I’m sitting at the glass table on our sun porch surrounded by women who I’ve known for some years now. To my right is D1. a former municipal judge, who introduced me to the book circle. She has only ever seen me once as a man…and while she understands that makes me uncomfortable she still wishes she could know that side of me as well. Across the table is L., a woman we knew for years from folkdancing. I came out to her just before I joined the circle…but we’ll get to that. She’s a retired social/psychologist in the public schools as well as an old lefty and voting rights activist. Next to her is N, who is the guest of honor. She’s a well known poet and at our invitation her work is being read tonight. It’s been a dream of mine since I first joined circle to have her present her prose-poems to circle and I’ve read some of her work out loud, when we’ve had sharing circles. She’s also a childhood friend of my spouse’s. My spouse is chatting with other women from circle elsewhere in our house. And while N has known about my second life/alter-ego for a while, this is actually the first time she’s met me, here in the company of these dear friends of mine. To my left is D2, a dumped political wife, for whom the book circle was founded as a support group in the first place. A woman with a remarkable story, and she’s still weaving it. She’s also very wise, as you’ll see a little later. In the adjacent room, E., at 85 an artist who still paints, exhibits and wins awards. I help her with her computer and she drags me along on all kinds of adventures. And with some surprise I note the arrival of S., a woman who was not favorably disposed towards my arrival in circle. Endurance is one way to acceptance I guess. She’s a forceful literary critic, and I’m glad to learn later that N and her poems impressed her. I also learn later from N that in all the time she’s read her poetry to groups, she’s never encountered the intensity and thoughtfulness of our circle.
Our topic at the moment is remarkably, and unusually, me. D1 is reviewing how she met me, years ago. I was a member of the discussion panel for a collection of films on transgender at the Cleveland International Film Festival. Having talked about the problems that people who have trans as part of their lives have I was the target of a question of hers from the audience. What, she asked, can we do to make things better. I remembered something from my college days, and event called “Dinner for 12 Strangers”, and replied that inviting people for dinner would be a good start. We chatted in the lobby afterwards, and I think I even met S., who had been there only to see the Eastern European films. It was years later that I attended a public meeting of two book circles, the one I’m in now, and a lesbian circle which included unbeknownst to me a handful of women I knew from Temple. The meeting was really a presentation by E about ancient Goddess centered (matriarchal) religions and their displacement by patriarchal religions. The topic interested me because of the frequency with which trans women of all stripes appropriate versions of these stories into their own lives. I wanted to hear a natal woman talk about it from her experience. And I ran into D1 again, and this time she invited me to join the circle.
I also ran into L. This was not the first time I had passed her unseen, and I was tired of it. It took her a few moments to grasp what was going on. Her first concern, understandably enough was that I’d had a full transition. It turned out later that there’s a well known post-operative transwoman in the circle. Her second concern was for my spouse, and while I reassured her that we were still together, that this wasn’t a secret from her and that I wasn’t sleeping with men on the side…I don’t think it really took until she ran into us later and she got to talk to my spouse herself.
The reason I felt called to circle came from what happened during the presentation. There were two men there. A., refugee from the Middle East, gave an authoritative declamation about something to do with scripture, both Islamic and Judaic. W., made a provocative declaration that religion itself was the problem, and it must be swept away.
It was interesting to feel these stones cast in the water of these women…the sense of it being easier and habitual to flatter and defer to these two men than engage them. But after simmering a while, D2 spoke up and said “The real problem is this business of sweeping things away, we really need to work on just letting things be”. And that’s when I knew I wanted to be in this circle with these women, to read the same books, to hear their thoughts and feel their lives. And as usual with this story, it was noted how while men aren’t exactly forbidden in the group, they don’t stay…because they just don’t relate, and they just don’t get it.
After hearing this story explained in a dialogue between myself and D1, L remarked, that this was the most I’d ever said about myself, and that she wished that there was more of it. D2, commented that I had read my poetry, which was pretty revealing. I have a post-modern view of these things, and I explained that explaining things didn’t seem to me to be very productive…that the stories we tell are shaped to what we want to accomplish with an audience and the “truth” whatever that is gets distorted. That I didn’t want to tell people how they should experience me, but felt that they should make up their own minds from knowing me. But as to why I, as someone born male, was sitting comfortably appearing reasonably female with friends in my house, who know I was born male, but seem to accept that there is something important about me that works as “woman”, all I could say is that there are large parts of me that don’t fit in “man”, and it nourishes me to express those things in the way that seems to fit best, as the person they have known for years now as Diane.
This is not the first event I’ve had at my house. Some years ago I had bit parts in a local production of “Victor/Victoria”. I auditioned as a woman, had women’s parts, but didn’t use either of the dressing rooms. I showed up to rehearsals, performances and went out after shows without reference to my working life as a man. And at the end, the cast party was in my house. More recently we’ve had Hanukah parties and rehearsals for Purim Spiels with people from my Temple, which has been another of my mainstream routes to self expression. For awhile our group was strictly an LBGT synagogue, but changing times both forced and allowed us to merge with a reform congregation. Through temple I’ve been to weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs, the cycle of life. I’ve carried the female Rabbi’s daughter through a sudden rain, and commiserated with her about spraining an ankle at her dance recital. I’ve been hugged and kissed in front of hundreds by the Rabbis of the merged groups. I was invited to join the temple sisterhood (which I can’t do because it meets during working hours) and a women’s torah study group. I had wanted to accept, but I first asked my Rabbi at the time whether she thought the women there would accept me. A year later, after many instances of showing up for discussion groups at her house, she finally told me that the answer was yes. By that time, my schedule had changed, and I was no longer able to attend.
