Jill Barkley is the former partner of an FTM, femme-identified, and the very cool person I got to co-host a ‘trans relationships’ forum with at TIC both last year and this. It’s a pleasure to get to post something written by her:
Chipped Red Nail Polish
I made plans for a manicure and femme processing session when my sleepy roommate stumbled into our living room and into my arms that morning as I was struggling to put on my coat to leave for work. I had returned very late the night before from Philadelphia, where I was a presenter at the Trans-Health Conference for two workshops – one for partners of Transpeople and the other about Femme as a gender identity. The weekend before I had been at the Translating Identities Conference in Burlington doing much of the same work.
Looking at my hands as I drove across the bridge to work, I saw the remnants of stress in the chipping away of my red nail polish from each of my long fingernails. I felt the same stress in my shoulders, in the dull ache of my lower back and the pain shooting still through the balls of my feet as I climbed the stairs to my office.
My body looked and felt like I’d been climbing out of a cavern or scaling the side of a mountain or scrapping the colorful grips on the wall of a rock climbing gym.
This overall feeling of having pulled myself out of something is fitting for the last two weeks of intensity, overhaul and re-evaluation. I felt the opening of still recent wounds, the spreading out of bruises, the scars still pink and puffy. I had ended my relationship with my last partner, a Transman, in September, but decided to still attend these spring conferences and offer much needed partner and femme space to the other attendees through my workshops. As I sat at my desk, feeling the pain settle over my tired body, I wondered if it was all at my own expense.
On Friday after the partner’s workshop, I had let my body fall into a huge black cushioned chair, swinging my red high-heeled feet over the armrest. I was worn out from an hour and a half of similar stories, overlapping experiences, nods of understanding and sighs of shared hurts. These partner workshops always seemed like group therapy to me, similar to the support groups I ran for women surviving Domestic Violence in that everyone present always had an intense need for validation of their experiences, the desire to not feel so alone.
I’ve been asked countless times that if by holding these workshops or moderating my on-line community for partners of Trans-people I’m trying to suggest that relationships with someone who is Trans are somehow especially difficult. I think of the things that were most painful about my last relationship having little or nothing to do with the Trans-ness of my partner. However, the stories I’ll share and the experience I’ll reflect in my workshops is about his being Trans. I’ll talk about communication and preparing one’s heart for the changes to another’s body. I’ll speak to the importance of ‘securing your own oxygen mask before assisting others’ and finding partners who will let you safely vent without screaming accusations of Transphobia.
Any relationship is going to have its issues —not just relationships where one or both parties are Trans-identified. But there are definitely issues that are unique to a relationship of this kind and having a community of support is essential to working through the hard things and celebrating the common good.
When processing out loud about running partner’s workshops as someone who is no longer partnered with someone Trans, the words ‘I could be partnered to a Transman in the future’ slipped past my lips and anchored me in the truth of that statement.
Admittedly, I had joked that I might just walk into these workshops screaming ‘run’ to everyone seated in the circle. Looking at that sentence now, I know that isn’t funny and, actually, offensive. I think that unsolicited advice was coming from some kind of attempt at grounding myself in the reality of ‘what went wrong’ in my last relationship. Truthfully, what went wrong had nothing to do with gender identity, hormones or surgery.
I would have loved to have gone into things with my last partner a little more aware, much more supported and with somewhere to create some space for what I was going to experience in terms of being a non-Trans person partnered with someone Trans-identified.
When I had asked for advice about how to deal with any change on our horizon, I was given ways to support my partner and advice for how to prepare to do so. Looking back, there are ways I needed to be more prepared for how everything might affect me. Instead, I was encouraged to grab my pom-poms and become a ‘perpetual cheerleader’, a ‘super partner’, a brave smiling face. As if one could be so strong and unwavering at all times. There were things that were hard for me and too often, I felt like there was no space for my feelings in what was suddenly my new community.
Spending time with friends from Ann Arbor, Michigan at the conference made me long for having shared a town when we shared similar couplings. He is recently transitioning from F to M and she is a non-Trans woman. To have had someone close by to relate to around the issues I was encountering around my own partner’s transition would have felt so supportive. I would have loved to have someone else to talk to about feelings I didn’t necessarily need to go to my partner with first, a ‘pre-process’ if you will, to work out the delivery and shed light on the hopeful end result about bringing the given issue to the surface.
In my experience, I was almost six months into my relationship before I met other partners at a support group my partner and I attended. One sunny fall day, we drove in silence to the middle of Maine and walked toward people seated in chairs in a circle. When we broke off into a separate meeting for just partners, I remember sitting facing two lesbian identified women who were five and ten years, respectively, into their relationships with Transmen and still experiencing struggle from time to time. I talked for two hours non-stop that Sunday as they listened, nodded and even cried with me. I am still so grateful for the gift of understanding they offered me. I didn’t know it could exist.
