A while back I said I’d tell the story of how I decided not to work for straight guys anymore as a bookkeeper, & now I’m finally getting around to it.
A couple of years ago when I started doing freelance bookkeeping, I put an ad up on Craigs List, like you do, & so I got a bunch of emails from people who needed my help. Some offered to trade me for clothes or salon treatments or massages (tempting): you never know, with Craig’s List. But one guy I met with had started a small business doing interior remodeling after having worked on Wall St. a while. During the first phonecall I make clear upfront that I don’t work a.m. hours (because I write until 5am, though frankly most people don’t ask why), and we talk about what he needs & how far behind he is, etc. It seems like a do-able job so we meet for lunch and that goes well, too. He wants to hire me, but forgot his organizer, he’ll call. When he calls, he asks me to come in at 10am. I tell him again I don’t work in the am. He says okay, and we agree on a day & time. He calls me to cancel a day before that meeting, & we reschedule when he calls to cancel. He asks if I can come in at 10am. I explain again I don’t work morning hours, and ask him outright if he’s going to want to work on the books regularly in the morning. He says no, and we reschedule. So I go to our first meeting, look at his QB (QuickBooks, for the uninitiated) and then we discuss a regular time to come in.
& Yes, you guessed the end of the story: he suggested 10am.What a huge waste of my time.
That, of course, was after nearly 10 years working for Mr. Famous Author Man, who was f***ing his publicist and actually thought I didn’t know. He also decided at some point that I should work full-time for him without a 401k and health insurance (when the reason I worked for him freelance was so I could set my own hours and take time off to travel, which he was well aware of). But I can’t go into the rest of that story too deeply or my head will implode.
Then there was the guy who decided since the company wasn’t making any money the first person he’d get rid of was the admin/bookkeeper. When I first got that job, they were two years behind in billing clients – two years – which is a pretty solid explanation for why there was no money coming in, eh? So I got him up to date, and then I get laid off. I heard from clients of his that as soon as I was gone they’d stopped billing clients regularly again. Smart move there.
So, that’s why. Too many arrogant lunkheads. I thought before I hurt someone I’d try to make a point of specializing in minority clients, instead – specifically women and LGBT folks – and see if that was any better. And you know what? It has been. Way better. Like millions of times better. I don’t rule out straight guys; but I will ask now if they’re comfortable listening to/taking advice from a woman, if they’ve ever had a female boss, etc. Why? Because as a bookkeeper you have to tell people what to do sometimes, and there’s no point in being someone’s bookkeeper if they don’t listen to you. Now when I don’t think it will be a good fit, I often mention upfront that I don’t work morning hours because I write until the wee hours, which always gets them to ask the question: what do you write about? (or, anything I might have read? etc.) Replying, “a book about transvestites” is pretty much a shoo-in that the rest of the conversation will be awkward and they won’t want to hire me, and I can walk away without having to say, “I don’t think you’re ready for a female bookkeeper, so go pay your male accountant way too much to tell you the same things I would have.”
Secret Lives of Women show
Tonight the cable channel WE (Womens Entertainment Network) showed an episode of their regular show Secret Lives of Women – an episode about women who are married to crossdressers. I was interviewed for the show but we decided Betty and I were too “out” to really be classified as “secret” anymore. I was happy to hear that Peggy Rudd would be on, instead.
That said, the show did recommend My Husband Betty (along with Peggy’s books) as further reading. But, it looks like something has gone haywire, since the amazon.com links for My Husband Betty and for Peggy’s books are super-wonky.
If anyone who saw the show found this site as a result, you can still get My Husband Betty at Barnes & Noble online, or at Powells.com, another online bookstore, and I’m sure amazon.com will figure it out shortly.
If you did come here as a result of the show, do look around. There’s a selection of things I’ve written for the blog about relationships vis a vis crossdressing/trans issues, and of course there is a forum just for partners on our message boards.
Five Questions With… Jan B.
Jan B. is one of the people who started a trans group in Poughkeepsie called MHVTA. She’s been helping run the group since 2001, and I’ve known her for about that long. I used to call her “perpetual lurker Jan” on my very first yahoo support group, CDOD.
