First: If anyone who was at TIC (who we met or didn’t meet) has any requests for resources, you can 1) use the search box at the upper right, or 2) email me.
I don’t know if I’m getting old or what, but every time I get back from a conference I feel a little more tired than I did the previous time. This TIC was a great conference – a good collection of people, interesting workshops, familiar faces.
As it was last year, working with Jill Barkley was a real pleasure; this year, we ran a pretty intense trans relationships workshop, which was not just transgender but trans-generational. We both ran trans partners workshops the previous day, right before which I did my trans sex and identity workshop – which is always a pleasure to do, and always slightly different than the way I did it before. I’ve been asked more than once now if I have a copy of that workshop on DVD, so I’m going to figure out how to do that so I can make it available. (Once I shake off this sleepy, sleepy feeling, that is.)
It probably didn’t help that we went right from the 6 hour drive home with DJ and Lizzy to Tristan’s House of Ass party, but we did get *great* goody bags (supplied by Babeland.com, if that gives you a hint)!
Five Questions With… Arlene Istar Lev
Arlene Istar Lev LCSW, CASAC, is a social worker, family therapist, educator, and writer whose work addresses the unique therapeutic needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. She is the founder of Choices Counseling and Consulting (www.choicesconsulting.com) in Albany, New York, providing family therapy for LGBT people. She is also on the adjunct faculties of S.U.N.Y. Albany, School of Social Welfare, and Vermont College of the Union Institute and University. She is the author of The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide (Penguin Press, 2004) and Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and their Families (Haworth Press, 2004). Additionally, she maintains a :Dear Ari” advice column, which is currently published in Proud Parenting and Transgender Tapestry. She is also the Founder and Project Manager for Rainbow Access Initiative, a training program on LGBT issues for therapists and medical professionals, and a Board Member for the Family Pride Coalition. Her “In a Family Way” column on LGBT parenting issues is nationally syndicated.
< Arlene Istar Lev
1. You work a lot with LGBT parenting issues. What do you see as the major differences between LGB parents and T parents?
Lesbian and gay parents deal with numerous issues of oppression, and depending on the state or locality in which they live, this can be minor issues of societal ignorance, to huge issues of public and legal discrimination. However, as difficult as the issues facing lesbian, gay, and bisexual people may be, they pale in comparison to the blatant oppression transgender and transsexual parents face.
In many states, lesbian and gay people can now jointly legally adopt their children as out same-sex couples; this provides their children with many benefits and protections. However, transgender people experience discrimination in all routine areas of family life. Judges determining parental custody will rarely award custody to out trans people, except possibly in cities like San Francisco that specifically offer transgender protections. Trans people are viewed by the courts as unfit by the virtue of their (trans)gender status. Additionally, adoption agencies do not see transgender people as “fit†to be parents, and the obstacles faced by transgender people wanting to be parents can feel insurmountable.
Lesbian and gay people have fought for the right to become parents. I remember a time when simply being an out lesbian would bias a judge’s custody decision. Although there are some localities where this still would be true, even in upstate New York in rural communities, judges minimize the issues of sexual orientation in making custody decisions. However, I cannot imagine the same being true regarding gender transition. In my book, The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide, a transwoman tells the painful story of losing custody of her son after her crossdressing was used to “prove” that she was a deviant and a pervert. The legal status of trans people, regarding their rights to their children, is reminiscent of LGB legal rights 40 years ago.
However, there is good news to report. Trans parents are coming out of the closet in increasing numbers. Many trans people who have positive relationships with spouses and ex-spouses are finding ways to parent together and address the issues the gender-transpositions can have on family life. Increasing numbers of people are choosing to have children as out trans people. Some FTMs are getting pregnant, placing medical personnel in a position to work with pregnant men, creating a radical and challenging new phase of queer parenting. Additionally, many MTFs are storing sperm before transition, so they are able to have biological children as the sperm donor/father with a female partner. Clearly, LGBT people have developed innovative family-building forms, and I suspect we are only at the beginning of this process.
There is, of course, no reason that a trans person could not be as competent a parent as any other person, but like LGB people, they will likely have to “prove” that to the powers that be. In my experience, children take gender transitions in stride; it is adults who find the whole issue confusing and shocking. Older children might have more difficulties accepting gender changes, particularly as they near their own puberty. It is my contention however, that families can weather many challenging issues, and transgender status is no more, or less, challenging then other issues that families face.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Arlene Istar Lev”
Tired Dyke, Shopping
First: crossdressers, if there’s a day you shy ones want to go out & buy yourself lingerie, make it Valentine’s Day. There were all sorts of fumbling, sheepish, weirded-out guys in Macy’s today buying last minute Valentine’s gifts, to whom I wanted to say: Now really, even if you’re not a crossdresser, isn’t this really for you, anyway? Why don’t you go get yourself a pair of silky boxer shorts & objectify yourself for her instead?!
But I didn’t. So as is usual, I probably looked a little cranky as I walked up to the register with a handful – a handful, mind you – of underwear for Betty. And as the woman pushed the buttons, she happened to notice they were all smalls, and shot one glance at my ample butt, and I’d felt somehow she managed to press a button that made the word DYKE appear on my forehead.