Since then, I’ve been in the trenches of all of this, struggling to understand, seeking validation, wanting desperately to feel not so alone. As I pull myself upward, I’m seeing the light above and trying to bring others along to bask in it.
Offering these workshops was cathartic – and not just for me, but for those who attended, I believe. It was good to be given gratitude and to feel it emitting right back at those who expressed it at the end of each session. I am convinced we all need that community – for an hour and a half at a conference and continuing support once we find our way back home. It still remains invaluable to me and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
When asked if I would return to these conferences next spring, I easily answered yes. It is still work I want to do, still space I want to offer. Over the last two years, I have been lucky to have met so many strong partners who love fiercely and generously. I wish them the same love and loyalty in return.
Jill can be contacted at femme_bull@yahoo.com.
Worried Like This Forever
I’m generally having a problem with the way things are going these days, what with the South Dakota bill and the news that the US Government didn’t only fuck up New Orleans and the other areas that got hit by Katrina at the time but are continuing to fuck it up now, & that Paul McCartney is trying to keep people from beating baby seals to death. It’s the last one that got to me the worst – I mean, didn’t we highlight how barbaric that crap was like 20 years ago? I was almost surprised to find out it’s still happening; I thought Canada was cooler than that. Then Megan delivered the news that increased air travel – accelerated by cheap fares – will eventually guarantee that we can’t see the stars.
I keep hoping we human beings take ourselves out before we wipe out every other species that calls this planet home.
But something Sandy posted made me feel a little better:
I sometimes feel so weighed down by everything that is so wrong, and so bad, about how we humans treat each other and the world.
I worry.
I worry about an all-out, probably nuclear, war between the Muslim world and everyone else. I worry about bird flu. I worry about resistant strains of bacteria (and would everyone PLEASE quit using “anti-bacterial” soap, you’re making the problem worse, and gaining no benefit in the meantime). I worry about overpopulation and food and water supplies. I worry about the crazy rise in the incidence of all types of cancers in our country. I worry about plastics and pesticides and volatile organic compounds. I worry about all the no-money-down mortgages and credit card debt that people are getting into and not out of. I worry about the incredible, collossal amounts of waste in every aspect of our fat American lives. I worry about how stupid and sinister our government is, and how just plain stupid we citizens appear to be. I worry about the dubious role of huge corporations in society. I worry about children whose parents are mean to them. Now too, I worry about the demise of astronomy as we know it. I’m not being facetious. I care about all of this stuff.
My husband even worries about living on the East coast, downwind of all the air pollution in the rest of the country. I don’t go quite that far. But if we moved to the west coast, I’d probably worry about missiles from North Korea.
There’s no automatic healthy dose of “fuckit” attitude in my life anymore, that feeling that used to kick in when the world looked too cruel. All I can do these days is limit the amount of news I take in. (Ah, parenthood. It takes away some humor, for sure; thank God it installs some new kinds as well.)
One thought that eases my mind a bit is that people have worried like this forever… and life continues, and it’s mostly really, really good.
Thanks, Sandy.
If You Haven't Heard
South Dakota has just made abortion illegal, state-wide. No exceptions – not for the health of the mother, for rape, or for incest.
So I think South Dakota needs a new state slogan, yes? Here’s my entry:
South Dakota: The Inbred State
I’m sure some of you clever folks can come up with better ones.
This law is an attempt to take Roe down, absolutely. And in the meantime, women in South Dakota will now have to travel across state lines, at much greater expense, to have a safe, legal abortion. Greater expense often means delay, which means abortion later in the pregnancy, which means great health risks to the mother.
Five Questions With… Renee Reyes
Renee Reyes is the webmistress of www.reneereyes.com, a huge site where t-girls of all stripes have found information over the years. She is a strong believer in the commonality of experience of all kinds of transfolk, from crossdressers to transsexuals. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
< Renee Reyes
1. As far as I can tell, we’re rare in talking about admirers. Why do you think so many trans sites avoid the subject?
I’d say there are a couple of reasons. First, the large majority of gender-related web sites are hosted by girls whose feminine existence is still a very limited affair. In terms of sheer hours these gals have little time to fully consider their sexuality as precious femme time is wrapped up in improving their appearance. Attraction to others is limited to other transgenders & females. Alas, the sometimes crude approaches from neophyte male admirers aggravate the situation.
