expects certain behaviors – like that I secretly loathe my lover and just want him to buy me things.  They also usually can’t resolve my queerness with my “heterosexuality;” apparently I must choose one or the other.

What Group 1 can’t see but Group 2 can is that the people to whom I’m attracted are usually masculine and that I’m rather masculine.  In addition to just basic attraction, I relate more to masculine people.  One thing that I’ve noticed recently is that most of the guys I get along with best have only brothers.  Guys with sisters tend to be more protective of me rather than challenging, and I hate being protected.
Anyway, Group 2 is a bit closer to reality.  They see gender expression, which is a facet of an individual.  Biological sex has no inherent meaning or value, therefore judging a relationship on it ignores the true value of the people involved.

There are some queer people who are in Group 1, which is very disappointing.  The queer community has been fighting for decades to be accepted for/despite “same sex” relationships.  And now that I have “opposite sex” lovers, some queer people are giving me the same shit they’ve been given.  It’s frustrating!  And a few can’t/won’t see that we’re in the same predicament!

What those poor misguided queers and Group 1 see are “opposite sexes” and privilege.  Yes, there are L.U.G.s (Lesbian Until Graduation) who give up their queerdom to live a “normal” life of straight privilege.  That is not me!  The people of Group 1 who assume my hatred of my lovers expect me to be like all the breeder women who’d rather be in a miserable relationship than contentedly single.  And they do so because they get privileges by being in relationships with normal men.
And I don’t even want a relationship!

c. Wikimedia Commons

In a society that still persecutes queer couples brave enough to show affection in the public sphere, the make-outs and grope-fests that spangled D.C.’s Capital Pride Weekend were a big, well-lubed middle finger to the heteronormativity that pervades even this thinly tolerant, vaguely progressive city.

My partner and I, each blessed with a unique queer identity and two X chromosomes, should have felt right at home amid the rainbow-clad masses. But, because my partner’s trans, we look like a straight couple. And in a sea of hyper-visible same-sex love, we stood out like a BYU t-shirt at an Ani DiFranco show.

There’s nothing wrong, in theory, with straight allied couples that come out (so to speak) to Pride Weekend events. Far be it from me to deny anyone, hetero though they may be, the right to watch greased-up Nellie’s bartenders grind the afternoon away on a bass-thumping float.

But I ‘m not straight. I wanted to feel solidarity in the crowds of people who shared some part of the growing pains I faced as a young queer girl. I wanted to feel my future reflected in older queer couples walking arm-in-arm down the sidewalk. I wanted to feel–pride. The sheer number of out, proud gays convened in one spot is what gives Pride its power. And I had to accept that–to the naked eye–I wasn’t contributing.

Before I inadvertently donned a heterosexual invisibility cloak at Capital Pride, I’d underestimated my need to broadcast my sexuality to the world. In fact, I was sick of sensing that my every public kiss with a girl was some big social statement. The leers, scowls and condescending smiles were tiring, at best, and threatening at worst.

So when I started dating my current partner, I relished the lack of double takes in our trail; we were just another straight couple out on a date. Our queerness was our little secret, like a hidden tattoo that’s more meaningful because it takes a deliberate unveiling to see. I even let my parents breathe a faint sigh of relief when I told them I was dating a “he.”

Soon, though, my hetero-charade began to nibble at my conscience–was I sending the queer movement backward by not telling the whole truth about my relationship? Or would I be indulging a self-important desire to feel like an outsider if I launched a personal PR campaign to let the world know that I ‘m not just dating any old dude–he’s a transdude! I’m still a sexual minority!

Dating a transguy, and coming to terms with the disconnect between my appearance and my true self, has given me new perspective on the contradictions that come with being queer in a society that presumes heterosexuality and rigid gender boundaries. Coming out to new friends seemed easier when I had girlfriends to bring around; now it takes a more complicated explanation. It’s a fine line to walk–being honest about my relationship without feeling like I’m treating my partner like a token or verging on TMI-territory with folks who want the finer details of surgeries and hormone effects. Ultimately, the trans-bomb is my partner’s to drop, but he’s open enough to encourage me to come out (again) to close family and friends and field their questions about trans life.

It was hard to admit to myself, but I now recognize the feeling that reared its head when I took grateful shelter in my newfound ability to blend in with other couples: homophobia. And now, I’m letting myself mourn the knowing, affirming looks from other queer couples that no longer come. They were nice, but recognition shouldn’t be the foundation of my identity.

Finding joy in my sexuality–without sanding down the rough edges to fit into mainstream society–has been the most rewarding part of my life as a queer. Here’s hoping that at next year’s Pride Parade, I’ll let go of my appearance anxiety long enough to really enjoy those grinding bartenders.

Submission by Erica Stratton, first-time TNG contributor. Erica Stratton is a DC-based queer who enjoys brooding like a boy, fighting like a boy, and loving like a boy, but only looks good in skirts. She curates photos and pens the Gender Heroes series at Genderfork.

I once tried and failed to explain what “queer” meant to someone. They countered each of my points by saying that “queer” was too broad to have any meaning. “So does IT”, I riposted with a deliberate jab at their profession. Besides, “queer” wasn’t even meant to be specific: it grew out of a community whose ideas and vocabulary are constantly in flux, and where personal fluidity is a norm.

The problem is, I’m having the same problem with the term “woman,” “girl,” “female,” or “femme”.

I didn’t always think about being a girl. I could say that I’m from a rural area, with all the gender ignorance that implies. Except that our town was built on college students, and there was a gay club with drag shows every week. I was sleeping with women and falling for men; my best cisgender female friend had a knife collection, and put in time at the shooting range between college courses. In hindsight, we were doing queer and gender-bending things all the time, but we didn’t really call it that. We were only a group of about 30 or so, who did what we did because it seemed right to us. No politics were involved.

Then, in college, I stumbled upon “The Houseboy‘s Rebellion,” a sex story written by Sinclair Sexsmith. It was only then that I learned about the extra parts people could strap on to be read as another gender to outsiders, and what the words “butch” and “femme” meant in a queer context. I felt like the world had been keeping something from me, and set out to learn more. I discovered that, like me, many other women felt like they didn’t have the right body shape to be feminine, or felt shame when they couldn’t make themselves care about fashion. And then, later, that you could still be feminine without makeup or high heels. I found the more about gender I read, the more my idea of female changed, but the idea of my own gender remained clouded.

Eventually, I joined a group of bloggers who founded Genderfork, a website celebrating androgyny. After I’d been part of the community for almost three years, I decided it was time to buy a binder. After delving through thousands of photos depicting femmes of all genders I’d come back around to embracing eyeliner, skirts, and the color pink, but I wanted to see if the queer rite of passage would transform me in a way that my journey into femme fashion hadn’t quite done. I hoped that, somehow, the garment and the gender it implied would bring the disparate parts of my temperament into some kind of focus.

To my surprise, I enjoyed wearing it. The snugness was comforting, and the way my body looked, though not exactly breast-less, was different enough from my usual mighty prow that I got to taste what it was like to be in another body for a while. But I had DD breasts and a wardrobe full of cleavage shirts and, after a while, I didn’t feel the urge to wear it as strongly as I had. Anticlimax.

Besides the expense of buying a whole new wardrobe, I stopped trying on butch-ness because I felt like I was stealing something (I was reading Stone Butch Blues at the time, and the idea of the “weekend butches,” who put on a skirt at the first sign of a raid, ate at me). There were many things I related to in the butch-authored stories that I read: the prideful self-reliance, coupled with the fear that you weren’t strong enough, or brave enough. The unemotional facade masking the reckless need to fall in love. But, as with high femme, there just wasn’t enough of a pull to make my soul fully over into one or the other. I’m too worried about being employed full time to be a full-time butch, and too practical to want to ornament myself as even as a “low” femme. In the end, I was neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring.

The truth is that I make clothing decisions based on the fact that I always forget about what I’m wearing as soon as I have it on. I could go towards one end of the binary or the other fashion-wise, but due to a lack of time, money, or interest I always stall in my efforts. My journeys toward high-femme, ironically, made me better able to pass as a non-frumpy straight girl, my David Bowie earrings and purple leopard print scarf notwithstanding. Still, I’m still clueless around makeup and shoes and tailoring (but you can be femme without all those things! But then what does being femme mean?)