So, yeah.
Happy Valentine's
When I was single, which seems a long time ago now, I hated Valentine’s Day. One glorious year, I had forgotten about it entirely. I went to work that day like it was any other day and I didn’t think about who I wasn’t dating or who I was dating who would no doubt do something horrible to ruin it. I remember having a pleasant day at work and starting the walk up Christopher Street to the subway in the cold and seeing a line of people standing outside. And I honestly thought, for one quick minute, what is so important that those fools are freezing in line for? And then it hit me, like a ton of truffles: they were standing on line outside the famous Li-Lac chocolate store because it was Valentine’s Day. And after trying to make fun of those shivering fools for a bit, I gave up and realized I had been much happier when I didn’t know it was Valentine’s Day.
I wish that for all of you who don’t have a Valentine – to just go about your day, as happy as a clam. The irony of course is that this post of mine might have been the thing that reminded you of it. If so, I apologize. Go get a massage or buy yourself chocolates or eat that pint of Ben & Jerry’s. If there’s a guilt-free day to indulge yourself, this is it.
I don’t really like Valentine’s Day much better now as I always feel this weird social pressure to be the woman, or the girlfriend, or the {insert traditional feminine gender role here}. This year, Betty and I are thinking we might reverse things, or make things normal, for us. That is, I get to buy the flowers and pull chairs and open doors. The only problem is, I’m still the one who likes chocolates, and we both like silk lingerie, and I’m not quite cool & groovy with my butch side yet. It’s natural, but after repressing it for so long, it still feels weird, and likewise for Betty, so we end up either both of us waiting for the other one to get the door, or both of us grabbing the door to open it, at the same time.
That is, we have no idea what we’re doing in this gender nebulous space. We’re always guessing and second guessing what the ‘correctly gendered’ role is, and what we actually feel naturally, and then trying to figure out if those two things align or don’t.
So for the record: I do want chocolates. Betty does want underwear. And after that, I have no idea. I would like to think we might be creative about how to combine eating chocolates and taking off underwear, perhaps.
Shayla & Shirene
When I was researching My Husband Betty, I went to the SPICE conference, and there we met a young, enthusiastic couple named Shalya and Shirene. (Okay, she wasn’t Shayla then, but I can’t remember her original femme name.) But Shirene nodded at everything I nodded at when we were in workshops, and then the four of us – plus the lovely Penny (whose name wasn’t Penny then, either) & Jayme – sat in the hotel lobby and talked about sex the rest of the night!
Shayla & Shirene are going to be on Inside Edition this coming Friday, February 10th. Do watch them; they’re a lovely, articulate, optimistic couple, who are (if I do say so myself) fantastic representatives for the trans community – especially the much-neglected crossdressing set.
^ me, Shayla, and Shirene, at IFGE ’04.
Receipt, Please?
Natalie posted a “quit bickering” type post in a recent thread full of hot debate, misreadings & misunderstandings (since closed) about mosaic intersexed conditions, and her list, although well-intentioned, immediately garnered objection from Andrea – and from us.
Betty and I have both long hated the phrase “gender gifted” to describe this insane state of affairs.
The first time I attended the Eureka En Femme Getaway, I conducted a Saturday afternoon workshop with Gina Lance where I said something along the lines of wanting a receipt for this fabulous “gender gift.” I think at the time I compared it to the pink slip Betty got two weeks before our wedding – which to this day takes all awards for worst gift ever. (Later, when Peggy Rudd gave the banquet speech, she used the term “gender gifted” positively, and two partners next to me elbowed each other and then me, trying not to laugh too hard outloud. It really was, in some ways, the summation of the difference between Peggy’s and my styles, notwithstanding our respect for each other.)
And while I understand the way people come to understand transness as a gift, I really can’t think of it that way myself. I also understand why people need to think of it as a gift, but I can’t go to the mat asking partners to accept it that way – I just can’t. I can barely get partners to accept it as the worst freaking thing that’s ever happened to them, so asking them to consider it a gift would more likely end up perverting the meaning of the word ‘gift’ than making them positive, forward-thinking, supportive types. (Most likely result would be that they’d tell me to go to hell.)
So, the gender gift: being misunderstood by friend, peers, and larger society. With transition this gender gift implies extraordinary expense, job loss, and often divorce; without it, a sense of uncertainty at the very least.
That’s not to say there aren’t positive things that can come out of transness for the transperson and the partner – of course there are. But positive things come out of negative things all the time, depending on the outlook of the people making their way through the adversity. It can make you a more thoughtful person, deeper, more accepting of diversity, maybe even downright philosophical – but that doesn’t mean it will. People learn tremendous, important things about themselves and the universe when they get cancer, too, but that doesn’t mean anyone wants it.
To me, a gift is something unequivocally good, something you wanted when you didn’t have it, or something someone gave you that makes you happier. In the second sense of the word, transness could be a gift the way a high IQ or good vision is a gift, and I suppose that’s the way people mean it. But even in that case, it’s a lot harder to have any benefit come of transness the way good vision or a high IQ might; you might not use the latter, but it doesn’t harm you to not use it, either – where transness, more often than not, is a kind of niggling annoyance (at least) when it’s ignored, or a major disruption, or, at worst, leads to straight-up tragedy.
