Category: books & writing

Posted on

Writing, Women, & the Web

Chapters are needed for this upcoming book:

Women, Work, and the Web: How the Web Creates Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Book Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Co-editor: Carol SmallwoodCo-ed., Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (McFarland, 2012) on Poets & Writers Magazine “List of Best Books for Writers.” Writing After Retirement: Tips by Successful Retired Writers forthcoming from Scarecrow Press.

Co-editor: Joan GelfandDevelopment Chair for the Women’s National Book Association, member of the National Book Critics Circle, Joan blogs regularly for the Huffington Post, teaches writing, and is an award winning author.

Seeking chapters of unpublished work from writers in the United States and Canada for an anthology. We are interested in such topicsas: Women Founding Companies Existing Only on the Web; Women Working on the Web With Young Children or Physical Disabilities; Woman’s Studies Resources and Curriculum Development Webmasters; Women as Founding Editors of Webzines and Blogs; Surveys/Interviews of Women on the Web.

Chapters of 3,000-4,000 words (up to 3 co-authors) on how the Internet has opened doors, leveled the playing field and provided new opportunities for women, are all welcome. Practical, how-to-do-it, anecdotal and innovative writing based on experience. We are interested in communicating how women make money on the Web, further their careers and the status of women. One complimentary copy per chapter, discount on additional orders.

Please e-mail two chapter topics each described in two sentences by March 28, 2013, along with a brief bio to smallwood@tm.net  Please place INTERNET/Last Name on the subject line; if co-authored, paste bio sketches for each author.

Posted on

A Clarification or Eight

I’m aware that publishing a brief interview with Christine Benvenuto has caused some chagrin, and my explanation for why I did so even more.

So I’d like to point out a few things:

  1. I was unaware, when I read Ms. Benvenuto’s book, that her ex was Joy Ladin, who has also written a book about her transition.
  2. I will be reading Ms. Ladin’s book and doing a brief interview with her, in future.
  3. I do not claim to know what “really” happened between them. No one does but them, and they don’t agree, so really: no one does.
  4. I would like to point out the phrase “despite transphobic tendencies” – which I used to describe Ms. Benvenuto’s book. Her transphobia is not lost on me, by any stretch. Some of the most vitriolic transphobia comes from ex spouses, specifically of trans women.
  5. That does provide an interesting problem, doesn’t it? Why is it that the ex partners of trans men don’t similarly explode with transphobia? Some do, no doubt. But not anywhere near the same, at least not from my perspective, and I know plenty of trans men and plenty of people who have been partnered to trans men who aren’t anymore.
  6. Suggesting that people who are going to need to transition, do so YOUNGER than they have historically, is not essentialism. I do not now and have never believed that all trans people need to, want to, or will transition, and many are very happy being something like crossdressers and not transitioned women, either. I respect any choice a person makes when dealing with transness, even the awful ones, to be honest. Transness in a deeply transphobic culture is a really difficult thing to manage.
  7. Do non transitioners need more support? Fuck yes. We all do. Therapists are still pathetically under-educated when it comes to dealing with holistic treatment for trans identities, much less support for partners and families and loved ones. Most gender therapists are only, if ever, prepared to deal with transitioners, and the rest of us are still left out in the cold. Good therapists – Ari Lev and Reid Vanderbergh come to mind – are aware of this sad state of affairs. Most are not.
  8. Finally, at long last, I’m going to reiterate that I found a lot of what Ms. Benventuo had to say about her ex offensive and difficult. It is not my story. Whether or not it is accurate, or The Truth (which is a thing I don’t believe exists, for those of you who are wondering) has nothing to do with it. The experience, as she told it, is very typical, whether or not it was true in her case. A lot of partners and former partners will find some kind of resonance, and so healing, in this book. And that’s again why I’m standing by having blurbed it and having interviewed her.

I’ll leave it there for now. There’s plenty more coming, I’m sure, as these pieces make their way through transland.

Posted on

Why Trans Partners Should Tell Their Stories

The other day I published a brief interview with Christine Benvenuto, who wrote a book about her marriage to and divorce from a trans woman.