Admirers are an important segment of the gender community. They provide beauty affirmation and serve as healthy outlets for relationships. Like the girls…most admirers didn’t necessarily choose to find transgenders highly appealing. Nature just wired them that way.
Gays weren’t initially very accepting of transgenders. Admirers suffer the same sort of fate. We’ll get there.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Renee Reyes”
Five Questions With… Mara Keisling
Mara Keisling is the founding Executive Director of NCTE (National Center for Transgender Equality). A Pennsylvania native, Mara came to Washington after co-chairing the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition. Mara is a transgender-identified woman who also identifies as a parent and a Pennsylvanian. She is a graduate of Penn State University and did her graduate work at Harvard University in American Government. She has served on the board of Directors of Common Roads, an LGBTQ Youth Group, and on the steering committee of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition. Mara has almost twenty-five years of professional experience in social marketing and opinion research.
1) How much do you think your personality and sense of humor have to do with your success as a lobbyist? What personality? What humor?
I’m not yet ready to claim personal lobbying success, though I know we definitely are having an impact and NCTE was integral to getting the first ever piece of positive trans legislation introduced in Congress this year. I do know though that my sense of humor is a vital part of my personality and helps keep me strong. “They†say that keeping one’s sense of humor is important to weathering bad situations and I certainly believe that. And I have always been lucky enough to be able to amuse myself. Hopefully sometimes others are amused as well.
The work we do educating policymakers, though, is deadly serious and I do treat it that way. That doesn’t mean I do not inject humor as appropriate though. I think it humanizes us and me and makes our stories somewhat more accessible to those who may be trepidatious at first.
By the way, kind of as a hobby, I have begun to do a little bit of standup comedy again and may be coming to a town near you, or at least a trans conference near you.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Mara Keisling”
A Moment With Betty
I was busy writing a post about Jill Barkley and the Philly Trans Health Conference when the President’s appearance was announced. With my back to the TV, I heard Betty crack a beer open and then say, “It’s like a parade of evil.” Indeed.
We decided not to play do the Presidential Drinking Game suggested by Heather Havrilesky of The LA Times. Here are the rules:
- Every time Bush says “terror,” “terrorism,” “terrorist,” “war on terror” or “Terror Dome,” you drink.
- Drink when the president winks, nods and points at someone in the audience in rapid succession; drink each time he refers to 9/11 or uses the word “nuke-u-lar,” and drink something bitter when he says that “the state of our union is strong.”
- Whenever there’s a close-up of a sour-faced Democrat, drink. If it’s Hilary Clinton, Ted Kennedy or Harry Reid, drink twice.
- When Bush says “protect” as in “protect America,” “protect the lives of Americans” or “protect our right to eavesdrop on the phone calls of any American,” drink. If he refers to his solemn right to spy on antiwar activists as the “Terrorist Surveillance Program,” drink three times.
- Also, drink whenever the president uses the word “security,” as in the “security of all Americans” or “a secure nation.”
- When the president alludes to “tax reform,” “tax credits” or “tax relief,” give a big shout-out to the federal budget deficit — then drink.
- Drink each time the president begins a charming anecdote about some folks from a small red-state town; drink twice when the camera cuts to said folks.
- Every time the president smiles or chuckles when he’s talking about something scary and awful, like giant battlegrounds and forces of evil, smile and chuckle along with him — Haw haw haw! — then kick your dog.
- Drink each time the president mentions “free elections” in Iraq.
You really should read the complete rules, though. But both Betty and I have to work tomorrow, so this one just wasn’t an option. I’d be drunk by now (9:17 PM) if we had.
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”
Something In-between: A GG Perspective on Partial Dressing
MM is the wife of a CD and a moderator of the crossdressers.com forums. Someone directed me to this short piece she wrote – because she quoted me (thank you, M!) – and I thought it deserved reprinting.
Something In-between: A GG Perspective on Partial Dressing
By MM
“My husband is beautiful as a man or a woman, but unbelievably beautiful when he’s something in-between.” –Helen Boyd, My Husband Betty
I have heard many crossdressers say that being fully en femme is the only experience that truly satisfies them. Their desire is to appear as a woman – with a wig, makeup, breast forms, and perhaps even a corset and padding to complete the feminine image. Some feel so strongly about this that they prefer to dress completely or not all; they find no comfort in wearing a pair of panties and a bra under their male clothing, or adding a few girly details to their masculine appearance for an androgynous look, or simply being a man in a dress. When they look in the mirror, they want to see the illusion of a woman looking back at them, not a man in women’s clothes. When they dress, they want to become someone feminine, someone beautiful–in short, someone else.
