John and Justin

One of my favorite images of the year.

John Waters is one of my heroes ... Justin Bieber is not.  In fact, I barely know who he is.  But if you want a dose of Waters' keen sense of the absurd, and a description of Bieber's pencil-thin tribute, here's the scoop.

Demons Like Us

Last weekend, at Glenn Beck's idiot delight -- otherwise known as his Tea Party Rally -- this curious creature appeared.  Yes, true Americans patriots everywhere, it's a pregnant, crossdressing demon.  Be afraid ... be very afraid.

I'm tempted to let these wonderful images stand mute, as the demon herself did for much of the rally, but cannot resist a little cultural analysis: this may just be the perfect image to confront 300,000 angry, flag-bedraped "patriots" vowing to "take our country back" or "restore honor" or whatever the euphemism for the far right Republican agenda is these days.  Think of it: every issue used by cynical, Yale-trained politicians to whip up fear in the Tea-baggers' tiny brains, wrapped up in one tidy package.

1. The supernatural -- for most Tea-baggers, evangelicals that they are, there's a demon behind every bush, waiting to ensnare unwary Christians and drag them into the pits of hell, or perhaps even the Democratic Party.
2. The Sanctity of (unborn) life -- it's a pregnant crossdressing demon.  Maybe that's why it wants a sandwich ... to feed it's unborn demon-ette?  On the plus side, as demonic as it is, it hasn't elected to end it's pregnancy ... yet.
3. Evil Immigrants -- Well, now we know why it hasn't aborted the thing yet ... it's in the anchor baby business!
4. Gender Panic -- What's more subversive and threatening than a demon who wants to have an anchor baby?  A boy demon who wants to look like a girl demon!  Personally, I wonder where she got those darling boots ...

Apparently, the rally was much more religious than political ... and the pregnant cross-dressing demon got more than her fair share of angry, hateful diatribes from these so-called Christians.  I wonder which of the five points above prompted the most ire?

Who knows?  There is so much anger in the Tea-baggers, so much hate, and there are plenty of scapegoats to go around.   Gays, immigrants, Muslims (there's a minority they didn't pack into the image), unwed mothers, and of course, we transgendered folk. And as usual, the hate is being cynically fueled by their "handlers" -- in this case, the Republican Party, overseen by the very corporate interests who are reducing Tea-bagger incomes and taking away Tea-bagger retirement plans.  Misdirection is a wonderful thing.

Ah, the Church!

This via Boston's The Edge: a hurting transsexual woman wrote to a well-known Catholic blog, plaintively seeking her advice vis a vis her place in the church. Here is part of her letter:

Is there room in the Church for such as me?  I certainly can’t be active as a man — no one would possibly take me seriously and my very existence in men’s spaces or roles would beg the question of just what I am and how I got to be this way.  I don’t want to be a lightening rod, I don’t want to tear the Church apart, I don’t want to teach kids that this is “perfectly normal” or something they’d want to do, I just want to go home again.  Is the Church’s heart big enough to embrace me as a woman, or do I, and by extension my family, simply no longer exist?

The answer, published in two parts here and here, is a model of Church doublespeak.  It's author, one Mary Kochan, goes out of her way to "discern" whether any medical condition is active here, presumably so that she will be acceptable.  Here's part of what she says in Part I:

There are conditions — deformities of genitalia, genetic anomalies, intrauterine interference with normal development, etc. — that can make what is usually a straightforward identification of someone as male or female problematic. While these are blessedly rare, they are real medical conditions and the persons afflicted with them deserve and should have access to medical care that performs two critical functions: 1. Determining to the best of scientific accuracy what the sex of the person really is 2. Providing the person with the medical and/or surgical and/or psychological intervention to promote physically, emotionally, and socially healthy adaptation to that sex.

 All this left me wondering what Ms. Kochan's medical credentials are, and whether she has she done research to determine that these "deformities" indeed are "blessedly rare."  Apparently, she has read none of the mounting evidence that transgenderism may result from just such a developmental anomaly.

