Tag: trans partners

Posted on

The Partner's Part

In the ‘middle path’ thread, Marlena wrote:

While being single all these days years has sucked in other ways, one benefit is that it helped me find my equalibrium on the trans spectrum. I can dress generally when I want. The fact that I don’t want to do so constantly — and in fact if I do it a lot I get tired of doing so — tells me something. However, since the vast majority of CDs are in relationships where they’re in either the closet or with an SO who isn’t “do what ever your want” enthusiastic, they never really find their equalibrium point. So on other forums, I hear a lot of pent-up desire talking. I suspect if they had the opportunity dress every day, a lot of them would find that doing your make-up every morning soon gets to be a chore.

and michelleNYC’s recent comments made me think: do wives/girlfriends act as a kind of safety, an anchor, for MTF transfolk? Do we give CDs/TGs a sense of being tethered, so that they don’t go flying off into experimentation & sliding down the slippery slope?
Do we provide a kind of relief, even if at the same time we’re resented for how we might restrict our partner’s gender expression?
I’m a little worried about saying the word maternal outloud in this context.

Posted on

1st Preview of She's Not the Man I Married

I thought I’d put up a little preview of some stuff I’ve been writing for my next book. You know, just for fun. I can’t promise anything I put up here will end up in the final, though.
This excerpt is taken from Chapter 1 – Girl Meets Boy:

There’s an old standby in the crossdressing community, a line that crossdressers tend to use on their wives, that goes: “But I’m the same person underneath.” The wife, who is standing there looking at a person who sounds like her husband and who might look like him somewhere under the wig and breast forms and press-on nails, tries to parse what exactly that’s supposed to mean. She’s suspicious that her husband is trying to blow smoke up her ass, the same as a husband who might come up with an ingenious reason why he had to spend his weekend fishing instead of shopping for new sofa upholstery. She might look at him, adjust his wig, and then sigh and take him shopping.
Others just balk.
Some women are just smarter than me, I think, and when they first heard that line, they ran for the hills. Likewise for the ones who hightail it when they hear their husbands say, “I’ve always imagined what it would be like to have breasts,” or “When I was young, I always wished I was Susie Perkins.” They call a lawyer, they get custody of the children, and they wish their future ex-husbands well, but want no part of it. Not me. I didn’t believe in gender; gender wasn’t important.

Posted on

Quentin Crisp & Sting?

Okay, maybe I’m the only one who didn’t know this, because I never saw Sting’s “Englishman in New York” video, but I didn’t know QC was the friend Sting wrote it about.
Which makes me want to say obscene things to all the people who don’t like Sting or make fun of me for liking him. I think he’s a decent person, & trans-friendly as all hell: remember the skirt he wore at the Victoria’s Secret show? The fact that he cross-dresses in Brimstone & Treacle? Oh, right, and then there’s these lyrics he wrote an album or so ago:
My skirt’s too short
My tights are run
These new heels are killing me
A second pack of cigarettes
It’s a slow night, but there’s time yet
Here comes the john from his other life
He may be driving to his wife
But he slowed down, take a look
I’ve learned to read them just like books
It’s already half past ten
But they’ll be back again
Don’t judge me
You could be me in another life
In another set of circumstances
A friend of mine, he wound up dead
His dress is stained with color red
The next of kin, no fixed abode
Another victim on this road
The police just carted him away
But someone took his place next day
He’s home by Thanksgiving
But not with the living
I mean, I can’t name anyone else who’s written a song from the POV of a trans streetworker, can you?
But I promise, no more 80s music references, at least for a while. Tomorrow, though, the first preview of She’s Not the Man I Married.

Posted on

Review: Leslie Feinberg's Drag King Dreams

Murdered Crossdressers, and Other Facts of Trans Life
review by Helen Boyd
June 3, 2006
Drag King Dreams
Caroll & Graf
by Leslie Feinberg
I’m not sure Leslie Feinberg has an actual fan club, but if there is one, I want in.
When I first read Stone Butch Blues, it blew my mind. A lesbian friend – since transitioned – made me read it. Made me, and for good reason: it’s like a sledgehammer of experience for anyone who has ever lived in the world as queer, or working class, and especially for anyone who has lived in the world as both. My friend knew it would speak to me, as it spoke to him.
Transgender Warriors was equally great, full of information, rage, inspiration. I remember practically pointing out passages to strangers on the subway when I was reading it.
But Drag King Dreams is like something from another world. Leslie Feinberg is not just remarkable as a person, and activist, but as a writer. Or as a radical, righteous soul. When I met hir at TIC (UVM’s trans conference), zie came up to thank me and Betty for what we were doing, and I could have been knocked over with a feather. I’m still astonished. Leslie Feinberg thanking me? For anything? Absurd. But now I know why. Leslie Feinberg was thinking about crossdressers, and zie was thining about crossdressers a lot, and in deep, empathetic ways.
Crossdressers: buy this book. You think I’m your friend? Leslie Feinberg is the mensch you want at your back, believe me.
The book starts with Max Rabinowitz (transman, drag king, genderqueer, bulldagger – it’s not really clear and doesn’t matter) talking to hir friend Vickie. In a moment of frustration, of ‘transer than thou’ anger, zie says something about how Vickie can take the clothes and the wig off and go back to being normal.
The next day Vickie is found brutally murdered.
And the rest of the book is Max’s meditation on friends, community, activism, family; it’s an insider’s view into being queer, being outside, being “other” while also being well-loved, deeply loving, and sorry. The book is Max’s apology to Vickie, for that moment of assumption and hierarchy that a crossdresser’s life is somehow “easier” than anyone else’s.
Throw in some amazing scenes about being ungendered online, a lovely exchange between a “tough as nails” femme and an “suit and tie bulldagger,” a remarkable speech by Vickie’s communist uncle; a chilling scene of an apartment break-in by mysterious and angry visitors, and one scene – an exchange of sweet, light coffee and flags – that was so touching, so genuine, and so intense that I could taste the coffee and jonesed for a smoke right along with Max.
The cast of characters is a veritable melting pot of transness and their empathizers: Estelle’s surviving wife being one. I’ve never seen myself in a novel before, and though I have no interest in living Estelle’s reality, some of her words rang out in ways that were profound to me. I cried a lot just thinking about her, who she is, who she is to me.
But it’s the delicacy that this book really thrives on: Feinberg doesn’t say “Max doesn’t feel solidarity with this asshole transman because he’s middle-class” but zie makes the point. Zie shows, not tells: the first lesson in fiction writing, and the one most writers get wrong.
Leslie Feinberg, THANK YOU.
You can find a discussion about Drag King Dreams, and Leslie Feinberg’s other books, Stone Butch Blues and Transgender Warriors, in our Reader’s Chair Forum. I’ve also got a list of books I recommend on gender/trans issues on my Recommended Reading page.