Well, each to his – or her – own. There is no call for the antagonism that seems to exist within our community between partial dressers and the “all or nothing” crowd. I understand that some are disturbed by images of crossdressers who make no effort to look female, but I don’t personally share their distaste – and neither do most of the wives and girlfriends I know. In fact, the majority of SOs find it easier to relate to their partner as a guy in girls’ clothes than as a “complete” woman. Very few women genuinely perceive their crossdressed partners as female anyway, even when they are fully dressed and made up. For us, the illusion of femininity that crossdressers see when they look at themselves is invariably undermined by the familiar features and gestures of the man we know so well underneath the clothes. In other words, as far as your wife is concerned, you don’t pass and never will. Does that make you less appealing to her? Probably not. It is your male self she is attracted to, after all, and the more of “him” that shows through, the better.
I do understand that there is a special thrill in “going all the way.” My husband Angel loves the experience of being fully en femme, and I love to help him achieve a womanly appearance. Assisting him with clothing, jewelry, accessories, and makeup is something I take great pleasure in. Spending time with Angel en femme, whether we go out or have a “girl’s night in,” is very special and rewarding for me. But both of us agree on one point: no matter what Angel is wearing, he – or she – is always the same person. True, when fully dressed, Angel’s feminine characteristics are more obvious and exaggerated. But Angel’s femininity is always present, even without the clothes. It is simply expressed in different ways and to different degrees depending on the circumstances. When Angel is en femme, she is still Angel. There is no “third person” in our marriage.
Perhaps it is because we don’t see Angel as having two distinct identities that we both enjoy seeing him dressed in a way that blurs traditional gender lines. You can call it partial crossdressing, androgyny, gender blending, or any other name you like, but it amounts to being an obvious genetic male dressed in women’s clothes. For example, it is common for Angel to wear women’s jeans, tennis shoes with pink accents, satin-trimmed t-shirts, and women’s cardigans as his normal, everyday clothes. He wears a bra and panties every day, as well as various other undergarments such as camisoles and pantyhose. He may also wear a necklace and earrings, a ladies’ watch, perfume, subtle makeup, and pale nail polish. However, there is no way he could be mistaken for a woman when wearing these outfits. He appears as what he is: a feminized male, or as I affectionately call him, a girly boy. At home he often wears a blouse and skirt without making any attempt at a complete transformation, and I don’t think it looks silly at all. It may not be what most of us are used to seeing, but if the clothes look attractive on a woman, why can’t they look attractive on a man? Granted there are limits on what a man can wear in public without creating a stir, but that has very little to do with what looks inherently good or bad. It is, rather, a reflection of Western society’s insistence on a rigidly bi-gendered world.
There are some crossdressers who wouldn’t dream of displaying their femininity without simultaneously hiding their maleness, and I respect their preference. But I see it as a wonderful thing that Angel can show on the outside what he is on the inside, even when in male mode. I have always encouraged him to integrate his femininity into his male persona, and the mixed-gender style of dressing is an obvious way to do that. Nearly all of Angel’s clothes are women’s, but some are conspicuously feminine while others–including the ones he wears to work–are more gender neutral. This gives him a lot of freedom regarding his day-to-day appearance, which spans the entire continuum from drab to drag. The only thing he never looks like is a manly man. Ask him and he will tell you that he would rather die than wear a plaid flannel shirt.
How do I feel about all of this? Honestly? Well, I’d like to think that my acceptance has helped Angel to feel more comfortable with mixing masculine and feminine signals. Besides the fact that it seems psychologically healthy to strive for the integration of both genders into one’s identity, I also happen to find it attractive. Very attractive. Okay, downright irresistible. Ever since I can remember, I have been drawn to effeminate men. In my teenage years, those 80’s New Wave icons with their arched eyebrows, ruffled blouses and lipstick used to make me weak in the knees. I have an aversion to rugged masculinity and actually feel disgusted by body hair, big muscles, and tough guy attitudes. On the other hand, I am not a lesbian and don’t feel attracted to members of my own sex. What I like is being able to see, simultaneously, the man within the woman and the woman within the man. It reminds me that I am married to a guy who is delightfully different. I hope Angel knows that I love him whether he looks male or female”¦..but I’m glad he also feels free to be something in-between.
© MM 2005
Condolences
I can’t even begin to imagine how those families feel – getting the good news last night and today getting the correction.
I find a report of Bush’s condolences about the miners in a Chinese paper – not surprising, really, as coal miners die in China pretty much every month and their deaths go unreported or under-reported.
My condolences to the families, and a wish for freedom from guilt for that one guy who survived.
(If you haven’t worked it out, my grandparents & much of their generation were anthracite miners around the turn of the century.)
Happy 2006!
May you all have a happy, healthy, peaceful 2006.