1) MHVTA is a nice group – how did you decide to start it? Do you have rules or guidelines, or are you making it up as you go?
Helen, thanks for the opportunity to answer these 5 questions. This is also a nice way to publicize our group so I want to start with a Shameless Plug:The Mid-Hudson Valley Transgender Association (MHVTA), a chapter of Renaissance, is a fairly new group. It was founded in May 2001 by Nikki and I. MHVTA serves the mid-Hudson Valley area of New York (the area north of New York City and south of Albany, from the Pennsylvania border on the west to Connecticut on the east). It’s an active group with regular monthly meetings near Poughkeepsie.
We were so frustrated that nothing was local. We had to travel forty to seventy miles to find a group, so someone said. “Well, just start it yourself (and they will come).” I had never been to a TG support group before but was pretty used to other types of support groups. We met in homes for four meetings and eventually found [an affordable] place to meet, with discreet off street parking.
It varies but there are around 20 dues-paying members who attend meetings. We have more than 100 members on our list server who are interested but don’t necessarily attend meetings. The membership requirements are that you are a TG interested to know more and we are open to the TG spectrum including family if they want to attend. We currently don’t invite admirers in but they sometimes sneak in when someone brings a friend. The members seem to appreciate the level of confidentiality and the one on one interviews pre visiting the group.
MHVTA’s principal mission is to provide outreach and support for our members, their families, their friends, and to be active in the Transgender Community and the greater community of the Mid-Hudson Valley, New York. MHVTA is a non-discriminatory group which is structured to allow participation by all those who support the transgender community. We respect and support the right of free and open expression and the right to be treated as equals by society. We focus on providing an understanding peer support network for anyone who would like to be a part of it and to assist others who wish to learn more about the Transgender community, acting as a Transgender advocate to other groups and institutions in the Mid-Hudson Valley area. We welcome new people with sensitivity towards their fears and concerns that accompany revealing themselves to others. MHVTA aims to accomplish this through: Regularly scheduled meetings, social events, and frequent and open communication. For more information, you can check MHVTA’s website.
You can also find an interview with some members of MHVTA at www.tgforum.com (but you can go directly to the article if you’re a subscriber).
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Jan B.”
Jeff & Esther
I mentioned Esther Williams to a wife of a crossdresser not long ago and she looked at me blankly – silly me, assuming everyone knows the story of the million-dollar mermaid and her crossdressing movie star boyfriend.
“Jeff Chandler was standing in the middle of the bedroom in a red wig, a flowered chiffon dress, expensive high-heeled shoes and lots of makeup,”
she said about her near-husband, Jeff Chandler, Hollywood hunk.
Here’s a great review that talks about the genderedness of it all that originally appeared in Salon, and I find it interesting the way he ties in her LSD trip, the recognition of her own animus, and how her acid-induced knowledge of her male self makes a crossdressed husband especially horrifying.
I wonder if the acid is required, since otherwise I fall into the same category of being aware of my animus, except I didn’t scream. Not even once.
Book Covers
Betty took this photo of me not too long ago, and the funny thing about it was that we accidentally got some nifty stuff in the background: the beige thing, far left is (1) a galley copy of Virginia Erhardt’s upcoming book Head Over Heels: Wives Who Stay with Crossdressers and Transsexuals (Haworth, Winter 2007); the reddish thing, taped to the wall is (2) mock-up of a groovy cover by our own Lucy & Mary, which unfortunately got rejected for being “too abstract” but which I really loved, and right behind my head, with white text, is (3) the current mock-up of the intended cover, but with a model who is not Betty.
Five Questions With… Cynthia & Linda Phillips
Cynthia & Linda Phillips were once a crossdresser & wife who started the famous Texas T Party. They have stayed together despite this crossdresser’s having discovered she was transsexual, and they make their life together as two women.
1) Why did you start the Texas T-Party? Why did the event get retired?