And yet I define myself as a girl because of my boobs and vagina, which I think about as little as my clothes after I put them on. (Isn’t that the ultimate cop-out?) I don’t care what word you use for me as long as it’s not an insult, though I will always be the first one to protest when someone uses the wrong pronoun for someone else. I read stories about the struggles people go through to have their sense of self acknowledged, and wonder why there is no rough part of me which grates against the labels the way they do for others. When I try to think of actions that make me the most me, it’s only one: sitting here typing in hopes someone will read it. When I think about my own gender, all I get is a sense of undifferentiatedness, of neuter, of greyness.

Or perhaps there isn’t a word for me yet, at least not one I’ve found. I’m not a tomboy (too much the desk jockey.) My uneasiness with claiming butch and femme we’ve already covered. When I went Googling, I found “hoyden” and “demoiselle,” which feel too Victorian for general use. A list of masculine-of-center names I found on Tumblr seemed like a good start, but far too many of them have roots in the lesbian community for me to feel comfortable using them (Could I say I was a bi stud? Boi? And who’s Shane?)

And yet why can’t I be a mostly-straight female and all these things: brave, physically strong, practical, most comfortable in casual clothes? I could be the Ripley or Zoe Alleyne for all these things. (Oh, honey, you are a certain kind of straight boy, identifying with a warrior woman when you’ve only shot a pistol once in your life.) I was raised by a straight, cisgender, single mom. Who am I to say what female can and can’t be, when she wore a woman’s suit to work, then came home and tore down walls and put up wallpaper?

This is where my efforts at self-definition collapses in on itself. The concept of a masculine-acting-yet-mostly-straight girl sounds like the worst possible conglomeration of cis-privilege and gender-fucking. Maybe we need to create a new word again, like how cisgender came into being after the definitions of boy and girl had stretched out so far they came back from the other side. Or maybe I just need to create my own androgynous style for myself… as soon as I figure out where to put my DD boobs.

Dear Ms. Witterick and Mr. Stocker,

I hope this letter finds you and your family well.

Crossposted with permission from Nina Here or There.

****

Courtesy OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network

I really wanted Chaz Bono to be a transgender hero. By sharing his transition in his film, “Becoming Chaz,” and in his memoir, “Transition: The Story of How I became a Man,” he is offering gender-questioning people an intimate entry into his personal experience. With his fame, he is raising much-needed awareness about a marginalized population. But as I, a writer releasing my own transmasculine memoir on the same day as Bono, follow the coverage of his story, I feel like I’m watching a slow-motion media train wreck.

The New York Times article, “The Reluctant Transgender Role Model,” by Cintra Wilson, is the latest troubling piece. Wilson, in what must be an attempt at humor, investigates Bono’s motivations with questions about celebrity damage, gender-bent Oedipal revenge, and reclaiming childhood attention. I imagine Wilson aims to connect with skeptical mainstream readers, but those types of questions push well past curious and cynical to downright ridiculous.

In a cultural climate that forces transgender people to explain themselves at every turn, I cannot be too surprised that Bono plays into another story of overcoming pain and suffering, of transition as the last resort of the suicidal. As a transgender person, I find this narrative exhausting and self-victimizing. Why do we, as trans people, need to keep proving how awful our lives are in order for people to accept us? What if we modified our bodies, not “amputated” parts of them as Wilson so crudely states, because we thought our lives were so beautiful that we wanted to experience them in a vehicle that allowed us our deepest comfort and truest self-expression?

Bono reiterates the standard transgender narrative of identifying as a male since childhood, using as evidence gender stereotypes like “playing sports” to reinforce his case. Once again, it’s hard to blame Bono. The criteria for Gender Identity Disorder (GID) in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders refers to gender stereotypes in its diagnosis. Although the article claims GID was only classified as a mental disorder until 1999, this is incorrect. A diagnosis of GID is still required for many trans people seeking gender reassignment surgery, and reinforcing gender stereotypes is the necessary proof. While I cannot question Bono’s experience, I can challenge his facts and make it absolutely clear that his experience isn’t shared by all of us.

Bono says, “There’s a gender in your brain and a gender in your body. For 99 percent of people, those things are in alignment. For transgender people, they’re mismatched. That’s all it is. It’s not complicated, it’s not a neurosis. It’s a mix-up. It’s a birth defect, like a cleft palate.”

First I’d like to know where Bono confirmed the gender in your brain and gender in your body theory. Sure, researchers are looking for hard proof of transsexualism, but they are having about as much success as they are in finding a definitive “gay gene” or “gay brain” structure in homosexuals. The nature vs. nurture debate will continue in gay and lesbian research circles just like the essentialist vs. cultural construction debate will continue in gender research circles. To fall completely to one pole as Bono does with essentialism is to ignore the very complicated topic of gender presentations, expressions, embodiments, roles, and identities as lived in our culture. To Bono’s claim of mismatched alignment for transgender people, this is a gross misrepresentation of all of us.

“Transgender,” in its most common usage, is as an all-encompassing term and self-defined identity available to anyone who doesn’t fit into the man or woman boxes. Transsexuals (female-to-male/FTM like Bono; or male-to female/MTF) are the most well-known group under the transgender umbrella. But there are many trans people who live and identify outside of the stifling constraints of the gender binary. Some pursue hormones without surgery; some pursue surgery without hormones; some choose only to adopt a new name; some use the gender-neutral pronouns “ze” and “hir”; some use self-identifying words that encompass both man and woman, like genderqueer or gender fluid.

Therefore, the conclusion of Wilson’s article relating to diversity is correct, except that Bono actually reiterates the black and white of gender identification by wedding himself completely to the notion of a woman becoming a man. He may offer an alternative understanding of black and white, but as for ushering in a complete wheel of gender (not sexuality as Wilson mistakenly writes) into the mainstream, Technicolor Bono is not.

It’s time for an understanding of transgender experiences and identities to reach mainstream audiences. Bono is, with his celebrity bullhorn, an ideal candidate to be a transgender role model, but after I read that he once had a tolerance for women that he no longer has, he cannot be my hero. I do hope that his story is the starting point, an impetus to expand the conversation beyond sensationalism, gender stereotypes, and the Fashion & Style pages. But this poorly fact-checked article by Cinta Wilson makes me nervous that many will now claim to know about transgender people, and about me, because they read or saw something about Cher’s kid.

***

For another perspective that I think is excellent, check out Oliver Bendorf’s commentary on Autostraddle.

Transgender Baltimorean Tyra Trent

Last month, 25-year old Tyra Trent was found murdered in a Baltimore basement. She had been reported missing two weeks earlier by her family, and it took two days to identify her body and notify family.

When I read the news via email, I felt stunned and sick.  I don’t know why. I had never met her  and I am not one of those people who gets shocked by death and violence. For some reason, this particular case just struck me. Maybe it was the fact that we’re both in our 20’s, people of colour, transgender, living in the Baltimore area, and trying to get our lives on track. (She was getting her GED after a struggle with drugs, I’m trying to get my undergrad after/amidst struggles with mental health.)

Part of my shock may also have been the timing. When I learned of the news, it was Friday. I had just come out to two professors and one of my classes as trans.  Much to my relief, everyone was really accepting and supportive. Then again, I would not have even considered coming out if the school didn’t have such a generally progressive, “live and let live” atmosphere. I guess hearing about Tyra’s murder reminded me that just outside of the walls of my college, there are still people that hate us enough to want kill us.

It is a really heavy thing to think about: The idea that there are people who, based on one facet of who you are, something you have spent a long time struggling with yourself, want to extinguish your life or cause you injury, like what happened at Cal State Long Beach to a trans student in a restroom.

Then there is also the thought that the murderer might never be caught, and that there are people out there who probably agree with what he or she did — seriously, never read the comments on a news story.  It was about a year and a half ago that the DC Q St. stabbings of two trans women happened in broad daylight. Unsurprisingly, no one has been charged in that case.

Maybe the Tyra Trent case will be different, but the track record with finding and prosecuting those who murder trans people is bleak, to say the least.

Maryland is currently in debate over a gender identity anti-discrimination bill, but  I am not sure that I have high hopes for it considering it is just off the heels of the failed equal marriage bill, which the Maryland conservatives are still riled up about. With this murder, I am not sure that Maryland is willing to accept us. I sincerely hope that I am wrong.

Liking He-Man did not mean I was gay — liking girls did.

I am not denying that stereotypes are often based in fact, or that our perceived relationship with gender and its presentation often  relates to our sexual identity or orientation. Instead I am emphasizing that the two things aren’t lock and key.