I blurbed her book, let me admit up front.

I blurbed it because despite some transphobic tendencies (not respecting her ex’s change to feminine pronouns, most notably), I think it’s important that partners get their stories out there – as important as it is for trans people to do so. I’ve been enabling the latter for a long time, and I’m proud to have done so. But I see so often that partners who are having a hard time or who are bitter about a divorce or angry about transition are told – in trans community spaces – to STFU, pretty much. And that really sucks, a lot.

The thing is, nothing about her memoir struck me as patently false. I’ve known a lot of trans women and a lot of wives of trans women over the past 13 years. A LOT. And Benvenuto’s story, just as she told it, is pretty goddamned typical. I have seen behavior by trans women that is sexist, misogynist bullshit. I have seen trans women spend their kids’ college money on transition. I have seen 401Ks emptied. I have seen all of that, and more.

I have also seen the wives of transitioning women take out all their rage on their trans spouse – financially, emotionally, even physically. I have seen rage that I didn’t even know was possible in the wives of trans women. And I have seen them be unwilling to let it go.

That is, I have seen a lot of awful behavior on both sides of this coin. Trans people are not excused because they’re trans just as women are not excused because they’re women. We are all faced with loss and betrayal and heartbreak and all of the emotions that accompany those things. How you choose to express them is entirely up to you.

I can buy the argument that now is not the best time to be airing our dirty laundry in public. Maybe it is. Maybe right now is the “let’s put a good face on it so the public grants us our rights” period for trans issues. But I don’t think there ever is that time, to be honest. I think that’s the kind of thinking that results in shaming some members of a community over other members of that community.

Because, I would argue, the crap behavior of some trans women who come from lives of male privilege – & here I’m specifically talking about certain kinds of later transitioning trans women – is a fact. It’s not made up. I can promise you that. And what we want, as a community, is for trans people to be happy. For them to have people to love and who love them. For them to be accepted and loved by their families.

And transition after 20 years of marriage is very, very rarely going to make that happen. It just isn’t.

So if we as a community want trans people to be happy, people need to know what kind of devastation a late transition can cause on families and wives and communities and of course on the trans people themselves. There is so, so much pain, on everyone’s part. People need to know it. People need to transition younger so that some of this can be prevented.

That said: partners deserve to tell their stories because they’re their stories. There are other reasons, but really, that’s the nut of it. There is no saying who is “right” when it comes to he said/she said. There never is. But as far as I could tell, Sex Changes felt real. It felt hard to write. There were parts that made me cry to finally see things I’d felt in print.

So no, it’s not a perfect story. It could have been kinder, but my gut still says it was honest and that is worth having in the world. Honesty can only shed light in dark corners, and transition-fueled divorce is one of the darkest corners I know of.

Posted on

Five Questions With… Christine Benvenuto

Thank you so much for this opportunity to discuss my new book, Sex Changes: A Memoir of Marriage, Gender, and Moving On.

(1) Your ex husband has, as well, written a memoir about her experiences. Did you write yours in response to that? Or were you both writing simultaneously?

By the time I heard that my ex had written a book, mine had been completed and was scheduled to be published a few months later.

(2) I know quite a lot of time passes between the experiences, the writing, the editing, and the publication of the book. Have there been any major developments during that time?

The most significant recent development is the book’s publication. It took a long time for me to decide to tell my story. Now my story is out in the world where others read and interact with it, and with me. It is an amazing experience to hear from readers. I feel profoundly honored to receive letters from other women who have gone through similar experiences and felt isolated, alone and disregarded. At the opposite end of the spectrum but equally moving are the letters from readers who haven’t gone through anything like this, but have lived through other kinds of loss, bereavement, the need to start over – and feel that the book speaks to their experiences in a personal and meaningful way.

