Lacey Leigh is the authr of Out & About: The Emancipated
Crossdresser as well as 7 Secrets of Successful Crossdressers. She moderates an online community, speaks publicly as a crossdresser, and helps a lot of CDs gain confidence as they take those first fledgeling steps out the (closet) door.
1. What do you think is the most important thing crossdressers need to know?
One of the major changes I have made is in my personal lexicon – my working vocabulary, as it were – is to eliminate the words that carry semantic undertones of judgement or personal imperative: should, must, ought, need, etc. We use them unconsciously, not realizing how such terms of absolutism color the message we’re trying to communicate.
People and friends, beginning with my wife, have reminded that while I have the zeal and passion of a recent convert to faith, there is also a frequent tendency to climb on the soapbox and get a little ‘preachy’. Mea culpa. I’m working on it. It’s especially difficult to keep the lid on it when sharing an attitude, a mindset that has provided such an empowering personal perspective – for me as well as everyone else who has tried it.
Terms that carry such cultural sovereignty are often reliable indicators of personal bias. Count the number of times people use similar words of subtle judgement, multiply by the frequency of the personal pronoun (I, me, my, etc.) and you’ll get a pretty good indicator of how deeply a person is into himself – and whether that person is operating with a closed or an open mind.
A favorite theme is “Why allow people to ‘should’ on you?”
Anyway, I would rephrase “need to know” with “might benefit from understanding.”
Back to your question…
You started with ‘the biggie’; a topic for which a glib reply can lead to greater confusion. To lend a perspective, it might benefit readers to jump over to one of the essays on my outreach website.
Clothing serves as a primary cultural communication. Absent that imperative, we might just as well wrap rags, moss, or bubble wrap around ourselves for protection and comfort. This point is essential in order to grasp a further understanding of crossdressing. We send myriad signals about ourselves through the medium of personal attire and decoration; our ethnicity, our religion, our social status, our allegiance, our mood, our gender, our fantasies, our ‘availability’, our mood – the list is infinite.
Crossdressing is communication.
Which leads to a plethora of additional questions. What, exactly, are we communicating? To whom are we sending the message (trick question)? Is it getting through or is it somehow garbled or confusing? Is the message content accurate at the source? Is the communication important in the first place?
Crossdressing is not about the clothing. Rather, the clothing is a conduit of expression – about our very essential, inner natures. Doesn’t it make sense to say positive, empowering things?
A famous Russian tennis player was once the butt of a locker room prank when his new ‘friends’ educated him with a few phrases in English to help him get by. When he thought he was asking, “Where is the men’s toilet” the words he’d been taught were more on the order of “I need to s**t, which way is the G**damn crapper?” As he became more fluent in English he didn’t appreciate the humor.
In the crossdressing ‘community’ there are many who start out the same way, attempting to communicate in a language they don’t really speak. Little wonder they don’t get much in the way of tolerance; they have made themselves (albeit unintentionally for the most part) intolerable, primarily from restating the messages they absorb from their less thoughtful sisters and from a sensational media that emphasizes the lowest common denominators.
It’s common sense that if we wish to earn respect, it’s a good idea to appear respectable. Our culture, while uncomfortable with nonstandard gender expression, is waaaaaaaaay more uneasy about things deemed overtly sexual. Thus, when crossdressers openly display as clueless Barbies, truckstop trannies, or BDSM submissives it’s understandable why the public at large react as they do. A natal female attired in the same manner would generate a similar reaction. Get a clue! As it harms no other, do as you will – behind bedroom doors, and keep them closed please.
At a recent Eureka En Femme Getaway it was an uphill battle with one middle-aged CD. When asked why she favored miniskirts and CFM strappy platform shoes she replied, “My legs are my best asset.” To which I replied, “Your legs are writing checks that your face and waistline can’t cash.” Her rejoinder was, “I don’t care – people will just have to deal with it.” Sure, a chip-on-my-shoulder attitude will win tolerance every time. Where is a good cluebat when you need one?
I finally got through to her by opening a side door; vanity. She was out on the street the next morning, blissfully displaying her butt cheeks to everyone in her aft quarter, when I walked up to her and in a conspiratorial whisper said, “One word – ‘cellulite’.” That afternoon, she was wearing trousers.
