Tag: legal issues

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Ladies' Room?

There are many meaningful things said about the gender divide vis a vis bathrooms, but I didn’t expect to be blogging about it. Still, a couple of recent articles – one in The New York Times, and the other in The NY Post – have brought up all the usual issues and complaints.
If we allow crossdressed men to go into a ladies room, the end of civilization is upon us. Pedophilia will occur at mind-boggling rates. Women will no longer feel safe.

    A few things have occurred to me.
    1) The reason women already go to the bathroom in pairs (other than a chance to gossip) is safety. So it’s apparent they already don’t feel safe going alone to the ladies’ room, trannies or not.
    2) One of our loyal bloggers actually did some research on the incidence of men crossdressing in order to assault children in bathrooms, and after an evening of making himself heartsick with horrible stories, found only one incidence – which turned out, after all, to be a mistake.
    3) It strikes me that the easy answer to this problem is to legislate that new buildings need to include one single-occupancy bathroom. Period. So that the transperson, or woman-raised-female, or child-and-parent (fathers take their kids to the bathroom, too) can use a room that is lockable and private. Other buildings could be required over a period of time to retrofit their own bathrooms for similar use.
    4) I wonder often at the people who spew such fear and hatred of strangers, or the unknown. I wonder how they ever feel safe in their worlds.
    5) The first time I shared a ladies’ room with a drag queen the only thing that upset me was that she’d remembered to stop at a mirror to freshen her lipstick and I hadn’t.

Not to make light of the situation: women are vulnerable to unprotected spaces, and getting stuck behind a locked door. But I don’t think crossdressers are the men who are going to be assaulting them, and I don’t think the average sex assailant would be willing to emasculate himself to that degree in order to assault women. Transpeople are usually just as scared as women are of assault from men.
Since stalls create the privacy, why aren’t ladies’ room doors transparent? I don’t have a problem with someone watching me put on lipstick or make sure there’s no toilet paper stuck on my shoe (and maybe the clear doors would shame more people into washing their hands – like they’re supposed to). Extra eyes help cut down on violence.
So the real issue is: why don’t women feel safe in restrooms?
My guess is that it’s because we don’t take crimes against women seriously enough – no matter who perpetrates them. They say you can judge a society by how well it treats its women and children, and by those standards, we’re not getting a passing grade. ABC reports an increase in child abuse that’s ‘epidemic’ and the stats on violence against women stay the same year after year. If women don’t feel safe in their own homes, why on earth would they feel safe in a public bathroom? And while you might say these are two different issues, the late Andrea Dworkin said:

By the time we are women, fear is as familiar to us as air; it is our element. We live in it, we inhale it, we exhale it, and most of the time we do not even notice it. Instead of “I am afraid,” we say, “I don’t want to,” or “I don’t know how,” or “I can’t.”

So why are women afraid of transfolks in restrooms? Because women are afraid. While they may not understand that transpeople are not the ones who will assault them, they don’t expect their boyfriends and husbands to assault them, either. And they do. They do. And as usual, what can be feared (because it is unknown, sometimes unknowable, and new) will be feared instead. Their fear is legitimate. Transpeople’s need for accomodation is legitimate. But once again, we’ve got this tiny sliver of pie, and no one’s getting enough to eat. The issue again is male violence – male violence against gay men, transpeople, and women. When we all realize that we’re in this together, maybe, maybe, we’ll take back the night.
Resources: The NY Post and NY Times articles can be found on the MHB Boards, and there’s some sensible legal consideration given to the issue by Michael C. Dore of FindLaw.com.