Be that as it may, she determines that the letter-writer does not have any of these characteristics, from evidence she does not share with her readers, and proceeds in part two to tell the hurting woman the following:

The Church does not accept that you have “become a woman” regardless of your ability to pass as one, either by demeanor, dress, physique, or external anatomy.  If you ever were really a man, then you still are, regardless of what you have done to yourself.  It is not my “absolute views on your status as a male” — it is the Church that says it.

Oh, she prefaces all of this with "we've all sinned" and "nobody has the right to judge," yadda, yadda, yadda, but then proceeds to do exactly that:

But objectively speaking, what you proposed and carried out as a remedy to your distress was the breaking of God’s law that says that you may not mutilate your body.

Ah!  Now I understand the nationwide trend sweeping the Roman Catholic Church, throwing women out who have pierced their ears.  I hope Ms. Kochan is not in danger ... has she mutilated her body by getting little holes punched in her lobes?  After all, if God had wanted us to have little dangly things hanging from our ears, he would have done it himself.

But the biggest bit of hypocrisy is buried in that same paragraph:

If there was indeed some kind of interference with your development in the womb, that was caused by human agency, not by God.

Oh really?  Does Ms. Kochan feel that the mounting evidence that the fetus -- which starts out as female -- is insufficiently hormonally bathed in TG folks is caused by "human agency?"  And where is her evidence for that?  Further, what is the difference between something like this and one of the author's "acceptable" anomalies like "deformities of genitalia, genetic anomalies, intrauterine interference with normal development?"

In the comments section of the post, the author of the letter revealed that she had written Ms. Kochan in confidence, and that she was not asked whether Ms. Kochan could publish her letter.  After she did -- twice! -- she hid behind a policy stating that any correspondence was fodder for publication (way to show compassion and discretion, Mary), then courageously closed comments on the post.

Actually, the author of the letter should have written me.  It wouldn't have taken me two lengthy, redundant posts to answer her questions:

Is the Church’s heart big enough to embrace me as a woman, or do I, and by extension my family, simply no longer exist?

My answer would have been only three words: "No and Yes."

Such a Sad Simplicity

Helen Boyd, at her blog en|Gender, has a pointer to an in-depth article in the LA Weekly on the tragedy of Christine Daniels, the L.A. Times sportswriter who first transitioned (from Mike Penner), then de-transitioned back to Mike, before committing suicide last year.  It is a well-written, sympathetic article that takes a hard look at transsexuality and the politics that often surrounds it.

What struck me about the article is the enormous complexity of gender-identity issues, and the concomitant need for everyone to simplify it for their own ends.  For Christine, she'd come out on the job, transition to her inner gender, and live happily ever after.  For much of the general public, Christine was a man in a dress, period.  And her desire to transition just that:  a desire, a choice she could or could not make, like what color shirt to put on in the morning, or what time to go to bed.  As the doctor said, "If it hurts to do that, then don't do that!"

On the other hand, many in the TG world had one-dimensional aspirations as well.  Such a prominent spokesperson, in the process of a public transition, was a boon to the transsexual rights agenda, and they used her that way to the fullest.  When she didn't refused to conform to that agenda, which requires a sober, serious and, most of all, non-transvestitic image,writing about how much she liked make-up and dressing, they began to cut her loose.  Well-known TS spokesperson Susan Stanton told Weekly author Steve Friess  "She was writing a blog about how great it is to dress and color her hair and wear makeup and it was kind of very tranny ... I was really nervous about this."  Finally, many of the same activists that celebrated her coming-out abandoned her when she chose to revert to her male persona, in an ultimately vain hope to reunite with her ex-wife, Lisa

In this day and age of self-actualized, be-true-to-yourself individualism, Mike Penner loved her wife.  Was it more than she loved the "woman within," her inner persona that for years had struggled to be free?  I have no idea, but to her it must have seemed that way

Friends, this thing we call transgender is tremendously complex.  Although it seems to be just about us, how we view ourselves, and how that is expressed, in reality it's like a monsterinvolves everyone with whom we come into contact.  Not all transsexuals will or should conform to the TS mafia's straitjacketed notion of how our community needs to behave to get respect.  Life is messy, we aren't just one way or another, our corners don't always square neatly up.  Again, I don't know for sure, but it seems that some of that messiness, and our community's reluctance to deal with it, helped kill Christine Daniels.