T
he Texas “T” Party was started by the Boulton & Park Society in the late ‘80s, as a form of outreach by several of the members who had been to other functions around the country. None of us ever dreamed it would be the huge success it turned out to be. Cynthia and I joined the club about the time the first “T” started. We had just retired and were looking for some way to help our community.
The reason we finally retired the “T”, after 10 years, was the stress had finally gotten to us. Most of the original organizers of B&P were gone, and we never had much help, in any case. Cynthia, because of her experience with group functions, did the majority of the work, with me tagging along behind. Her blood pressure became dangerously high from the stress of running the “T” and I had to pull her off the job of running the whole thing. It was just a matter of burning out.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Cynthia & Linda Phillips”
Guest Author: Michelle York
Des Scènes dans le Chemin Moyen
So, I’ve been thinking about this middle way stuff oh these last three or four…years. When I was married, it was to find an accomodation with my wife that would make us both happy; and now, it’s because of the very realistic possibility that it will be the only way for me to be happy, since I’m pretty sure just being a weekend princess won’t be enough but it remains very much to be seen if transition will ever make sense for me.So I wonder: how middle way am I? I know, no definitions, but…most days a week I wear a suit to work (even though it’s not necessary: but I like them to think they’re getting the high-priced consultant they paid for.) Sure, may nails are a little long, and if you look closely you’ll see I’ve “groomed” my brows (though I do wear my glasses a lot…)
And in my less princessy moments on the weekend I’m pretty metrosexual. I like floral shirts, I’ve been known to wear shirts to show off my chest and pants to show off my ass.
So right now I’m somewhere between Chelsea salaryman and victim of the “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” guys, right?
But: I’m out to every important person in my life, though not all of them have seen me cross-dressed (I find “as Michelle” to be a somewhat creepy construction for me.) I’m out as CD and other stuff to my current flame. I’ve told every lover I’ve ever had before we became lovers; hell, my ex-gf and I went to Edelweiss for our first “date” (though it only retroactively earned that appellation.)
I don’t scream to the rooftops that I’m trans, though I care less and less if anyone knows. One of my neighbors in the building saw me coming home one night, so I know at least some folks in the apartment building know. (She always smiles when she sees me now. Hmm.)
The guys in folkmusicienne E.’s band have met me both ways without flapping an eye.
I go where I go crossdressed. OK, I haven’t quite gotten to the point of doing my grocery shopping while crossdressed, but movies and dinner and just being out in New York I do without thinking too much about it. I’m not even sure when the last time E. saw me not crossdressed was; I think it was back in the middle of May. (She said, “I haven’t seen you in a while.” I told her that was because she was hanging out with that crazy Michelle chick.)
I’ve taken dance lessons crossdressed, and had the odd experience of having “Michelle York” called out for attendance…this really bizarre understanding that this, persona, mask, whatever you want to call it, was beginning to become an actual person. I go walking in daylight now, usually from my therapy sessions to wherever I’m meeting E. I did that today, without anybody saying anything or even staring (well, staring more than they would at anybody wearing a white skirt.) I don’t think I was passing, either; my predilection for tank tops may get my “ordinariness” points fashion-wise but does little to hide the fact that my shoulders have benefitted from years of testosterone in much the same way that a fraternity mixer benefits from a truckload of kegs–to excess, and frequently embarrassingly.
So where does that leave me? Over 75% of my waking life I spend in male presentation (financially I want to do nothing to fuck up my contract until my new corporate masters get taken over by their corporate overlords in about two years.) I try to take care of my male appearance and actually like shopping for my casual clothes.
On the other hand, right now, if I can conceivably go out cross-dressed I usually do so. (Caveats, and yet another wonderful “isn’t it great to bond with women” moment: I was thinking a couple of weeks ago about catching a movie I wanted to see down at the Film Forum one Saturday night (for those playing at home, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows) and then heading out to get a few drinks. But I didn’t have anyone to go with, and I didn’t think it would necessarily be such a bright idea to go out alone to a movie dressed to go to a bar later. Especially seeing as I’m, you know, a man. Maybe I was being paranoid; but maybe not…) The idea that I will dress up when I can is becoming so commonplace to my mind that I plan almost unconciously around it. (Even so, I’m still only dressing in public 2 or 3 times a week.)