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On Being a Partner

One of our MHB board regulars mentioned that she feels she might be rationalizing away that her wife won’t stay with her through, and post-transition. The idea of it alarmed me, because I think a lot of transwomen want to transition so badly that they kind of glaze over a lot of the realities that might be coming: like a wife who leaves, children who are angry, job loss, etc.
This was my response:
It’s entirely possible for someone to rationalize that she’s going to stick with you through transition, even if you don’t think she will, or if she’s stated she won’t.
That would be a very huge mistake, imho.
I talk to gender therapists sometimes (y’know, for fun) and the cases of wives going ballistic/vengeful are out there. Plenty of them. & While I know you are certain that your wife is an angel of goodness (as am I & all the other partners on here, ahem), you really never know.
Hell hath no fury like a woman whose partner transitions.
But you might replace ‘fury’ with sadness, desperation, frustration, anger, rage, bottomless sorrow.
When I’m feeling coldly rational I think – if Betty transitions, well – I’m only 35 & we have no children. We’re both young enough to find others to love and who love us, & Betty would be better off with a lesbian who loves having a tall, gorgeous woman for a partner instead of me, who really does love & is turned on by her guy self.
And then I think of my wedding pictures, or of the time we went to Scotland when we got engaged, or of when we first met & made a game of making each other guess the name of obscure new wave records, or of how last night she helped me changed the default colors on the new site, or of… many other million things.
& Then I feel angry, & sad, & frustrated, & I want to kick the universe back for the kick it’s given me in the teeth.
Some days, I kick betty instead, when I don’t mean to, but I don’t know what to do with my anger at feeling like I’ve had a really dirty trick played on me, what I was calling for a while ‘the smoothest bait & switch ever perpetrated.’ I mean, I meet the boy of my dreams and it turns out… well you all know how it turns out. The boy of my dreams wants to be 1) the person of my dreams, while also being 2) a woman.
& I don’t see any way out of this that makes any sense. Either he gets what he wants (to be a woman & to be with me) or I get what I want (for him to be something like male, & to be with me). We’ve been traipsing around a middle ground where Betty is sometimes a boy and more often now a girl (even when she thinks she’s passing as a boy, in fact) and right now – it’s like we’re kinda happy. Neither of us is thrilled.
And I consider options: finding a man I could have sex with (but then I realize it’s not about sex). or deciding that having a partner – but maybe not a romantic partner exactly – isn’t so bad (but then I realize I would have ‘married’ one of my gay friends years ago if that was all I wanted). sometimes I think I can live with the burden of being “the reason betty never transitioned” and other days I realize I might, at the end of my days, decide I’ve been a silly, stubborn wretch of a person who put my happiness before betty’s, & how I would regret having done that. some days I think we’re stuck in an O. Henry story with a happy ending, and other days I think we’re stuck in an O. Henry story that has no happy ending, & that – at the end of the day – love & self-sacrifice will not be enough, and that self-sacrifice is just a story, a mug’s game, & just one of the ways we rationalize not making hard decisions about ‘mutual incompatibility’ and all those other things divorce lawyers turn into legalese.
I’m on a partners’ list where a woman who had a hard time supporting her partner’s transition was just told – post-transition – that her partner discovered a desire for men. She will not be the first (or the last) transwoman to discover such a thing, & I’m sure there’s a thread on here somewhere where Dana talks about how that happens (since it happened to her). & when I think about the fact that I might manage going through transition with betty, only to realize that would never happen, I realize too that betty has also told me 1) she didn’t want to be a woman, and 2) that she’d never transition, and 3) well you get the idea. Being with a transperson is all about not knowing what they might figure out next.
So the only way around it, as far as I can figure, is telling Betty that I love her, and trying to dissect what it is that makes me unhappy about having a female partner. There’s the sexual issue. There’s the public identity issue. There’s the “she’s a skinny bitch” issue. There’s the “this brings her so much joy & I only feel sorrow” issue. There’s the feminist issue (because I really don’t see any male partners sticking through transition, no husbands on here wondering what to do when their female wives start taking T.) there’s a lot of compromises I’ve already made & I hate making more. There’s wondering if dealing with this shit is just another version (new & improved & updated for ’05!) of being a doormat.
There’s the fact that often, I feel like with writing the book & making plans to write another, I’ve simply made lemonade out of the lemon I was handed.
& What Dana says – about lies – is all true. You all did lie, maybe to yourselves first & well, & then to us. & to everyone else you know. & though I can forgive that, I don’t know how to not be mad about it.
My goal, you see, is to be able to look at our wedding photos after Betty transitions (if she does) and still be able to say, “That was the best day of my life.” I can’t yet. Right now, I’m going through a period of feeling like it was a sham of sorts. Because Betty’s “self” was. & as a result, I’m not sure who I married.
There is nothing selfish about wanting to be whole. There is nothing wrong, either, with self-expression (though you seemed to take that as my belittling the ‘why’ behind transition, which it wasn’t). what the problem is, is expecting to have the rest of the people in your life be okay with this, to accept your new “self” as having been the only “self” all along. Because we – your partners, your friends – we really liked the old “self.” we fell in love with the old self. We made a commitment to the old self.
& We don’t like being told that there’s a (wo)man behind the curtain, because we feel foolish, tricked, and stupid for having believed the lie.
The only way I live with Betty not transitioning for my sake is to realize that it is, ultimately, her decision. She could gamble & lose. She could gamble & win. But it’s her decision.
Mine is to stay, or to go, to be generous or vindictive. But I can’t change what I’ve been handed at all. Neither can you. & most days, that’s what helps us: is knowing that neither of us wanted this, that both of us would rather have it otherwise, & that all we can do, at the end of the day, is try to find our love somewhere in the shared difficulty of knowing we have to deal with this.
Helen
The entire thread is proving to be one of the most thought-provoking to show up on the boards for a while.