Having these wonderful opportunities to talk about the book with readers, one of the things I am offered a chance to discuss is my reasons for writing the book. One of those reasons is what I’ve just alluded to: the desire to reach out to people in despair over major life changes not of their own choosing. I wanted to offer hope to people who may wonder if they’ll survive having their lives turned upside down, and who doubt that they’ll do much more – that they’ll ever be happy again. People need to hear that it’s possible to find the strength to create themselves and their lives anew.
Another important reason I wrote the book is that I believe my experiences illustrate the importance of supporting young people who express a need to explore their gender identities. Exploration, not suppression, is essential for a young person who feels uneasy growing into adulthood in a gender identity that doesn’t feel right. Parents need to support their children in this exploration, but they must not be asked to go it alone: we as a culture need to support parents in supporting their children. I feel so strongly about this. The more parents and families are supported, not marginalized or isolated, the more they will be able to be there for their children.

(3) Are you and your ex on speaking terms? Have you met her, yet?

As I describe in the book, I’ve seen my ex regularly without interruption because we interact over child visitation. My children live with me, but one of them currently sees my ex on a regular basis, requiring me to make those arrangements.

(4) Partners and spouses often take a lot of heat for speaking the truth of their own experience, and in most online trans community, are generally shouted down for not “getting with the program” and being on board with the gender transition. Did you find any support with trans people that was supportive of you telling your truth?

I am in awe of those who have raised supportive voices within the trans community, brave souls who understand that my book tells the story of one family’s experience with one individual in transition and is not intended to be representative of anyone else’s experience, or of any group of people.

To give just one example, I felt privileged to hear from someone who describes himself as “a man with transsexual feelings” who read my story as a cautionary tale of what he would never wish to do to his own wife and children. He and his family have worked out their own compromise, but hearing that my story is helping him to appreciate his wife and children’s pain, and to strengthen his resolve to spare them further grief wherever he can, is very meaningful to me.

Not only have some in the community supported my telling my own truth, they have recognized their own truth in my story as well.

(5) How is the new romance?

Five years along, the new romance still feels new.

Posted on

Virginia Woolf

“Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.”

On January 25th, 1882, Virginia Woolf was born. Happy Birthday Mx. Woolf!

Posted on

A Few Questions With… Cameron Whitley

Eleanor Hubbard is the co-editor of the anthology Trans Kin: A Guide for Family and Friends of Transgender People< . I got the chance to ask her a few questions about the book.

1) What encouraged you to create this book?

The idea for this book developed years ago when I was contemplating coming-out to my mother as a transgender man. Before revealing my transgender status to my mother I wanted to secure resources so she could understand how I felt inside, how I didn’t identify or feel comfortable with the body I was given. Most importantly, I wanted her to know that my transgender status was not her fault. These feelings I had about being different, identifying as a boy, but not physically being one had nothing to do with how I was raised or what my mother expected from me. In fact, my mother had always been supportive of me, encouraging my many interests both masculine and feminine. At the time that I came-out, it seemed that there were lots of questions about the cause of people being gay in the media. These questions extended beyond sexuality and into gender identity. I remember watching talk shows that questioned parental socialization, suggesting that the parents contributed to the (unnatural) transgender status of their children. When I came-out there were few resources for my mother. During this time I also saw that few resources existed for my family members and friends. I started hearing beautiful and touching stories of relationships. From these stories the book developed. It was a long and beautiful process. Eleanor and I have been so fortunate to have so many people share their stories with us. Today, we are happy to report that our book is one of a small and growing collection of stories that speak to the journeys of significant others, family members, friends and allies of transgender folk.

2) What, in editing it, is the biggest surprise? What was the most expected?

There were many surprises. I was amazed at how many stories of love and support we heard. As one mother told me, “the first response is seldom the last.” As we talked she noted that when her son came-out as a transgender woman she was so distraught that she initially cut off contact with her child. She feared for her child’s safety and wondered if he (she) would experience harassment or ever find a job. She also worried about how her friends and family members would react. She quickly realized that her child was still the wonderful person she had raised. In this realization she has chosen to support her daughter as she physically transitions into the woman she has always wanted to be. While this journey has not been easy, her “first response” could not be more different than her current sentiment about her daughter. This story taught me that I should not write-off people who at first may have a negative response to my transgender status. Often because of the hurt, it becomes easier to disconnect from people who demonstrate unsupportive positions when we come-out, a response that can be very much justified. For me, I want to learn to separate my identity as a transgender man from the reactions of others. I want to remember that their reactions have nothing to do with who I am, or how I live my life, and that these moments are opportunities to show love and compassion for another who is entering their own journey of discovery.