Just as with any language, there are blessings and curses; bold proclamations and subtle suggestions; the vulgar and the tasteful; the shout and the whisper; the symphony and the grunge. It’s helpful to keep in mind that we master a language through practice, total immersion, feedback, trial, and error. The kind of feedback we receive in an echo chamber (‘support’ groups, ‘trans friendly’ venues, and TG social circles) isn’t nearly as helpful as that which we gain by expressing among the culture at large.
Thus, my advocacy for open crossdressing.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Lacey Leigh”
Five Questions With… Felicity
As far as I know, Felicity is the oldest living crossdresser. She was photographed by Mariette Pathy Allen for Transformations, and is about to turn 100 years old, on December 15th.
< Felicity sitting in front of a photo of a very young Felicity, as photographed by Mariette Pathy Allen.Let’s all wish Felicity a very happy birthday!
1) You’re turning 100 on December 15th, which means that you’ve been crossdressing for about 90 years or so. What would you say to the 10-year-old boy who will try on one of his mother’s slips today?
No, I haven’t been CDing for 90 years or anytime near that. The first time was involuntarily, by my mother, in 1911. Then none until about 5 years later when I first saw the photos taken of me by my father. I then had the desire, but after trying on my mother’s things a few times I grew out of them and did no more until 1960, when I joined a CD group and went at it furiously. There was absolutely no sexual impulse, just the love of the clothes and the pleasure of being a different person, in public. Never did any CDing in private. Underclothing held little interest for me.
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The Best Moisturizer
I’ve got crap skin – I’m one of those people that can be oily and itchy and dry and oozy all at the same time. A couple of years ago – after exposing myself to elderflower water, to which I am allergic, apparently – I discovered a little product called Gator Balm. The stuff rocks. I am not really big into endorsing products, but really, this stuff is amazing. My skin is so sensitive even Neutrogena’s moisturizers sting when I put them on, but this stuff is cooling and takes the itch out and makes the skin soft. Really great especially for anyone with eczema.
It’s also really good for “cold nose” – you know, when your nose gets raw from tissue use when you’re sick, and you can’t put anything on it without it stinging – you can put Gator Balm right on it. Really. Betty and I both use it once a week as an intensive moisturizer, too.
It’s not always easy to find, but a good health food store with a really well-stocked hygiene product area might have it. (For those of you in NYC, the little shop down the block from the Center has it.)
Five Questions With… Raven Kaldera
A female-to-male transgendered activist and shaman, Raven Kaldera is a pagan priest, intersex transgender activist, parent, astrologer, musician and homesteader. Kaldera, who hails from Hubbardston, Mass., is the founder and leader of the Pagan Kingdom of Asphodel and the Asphodel Pagan Choir. Kaldera has been a neo-pagan since the age of 14, when he was converted by a “fam-trad” teen on a date. His website, Cauldron Farm, contains extensive information about Pagan practice as well as his activist writings on transgender and sexuality topics.
Having met Raven and attended workshops he’s given, I’m always surprised that every time I see him I’m newly amazed by how much his presence is both strong and gentle. His answers, too, are of the ‘pulls no punches’ variety, without obfuscation, and he manages to explain complex ideas – about spirituality, sexuality, and identity – in plain language. Okay, I’m a fan! – I admit it!
1) I think the most vital thing I’d love for you to talk about is how most IS people view T issues, and whether or not they identify as T, and why.
Most intersexuals do not consider themselves transgendered, and are very uncomfortable being associated with the trans movement in general. I think a lot of this comes out of lifetimes of being shamed for being physically different; if it was a terrible thing that had to be medically corrected and then desperately hidden from the world, what’s up with these people with “normal” bodies who are seeking out changes? Not to mention that many IS folks view transpeople as freaks, and are desperate to be seen as “normal”.
