For those who haven’t seen it yet, Dan Savage on The Colbert Report.
Dr. Keith
We taped an episode of the Dr. Keith show last week, and I’ve been sorting out my thoughts since then. I found the experience exhausting. From all reports (Donna, my sister, another friend) we were good. But some days it’s hard to consider the toll that’s paid.
I’m not sure yet what that toll is exactly, but it feels something like a distilled version of all the other work we do for college audiences & at trans conferences except the audience is so different: at one point during the taping I looked at a woman in the audience whose jaw was literally hanging agape.
It doesn’t help that I’ve replayed it all a million times in my head, hoping I said things that make sense. Before that I worried for days beforehand about whether I could really get something across of what this life is like for both the partner and the trans person. It’d be nice to be able to shut off my brain, to stop wondering what the whole show will be like, since we weren’t on alone: we had the company of a trans man & his ex as well as an intersex person.
Overall, I liked Dr. Keith’s take: his general tone was one of “Wow, that’s one hell of a hand you’ve been dealt,” and although the show was a little too anatomically-focused for me, people DO want to know about body mods and I think it was handled about as well as it could have been. It couldn’t have been thorough – transition, transgender, and intersex are a lot to cover in an hour – but it wasn’t sensational.
So I can only wait to see what the rest of you think. It should air before mid-March, and of course I’ll post info about the airdate as soon as I get it.
Chopped Liver, Then
One of my favorite writers, Christopher Hitchens, wrote an article about why women aren’t funny for Vanity Fair.
Syndicated?
It turns out this blog is syndicated on LiveJournal, so if you’re an LJ junkie, you can subscribe & read my posts there.
I have no idea how this happened; I think LJ users can request things get syndicated, but maybe one of you LJ diehards can fill me in.
Victoria’s Choice
Victoria’s Secret parent company, Limited Brands, announced today that they will stop using paper made from Endangered Forest for its catalogs, and will make sure that their catalogs are made from 10% post-consumer recycled paper.
Yay. Go buy your panties with a clear conscience.
Xmas Fool
Does anyone else cry watching those dumb Xmas kids’ movies? You know, like Rudolph’s Shiny New Year? Or is it just me? It’s pathetic; I don’t even cry at the sad parts. Phht.
His Hotness, Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp on the Actor’s Studio, being asked about playing Ed Wood: James Lipton, the interviewer, asks him if some of the fun of the role wasn’t dressing up in women’s clothes, and Depp responds, “Getting paid to dress like a woman? Yeah. And get away with it? Yeah.”
Or something close to that. Then when asked how he came up with the way he played Ed Wood, he said it was a little bit of the optimism of Ronald Reagan, some of the Tin Man, and – Casey Kasem.
& Only after that does he admit he played Ichabod Crane as “Girl Detective.”
& There’s one more question asked him, by a student, about women, and crossdressing, that my readers would probably appreciate his answer to, which starts with the unlikely phrase, “The most trouble I ever had crossdressing…”
& (ahem) Buster Keaton was a huge influence on Edward Scissorhands.
Overall, a great interview, going over all his major roles, & not to be missed by any Johnny Depp fan.
What Kind of Question Is That?!
It’s nice to see Paula Poundstone sober and back up delivering comedy. I’ve always thought she was funny, and she’s doing a good job on this Bravo special of showing (1) she’s still got it, and (2) that she makes fun of herself better than anyone else does.
A Queer Sunday
Reading John Waters’ article about Tennesee Williams – and in The New York Times Book Review, no less! – was a treat. I love them both, for being queer, for their art, for their humor and sarcasm and truth.
These are my people, and always have been.
But it made me think about the books I had to “steal” as a kid, or read secretly. For me, it was Joe Orton’s biography, Prick Up Your Ears, first and foremost. I heard about him reading interviews with Adam Ant, who simultaneously introduced me to Marc Bolan, the erotic art of Allen Jones, Derek Jarman, and Tom of Finland. Around the same time I discovered Soft Cell and Marc Almond, who in turn turned my head toward the likes of Jacques Brel and Jean Genet. (And I wonder why I turned out the way I am, reading about rough trade and anonymous bathroom sex when I was 15.)
They were all great “bad” influences, their books and art I hid from my mother. They told me there was another world out there, just as Tennesee Williams told John Waters there was.
So who were yours?
Grey’s Anatomy (of a Wife)
Last week, our downstairs friend who is a huge Grey’s Anatomy fan, called us at the very start of the show, telling us only “there’s a plot line you’ll want to see.” So we watched as a trans woman character came to the hospital for her GRS surgery, and were quite surprised – as were, no doubt, lots of viewers – that her wife had accompanied her there.
(You can read more about the episode, and even view it online, at the Grey’s Anatomy website. Spoilers below, so go watch it first.)
That fact of it alone was a great education for a lot of people, making the clear point that plenty of trans women prefer females, thank you very much.
While some of the informaton on the show was a little off – like when they implied that if she went on hormones her beard would come back, completely eliminating the likeliness of laser hair removal or electrolysis – it was absolutely an empathetic portrayal. The monogues by the wife were especially accurate, that odd combination of gallows humor and anger and sadness and sympathy that so many trans partners express about transition.
Most accurate, I thought, was a key moment when the trans woman is being told the hormones she’s taking to be a woman are giving her breast cancer & she doesn’t want to give them up, and the wife – frustrated & scared – uses her partners male name to tell her to “Wake up!” and flees the room after she does. Not much later, she talked about going on dates only to find that she wanted to talk to her “best friend” about those dates – like you do – and finding her husband, male or female, was her best friend. Which is how she ended up holding her hand for surgery.
It’s that “best friend” bit that’s most problematic to me. Betty is my best friend, has been since the minute we met. She’s also my teacher, my role model, my mentor, my child. All of them. And all of those things could and would stay in tact post transition. But it’s that other role – lover, husband, monogamous pervert – that’s the problem. Desire is desire, and it’s very hard to predict what might make it go away.
I talk about this at length in the new book of course – of course! – but I did want to thank the writers of Grey’s Anatomy for doing an excellent job portraying the feelings of het partners of trans women.
Feel free to come discuss the episode further on our boards.