During all this time I’ve run the website and/or handled outreach for Alpha Omega. One of the hardest parts of the job happened after the woman who handled our spouse support moved out of state, and I had to do something with the email coming in. What I hear, that other trans people rarely do it seems to me, are the horror stories. It’s that he really is sneaking around having sex with men. That he’s transition tracked after saying he wasn’t, or that he only wants to have sex while dressed and won’t do anything to meet her needs and desires. Or worse, that he’s physically abusive. And there was the one case where he was dying of cancer and never made it to 30. I know these stories are only the tip of the iceberg, and yet I also know of so many marriages that like mine work out. You have to expect these sorts of stories on a help-line…and not the stories of TheWife.
When I do outreach, I work to be inclusive, not to deny the people whose similarity to me ends at the word “skirt”. I point out that the person whose trans behavior is limited to a fetish didn’t ask for his/her condition any more than I did…and it is possible for that person to be an honest, contributing, worthy human being none-the-less. I learned over the years a response to Amy Bloom’s take on things, her reaction to the “gleam in the eye”. I tell people that yes, for some people cross dressing can be about sexuality…just as being straight is about sexuality…but not right now, not all the time.
But I also know this, being out in public…that I understand where the people who scream “I’m not like them” are coming from. L’s worries, the change in attitude of women in the circle when my spouse showed up, and showed it wasn’t a matter of me sneaking around, or her being a bullied, abused doormat…that who I was, was something she had some respect for, all reflect the common knowledge, however incorrect, that there’s a lot of bad vibes associated with trans people. It’s a barrier I have to break, time and time and time again. It’s not hard, 5 minutes of normal conversation about the topic at hand (and not about me!) generally sets things right. But it’s tiring, year after year. So I can see why people want to break away, and why to make themselves normal, to have the house with the white picket fence, they’ll throw the others off the sled to the wolves. I can’t do that…but still I know that the story I’m telling here is one that I almost never see anything close to, that I and a very few other middle pathers are always going to be stuck with the presumption of guilt.
There was a time, when I first stopped denying myself that I did many of the typical things. The bars, you know. I had this idea that I was a freak, and it would be place to be, with other freaks. And in fact, I think that’s part of what keeps people stuck in the bars…that feeling that their transness makes them so alien from everyone else that they best stick with their own kind. Birds of a feather. But I learned that wasn’t where I fit. And I left that behind long ago.
This business of birds of a feather flocking together haunts me a little. The central claim for so many, no matter what the label, is that woman is a state to which they are entitled. So considering that birds do flock together, you’d think that they would naturally affiliate with women, make friends with them, socialize with them etc. And yet, and yet what I see is there is this marked preference for associating with other transpeople. And I don’t think it’s about just being freaks among freaks. I’m not the only person to observe this, and I think in the long run we’ll need to revisit what is really going on here.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I have lots of friends who happen to be trans….like I have friends who happen to be gay, or Asian or whatever label you want to use. But their transness isn’t a ticket to instant blood-sisterhood. Trans is not an exception to anything, or a get out of jail free pass, or a ticket to a fun, exclusive club. It just is. And men in dresses don’t bother me either. But my heart is elsewhere as you can tell by who I’ve told you about in my life, and who I haven’t.
And I also haven’t told you all those juicy details that seem to be mandatory, the childhood clothing stash, the first time out. Yes, I know these things help n00bs relate to each other and for people to feel like they’re not alone. Truth be told, I think these things are unimportant. Telling them, rehearsing them gets you stuck. What is important is not what you did as a child, but what you’ve done with it as an adult.
Recently, I was challenged by someone on a another forum to tell my story, share my experience with the people who are wrapped up in fantasy notion of what woman is, the object of their own desires, for example, the hot girl at the bar. I thought that was a fruitless endeavor. The more self-aware know what they’re doing, and the less self-aware can’t hear the message. But I thought TheWife might like a look at someone different, especially since she’s been a web-cam ‘girl’. And I thought I at least ought to stick with my viewpoint and talk about my now, and not what I wore as a child.
But this gets me to another point. When we talk about people coming out as trans, there’s always this dead space about exactly what they came out as. That’s why I commented on Stephanie’s self description that I don’t know what “and everything that goes with it” means. And I think it’s important to get past this assumption that everyone knows what it means, if only so when someone tells a support person/group that they came out, that the support person can know better how to respond.
Finally, I should put a word in about my spouse. I can just see the responses “oh, you’re so luck to have a wife who is so supportive”. Um… try this out: We’re lucky to have each other. When I came to the realization 11 years ago that I could be happier if I expressed rather than sublimated (and yes, she knew long before we were married), her attitude was…”well, now I’m not the only weird one in the family”. So for all you people who think I’m lucky…remember ours is a balanced situation. You get what you pay for. What would you pay? Are you ready to go through what your wife has been going through? Are you really sure I’m so lucky? I am lucky, but not in the way you mean it or understand it. My spouse has been a major force in pushing me out of the closet and into the real world if only because she’s out to the world with her weirdness. It’s been a painful push at times. But we’re here, and together, and actually madly in love with each other still, 33 years and two adult children (who also know and are cool) later.
Tags: family, finding out, interview, love, marriage
Thanks for telling your story.