The problem is with the cross-section. I don’t know how big that cross-section is, but there are more and more of us popping out all the time – IS folks who decide that they’d rather be a gender other than what they were assigned, and get sex reassignment, transsexuals who discover that they have IS conditions in the middle of their changes, and so forth. We make it difficult for either side to separate from each other. Our bodies are spread across that gap between the two movements. It’s important for me as one of those bridgers to be sensitive to the needs of both sides, getting in the way of the IS folks assumption that we’re freaks; getting in the way of the transfolks’ attempts to colonize the IS struggles.
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Five Questions With… Dallas Denny
Dallas Denny, M.A., is founder and was for ten years Executive Director of the American Educational Gender Information Service, Inc. (AEGIS), a national clearinghouse on transsexual and transgender issues. She is currently on the board of Gender Education & Advocacy, Inc., AEGIS’ successor organization, which lives at www.gender.org. She is Director of Fantasia Fair and editor of Transgender Tapestry magazine and was editor and publisher of the late Chrysalis: The Journal of Transgressive Gender Identities. Dallas is a prolific writer with hundreds of articles and three books to her credit. She recently decided to retire her license to practice psychology in Tennessee, since she seems to have found a permanent home in Pine Lake, Georgia, pop. 650, the world’s smallest municipality with a transgender nondiscrimination ordinance.
1) You’ve been a trans educator/activist for a long time now: what do you see as the biggest development in terms of trans politics since you’ve been doing this?
When I began my activism in 1989, the community was almost entirely about education– outreach to the general public and information to other transpeople. There wasn’t much information available, and much of that wasn’t very good or was outdated– and even the bad information could be almost impossible to find. The rapid growth of the community in the 1990s and especially the explosion of the internet made information much easier to find.
Somewhere around 1993, the community had reached a point at which political activism had become possible. Of course, some of us had always been doing that, but it hadn’t been a prime focus of the community, and what had been done had been sporadic and short-lived, often was done by a single individual or a small group, and tended to happen in places like San Francisco and New York City. This activism did give us some political gains– most notably in Minnesota, which adopted state-wide protections as early as, I believe, the early 1970s, but around 1993 there was a growing political consciousness in the community, and things just began to take off.
I can identify some important events of the 1990s– when Nancy Burkholder, a post-op transsexual woman, was kicked out of the Michigan Womyn’s conference, when people began to come together in Texas at Phyllis Randolph Frye’s ICTLEP law conference, when the March on Washington turned out to be non-transinclusive, when a bunch of us got together to form GenderPac (an organization which was promptly hijacked by the Executive Director)– but there were two biggies, in my opinion. The first was the first transgender lobbying, which was done by Phyllis Frye and Jane Fee. They couldn’t believe they had actually done it, then wondered why they hadn’t done it before. When HRCF (as it was then called) promptly went behind their backs and removed the transgender inclusions Phyllis and Jane had convinced lawmakers to put into the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, there was a sense of outrage. The news broke when Sarah DePalma got an e-mail.at the law conference. It happened to be the only ICTLEP I attended. We had a coule of strategy sessions and went back home and the next week did actions at at least six Pride events, including Atlanta, which I coordinated. You should have seen the jaws drop when I handed leaflets to the folks at the HRCF booth. The organization has, of course, done a complete turnaround since then, or so we hope.
The other big event was the muder of Brandon Teena; in the aftermath, we began to get media coverage that concentrated on our political issues and not just our individual psychologies or transition histories.
After that, things just exploded. Today many of us– as many as one in three– have some sort of legal protections– anti-discrimination, hate crimes, or both. My little town of Pine Lake, Georgia, population 650, even has trans protections– and I didn’t even have to ask for them. They were already in place when I moved here in the late 1990s.
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Dark Odyssey #3
We’re back from our 3rd Dark Odyssey and this one topped the previous two. We arrived Tuesday around 2pm, and left Monday around 2pm, which means we had six full days of nudity, sex, workshops, sex, pagan rituals, sex, naked volleyball, swimming, and yes, more sex. Driving down with Daddy David and his girl Kate was a great way to get ready for the six days, and to process them on the way back.
I am pretty sure I now know every conceivable way a person can be tied to a tree and flogged.