Projecting homosexuality onto an individual based on their style of dress or cultural preferences isn’t totally fair. It’s the exact argument that many liberal people make against parents pushing heteronormative behavior on children. Saying, “Bobby loves Barbies and makeup. He’s probably gay,” is no different from saying, “Bobby is a boy. He should be playing with trucks, not Barbies.”

I support any efforts to promote equality for minority individuals, and I am happy when these efforts find success. CNN ran a story this week  about a website launched in January called “Born This Way,” which is a photo-essay style blog containing photos of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer people as children. Site founder, Paul V., explains that the site is meant to show “that being gay is innate and it’s not a choice and these things come out in us as children.”

Paul V. also says he hopes that gay kids feel a sense of connection and a sense of worth from this project. This photo essay blog is another project which has found wings on the current winds of the It Gets Better Project. The more projects, websites, and foundations that support the health and safety of LGBTQ people, the better. I encourage everyone to check out this blog, but I also encourage you to keep in mind that while we want people to recognize that queerness is not learned, we don’t want to continue the spread the message that you can “see” gay.

Making gayness a visible, physical trait can encourage violence against those who are perceived gay, like 15-year–old Lawrence King, who was killed by a 14-year-old classmate in California for wearing makeup. It can also alienate LGBTQ people who don’t fit the stereotype of looking “gay enough.” If gayness was really a physical trait, how would we explain femme lesbians; masculine, sports loving gay men; butch straight women; effeminate, GaGa loving straight men? How do we support a transgender man who sleeps with men?

Just as we try to remind the  heterosexual community that who we sleep with doesn’t change who we are, so we should remind them that whether their son is into the Golden Girls or loves football they should foster and nurture the adult he will become without deciding on his sexual orientation based on a stereotype.

Thanks to Paul V., for this great project which shows that being different as a child is OK. Also thanks to all of those who visit the site for realizing that being queer is a larger issue than just being a little boy who wants to wear a wig to church.

Photo by Theodoranian

I was happy to see a recent TNG post from a guest contributor entitled Dropping The ‘T’ To Save It.  The post did its best to be completely supportive of the trans community while at the same time asking serious and hard questions, such as: Are trans people best served by being allied with the gay and lesbian community in their joint struggle for rights?  I’m not going to summarize the post, since every word was well chosen and I’d only do it injustice.  Instead, I am going to react to some of the comments it received.

First, I think it’s very important for this conversation to happen.  The simple fact is that lots of cis-gendered homos don’t identify with trans issues, don’t understand them, and are sick of being denied their rights and refuse to let anything get in their as we move closer and closer.  This is a fact.  Anyone who gets mad at the acknowledgment of this fact is shooting the messenger and ignoring the larger problem.

Secondly, it’s important to acknowledge that, in certain legal matters, trans issues are indeed different than gay/lesbian issues.  This, too, is a fact.

I think it is very healthy to question this alliance, as it could indeed be doing all sub-groups a disservice to be fighting a united front.  But it’s essential to understand that questioning the alliance does not equate to being against the alliance, and it doesn’t equate to being anti-trans.  I was saddened to see reactions that obviously equated questioning the “T” with being anti-T.  In situations like these where tempers run high, it’s essential to separate the logical/real from the emotional/ideal.  Let’s give it a shot:

Ideally, we can all march proudly together toward equality.  Realistically, we have to stop the infighting, name-calling and back-stabbing before we can really imagine marching in anything resembling lock-step.

Ideally, all queer people would embrace the T in LGBT.  Realistically, the L, the G and the B often don’t see eye to eye.  We can’t even get different groups of gay men to understand one another.  These different groups of gay men are often only united by their complete cluelessness about lesbians, resulting in behavior that is, at best, insensitive to women and, at worst, misogynistic.  Gay men and lesbians are constantly being called bi-phobic, as they often shun bisexuals or write them off with quips such as “bi now, gay later.”  My trans brother and sisters, the G and the L don’t get along all that well, and we’re all afraid the B is going to leave us for someone of the other gender. Are you sure you want to join up with us?

Ideally, the non-queer world of gender-conforming heterosexuals will see that we, all of us queers, are just people trying to live authentic lives and will grant us the rights we deserve.  Realistically, it may take a generation or more before a conservative, middle American, male, elected official is willing to support legislation that would allow a trans-woman to use the same bathroom as his wife.  Yes, it’s wrong and narrow minded, but that “fact” still holds a lot of traction and there’s likely little we can do about it outside of eliminating multi-user bathrooms.  (And being pee-shy, I’m all for that!)

Ideally, all queer people would do the necessary legwork to become the ideal allies for transfolk.  Realistically, not all queer people are gender studies students.  Some of us are engineers, architects, bartenders, construction workers, firemen/women, lawyers, doctors etc.

It’s not realistic for trans people to expect gender-conforming queers to read up on trans issues.  I often wonder how many anti-segregation white activists were well-versed in racial theory, versus those who simply knew something was wrong and felt passionate enough about speaking truth to power to jump on buses to Selma.  If the queer rights movement is dependent on all queer people being at least C-plus students of trans issues, we’re all doomed to fail.

There is a large component of the greater queer community that is committed to equal rights for all, including transgendered people.  It saddens me when the efforts of non-trans members of the queer community are criticized and attacked for asking questions that, in all fairness, beg to be asked… and answered.

Emily Rainone lives and works in a Maryland suburb of Washington D.C. She is a Trans-Woman currently working her way through the sometimes extraordinary, sometimes very difficult, always interestingprocess of transition. She can often be found in used book stores or places with sushi. Emily is of the opinion that nothing is so bad it can’t be improved by the generous application of coffee or, when thingsare especially dire, gin.

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It occurs to me that I hadn't had any trouble in the grocery store. Now what can we do to carry our cause further?

I walk across the parking lot of an Asian supermarket in one of D.C.’s larger suburbs. You couldn’t ask for a better day in February. The sun glints off windshields and you can smell the snow melting. I just finished a round of shopping for cheap produce. I am heading to the tiny beer and wine place next door. I have plans for a vegetarian pot roast of sorts; though, I really need to find a better way to describe it since there really isn’t any roasting involved. I’m not really thinking about cooking though. I’m thinking about gender.

This isn’t uncommon these days.

I’m transgendered, m2f, a bit more than two months on hormones, and I seem to have hit that point in my transition where I’m right in between the traditional binary. Lately, I’m just as likely to be referred to as ma’am when I’m in boy mode as when I’m in femme.  On this day, I am particularly gender variant. The day after a laser hair removal treatment means that I can’t really shave. The hair which had been shorn to the skin is now growing out, and for the first few days, will resist shaving as though it knows it’s not long for the world. So I am out,  sans make up and sporting what’s left of my mustache, but my clothes are pretty androgynous and my longish nails are painted.  I am not cuing anyone this morning; they can think what they want.

Walking to buy a bottle of wine, it occurs to me that I hadn’t had any trouble in the grocery store. No one said a thing, and if anyone gave me a strange glance or look, then it wasn’t enough for me to notice. People ignored me as they’d ignore any other person grocery shopping. This isn’t entirely unexpected; we’re talking about a very liberal area, a county which passed its own non-discrimination in housing act two years ago. Still, I’m not in an affluent neighborhood and many of my fellow shoppers are first generation immigrants from regions which have pretty terrible track records when it comes to “alternative lifestyles.”

I begin to wonder about tolerance, generations and where the fight gets carried. To be sure, this isn’t the first time I’ve thought about these things, but they are still fairly new to me. I’m just starting to become comfortable enough in my own experiences to feel like I can consider activism in any form. So, I wonder then if for me the fight won’t be about the right to walk down the street during the day. I wonder if maybe this fight has already been decided. Certainly, in other areas of the country this is not the case. It’s impossible to forget that people are still assaulted or killed simply walking down the street for how they’re dressed or who they love. But if I’m lucky enough to live in an area where an androgynous guy with painted nails goes unchallenged, how do I advance the cause?

Maybe, I think, my fight is third or fourth wave. Maybe, I need to be thinking about challenging the people whom I deal with day to day, pushing them to seriously consider how they think about gender. I can gently force people who pay lip service to tolerance to make sure they actually are tolerant. I can encourage people who would love to do more for equality by helping them find places to donate time and money. Through honesty and integrity, I can challenge stereotypes and misconceptions about trans-people. Most of all, I can take trans-people off the TV News and out of the movies and provide a real-life example of how capable, and awesome, we can be.