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Judge Strikes Down NY Ban on Gay Marriage

From 1010 WINS – New York’s All News Station
Feb 4, 2005 2:23 pm US/Eastern
A Manhattan judge declared Friday that the section of state law that forbids same-sex marriage is unconstitutional — the first ruling of its kind in New York and one that if upheld on appeal would allow gay couples to wed.
State Supreme Court Justice Doris Ling-Cohan ruled that the words “husband,” “wife,” “groom” and “bride” in relevant sections of the Domestic Relations Law “shall be construed to mean ‘spouse,”‘ and “all personal pronouns … shall be construed to apply equally to either men or women.”
Ling-Cohan ruled on the side of five same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses. She said the New York City clerk could not deny a license to any couple solely on the ground that the two are of the same sex.
Susan Sommer, Lambda Legal Defense Fund lawyer who presented the case for the five couples, called the ruling “historic” and said it “delivers the state Constitution’s promise of equality to all New Yorkers.”
“The court recognized that unless gay people can marry, they are not being treated equally under the law,” Sommer said. “Same-sex couples need the protections and security marriage provides, and this ruling says they’re entitled to get them the same way straight couples do.”
One couple, Mary Jo Kennedy and Jo-Ann Shain, said they were very happy about the ruling and believed it would offer their family increased legal protection. They have been together 23 years, registered as domestic partners in 1993, and have a 15-year-old daughter who is Shain’s biological child.
“We’re just overjoyed,” said Shain. “We didn’t think it would ever happen.”
Kennedy said she wants to marry Shain as soon as possible. “I can’t wait,” she said. “We went to buy a (marriage) license in March 2004 and couldn’t get it. That’s what started this whole thing.”
Shain said, “We’re looking forward to trying to buy another one, and this time actually getting it.”
“I’m going to sleep better with the legal protection of a marriage,” Kennedy said.
The city Law Department issued a statement saying only, “We are reviewing the decision thoroughly and considering our options.”
Ling-Cohan noted that one plaintiff, Curtis Woolbright, is the son of an interracial couple who moved to California in 1966 to marry. She said California then was the only state whose courts had ruled that interracial marriage prohibitions were unconstitutional.
Some courts, Ling-Cohan wrote, justified anti-miscegenation laws (bans on interracial marriage) as defending tradition rooted in “natural” law. They “rejected the rights of adults to choose their marital partners based on outmoded prejudices that are now recognized as illegitimate grounds for government action.”
(I for one am happy to finally see New York acting like New York! It’s about time. No matter what the long-term ramifications are of this ruling, I’m still glad to see it. – hb.)

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Meeting Miss Vera

As quite a surprise to both me and Betty, the always lovely (& eternally amused) Mariette Pathy Allen decided to bring a “friend” to the New Year’s Day performance of “The Trial.”
Mariette does not have average friends! She brought Miss Veronica Vera, the one and only.
Finally, after these many years, we got to meet Miss Vera. I wanted to thank her for the sex-positive work she’s done, aside from the tranny work she’d done with the “Finishing School for Boys Who Want To Be Girls,” of course. It was her first book that alerted me to the fact that some CDs do have erotic tastes for boys when en femme. I remember reading that, and comparing it to what various websites had to say on the subject, and realizing that Miss Vera had no reason to lie (while websites put up by CDs, well, might – especially if they knew their wives were reading them!)
So we met her: as curvaceous as she is smart, Miss Vera proved to be a lot of fun, just as you’d expect. We accidentally ran into each other on our way into/out of the Ladies’ Room, and compiled about a lifetime’s worth of sex stories into about 11 minutes’ chat. Then we rejoined everyone else; we did manage to take a few pictures, but only with Betty’s camera, & the quality is pretty sucky (though Betty has promised me photoshop’d versions forthwith.)us with mariette & veronica
It turns out Miss Vera is also going to be delivering the Banquet Speech at this year’s First Event, so if you’re in the Boston area (or otherwise have the time and money) don’t miss it. She’s a powerhouse of an ally, indulgent of most sexual proclivities, and absolutely gorgeous.
< < A very blurry picture of Miss Veronica Vera and Mariette Pathy Allen (with us squeezed inbetween).

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Last Performance

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of your who came to see Betty in The Trial – especially before that stunning New York Times review came out, which said:
This noir reading is at its most effective in a comically creepy scene when Joseph K. visits the garret of the court portraitist, Titorelli, played by a throaty, androgynous Jason C_____.
Androgynous, indeed. It turned out to be a very successful show, and a perfect start for a new theatre.
Thanks again to all who came, and we’ll let you know the next time Betty is onstage!