We met a bunch of new and interesting people: Maggie, a liberated ex-pat who was both beautiful and multi-lingual; Neil and linda, who gave us the low-down on Master/slave relationships; Captain Beatrice and B, who each came to one of my workshops; S. Bear Bergman, who reviewed my book not long ago; Lyndon, who was wearing that cool “question gender” shirt from TIC; Sir Andrew and Fyre, who we hit it off with immediately when we picked them up at the airport, and Maria, with whom I had some interesting conversations about being raised Catholic.
We saw a ton of old friends and familiar faces, like Opn and Toni (who once again provided us with excellent “fat girl taxi” service, Joe Samson (and his girlfriend), Citizen Rahne (and her girlfriend), Susan (who is scheming to get me invited to the Trans Health Conference that takes place in Philly every year), Julie, Becky, Barbara Carrellas (with whom Betty may be starting a “partners of writers” support group, as Barbara is the inestimable Kate Bornstein’s partner), and Raven Kaldera and his boy joshua, who put on an amazing re-enactment of the Sumerian myth of Innana. Michelle Zee taught me a new shoulder stretch, too. (It just occurred to me that nearly all these people are trans themselves or a partner of a transperson, which leads me to believe I’m slightly self-ghettoizing, but that’s not a huge shock, either.)
There were folks from the MHB Boards there, too, like Dawn, the cervix-bearing fantastic partner of Nicole (who regrettably had just broken her foot and couldn’t come), uber-lusty JessicaNYC and her MonkeyGirl, and of course the lovely Penny and Jayme, who were literally hiding in the corner when I first found them, right before the workshop on monogamy that I did Friday night. Then again, they told me later that night they’d already gone skinny dipping, so it obviously didn’t take them long to come out of the corner!
We also brought home a new member of the Boyd family: little Aurora, a tiny 5 lb. tabby cat who charmed everyone — and who was fending for herself on the campgrounds without claws. She’s sleeping in our bathtub for now, being forced to eat and drink, and getting crankier about it (which I consider a good sign, because she’s got enough energy to complain, and she didn’t before.)
If I could find the people who would leave a clawless cat to fend for herself, I might come up with a new way to tie a person to a tree and flog them.
We had a great time overall, and opened a few doors ourselves. I did finally manage — in a very safe workshop given by our friend SwitchMe — to get naked in front of other people. I’m not going to make a habit of it, but it was good to do, if only even for the ability to do so if and when I choose to.
Betty and I also, erm, opened a few doors together, in public and privately, but that’s all I’m saying. You’ll have to come yourself if you ever want to see us do anything sexual in a public space, and even then you’ll have to get lucky to be in the right place at the right time. (Several people were disappointed they hadn’t been, when they heard what we’d done!)
Betty was of course a lovely co-MC with Miss Tristan for the Wheel of Destiny, and a few people are starting to mumble about them co-hosting a cable access television talk show. I’m already imagining the guest list, but we’ll see.
The biggest surprise was enjoying watching Sir C beat the crap out of someone tied to a tree while reclining under a pine tree in the dappled sunlight. (Though we did have to pick ourselves free of pine tar afterwards.)
The workshops I conducted (on Monogamy, Uneven Libidos, and of course Trans sexuality) were a pleasure to run, especially since the people who came posed thoughtful questions and had insightful comments, though of course my workshops are certainly less arousing than the ones given by Nina and Felice! Betty said at one point that I provide all the “thinking” workshops, though the one I attended given by Citizen Rahne was really thoughtful and smart, too. I was especially pleased that the workshops I gave on non-trans subjects were a success, which got me thinking about what I want to be when I grow up.
What amazes me the most is that I could write another 10 pages and still never touch the sense of what DO is actually like. We definitely encourage other couples, genderqueers, trannies, and BDSM folks to come on down! Yes, the food is mediocre at best, but the meals are full of interesting folks and engaging conversations. I’m not sure anyone gets enough sleep, either. But the sense of camaraderie, the comfort with nudity, sex, and kink are inestimable — like nothing I’ve ever experienced anywhere else. Our thanks to Greg and Tristan for the effort to put on such a remarkable event, and to Colten and the staff for working their butts off.
Five Questions With… Rosalyne Blumenstein
Rosalyne Blumenstein is the former
directer of the Gender Identity Project at the GLBT Center in Manhattan, and is the author of Branded T.