By this time, I am in line in the tiny store which may or may not be running an illegal gambling ring. Holding my bottle of wine, staring off into space and thinking grandiose thoughts about the future of gender equality, I almost miss the guy in front of me who is letting his gaze wander. The line is stalled for some reason, and his attention span has given out. He gives me a once over and sees my nails. He does a double take. Not just any double take. He does a Wile E. Coyote double take. His neck snaps back, his chin tilts towards his chest and his eyelids flutter.  It’s as though he had never seen nails tastefully done with charcoal and gold glitter polish.

He turns back towards the counter. I’m at first not sure if it’s over or if he just needed the extra time to reload his Looney Tunes gawk. I gently reposition my hand so that only a specific finger is showing on his side of the bottle, just in case he wants to admire my manicure again.  It would be rude to out and out flip him the bird, right? Not that he maybe didn’t deserve it.

Luckily, he was done. His turn at the counter came up and it was over. He was on his way and soon enough I was on mine. If the guy behind the counter thought anything of my nails he didn’t say anything, even after he had seen my not yet changed drivers license.

I walked across the parking lot of an Asian supermarket with a bottle of wine carried in hands with painted nails. I think about gender stereotypes and my own naivety. I think about how “none of us are free  until all of us are free.” I think about how far we all, trans- and cis-gendered alike, have left to go. I think that, even if my real fight is about challenging people who wouldn’t dream of shouting at or assaulting a trans-person, that fight is not yet finished, not by a long shot.

I only wished I had professors like these in college. Credited to toofab.com

Class is back in session. The flock of college students are resuming their studies and many have updated their Facebook statuses and tweeted up a storm about their return. As Logo celebrates National Drag History and the start of a new season of RuPaul’s drag race, the word drag has been circulating campus. Rightfully so.

The historic and entertainment value of drag within the queer community has left an indelible mark, while creating a space for a new generation of queers who are increasingly visible within contemporary society. With the assistance of shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race and Drag U, anyone can watch an episode without ever stepping into a gay bar’s drag show night.

Along with Logo’s celebration, I learned to celebrate drag queens immensely. Not only for making the queer community incredibly visible and confronting social norms, but also for serving as educators in both the gay and straight communities— not to forget as educators in gender performance.

One striking point is how drag queens juxtapose gender ideologies and appearance. In the Rocky Horror episode of Glee, the kids were deciding who would play the role of Janet, Brad and Magenta. Traditionally,  the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter is almost always played by a man who dresses in drag. Glee decided to go the opposite route, allowing the billowing Mercedes to play the character. If my die-hard Rocky Horror friends weren’t dying already because the cult classic was co-opted by Fox, the sight of a woman playing a man impersonating a woman certainly made people watch. But what surprised me was not necessarily what gender embodiment Dr. Frank-N-Furter would behold but how this gender embodiment would be read.

Namely, the comedic styling of male performers clad in women’s dress and make-up does not necessarily translate in the same comedic styling of a women dressing in men’s clothing and mannerisms.  Humor is subjective and with that episode I did not feel as if Mercedes was doing Dr. Frank-N-Furter justice. The comedy and edge of a drag queen performance changed when Mercedes dabbled in drag kingdom. I think drag in this sense is a lesson in “Women’s Studies 101: What does mean to be read as male or female.”

Mercedes’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter and the subsequent reaction of die-hard Rocky Horror fans at a woman playing a drag queen role roused some suspicion because, in this case, gender did matter.

Mercedes as the mad Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Credited: culturemob.com

Let’s take it one step further. Take any random episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Many will comment on how hilarious the show is because it’s a bunch of men dressing up as very beautiful, and at times over-the-top, women. But would a RuPaul’s Drag King be equally  funny? To some, a man dressed like a woman seems funny, but not so funny when a woman dresses like a man. This leads me to believe that society values women less than men: a man adorned in a dress? Hilarious; Woman decked in a zoot suit? Not so much. By extension,  the feeling of being a woman is funny and something to be laughed at, while being a man leaves the audience a sense that it cannot be touched, questioned or tampered with.

To quote Madonna in her song “What It Feels Like For a Girl” she begins with an affirmative monologue:

“Boys can wear jeans, cut their hair short wear shirts and boots because its okay to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading … because being a girl is degrading.”

Professor Pandora Boxx. Credited Pandoraboxx.com

Summed up conveniently, this is exactly the reason why I think drag kings or queens are excellent educators in what many people think as being male or female, masculine or feminine. Drag is a temporary act in gender play and for those few moments on stage, on RuPaul’s Drag Race or on Glee are a crash course in understanding gender, how it is embodied and how it is  performed.

I only offer a partial lens to drag but perceptions do matter. Do you think drag kings and queens have an educational value?

Aaron Gray is a 27-year-old Chicago native, working as an Associate Designer for one of New York’s leading private label fashion corporations, and has assisted in designing collections for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Carson Kressley, celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe, and California’s leading couture designer Bradley Bayou. In his spare time, he works as a bridal and special occasion designer under his own self-titled label.

Check out more about Aaron in his TNG article on “The New “F” Word” .

You can also find Aaron and the rest of the faggots at www.50faggots.com.

Check out more from the 50Faggots on TNG TV

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Side note:  As I’m sitting down to write my article for this month about my life growing up Queer, I suddenly had this moment of complete clarity about a “hook-up” that just left my apartment.   It was a great night, one of those “special” and kind of rare moments when somehow the stars align and for one night you become “soul mates” with a complete stranger.  These moments happened a lot more often when I was in my early twenties, but times (along with my needs) have changed.  I guess my moment of clarity was just the realization that I’ve changed as well. That I can now easily accept that sinking feeling that once he left I was going to forget about him just as easily as he was going to forget about me (or at least pretend to).  I haven’t figured out if this is a moment I should be proud of yet, but I just had to get that out of the way so I can focus on the below.

First off, I’ve never really identified with the word Queer.  In my experience Queer has been a term often self-assigned by that special breed of liberal, socially conscious, and politically involved gay men and women.  My closest friends are of this breed.  They also use terms like “Gender-Fucking,” and back in my college days, when I was involved with DePaul University’s LGBTQ group, I won the award for “Best Gender Fucking.” I still don’t entirely understand what that award meant as it was never my intention to violently combat or fuck gender.  I was just having an intense love affair with clothes at the time, and leaned heavily towards the androgynous. And somehow, by simply being myself, I was unknowingly making a political statement that inspired people to think differently.  I do like winning things though, so it was a proud moment for me. (Thank you very much)

I was born in Chicago then moved to Washington, D.C., where I lived for two years as my parents tried to save their marriage.  After their divorce, I moved to St. Louis with my mom, Barbara (Barbie for short), and a year later we settled in northwest Indiana. I lived in Gary (birthplace of Michael Jackson) for a couple of years, until my best friend’s brother caught us having sex in my basement. I was 8 years old. I was a “firecracker” of a little boy, way too smart for my own good. I LOVED playing Barbies with the girls. Cousins would often catch me trying on my mother’s heels in her closet. She almost had a panic attack when I got red lipstick on her ivory slip dress while playing Dynasty in the backyard (I was Dominique Deveraux). But my mother, an expert at denial, blamed the incident on my best friend and in order to “save my reputation” moved us, once again, to a small town next to Lake Michigan called Miller Beach, Indiana, where I spent most of my life growing up.  Within a week in my new neighborhood I had a new boyfriend.  It was a passionate affair.  We broke up because I wouldn’t share my gummy worms.

Now, I’ve always been “different.” I’ve never been close to much of my family, save for a small group of cousins that lived nearby.  For most of my life, it was always just been Mom and me. At some point, I think as a way for my mother to deal with me being different, and not really knowing how to raise me, our relationship shifted from a mother/son dynamic to friends/jealous sisters. My mother was and still is a strong, independent woman with a character that is stronger than any man that I’ve met. Her need to work and succeed in business matched her need to spend time with me, so I was given a lot of freedom to explore different ideas about life.  I never had a curfew, nor was I was told to make my bed or clean my room or take a shower — these were all things that I wanted to do for myself.