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Transgender Activists Celebrate Victory in New York City

Transgender advocates and activists are celebrating the release of Guidelines Regarding Gender Identity Discrimination from the New York City Commission on Human Rights this week. These guidelines interpret the Human Rights Law and are designed to educate the public about the prohibition on discrimination based on gender identity and expression that became part of New York City human rights law with the passage of Int. No. 24, the transgender rights bill signed into law by Mayor Michael Bloomberg as Local Law 3 of 2002 in April of that year.
Continue reading “Transgender Activists Celebrate Victory in New York City”

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Theatre Betty


As most of you might know, my husband Betty is, in addition to being a cover girl, an actor. “He” worked in an off-Broadway theatre for five years, and before that upstate for about eight years. Currently he’s helping found a new theatre, called Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, which will be having its first production this month.
Phoenix Theatre Ensemble proudly presents Franz Kafka’s The Trial.
There will be sixteen performances, staring on December 17th, playing through January 9th. There is a complete list of dates at the Phoenix’s website (designed by Betty as well), and tickets are only $15. You can buy them through TheaterMania’s website.
So we’d like to invite any of you who are in the NYC area to come see Betty in her nearly-male presentation, playing Titorelli, the artist.

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The Uses of 'Pretty'

Today, on the MHB message boards, a conversation started about why I don’t like or wear high heels. After a few soul-searching and memory-reliving posts, I intended to drop the subject and quit responding, especially after Betty reminded me of how deeply felt my memories are on this subject. But I didn’t drop it, & the reason I didn’t is because I felt like I needed to explain there are real reasons why some women drop “pretty.” I had to stop caring about pretty, because it sucked for me – I stopped caring about “pretty” for pretty much the same reasons the average trans woman stopped caring about “macho.” What went on in my head was something like: Who gives a fuck? I’m never gonna jump your stupid bar, & – oh, wow, it just occurred to me: & I don’t WANT to, either.
I find it troublesome to think that some might read my posts & think of my reasoning as sour grapes. The irony, I suppose, is that I am pretty. I’ve always liked my face, despite my crap skin. Sometimes, however, it’s as if it’s inconceivable to people for “pretty” not to be important to women. I find that outright sexist to be honest – that you can’t give a woman the benefit of the doubt, that she might have good reasons, and that the main issue is not about her thinking she isn’t pretty, and is basically saying ‘to hell with it.’
To me, “pretty” intersects with attitude & behavior, too. Pretty Is as Pretty Does, as they say. “Pretty” intersects with gender, behavior, and class in ways that are too complicated to sort out here.
In the same way that tranw women grow to love & celebrate their transness, I celebrate my departure from those girly games. I wouldn’t be half so smart, half so direct, or half as well-read as I would be had I had a *chance* at being considered pretty. Would my life have been easier? In some ways, & not in others. Watching my pretty friends try to desperately hold onto their looks as they age is pretty depressing, and not something I’d want to deal with.
But the real issue – you know that old question about “would you take a pill if it would make you not trans?” – is whether I value who I have become because of this stuff. As with most tranw women, I wouldn’t take the pill. It was totally a positive thing in my life to have taken that “left turn at Albuquerque.”
My memories of my teenage years are painful, but my decision to side-step the issue is not. As Betty likes to recall, it’s like that Seinfeld episode where they compete about who can not masturbate… & in about 5 minutes, Kramer barges in and announces “I’m out!” For me, it was liberating to say “I’m out!” of those competitions, or even of thinking about this stuff.
That others will continue to value women who value being pretty isn’t my issue. I just want the space & respect NOT to value it. I hate the idea that anyone would see my rejection/dislike of heels as being some kind of problem, on my part, some “riddle” to tease out.
Psychiatrist: So, Ms. Boyd, when did you develop this dislike for heels?
Me: Dunno.
Psychiatrist: So when did you reject being female?
Me: But I didn’t.
Psychiatrist: Well certainly your rejection of heels indicates some unrest with your female-ness.
Me: Um, no, I don’t think so.
Psychiatrist: But don’t you want to be pretty?
Me: Not especially.
Psychiatrist: Why not?
Me: Dunno. I like being other stuff better.