1. You emphasize the non-inclusion of bisexual and transpeople in your book Branded T by writing it “GLbt.” Do you think this still holds true – are bisexuals and Ts still left out of the majority of “gay activism”?
I currently live in LA. In June they have their Pride Weekend. It is called Gay Pride, need I say more? …Well I will anyway.
I think we have gone backwards just like the larger system. I believe there to be a parallel process going on with the way in which government is running things and the way in which our social movements are following. Here’s the deal and my swing on it. (Not that I know anything… opinions are like assholes – everyone has one, well mostly everyone has one).
Again this is only my opinion.
I believe everyone should be able to live they way they want, experience some semblance of freedom, love, be loved, feel fulfilled, dream, and be on a journey. However, within the gay agenda it is all about mimicking a Christian heterosexist mentality. Mind you, take this apart there is nothing wrong with Christian…having a certain belief system and having faith which is grand and extremely helpful in life…
And as far as Heterosexuality is concerned, there is nothing wrong with someone who identifies as male loving someone who identifies as female. I for one would love to be in another relationship with a man. Right now I would love to be in a relationship with someone breathing let alone what damn gender they identify as.
But from my understanding of a sexual minority movement it‘s about many different kinds of loves, not just the sanctity of marriage. It’s about not buying into just the white picket fence and the 2.3 kids.
So the Gay Agenda has become about wanting the same things everybody else wants which is not a bad thing but is not the voice of the whole queer movement. In fact most voices that are silenced within the movement are those
- that are either getting their ass kicked on the streets because they don’t blend
- or those with little power within the political system
- or those that care less about identity politics, they just want to be, live, have great sex, explore, be.
So the gay agenda doesn’t give voice to all concerned. Well maybe these groupings get some quality TV time during Pride since that is what media wants to show and that is what the larger gay movement does want to be viewed as. I think it is all about oppression and many times the oppressed (gay community) become the oppressors (the rest of us that don’t identify as gay).
So in answer to your question my dear I think B and T folk within the gay movement have the opportunity to participate within the movement but in the larger scheme of things and what is portrayed to the Universe is Gay= LGBT.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Rosalyne Blumenstein”
A Day in the Life of HB: Part One
I thought this might amuse some of you, for whatever reason it would.
Wake up, slightly bemused at having dreamt I grew up with Sting living two houses away from me.
Put on tea water, weigh self (don’t ask!), turn on computer, light cigarette, say hello to Aeneas (who always greets me when I wake up), apologize to Endymion (who continues to sleep at my feet no matter how many times I kick him when I’m sleeping).
Go online, curse dial-up, delete pounds of spam. Do I really need to see ads for “young girls jerking you off†when I first wake up? No, I don’t. Do I even have a penis for these young sluts TO jerk off? No, I don’t.
Open the Animal Rescue site, tab to MHB, check stats, amazon sales rank, message boards. Tell someone to get bent and someone else to quit picking the same fights, already. Split threads, move threads, delete bitchy posts. Proceed to the Breast Cancer site, the Child Health site, the Hunger site, the Literacy site, the Rainforest site, which I let load in a background tab while I check out the boards.
IM Betty, who tells me about my email before most of it downloads. (We get cc:’d a lot of the same info.)
When the tea water whistles, if I hear it, pour tea; while tea is steeping, prepare a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Yes, I’m addicted. In a still-sleepy daze, wonder if I should let the Cheerios go soggy while I finish smoking the cigarette I lit, or put out the cigarette to eat the Cheerios. (It’s about 50/50, as far as I can tell.)
Bug Betty via IM about the eight things we’re supposed be doing, who she’s supposed to be calling, what events we’ve been invited to that she hasn’t gotten back to me about, which reminds me to open my calendar, and see that I’m supposed to work, so I speed up my tea drinking and emailing.
Answer ten emails in succession: one to a friend from my pre-tranny life, five to trannies currently emailing me regularly, two queries from people about info/resources, and one to someone I promised some bit of writing to. The tenth I forward to Betty about tech stuff on the site/boards.