My only responsibility was to get good grades and I happily obliged.  I was a latch-key kid that spent a lot of time alone reading books and, like many a young gay boy from a single mother living in the Midwest, television was my Bible.  It shaped my perception of the ideal everything.  For example: Thanks to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I still find nothing more romantic than a kiss in a rain. I always end up feeling like Charlie Brown during Christmas. Though I like to play the role of James Bond, the coolest bachelor of all time—who, in my opinion has always been little gay, which serves as a role I can really get into — my idea of the perfect future for myself is still (and will always be) The Cosby Show-cast as Claire, of course.

Though as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to the see the fun in being Heathcliff.  And as of late, I’ve started placing this ridiculous pressure on myself to meet my future husband so we can date long enough to realistically adopt children at an age where we won’t be too old when we have our 50^th wedding anniversary, complete with our grandchildren performing a lip synched routine to Beyonce’s Single Ladies on the grand staircase of our (Brooklyn? Greenwich Village? San Francisco? London?) town home.  I know it sounds silly, especially as a gay man to place this unrealistic pressure of a “straight ideal” on myself, but growing up in Indiana, there wasn’t this budding community of gay mentors waiting to take me in and push me along the right path.  The only way for me to survive being trapped in that town was to dream about a better life for myself.  And those dreams all consisted of these random moments and images that I studied as a kid on television during the late 80’s and early 90’s.

And in 1992, at nine years old, my young life was forever changed when I was introduced to one of the most magnetic and powerful women I’d ever seen on screen in my entire life.  A woman so glamorous and complex that she became not only a leading role model for me, but the epitome of strength and sexuality.  Her name was Catwoman.  And she became my dream, so big, that for an entire year it consumed my life.  And with my head held high, I carried around a “whip”—made from an old bike tire that I cut—and after every sentence I’d curl my “r’s” and hiss.  Luckily for me, the boys on my block just accepted this latest character development, as I was still the only boy that could do a cartwheel and land into a perfect split.   Unluckily for me, this was the moment my mother had enough of my “shenanigans” and thought it was time for me to “become a man.”  And just like that, my little life changed.  My whip was replaced with a baseball bat.  Barbie’s were replaced with GI Joes.  And no more “hissing” when I got upset.  Also, communication with my mother from that point on was replaced with arguing or chatting with random strangers in AOL chatrooms.

Years later, during my senior year in high school, as I was walking in the Mall on my lunch break from the Gap, I saw two gay guys walking together wearing tight boot-fit jeans.  And with a look of disgust, I remember saying to a co-worker standing next to me, “Ugh. I will never be like that. I will never be THAT gay.”  I’m not proud of that moment.  And being who I am now, I can look back and laugh. But this story only serves to show how confusing and complicated life is when you’re growing up queer and you have no support.

“I think bad parents are a source of a lot of the problems with Queer youth.”

—Morgan, 50Faggots: A Gay in the Life: “Growing Up Queer”

The above quote is an excerpt from our 3^rd installment of our mini documentary series A Gay in the Life, which consist of street interviews with diverse gay men and women we meet while traveling across the United States filming our Season One cast of www.50faggots.com.  In the video below, you will be introduced to three amazing queer youth activists from St. Louis, Missouri who have a profound and very honest discussion about life, growing up Queer, and the problems facing gay youth today.

A few weeks ago, as I was getting ready for work, I happened to catch an interview on The Today Show with Cheryl Kilodavis and her five-year-old son, Dyson, talking about her book “My Princess Boy.”  For those of you who aren’t familiar, My Princess Boy is a nonfiction picture book that Cheryl wrote for (and about) her son Dyson, whom she has allowed to let happily express his authentic self by enjoying “traditional girl” things like jewelry, sparkles, dresses, and anything pink. When I saw Dyson on my television screen wearing his pink velvet jumper and tutu, I began to tear up a bit, not only from the joy of seeing a mother so proudly supporting her son for who he is and how he wants to express himself; but I saw a piece of myself in Dyson, and my heart ached a bit for the surely long journey that lies ahead for the boy, who at a very young age, has been thrust into the center of a heated dialogue about the importance (or lack of importance) of gender roles for children. My only hope is that Dyson will continue to receive the same unconditional love and support from his family as he enters into the next stages of his life.

Sidenote again:  I can’t decide if I should keep this guy’s number in my phone.  It’s really not a big deal…I just know myself well enough to know that if I do put his number in my phone it somehow makes the situation more real.  I don’t think I want it to be real.

Growing up queer is no easy task. To be completely honest, being a queer adult can be just as confusing at times. Now in my late twenties, while I’m no longer the young Princess Boy playing with Barbies and trying on my mother’s heels in her closet, I did paint my kitchen pink (with black trim), and I now have the Barbie logo tattooed on my chest across my heart—for my mom—for doing the best she could, and for all the times I was able to play and pretend.

For centuries nearly every culture allowed for some kind of gender expression beyond what we now view as masculine and feminine roles. Those who lived in these borderlands between genders were often thought to have a sacred perspective, one that allowed them to understand gendered interactions in ways that no else could.

And then their physical and spiritual landscapes were colonized, occupied by hostile forces in the name of monotheistic religion.

Their sacred insights were viewed as a threat to the new social order. The first step toward making an occupied land forget themselves is to make them feel ashamed of their own heritage.

Religious decrees set out new rules of what was acceptable behavior and what wasn’t. Some of the earliest broad prohibitions against crossing the gender line come from the god of the desert in the book of Deuteronomy.

As the avalanche of this new history swept the landscape, it left only the colonial re-imagination of the wreckage.

And so we went from spiritual leaders to outcasts, freaks, and medicalized monsters.

Too often, people who live in border lands are forced to choose a side. Do you belong to Mexico or to the US? Are you Black or White? Are you gay or straight? Are you a woman or a man? Are you one of us, or are you one of them? Yet, this space in between was, and is, rightfully ours because it explicitly and accurately reflects all of our experiences and uncertainty in this world of binary oppositions?

For trans people, or any of the other gender cousins, as a whole, we are expected to largely disavow our lives prior to transition. While these experiences make us who we are they also mark us as being outsiders. Are you a man or a woman? We are told both explicitly and implicitly that we can only be one. We have to pick a side from limited (and limiting) options. For many of us, the act of picking or being forced to pick can be quite traumatic. We always face the consequences of this choice at the hands of the occupation.

Thousands of these sacred representations are now extinct. The few left have been filtered through generations of hatred – sometimes by identities that were equally sacred, such as the contemporary gay and lesbian movement. Even trans communities think that some weekly flavor of gender just is not trans enough to be considered authentic.

It would be easy to interpret this as another white person searching the spiritual wasteland of modern consumer culture. It would be easy to appropriate any of the few remaining identities, such as Two Spirit – an identity that the broader North American Indigenous Peoples use to recognize the multiple genders found in their individual traditions. It may be en-vogue for various people to claim the heritage of a people other than their own in the name of being different or somehow more spiritual. However in practice this is an act of violence. Though it would be easy to find safe-haven in one of these resilient traditions, it would be the latest in an equally long line of colonization and occupation of a space that we are not a part of. Beyond that, the identity becomes just another commodity to dull the pain of daily existence as soon as it is appropriated.

We are therefore left with a choice. We can continue the colonial project either through appropriation or shame. Or we can begin the long process of healing the wounds gained during the occupation until we can tear down our internalized barriers and once again find ourselves in the borderlands. Though the scars may fade, they are a memory of everything that we have lost and everything we need to rebuild.

The space between is rightfully ours and it will be again.

You can find more on this topic in Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinberg.

This is the first of a series of columns on the colonization of identity. There will be at least two more over the course of the next few weeks, and certainly more in the future.

Marc Jacob; Photo by Ed Kavishe, fashionwirepress

(Note: We could not find a fair-use image of Pejic, hence the photo at right. However, he is quite beautiful and I suggest you follow the below hyperlink to see his face.)

Have you heard yet of Andrej Pejic, the 19-year old Serbian model? He’s the new face of Marc Jacobs and has been causing quite a stir across the Internet over his strikingly androgynous look. He may become the biggest star of what is being labeled the “femiman” in the world of fashion, a crop of increasingly genderless-looking models who seem to fit just as naturally in both men’s and women’s clothing.

My question is this:  When does  the fashion industry push this phenomenon too far toward the line of a freak show? I certainly don’t think these models are freaks, and it is quite possible that the people behind Marc Jacobs and Givenchy, to name just a few of the design houses hiring such models, don’t think so either. But if the intent is to parade them across runways and splash them across print ads, is the intent to show beauty or is the intent to be provocative? And if the intent is to be provocative is it not the case then that these models are being exploited based on their gender identity?