Another surprise was how many stories we could not publish because contributors were afraid of having their identities revealed, even if the story was published with a pseudonym. Some were concerned about their safety, while others feared being ostracized in their communities. Mostly, of these concerns were centered on religion. I am always saddened by how religion, specifically Christianity is used to hurt people in the LGBT community. As a Christian, I cannot fathom how such hate can be justified using biblical text.


3) In your opinion, what is the biggest misconception about the friends, family, and spouses of trans people?

In my opinion I would say that the biggest misconception about significant others, family members, friends and allies of transgender persons is that they don’t transition or that they don’t experience their own journeys when a loved one comes out as transgender. While my journey as a transgender man has had its difficulties, my mother’s journey has been challenging as well. She has had to come to terms with my transgender status with little community support. When she struggled at first with my transgender status the transgender community was eager to label her as “unsupportive,” while her friends were sure that she had done something wrong in raising me. She was caught between worlds with few acceptable options. She found herself a poster mother for transgender acceptance when she was still trying come to terms with her own journey and my transgender status. Ten years later, she is often confronted with the question, “how is your daughter?” At this moment she must consider how to answer. Does she out me as a transgender man and have a transgender 101 conversation in the local grocery store? Or, does she select to not out me and then feel bad about using female pronouns? For her, it all depends on the day and who is asking. I support my mother in this decision. This is a journey that we negotiate together. I recognize that her journey has challenges just as mine does. I could share similar stories about my wife, friends and extended family members as well.

Posted on

A Few Questions With… Eleanor Hubbard

Eleanor Hubbard is the co-editor of the anthology Trans Kin: A Guide for Family and Friends of Transgender People< . I got the chance to ask her a few questions about the book.

1) What encouraged you to create this book?

Cameron (the other co-editor) is a former student of mine, and he studied the transgender literature in a guided study project under my direction. Although I knew a little about transgender issues through teaching Sex, Gender and Society for many years at the University of Colorado and I was already an ally of the GLBT community, this project helped me learn a great deal more. Then Cameron was my student in Qualitative Methods and Critical Thinking and wrote an honors thesis under my direction. After his graduation, we talked how we could continue to work together and actually started on a paper that would reflect what we were calling the gender spectrum at that time.

One time when we were together, I wish I could remember the exact date, Cameron said to me: “I found many books to read during my transition that were very helpful, but when my mom asked me for something to read that would help her, I couldn’t find anything.” I responded, “This is the book we were meant to write.”

As we started to collect stories, we were encouraged even more that this book needed to be available for SOFFAs! The stories were funny, poignant, inspirational, and most of all, heart-felt. Cam and I became the conduit through which more people could hear these stories.

2) What, in editing it, is the biggest surprise? What was the most expected?

The biggest surprise for me in reading and re-reading our book was how many differences and similarities, there were in the lives of SOFFAs and their Transgender loved ones. For instance, the experience of SOFFAs going through transition with their transgender spouse, family member or friend had some similarities with their trans loved one. SOFFAs often feel that they are put in the closet as their loved ones were coming out of the closet during their transition. Who to tell and when to tell about their trans son is a big concern for the parent just as it is was for their son. What pronouns to use? How to introduce their male spouse to people who knew her as a woman? How to explain what their friend was going through to family members? These are all questions that trans people deal with as well, but with a different slant.

Another surprise for me was how well many family members, spouses, and friends went through the transition and came out on the other side. I have had many transgender people tell me that their family and friends disowned them when they transitioned, but I was particularly moved by the story of the step-father who disagreed with his son’s transition, but still loved him and spent time with him when his wife, and the son’s mother, could not. But this is only one example of many in the book where SOFFAs find their own way through their transition while still loving and supporting their transgender loved ones.