Ignore the phone until I stop saying fuck under my breath when it rings.
Stop doing everything to give Aeneas his morning love-down.
Wonder if I have time to work out before I dress and bathe.
Answer five more emails: two responses that have already come back from the previous set, a third from a partner who’s freaking out, forward two other invites to Betty so she can not get back to me about whether or not she wants to go.
Read the new posts on the boards again, making sure whatever fights started have been dropped, then pick one myself about something feminist.
Remember to take my Zyrtec when I realize I’m itchy all over from the Aeneas love-down.
IM Betty about how she slept, say hello, only to notice a “brb†about five lines up.
Wait for Betty to get back so I don’t forget whatever it is. Drink tea, play with Endymion. Take out yoga mat. Check answering machine for previous night’s messages because I didn’t want to answer the phone. Get back to find 10 lines of IM from Betty that end with another ‘brb.’ Completely forget what I was supposed to IM Betty about.
Check my to-do list, cross one thing off and add another.
Make a few phonecalls.
Finally, Betty gets back from lunch and tells me she has no idea if she wants to go to anything I’ve mentioned to her. I resolve just to tell her what we’re going to and quit asking her, then forward her a few more emails about events in the next half-hour after I’ve made the resolution.
IM Betty to tell her I’m working out. Work out. (Okay, so this doesn’t happen everyday.)
Take a quick bath, dress, check the boards one last time, IM Betty that I’m going to work. Smoke another cigarette. Wonder how long it will take someone to write their own version of this blog post on the boards.
Still No Condom Ads
The other night I was watching something during primetime – I don’t know which show, I was flipping channels – and suddenly a KY commercial came on. KY! Apparently they’ve got a new product they’re marketing for women, something that could have been the next product in the old SNL dessert topping/floor wax spoofs: it’s part massage oil, part personal lubricant, and all of it is self-warming. It’s called Touch Massage. The commercial features an attractive couple, suggests sexual arousal tastefully, and shows the man rubbing her shoulders with the oil. Certainly tame enough.
Another day, I saw a commercial for Cialis, which is the new, improved version of Viagra.
Personal lubricant and erectile dysfunction during not-late-night viewing hours.
And yet there’s still no ads for condoms, are there? And you know why? The American Family Association and other groups of their ilk have protested the possibility with the usual arguments (key words: promote promiscuity) even though a quarter of the million+ people in the US who are infected don’t even know it.
I’m sure keeping those condom ads’ll off TV will help out with preventing teen pregnancy, right? Uh, no. Right now the US has a higher percentage of pregnant teens than countries with condom ads on TV.
Ah, the American Family Association: keeping your family pregnant and infected. Thanks guys.
Five Questions With… Interview with Jamison Green
Jamison Green is the author of Becoming A Visible Man
(Vanderbilt U. Press, 2004), which won the CLAGS’ Sylvia Rivera Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Finalist. He writes a monthly column for PlanetOut, and is a trans-activist of unmatched credibility. He is board chair of Gender Advocacy and Education, a board member for the Transgender Law and Policy Institute and the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, and served as the head of FTM International for most of the 1990s*. He is referred to in many other books about trans issues, including Patrick Califia’s Sex Changes, Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein, and Body Alchemy by Loren Cameron.
1. Betty and I often repeat your “there is no right way to be trans” idea, and I was wondering if any one thing contributed to you believing that.
I guess you could boil it down to the desire not to invalidate other people, but that desire has been informed by exposure to a wide variety of transgender and transsexual individuals of many ages, from many cultures, and many walks of life. Some people take it upon themselves to judge other trans people, to say “You’ll never make it as a man” or “as a woman,” or “you’re not trans enough,” “radical enough,” “queer enough,” whatever the case is. But I’ve known people who were told those things who went on to have successful transitions and generally satisfying lives, though they often felt burned enough by “the community” to stay away from it. I think it’s a shame that people cut themselves and/or others off from the potential for community, and I think that if we all truly believed there was room for everyone and we could learn to truly appreciate other’s differences and each person’s intrinsic value as a human being –and if we worked to make that a reality– then we, as collective trans people, might really make a positive difference in the world.
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