As far as I can tell, everyone wants to ask Pejic if he identifies as a man or a woman or if he is straight or gay. It may be that he is not ready to define himself; he may be still on a path of discovery. Limelight or no limelight, it seems to me that he should be allowed to do so with the same respect and dignity allowed to any teen model.  But even more, maybe it’s just nobody’s business.

I understand that there would be a certain amount of fascination around him, but does such fascination lends itself to supporting the transgender community or those who view gender as more fluid than definite,or does it  hurt or exploit them?  That is, in my mind, to be determined. It concerns me that,  once again, we see the fashion industry defining beauty and perfection as that which is unattainable. For a group of people who already must struggle for acceptance, how many more hurdles must there be?

I only hope the inclusion of such models is helpful, and not hurtful, to the cause of transgender equality.

Am I a boy or a girl?

As I walked into the Carter’s kid’s clothing store on North and Clybourn in the days before X-Mas, my eyes were drawn left-to-right and right-to-left by the vast color differential in an even more extreme way than those exhilarating first moments of walking into the GAP. Everything on the right is PINK and everything on the left is BLUE (with some greens and browns mixed in there unobtrusively). After two years of shopping in the pink section for my niece, I finally have a chance to peruse the boy’s section for some holiday gifts for my brand new nephew. Although I love the color pink, I don’t love hearts and flowers, nor the supposition that I am supposed to love them because I am a lady. Picking out clothes for my niece has been a bit of a challenge to my feminism. How do I chose gifts for her that don’t encourage gender stereotypes, while still acknowledging that she IS a girl and she should be damn proud of it?

Finally I’m able to visit a kid’s store and look at clothes without wading through what looks like the Valentine’s day at the CVS. Buying boy’s clothes must be less political. I love the blues and greens and deep browns of the section, but every time I grab for a cute item it has a sports theme: baseball, football, soccer, hockey. After a few minutes, I’m actually wishing I could find a car or a truck because even though those images encourage some stereotypes for boys, it’s better than “Boys Play Sports.”  There are very few items without a sports reference, but lucky for me, I find one with a dinosaur. But as I go back and forth in the boys and girls sections, frustrated a lack of gender neutral (yet cute) clothing, I also try to picture buying my 2-year-old niece a blue hoodie with a stegosaurus, or my 2-month-old nephew a onesie with a pink flower on it. Somehow, those images seem silly.

What’s wrong with me? I’m a feminist. A queer feminist, at that. I am perpetually aware of the need to exercise my freedom to act and be whoever I want – free from the expectations placed on my sex and gender. When I see men in pink winter caps or wearing nail polish I am happy to see those expectations being challenged. Seeing people chose to like what they like regardless of what they “should like.”  I wear ties. I wear skirts. Who cares?

Something in me has a hard time accepting those same standards for my niece and nephew, who, because of their age, really only have an identity based on how their parents choose to dress them. It somehow seems to make more sense to just go along with what society asks then to have to explain every time your son gets called “she” because he has a mermaid on his pink onesie.

It turns out, my seemingly hard-wired pink and blue brain reaches even further than just my niece and nephew.

My girlfriend got a puppy. His name his Howard and he is a gorgeous black lab. At a play date with a girl-dog friend, Howard borrows her pink leather collar. It looks so cute on him. He looks handsome and sort of dapper, like the Hugo Boss models in the front 87 pages of Vanity Fair – but when it comes to picking out a real collar for him days later, my girl and I wrangle the puppy on the floor of the pet store.  As we slip a variety of necklaces over his head I hear myself saying, “I really like the idea of a pink one, but I don’t want people to think he’s a girl.” It’s a puppy and I’m afraid someone will confuse his sex?

Is it possible that I’m not as forward thinking as I thought? Or maybe that I just don’t think something like the colors in which babies and puppies are dressed play that large of a role in feminism and equality? I would never suggest that my nephew only play with cars and trucks and my niece only with kitchens and dolls – quite the opposite – toys are toys and they should play with whatever they want to play with. And I don’t think that dressing boys in pink or girls in blue would at all confused their sexuality – but I do think it might confuse other kids.

Am I less progressive than I’ve made myself out to be? Is it ever good just to want to fit in with society?

Unlike Spiderman, I don't get a cool costume to ponder over; Photo by Olaf

“Brace yourself, cos this goes deep

I’ll show you the secrets, the sky and the birds
Actions speak louder than words
Stand by me my apprentice
Be brave, clench fists”

–“Turn the Page” by The Streets

A couple of you already know this, but in about a week and a half, I shall be moving on from community college to a 4-year residential college.   Of course I am giddy as all hell about it, but I am also quite anxious.  Leaving the madness that is my parental home is definitely a fantastic thing, yet there are many unknowns and questions associated with that switch from the proverbial “bird’s nest” to a more independent existence.

One of the first questions that some friends, who know about me being trans, asked, “Are you going to start being full-time once you go over there?”  For those of you that don’t know what that means, “going full-time” is being open and living as your preferred gender identity all/most of the time.  As it stands right now, I have pretty much been living a Peter Parker/Spiderman kind of a life, except for the fact that being transgender is not a cool superpower that came from a mutant spider as far as I know).

As some of you out there probably know, it is extremely tiring leading a double life, but there is an element of security within it.  When closeted, I don’t have to panic about bathrooms, people don’t ask invasive questions, and am generally less worried about being harassed/attacked for being trans or for how well I may “pass”.  But that is just covering up who I am, and I really hate it.  Granted, the new college that I am going to is well-known for being very liberal and queer-friendly, but there is no 100% guarantee that everyone there is cool with that sort of thing.  Currently I am having an issue finding housing on campus.  Not that the housing people have been nasty to me (actually, I have found nothing but support and understanding), it is just that…Well…It was a lot easier to be placed in a dorm when it was thought that I was a cisgender female rather than a trans guy.

There is also the issue of how to approach being out and about.  I am not exactly keen on being known as “the trans kid” on campus, nor am I really that interested in having to introduce myself to every damn person with, “Hi, I’m Levi!  I’m a trans guy, so please use male pronouns”…It is almost like I should have a badge or a t-shirt made up for that (if I did, I might also add onto it “Is single and has Netflix”).

Anyone else deal with the issue of being out and/or transitioning at school?  Feel free to email me at levi@thenewgay.net.  Also, since I will be moving into the area, Baltimore TNG readers are welcome to hit me up.

I want you to do something for me.

Take a good look at whatever (non-fake) ID you use regularly.  Presumably, despite the awkward look on your face,and the old hair cut, the picture looks like you even if you have to squint a little. Odds are all the text also more or less represents who you are – except that part where you lied about your weight.

Really study your ID. Get to know it.

Imagine every time you have handed it to someone to prove who you were. Every speeding ticket. That time you bought some whiskey to bring to a friends. When you had to fill out an I-9 form to get a job. Any time you left the country.

Now imagine that that that ID looks nothing like you and that the name is wrong. Imagine that there is nothing at all to suggest that the person on that piece of plastic and you are the same person. Go back and replay every scenario but this time use an ID that doesn’t match. How differently could that otherwise benign interaction have gone?

Most people wont ever have to deal with anything other than a bad picture. But that tiny letter beside your name can make all the difference in the world.

This is a daily reality for a lot of trans folk. I am privileged enough to have most of mine sync up – though it cost almost $600 to get to that point. Even then, years after I changed my name, I am still trying to get everything straightened out.

Fun Fact: It is free for a woman to take her husband’s last name.

This time of year people are generally traveling all over the place. On one of my most recent flights I almost couldn’t make it through the security theater check point because the TSA officer didn’t think my ID matched.

“ID please”

“Here you go.”

“Sir, I need to see your real ID.” Despite the fact that I had done my hair and was wearing fairly feminine clothes complete with coordinating jewelry, she decided that I was a man. And wanted to prove it.

“That is my real ID. I can show you every other piece that I have if you need further proof.”

The officer examined my driver’s license in great detail. She was about to call over her supervisor.

I. Was. Terrified. Even before the the TSA implemented the new molestation “enhanced security” techniques I had had nightmares about being singled out and made to explain my identity to malicious officer.

Ultimately she let me through with out any more hassle. But there are so many ways that could have gone differently.

Believe it or not, there are places in the US that will not allow a person to change the gender marker on any of their state identification documents under any circumstances. Back in my home state, the two Republican candidates running for Secretary of State made denying trans people an appropriate ID a central issue in their campaigns. One of them won.