What I’m saying is that I understand perfectly well why most trans women don’t love hockey jerseys & Coors hats. I’m not the psychiatrist that’s going to ask why you have such sour grapes over not being “real men.” And all I’d like, in return, is the same respect: I don’t like heels and I don’t care about being pretty because I just don’t. It’s not some indication that I perceive myself as a failure as a woman, and it’s not some kind of recompense for not feeling like I don’t measure up. I’ve never really cared if most men find me attractive or not. And how I look doesn’t much enter into how I feel about myself.
All of us who are genderqueer (or who didn’t fit in) in one way or another had teenage years that were trial by fire. Having made the decisions we needed to at whatever age we were is half of what makes us such cool grownups, who have the room to appreciate, understand, and befriend people who made similar but different decisions. Not seeing each other as the freaks and weirdos everyone else thinks we are would give us all a much safer space to be ourselves.
Which I think, in the end, is what it’s all about.

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Speaking to Students

This past Thursday I had the opportunity – for the second time – to speak to a group of students at a highly esteemed college. Last time it was for a group of students gathered at the Women’s Center of Yale University as part of Trans Week, and this time it was Columbia, and a class in “Feminist Texts I” offered by the Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
There is something remarkable for me about speaking to (and with) a class of mostly female, intelligent, empowered young women. They are full of hope and confidence; they have questions; they ask for clarifications and will tell you when they don’t know what you’re talking about. They are students in the true sense of the word – the root of student is “zeal” – and one has to ‘go on’ with a backbone of steel.
I have been at TG conferences where people whose lives are lived largely in trans spaces tip-toe – or don’t ask, and only gossip – about whether or not I would be okay if Betty transitioned. But in this class, instead, I got asked, “How would you feel if Betty had surgery?” and “Are you attracted to your husband when he’s a woman?” and “Why do you use ‘she’ and ‘husband’ in the same sentence – why don’t you call her your wife?”
And as blunt as they were, they were also polite; I think every question asked was prefaced with “If this is too personal you don’t have to answer, but…” They always gave me an out – but what kind of educator would I be if I’d taken it? There is nothing that thrills me more than people who want to know, who want the truth, who need information.
I started out by asking whether they needed for me to present “transgender 101.” They nodded they did. So I explained the MTF/FTM divide, the various people within the larger spectrum (crossdressers to transsexuals), the concept of gender dysphoria, and how the experience of gender dysphoria is often experienced as an intersection of frequency and intensity. I explained that when one says “transman” you’re referring to someone identified as female at birth who has gone on to live in/present as someone of the male gender. (Lots of nods and thanks for that clarification. They want to be able to talk without stumbling, too.) I talked about my own experience – of being a straight woman who met a straight man and who didn’t understand anything about what crossdressing was even though it didn’t freak me out or offend me. We talked about gender roles in domestic society, the sense of expectations, safety, and what it’s like to have my sexuality determined by my relationship when we’re in public. We talked about Betty’s safety, and my fear for her when she thinks she’s presenting as a man and someone’s reading her as a woman.
Helen Boyd speaking to a class at Columbia University
We also talked about how trans-ness both subverts and defends existing gender roles, in
that on the one hand, Betty is a person legally identified as male but who is feminine, but who embraces sometimes culturally-constructed notions of gender. I passed around photos of Betty performing the song “Falling in Love Again” at Fantasia Fair, and one woman said “David Bowie” when she saw them.
The one thing they all agreed on is that they would all feel put out of joint by having a husband who inhabits the “feminine ideal” more easily than they do, and from there – we talked about images of women in magazines, the sense of a “natural feminine” (and how ironic it is that my husband, born male, inhabits that space more “naturally” than most women I know, and what that might mean).
Overall it was a heady and friendly conversation; a group of mostly women (there were two men in the group) talking about who we are, what we’re supposed to be, and what “feminine” is. My thanks to the class, Professor Tricia Sheffield for inviting me, and to Columbia for an amazing couple of hours. Thanks also to Ariela, a photographer, who took a few photos, and whose other artwork is at www.amadai.com.

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Back to Ohio

No matter who wins Ohio, I’m pretty clear that there are at least 10 states in this country that don’t want me or my trans-husband in their midst and at their malls.
Residents of Oklahoma, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Utah, Mississippi and Arkansas all came out to vote in record numbers, and they voted to keep gays and lesbians from their rights as Americans.
I wonder if they know any gay men or lesbians, any bisexuals, any Ts. I wonder if the CDs in those states voted for or against those bans. I wonder why it is that the legal marriage of a gay man to the man he loves scares some people so much that they vote with hate & inequality in their hearts.
I’m deeply saddened, and I don’t know who is going to be President. Right now, I’m not sure anyone who is sane, forgiving, and who believes in equality, a secular government, or the rights of ALL citizens should even be President of this country. God knows I don’t feel welcome here anymore, when so many of those states that voted for those bans passed it by raging majorities.
Now back to Ohio….