When people tell me they would choose being trans, I think they mean they would choose the things they learned as a result of being trans, and that they appreciate the journey of self-discovery they had to go on because of transness. But mostly I think if people could gain those things without the frustration, ostracism, self-isolation, shame, and cost – they would.
I know: I’m just a regular bucket of cheer, but I talk to partners a lot.
In my own experience, transness is more like fire: naturally destructive, but powerful when it can be harnessed; it’s difficult to harness in the first place, and still, ultimately, always a little dangerous. But you know I used to take the A train at 2am, too.
The Mad-ness of Partners
I’ve been thinking a lot about the anger of partners.
I wonder sometimes about the correlation between anger & empowerment.
I’ve never been a plate-breaking type; I’ve never thrown someone’s stuff out a window. And I wonder, when I see the kind of rage that partners can kick up, what it is in their brains that allows them to go so out of control. I have a lot of anger; Betty sometimes says I’m one of the angriest people she’s ever met. But at some point in time, I found yelling and screaming at the injustice of it all was perfectly futile, so I (mostly) stopped doing it. That’s not to say I don’t rant – I’m a professional ranter, actually – but I stopped thinking that my ranting was going to change anything.
My mother always tells me that I spent more of my time convincing her of why I shouldn’t have to do more chores than it would have taken me to do them, and it strikes me that misplaced anger is a similar waste of time. If being angry or sad or screaming is not going to change the situation, then why keep doing those things?
But what I’ve noticed is the anger and sadness don’t satisfy people either. They stop being angry just at the thing that made them angry, and start spreading it around. In our case, we had to deal with an ex of Betty’s who not only targeted Betty, but me, and a friend of ours who introduced us, Betty’s parents, etc.
I’ve heard recently that one of the reasons therapists used to recommend divorce if one partner was transitioning is for fear the therapist, or doctor, might be sued by the angry partner. And while I can understand the urge of a partner who wants to sue a therapist for being “encouraging,” I don’t really understand the misplaced anger: the therapist didn’t cause the transsexualism.
A couple of weeks back I put up a post about having to decide what to do when you’re done crying, and sometimes I wonder if the crying and anger doesn’t continue for some people because they simply can’t face doing something, either because they don’t feel that they can do anything, or have generally felt unable to exert real power over their lives, or that they don’t feel up to following through on whatever decision they might make. That is, I wonder if they keep being angry and sad because the other emotion they’ll have to confront is outright fear.
Five Questions With… Jade Gordon
Jade Gordon is the artist and author behind the trans-amorous comic Lean on Me.
< A drawing from Lean on Me featuring the two main characters.
1) What motivated you to start drawing “Lean on Me”?
I thought it would be a good way to pick up chicks!
Oh, a more serious answer, eh? What motivated me was a fiery burning need. I am a genetic female who tends to prefer femininity in a romantic partner, regardless of physical gender. I had been repressed for a long time, and I just started to crack. I had to start expressing what I really felt somehow. I was, at that point, spending a lot of time alone in a small, dank apartment, stewing about my true feelings. I decided to try putting my ideas into a visual form. I had never done sequential art, and I think I instinctively knew that I could work out what I was feeling with fictional characters a little easier than direct confrontation.
I also really, really needed to reach more people like me. I grew up in an environment where loving someone of a different ethnicity was very wrong, never mind color, and anyone who was anywhere in the realm of GLBT wasn’t allowed to exist because it was the ultimate in wrong. I found myself not just leaning toward lesbian, but also embracing people who were, in my previous environment, the sickest of sick – the *crossdressers*, the *transvestites*. I *knew* in my heart that I was perfectly normal and healthy in my desires, but I felt like a complete alien among women who typically seemed to prefer freaking out about partners that wanted to crossdress or transition. The comic helped me connect with other women who maybe didn’t immediately want to kick their man to the curb just because he was pretty sometimes.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Jade Gordon”
Worst of Both Worlds Season
I know I’m not the only football widow, and I know now – since the publication of My Husband Betty – that I’m not the only ‘worst of both worlds’ widow, either. Oh no. I know there’s Heather, who just sent me a lovely email about her own ‘Betty’ watching the game “in stockings, heels, and a nightie.” But I’d forgotten about playoff season, when there’s more football on than episodes of Law & Order. After yesterday’s screams and howls brought on by the Indiana/Pittsburgh game, Betty decided to try on some clothes a friend gave her while watching today’s game.
It’s like genius-level torture, having a skinny woman in my house trying on new clothes while she watches football and I clean the catboxes.
(She does vaccuum when and where I ask her to, though. I’m trying to figure out how to get her to vaccuum without me asking, next.)
Trans NYC Presentation
I’ve just added a date to my calendar, when I’ll be doing a presentation on some of my trans-partners research at the Trans NYC study group.
Date: March 2nd, 2006
Time: 7 – 9 PM
Location: CUNY (more details TBA)