Where do I start? Betty and I spent four fantastic days up in Burlington, VT this past (long) weekend, and the entire trip was a pleasure – from the surprise of having a jacuzzi tub in our hotel room to the wonderful people we got to meet.
On Thursday, we were very excited to meet David Houston’s anthropology class on Kinship & Identity. They had already read the whole of My Husband Betty, and had posted comments on a blog which we both read. Their questions and thoughts were a joy to read. Their comments were an exploration of the riddles of gender, ideas of “normalcy,” and even the struggles and joys of being married. Once we arrived, there was at first a certain tension in the room, which I joked to Betty was really them trying to figure out which one of us was the tranny. But we sat down, David introduced us, and the class quickly became a session of “Ask the Tranny” (after all, they’d already read 300 pp of what I had to say!). Betty is a charming emissary for transness, let me say. Most of the time when we do these workshops, I talk and she contributes occasionally. But she was so enthused, and the students really started to relax. At one point, one of the female students started to try to ask about Betty’s anatomy, and Betty clarified, “you mean my dick?” Laughing added to the relaxation, and after that, the questions about Betty’s sexuality – and mine – started coming. Overall, it was a really satisfying experience. David was especially amazed that one of the students invited us out for a drink; he said he’d never seen that happen before. (Whew! So we’re still relatively cool, I thought.)
The next day I was presenting a roundtable on “Transwomen & Feminism” as part of UVM’s Women Center’s Women’s Herstory Month events. About 20 people came, including a few of the local transfolks, as well as other educators, allies, advocates, and others working with multiculturalism and identity issues. What a great group! The director of the Women’s Center, Tim Shiner, was a charming, warm person, whose encouraging nods throughout the roundtable only egged me on, and we ended up spending two hours together instead of the one that was scheduled. I also especially enjoyed meeting Samuel and Eli, two local transmen who would be coming to the TIC conference the following day; Eli, in fact, would be giving the Plenary address at 9am.
We had a lovely, relaxed time of it the rest of the day; window-shopped, had a lovely dinner, watched a bad movie and a ton of animal shows on TV, and enjoyed that jacuzzi! I’m going to leave the TIC conference for a separate entry – because there’s just so much to say about it!