So, middle way? Weekend Princess? I don’t know. I feel better, mostly, about myself and glad that I have these chances, though to tell you the truth it’s also really stirred the pot of my gender fuckedupedness (sorry, dysphoria.) And while I don’t have the full-blown body dysphoria of the cut- it- off- cause- it- disgusts- me, I- can’t- look- in- the- mirror- cause- a- man- looks- back variety, I’m less happy with my body nowadays, disenchanted with my broad frame and my peasant shoulders and my cowcatcher jaw.
And the sense of oscillation, of vibrating between different extremes of emotion, is hard to take. It’s not like crossdressing necessarily helps, either, though in general it quiets some of my dysphoric feelings; or, as I told my therapist a while ago, crossdressing lets me stop having to fight my impulses to be feminine. But at the same time, I’m acutely aware of what I look like and how little I pass, and that makes me feel sad as well. As sad as wearing a suit instead of skirt can make me feel? I don’t know, yet. Nor am I completely sure that the good feeling I get from wearing nice men’s clothing–and I do have that, I enjoy my peacock moments–will be enough to compensate for never living as a woman.
So, some scenes from a little down the Middle Way. I’m not sure I can help going further into the woods; but I’m not sure I’m blazing a trail either.
Guest Author: Jan B.
I wanted to share a letter and story I got from Jan B., the found of MHVTA. I thought her story of finding a permanent home for Felicity’s trans collection was a nice way or marking how the T is slowly becoming part of LGBT history, for the end of pride month 2006.
Hi all.. had a neat experience last week and that was donating Felicity’s library of TG material (all copies of Transvestia, Femme Mirrors, several other periodicals, many books, assorted papers) to the NYC Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender Community Center Library & Archive.
This process was the culmination of about 2 years of exploring and asking.
Fri. 6/16/06
Felicity and I met with Rich Wandel, the center librarian. Later I had the opportunity to escort Rich back to the Center to deliver the library in person. Never having been there before, it was a unique experience. The Center seemed to be buzzing with activity on a Fri. afternoon. Getting into NYC was a hassle and a half but I got in and out without a problem. I got to see the library and see how they categorized the various material donated. It is a very professional operation and Rich was very accomodating. He’s interested in building up their current collection of “TG” material and is interested in old as well as more recent material. Being a LGBT center for a large metro city, most of the material collected is “GLB” related so any “TG” material is most appreciated.
2004:
The story really goes back 2 years ago when Felicity was only 98 years young. She lives in an older home and we had spoken earlier that she had many vintage publications. She wasn’t too interested to even show them and I, and maybe others, suggested she do something about the material before something happened to her or the house. The event which seemed to change her mind was she had a car accident in ’05 and was in the hospital for an extended stay. We agreed to explore options and I was willing to help. I acted as the custodian and outreach point person while I went back to Felicity to discuss it and figure out what she wanted to do with her collection.
I had lots of question for people about where would they send TG material and/or where would they go to look for vintage reference material. More than 15 suggestions arrived. The early leader was the U. of Michigan library as they seemed to be the favorite for recent donated “TG” collections. This particular library already had most of the material that Felicity had (which fills the trunk of a car) and they said if they received duplicates, they would pass them onto another library. We felt we wanted to give Felicity’s material to some place that didn’t have the material already and would treasure it.
April, ’06:
After we scouted around more, I attended the IFGE Convention in Philly and spoke to many people including TG’s who had donated their material already or were looking to donate reference material. Some people I met were collectors and were willing to pay for specific issues to backfill their collections. One person said the collection would be worth a lot of money. I met Dallas Denny (editor of Transgender Tapestry) who provided a list of various libraries which could house “TG” collections; she also provided her criteria she used to donate her “truckload of material” to the U. of Michigan library. These included the type of library & why they were interested in acquiring the collection, type of archive, their plan if they do acquire the collection, conditions / requirements to review, ease to get access, physical plant, personnel, financial stability).