Take a good look at your ID. If everything fits then that picture isn’t just of you. It is also a picture of cis-gender privilege.

I work in a bookstore at a big, busy international airport and encounter many bizarre people, bizarrely normal people.  The past two days, two irksome incidents occurred and they are more similar than may appear at the surface.

The other day, a straight, white, middle-aged, upper-middle-class man came in to the bookstore.  He browsed around, then bought something by John Grisham or Vince Flynn or someone else along those lines.  While I was ringing up the book, he rambled about the author; I was politely maintaining my end of the conversation. (“ok…yeah…uh-huh”)

He told me with an awed grin, “You’re very agreeable.  That’s rare in a woman.”  I’m sorry, what?  I clamped my mouth shut as he left, not wanting to spew out what was on my mind.  Like, maybe he’s the disagreeable one!

Yesterday, a couple of the same mold as that guy fought in the bookstore.  They made up by talking about their money.  Then they checked out the magazines stacked next to me.  Cher is on the cover of Vanity Fair, the text beside her saying “Cher on her daughter-turned-son, Chaz.”  The couple talked about how Chastity was turning into a man, had a sex change, etc.  Not the most p.c., but not that bad.  Then, they began referring to Chaz as “it.”  As politely as I could muster, I interrupted, “Excuse me, he is not an it.” The husband acted like I wasn’t there and the wife said, “Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry” until I stopped talking.  I look very androgynous myself, so they walked away muttering about me.

Had just one of these encounters occurred, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.  But the two in a 24-hour period are symptomatic.  These three people of the same age and class, probably unknown to themselves, work as gender police.  They probably had no idea that the messages they were conveying were that women should be agreeable and that transpeople are “its”.  They probably have never thought about it.  Under different circumstances – the couple shut down immediately, especially – a simple discussion could have planted a seed.

Gender (much like sex) can quickly become very sticky, messy, and satisfying when it is done in a way that feels right. At the same time, when it is done wrong, it is all you can do to keep yourself from counting ceiling tiles until it is finally over. Even though we should all know that sex and gender are separate categories, that does not mean that they aren’t intermingling like the pile of laundry on my floor.

One of my best friends recently had the realization that in her relationships with butch/androgynous/trans spectrum partners that there has periodically been an expectation that her own gender identity would compliment her partners. Despite what others may say based solely on her presentation, she is by no means a femme. As she looked deeper, she found hers was not an uncommon experience.

So this got me thinking: what has this dynamic been liker for my partner and I?

In a lot of ways our case is an exception. For starters, not many relationships can survive a transitioning partner. Additionally, my partner did not identify as a lesbian or even as bi-sexual before I started transitioning.

One of the first things that happened after I started being more true to myself is that she became considerably more feminine with me. It was never really stated in so many words but it was like she was competing with me to prove that she was still “the women” in our relationship. She was afraid of how people would see her when they saw us.

As we both became more comfortable with our genders, it quickly became apparent that that was one fight she was never going to win. While I brought my A-game honed through years of secretive study, what really ended the contest was the realization that she was playing the wrong game. When she had the space to choose her own gender rather than accept what had been handed down to her, she adopted a more androgynous/butch sense of style.

As we struggled to free ourselves from conventions of who should be doing what according to some nonsensical standard and started doing the things that fit out personalities we both became happier. I could be the cook and the one who kills spiders. The fact is that these contradictions, if they can even be called that, exist in all of us regardless of identify. It is just a question of whether or not we are willing to “run out of give-a-fuck” as a member of my chosen family would so eloquently put it. That is, just quite caring about ‘acting appropriately’ and start embracing all of those tangled and knotty bits.

For my own part, I never felt that she was an accessory to my gender identity. Maybe that was due to my own political commitments. Or, more likely, because I have enough trouble putting together an outfit without coordinating a whole other person into it. Besides, for as attractive as I find her she makes a poor substitute for shiny things that are much more easily attached to my body.

The really interesting stuff came when we started dating our (very butch) girlfriend. Whenever either of us were around our girlfriend, it seems like other people are more likely to read her as a woman. As if being in the presence of two people more easily identified as women were able to confer a degree of lesbian authenticity. “Oh that one is obviously a lesbian so that must be her girlfriend.” Or, if it is just the gf and I it is more to the tune of “… I am so confused about what is going on here.”

At a broader level, I would be willing to say that most people struggle with similar issues at some point in our lives – especially LGBTQIA people. With all of the cultural messages about what it really means to be a certain gender burrowing their way into us like a brain slug, it seems all but impossible to not feel some kind of guilt for feeling like there is some mutual agreement that has been broken. At the end of the day, no one is ever completely able to escape the cultural gendered expectations. All any of us can do is see them for what they are, accept the parts that we like and reject the parts that we dont and just try to not give a fuck.

In a totalizing system, there is no outside space of resistance, only the small moments that we are always fighting for within it. And it is so worth every second.

What about you? How have you navigated the minefield of interpersonal gender?

Gay men, raise your hands if you like when straight people throw around the word “fag.” What about right in front of you? Ok, then what if they throw around the word fag and then wonder why you are offended by it?

For more years than I care to remember I lived next door to a guy who insisted that “fag” was a colloquialism on par with “soda” or “hecka.” So when he was reading a snowboarding magazine in front of me, and threw out a comment about those “skiiing faggots” who messed up his runs, he could never quite understand why I was annoyed (the first time) or outright livid and about to throw him out of my dorm (the millionth time.)

Point being, if a word is historically offensive to a very large group of people, and if they have more-or-less collectively decided it’s not OK to use, it no longer matters what the outside, non-offended party thinks about it. Just saying the word in mixed company becomes an insult on par with what the word initially meant. For instance, no matter what you feel about “The N Word” you probably won’t use it casually. If you do you are making a point whether you want to or not.

That’s my feelings on fag and faggot. I use them, but so help me god if a straight person tries to use that casually around me. It’s not Ok. And I suspect a lot of other gay men feel this way. Why, then, has the word “tranny” remained so prevalent in the lexicon? When I try to call gay men on this they usually say that its a funny word, or that it’s used all the time, or that they don’t mean it as an insult.

I have found “Tranny” to be increasingly ubiquitious in popular culture. And it is never used gently. Tranny has become a go-to word for anyone who is a freak, a mess or generally needs to be put in their place. It hurts all of us when any faction of the queer community becomes a shorthand for an insult, and I imagine this is doubly irritating for the trans community. To be a punchline in pop culture, while much of your so-called “community” laughs along, has got to be awful.

I guess my plea here is for people to consider that word among the upper eschelons of words that are simply not thrown around casually for their painful and pejorative connotations. I shouldn’t have to say it, but I hope that one more voice in the conversation could make a small difference.

I always wonder this about “gay news” as a whole. Do we cover anything that a queer person does, ever? Like if a queer person gets a citation for jaywalking in Poughkeepsie is it front page news? Or do we only cover the big things — legislation, hate crimes, new TV shows — and potentially enforce a bias by only showing the positives or items that cast us in non-sinister lights?

More specifically, when I first came out to my dad he tried to be supportive in every way possible. By-and-large, he succeeded. But in his excitement to show me that he cared, and that he knows gay men were out in the world doing things, he would often send me newspaper clippings that I didn’t need to see. I remember that I got two Chicago Tribune articles in the mail that didn’t mean much to me. One was about —I think — the city giving some kind of honors or retirement ceremony to a firefighter who happened to be gay. The other was about growing old with HIV.

I remember I was so happy to have a father that would discuss gay issues with me and was excited to see things tangentially related to my life in the mainstream press. But I also had to have a talk with him eventually about me knowing my own queer world, and not needing the flotsam from Chicago’s washing up on proverbial doorstep.

When I worked at The Washington Blade I remember seeing headlines akin to “500 die in plane crash. Three are gay.” It makes sense, because a gay news source should find the gay angle in their own coverage, but that just works against itself in instances where the human angle so overwhelms any instance of sexuality as to make the latter look trivial.

Which brings me back to the trans murder article: This story is more of a human story than a queer one. Queer people are susceptible to the same lapses in judgment and character, the same angers and transgressions, as everyone else. If this woman killed her boyfriend as a response to his homophobic beating, or if it became a trans-focused media swarm, then it would absolutely be our responsibility to cover it. But that’s not the case here. As my dad learned, every article with the word “trans’ in it isn’t necessarily trans news. There is a lot happening out there in the world and I can’t help but think there are ten trans people out there — whether artists, musicians, lawmakers, parents or anything else  — that are more deserving of our coverage.