It's part of the human condition to want to be sure.  To want to know, with no ambiguity, what something is and what it is not.  But we of all people should understand the fallacy in that.  Isn't society's notion that we should be either boy or girl, one gender or another, at the root of our misery?  Perhaps as transgender folk we would be better served if we started practicing what we preach, started acknowledging that it's a spectrum, and treating one another that way.

Upping the ante

Last Thursday, I ordered a pair of breast forms (size 10, if you must know!) from The Breast Form Store.  After weeks of dawdling, I finally did it.  I also ordered, a BodyWorks padded panty/shaper from them. I shall report in this space soon.  I know you shall remain breathless until I do.

I dithered and dithered and, I wonder why?  Well, obviously the shame and and etc., are partially to blame ... even though I'd read that these stores that cater to the transgendered are very accommodating and matter of fact, the times I'd talked to another human being (outside of my wife) about my TG nature I could count on one hand.

Of course, it's also a big step ... buying real, live breast forms seems like a major escalation over the last time . . . I view it as a token of my commitment.  I am not going to regress, I am not going to go back into my closet this time. I am determined to integrate this side of me, this female person that is inside, into my every life in some way or another.  As God is my witness, I will never be bra-less again!

Ok ... I've got that out of my system.  Now to buy some bras!

Welcome to Lily-Land

Entirely gratuitous pic of Caroline Cossey

Welcome to my blog.  I hope I can keep it up: discipline is not my greatest asset.  I used to run a movie review blog (under "another name," natch) and I kept at it for a couple of years, then it got to be an obligation, you know?  It got to be I felt I had to write so many posts per week, and with my normal job -- no, I will not tell you what it is -- I have enough obligations, already.

I've promised myself I'm not going to do that this time around, and to celebrate that resolve, I've started two new blogs!  See how that works?  But there's method to my madness, because I am on a Journey.  Yes.  But before you throw up your hands and run away as fast as your peep-toe pumps can carry you, let me explain.

First of all, as you have probably guessed, I am what they call "transgendered."  Chances are, if you're reading this, you are too.  So I'm not going to go through all those long-winded definitional things, except to say that it's a catch-all term which refers to someone whose inner gender doesn't completely match, to one degree or another, what their biology might otherwise ordain.  In other words, I am a t-girl.

... and another of Shinnosuke Peter Ikehata

Personally, I like the term transgender, and not just because it sounds better than "transvestite" or "transsexual," either.  To somebody like me, who's trying to come to terms with the whole thing, it is appealingly non-specific.  It fit any kind of person who has a bit of the gender outlaw about them. And no, I don't mind if people call me a tranny.  As they say down here in the Deep South, just don't call me late for supper.

Anyway, back to the "journey."  After years of toxic suppression, I've come to the conclusion that life's too short, that I need to more fully express my TG-ness . . . or is that transgenderosity? Anyway, I've started the long, uh, journey to that end, and this time, I am determined to do it right.  I'm determined to  choose the right clothes for a woman of my age, not to mention shape, and to acquire all the proper tools and techniques--breast forms, makeup, wigs, etc.--to pull it off.

And so, this blog will be about that process, the process of "coming out," however far that turns out to be.  At least in part -- I hope it will also be fun, serving up some dish, and squealing over cute t-girls, hot guys, and everything in between. After all, I am a tranny.

And the second blog?  It corresponds to the more serious side of my quest, and that's to integrate my feminine "side" (a cliche I hate) more fully into my everyday psyche, no matter how I am presenting at any given moment.   Lately, I have been studying the psychology of Carl Jung, and can see it has a lot to offer folks like us.  And so, that second blog -- The Four Sided Mountain -- deals with that stuff, the serious, spiritual work of becoming whole.

So, if you like that sort of thing, I invite you to go there . . . me, I like both "sides," the heavy-duty, brain-draining peregrinations, as well as the adolescent, what-brand-of-pantyhose-are-best-for-a-late-night-at-Denny's material.  Perhaps you do, too.