We decided that we would look to find a library where Felicity was active which was the east coast. The libraries we checked which seemed to be the best choice were William Way Center in Philadelphia, Central Ct. University (Hartford), and the NYC Center. The NYC Center was really where Felicity lived and the folks in our area would be able to visit them if they desired. When I visited the Way Center, they had a very limited selection of “TG” related material but were interested to start up their collection. When we looked at the The Hartford library and the NYC Center, we felt Central Ct. University library was 2nd in our deliberations really because the NYC Center was more local to our area.
It was interesting to see what happened if you put a request out on the web. Friends and sisters provided various contacts. Connecting up with the libraries proved to be a challenge .. some were very responsive and others never responded. It was helpful if there was a website to see the facility or their current collection. Most don’t separate out the “T” from the rest of the “GLB” stuff.
Back to June, ’06:
We believe we made a good choice. Rich Wandel was visiting Vassar to present at a library science group so we took advantage of it so he could meet with Felicity and get her to sign papers donating her library. She also will set up a ‘type of use’ agreement that any of Felicity’s papers containing her “brother’s name”* would not be able to be used until after her death. It was pretty straightforward for Rich, but it was interesting for the casual observer.
This has been an interesting journey and I’m glad this part is done. If anyone has vintage material and you’d like to donate it to a library for posterity, hope this rambling may have helped. I also hope Julie from U. of Michegan and Rich from the NYC library can present next year at the IFGE Convention in Philadelphia. It would be neat to see that happen and might spur donations.
* Her “brother’s name” is crossdresser code for Felicity’s legal male name.
Vern Bullough
Vern Bullough, author of umpteen books, advocate for crossdressers and trans people, died this past Wednesday, June 21st.
I can’t even begin to express how sad I am: Vern became more than an author whose books I read, but a kind of mentor for me, always willing to answer a question or point me toward research that might help me out.
From the Center for Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism
The Center for Inquiry Laments the Death of Vern Bullough: Leonardo Man and Stalwart Secular Humanist
The Center for Inquiry is sorry to announce that Vern Bullough died Wednesday evening, June 21st, after a brief illness. He was a stalwart humanist, a dedicated member of the Council for Secular Humanism, the Center for Inquiry, and CSICOP. He had devoted himself to humane causes all during his life; he was considered to be one of the leading authorities in the world on the history of sex and the nature of gender. He was a tireless advocate of civil liberties, the rights of minorities, including gays, lesbians and transgendered persons.
The author or editor of over 50 books including Sexual Attitudes: Myths and Realities, with Bonnie Bullough, and hundreds of articles, he was renowned in several areas of human interest, including history, sexology, nursing and liberal religion. Indeed, a true Leonardo Man, Vern was a distinguished professor emeritus at the State University of New York at Buffalo, an Outstanding Professor in the California State University, a past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, past Dean of natural and social sciences at SUNY in Buffalo, New York, and one of the founders of the American Association for the History of Nursing. In addition, he was a recipient of the Distinguished Humanist Award and a past Vice President of the IHEU.
Vern served on the Center’s Board of Directors since its inception and was personally involved in its outreach. He accompanied the Center for Inquiry’s Explorers Club on a Cruise to Alaska in early June. He read a paper on board ship, and managed to write up his remarks in the form of an article, which will be published in Free Inquiry magazine.
He will be sorely missed as one of he leading secular humanists in North America and the world and a liberal voice for the right of self-determination, tolerance and dignity.
He leaves his wife, Gwen Brewer (Prof. Emeritus, University of California) and four children.
Paul Kurtz
Chairman and Founder, Center for Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism
Too Many
The other day I was seeking out my copy of Hirschfeld’s Transvestites in order to footnote something about his Theory of Intermediaries, and while pulling, I ended up with Kate Bornstein, Virginia Prince, and Judith Butler on my head.
Sitting there having been bonked in the head by one and having had another fall on my foot, I decided I have way too many books about gender.
But doesn’t everyone?
At least it wasn’t the Hirschfield that fell; now that book would hurt.