On one hand, it’s great to see trans news that doesn’t focus on hate crimes. No one should get murdered, and no queer person should seek to help the cause by taking another person’s life, but it’s a break from the usual. And as I mentioned above, to only focus on the positive forms an incomplete and false picture of contemporary queer life.

I guess the question here is if there is still such a thing as “all-encompassing gay queer news.” A straight newspaper (as most are by default) would feature equally a local designer and a local murderer. A social or cultural publication would not. Can you imagine if Entertainment Weekly covered every assault or vandalism that happened across the country? They’d have no time left for anything else. Queerty falls in the first camp, as all-encompassing, but their lifestyle and entertainment coverage tends to overwhelm everything else and I think this one just doesn’t fit.

If this is the only thing happening in Trans America that would be one thing. But I don’t think it is, and if someone just slipped this one in to fill a quota I would find that suspect.

Throughout the years I’ve written much about my life as a gay male. Among the comments on my pieces quite often a trans person would chime in with, “What about me?” My initial impulse was to be dismissive. I’m a gay male and I’m writing about my experience as a gay male. I had always subconsciously relegated trans people to a separate group from myself with separate issues and experiences. My mind was closed to those “pesky trans commenters” who were angry that I wouldn’t open my umbrella further and include them in a discussion that I felt didn’t concern them. In my hasty indifference I did not take the time to pause and consider that voice asking, “What about me?”

My first experience meeting someone that was FTM  was an uncomfortable display of my simple upbringing. When I moved to Tampa I met some people who had a roommate named Moira – a biological male living her life 100 percent as a woman. Once Moira was exposed as being biologically a male she was ostracized from her circle of friends, her job, and Tampa altogether. My heart went out to Moira and I wrote a song about the situation called “Unlearned.” I reached out to her to let her know I loved her and didn’t agree with the treatment she was getting.

Years later while introducing “Unlearned” in concert I recounted the story of Moira and remembered how “her roommates were shocked when they found out it was a man they were living with.” In the course of telling Moira’s story I mindlessly referred to her as “it.” There was an FTM named Shawn in the audience who was furious. After the show I was confronted by Shawn and given a hard firm lesson about pronouns. Shawn was absolutely correct. Moira certainly wasn’t an “it.” She was indeed a “she.” I never considered this. I didn’t know better. Speaking with Shawn was an opportunity to reconsider the way I spoke and thought of transgendered people. I left the incident feeling educated but extremely self-conscious.

A strange argument arose from a piece I wrote a few months back. I always found it annoying being called “girl” by other gay men. While obviously in our subculture this is viewed as a harmless term of endearment I argued that because I have a penis I would like to be thought of as a man. Although I am sometimes flamboyant and sensitive in my head, I feel like a man and my body is that of a male. There was an overwhelming nearly unanimous resistance to my opinion. I was accused of denying my feminine side and of being a self-hating gay despite that fact that I stated I do indeed have feminine characteristics that I’m comfortable with. At the end of the day my point was that I see myself as a man and wish for others to refer to me that way as well.

A week after my article ran I bumped into my friend Tim. Two weeks earlier Tim was Tammy. Although Tim still had a vagina he requested that everyone use male pronouns while addressing him. I was happy to oblige without second thought. But this raised an interesting observation. In our subculture, regardless of a trans person’s body parts, we verbally address them by the gender that they request us to use. Why then were people so blown away by a gay male with a penis asking to be referred to as a man? But let’s not lose sight of the original topic of this piece.

Throughout the years I’ve witnessed a variety of opinions regarding trans people. A handful of lesbians I met in Chicago were worried that female to male transitions were becoming too trendy. My backwoods friends from western New York were unflinchingly opposed. For years when asked how I felt about trans people my answer was the standard “I just don’t understand why someone would want to do that.  The body is just a shell. Why can’t a person be whoever they want with a disregard to their shell?”

I have a different answer now.

Since I am not in anyone’s mind or body besides my own I can never truly know how they feel and what their experience with life is. Because of this I am unable to form an opinion about someone transitioning from one sex to the other. My passing judgement on a trans person is as logical as the straight religious bastards who hate gay people without ever having been in our minds or lives. I don’t want to be a bastard.

People like Adam Lambert and Neil Patrick Harris are examples of well-known out men giving a public face to “gay.”  Lesbians are represented by women like Ellen DeGeneres and Melissa Etheridge. And buried somewhere deep in an article I wrote long ago is a trans person I’ve never met wondering ,“What about me?” I didn’t listen then, but I’m listening now. What about him? We have a lot to learn about each other. We have a lot to learn from each other.

As the years passed I’ve had the opportunity to befriend some wonderfully intelligent, creative, and vibrant people who happened to be trans. The perceptions I learned while growing up have fallen to the wayside as I’ve been able to humanize trans people. The trans friends I made have a sense of humor about themselves. It was educational and valuable to make trans friends I could make jokes with and ask difficult questions. I am not transgendered. The only way I can understand and learn about being transgendered is to ask questions.

In our quest for equality amongst the straight community, I propose for a greater unity within ourselves. This oneness can never be achieved if we don’t take the time to understand and acknowledge each other. I ask that the transgendered community be patient with us. Educate us. Talk to us. Explain yourselves to us. Don’t get too mad when we say the wrong thing. I can’t speak for the rest of the gay male population but I want you to know at least I am listening.

Let’s open up a few cans of worms for sake of opening up discussions. It is time for trans to stop being a forbidden topic in the cisgender world.

Photo cred: http://christinafoxx.com/blog/?page_id=741

“Be bold, be proud, be yourself, and be fit.”

That is fitness guru Chris Tina Foxx Bruce’s motto; and she lives by it every day. Over the last year, Chris Gary Bruce transitioned into Chris Tina Foxx Bruce. While it hasn’t always been easy, being a trans woman is now a proud part of her identity.

As a boy, Bruce always sensed there was something missing. He cross-dressed for years, his salesman job allowing him to wear women’s clothes while on the road. Just like many trans people, Bruce condemned himself for cross-dressing, throwing out all of his women’s clothing and vowing to never do it again.

But Bruce is through with hiding her true identity. She now lives openly as a woman. “My purpose is to let the world know who I am, and being transgender is nothing to be hid,” she told Arnold Jones of the Dallas Voice (this article’s primary source.) “Be Bold. Be Proud. Be Yourself”—Bruce completely embodies this motto, and it is the backbone of her campaign for trans equality.

However, the path to becoming bold and proud to be herself has proven to be a challenging for Bruce. Her cross-dressing led in part to a messy divorce in 2007, although her ex-wife did not find out Bruce was trans until earlier this year.

“She hates it,” Bruce said in her interview with Jones. Bruce also has two children—a son, 12, and a daughter, 8—and she was worried about how they would react. But so far, the two kids have adjusted well.

After separating from her wife about four years ago, Bruce’s open transition began. In 2005, she went out dressed as a woman for the first time in Houston. She first stepped out in women’s clothing in Dallas in January 2009. This first opportunity to be openly trans in her hometown was liberating for Bruce.

Contrary to popular belief, being trans typically has nothing to do with sexuality or sexual orientation. Bruce herself has never been attracted to men. However, she said to the Dallas Voice,“That’s the first assumption many people make.” She has, however, been warmly welcomed into the LGBT community.

Bruce has her first surgery—face work and breast implants—on Dec. 26. She began telling her family about her transition last Christmas. She noted that both her mother and sister have been extremely supportive. “I said, I’m not asking for your permission or your acceptance—this is just how it is,” Bruce told Jones. While friends and most of her family have been encouraging, her father has not spoken to her since she came out as a trans woman, and she quit her corporate job in March once she transition.

But Bruce isn’t complaining. She has worked part-time as a personal trainer for years, and happily continues to do so. She is unconcerned about losing many clients since transitioning. Bruce is extremely enthusiastic about her fitness career, and even more driven in reaching her goal of equal rights for the entire LGBT community. “People have said to me, ‘You’re not a real…’ Real what?” Bruce asked in her Dallas Voice interview. She noted that she finds it strange that she can legally marry a woman, but gay men and women cannot marry their partners.  There is still much to be done, and the road to equality is paved with obstacles—but if anyone is up to the challenge, it’s Chris Tina Foxx Bruce.

To learn more about Bruce, visit her homepage!