Another surprise was how many SOFFAs were also priests, pastors, rabbis, and committed church and synagogue members. Allies within the church were particularly important for many transgender people who have been disenfranchised by their church community.

I brought many expectations to the book about SOFFAs, but every single one burst. I learned that my expectations were what got in the way of really hearing the stories of trans people and their SOFFAs.

3) In your opinion, what is the biggest misconception about the friends, family, and spouses of trans people?

The biggest misconception about SOFFAs is that they are different than us. Some SOFFAs can’t cope with their loved one’s transitioning, but many not only deal with it, but survive and thrive, just like the rest of us. SOFFAs have hopes and dreams for themselves and their trans loved ones, but they, just like the rest of us, learn to move through their expectations and love the person in front of them, not the person they wanted them to be. Some people cope with life-threatening illnesses in their friends, family and spouses. Many people worry about substance abuse or infertility or disability and continue to try to change the person rather than accept them for who they are. But because there are resources available to them and their own inner resilence, many people find their way through difficult times, just like SOFFAs do. We have much more in common than we have differences.

Posted on

CFP: Brotherhood is Powerful – Writings by Transsexual Men

CALL FOR PAPERS

Brotherhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Liberationist Writings by Transsexual Men

Editor: Zander Keig, MSW

Publisher: Transgress Press

We are now accepting submissions for the anthology, Brotherhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Liberationist Writings by Transsexual Men, edited by FTM community advocate and educator, Zander Keig.

Much has been written about transsexuals from an academic, medical and bureaucratic perspective. While this literature provides important information about transsexuals’ lives, it tends to also obscure and misinform as much as it reveals. This is because a lot of the literature is written by either non-transsexuals and/or focuses too narrowly and simplistically on reductionist and stereotypical topics of interest to a small minority of elite academics.

Transsexuals’ lives are far more complex, however, when seen through the lens of our lived experiences and physical and somatic embodiment. Feminism, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Gay Liberation Movement all taught us that the first step toward liberation is to challenge the norms that misrepresent and subjugate our experiences in service to a larger meta-narrative of gender and sexuality.

This book gives a platform for transsexual men to engage these discourses and shape the course of knowledge production about transsexuals, in an effort to counter the stories told about our lives, which serve to silence our identities, communities, and experiences.

Continue reading “CFP: Brotherhood is Powerful – Writings by Transsexual Men”

Posted on

A Few Questions With… Miriam Hall

Miriam Hall is a partner of a trans person and a contributor to the book Trans Kin: A Guide for Family and Friends of Transgender People. She and I did a reading together for the Wisconsin Book Festival a few months ago at A Room of One’s Own Bookstore in Madison.

1) What encouraged you to create this book?
I always write about what is happening to me – it’s my way of understanding. When I met Dylan I was already writing about my own sexuality, and so writing about our combined sexuality and her gender fit right into what I was writing. When I saw a posting (I don’t remember where!) asking for writings for this anthology, I was excited to know I could put a bit of what I was doing somewhere. I am working on a longer memoir of which this is a part.

2) What, in reading it, is the biggest surprise? What was the most expected?
I was surprised at the large number of people who formerly dated trans people and their incredibly strong advocacy. There’s an unfortunate stereotype, not to mention fear, that people who leave trans folks do it only because they are trans. That they are all bitter or anti-trans. Being really close to someone – like living and sleeping with them – who is transitioning is quite a bit closer than being friends. It’s really intense and not easy – like a “regular” relationship, only pitched up that much higher. I really appreciate allies – really, really appreciate them. But nothing beats the person I am talking to/reading having (or having had) their own heart on the line (ie another partner or former partner).

3) In your opinion, what is the biggest misconception about the friends, family, and spouses of trans people?
I think the most common misconception is that you cannot be an ally, much less a partner or even a trans person, without messing up: using the wrong pronoun, etc. People figure if they don’t “have it down yet” they aren’t “doing a good job.” I find this tragic. Like so many things in life, you simply have to jump in with a good heart and try your best, be apologetic when you screw up and let it go and move on.

You can find Miriam Hall’s writing, photography, & practice online: her website.