Posted on

Five Questions With… Richard Docter

Dr. Richard Docter is a clinical psychologist and gender researcher from Los Angeles with 20 years of experience in the transgender community. Together with Virginia Prince, he is co-author of the largest survey of cross dressers ever published. In 1988 he published the book Transvestites and Transsexuals. He continues to be a frequent contributor to transgender conventions throughout the nation.
richard docter, christine jorgensen1) Your Transvestites & Transsexuals was one of the only books (other than Mariette Pathy Allen’s Transformations) that actually mentioned spouses when I was looking for information nearly a decade ago. What encouraged you to include spouses?
< Dr. Richard Docter with Christine Jorgensen, 1987. (Photo by Mariette Pathy Allen.)
There were a number of published articles about the concerns of wives published prior to 1988. I was interested in the views of wives because important family dynamics are almost always affected by cross dressing. Few wives were totally rejecting, but few had worked out an accomodation that felt good for both. The wives who seem most interesting to me are people like you, Helen, who defy the societal view that all of this is sick, sick, sick. Instead, some wives, as you point out, not only put shame on the back burner, but find ways to enjoy the joy of cross dressing that means so much to their husband. I hope you will keep collecting their stories so they can be shared with both husbands and wives.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Richard Docter”

Posted on

Thank You

I’m up late tonight again, as I usually am, writing – though tonight I’m writing reviews of two books: Virginia Erhardt’s Head Over Heels: Wives Who Stay with Cross-Dressers and Transsexuals (not due to come out until winter) and Leslie Feinberg’s latest novel, Drag King Dreams (which is out now and which everyone must go out and buy immediately – more on why later).
While I was compiling the most recent issue of the (en)gender newsletter (which is an abbreviated form of my blog postings for the past month), I was clicking on the new posts on the boards, and I just had a moment where I really felt thankful for all the smart, lovely people who post on the boards. Michelle’s recent post was especially moving, but so was Tobi’s thank you to SJ for sharing her androgyny experiences. Sometimes I’m just struck by how many kind-hearted, gentle-minded folks are out there, trans or partners or queer or otherwise, who post on the boards, and who keep me company during these late nights that would otherwise be unbroken editing and writing and smoking.
So, thanks to you all.

Posted on

Preview from Crossing Sexual Boundaries

Last month I did a Five Questions With… interview with Ari Kane where we talked about the new anthology she edited (with Vern Bullough) called Crossing Sexual Boundaries: Transgender Journeys, Uncharted Paths. I contributed an essay to it and thought I’d give people a preview of my essay.

A relationship is always a search for balance. All couples try to find the right amounts of disparate elements: commitment and freedom; togetherness and independence; responsibility and indulgence; solitude and sociability; excitement and security; stability and growth. In a transgendered relationship, all of those types of balance are needed, but the strains an emerging TG identity can put on a couple can cause greater stress for both partners. Will my femininity decrease as his increases? Does his need to implement change threaten our stability? Will his urge to be free of his male role upset my sense of our roles within the relationship? Can keeping such a big part of himself private negatively effect our social life? If I can’t connect with, or am not also in love with his feminine self, will my independence from that part of him lead to estrangement? All of these questions – and many others like them – are ones we have had to answer for ourselves. Some balances occur naturally and others are always a little off. I found, however, that what kind of balance – if any – occurs, it is usually a result of long, honest conversation, difficult stare-at-your-feet-while-you-spit-it-out admissions. Some of the things we have to say to each other bring us back to the tension that most people feel at the beginning of a relationship. He worries that his self-expression will finally cause me to say “Enough.” I worry that the changes he needs to make to his body and/or personality will change him too drastically from the man I fell in love with and find attractive. For most people, there is a sigh of relief when someone gets to know you very well, and isn’t going to leave when you tell that dumb joke or admit some lifelong weird habit. My brother is fond of saying “The honeymoon’s over when you fart in bed,” but for most, the end of the honeymoon period leads to one of stability and the mundane that is appreciated by both partners. We never seem to arrive there, as his transgenderedness makes that kind of easy acceptance of the other an impossibility. He doesn’t know who he is yet, and neither do I. We have first dates all the time. First dates are fun when you don’t have anything to lose, but when you’re on a first date after five years of commitment, shared experiences, love and love-making, it’s like coming home every day hoping your house hasn’t burnt down.

I was amazed to find, when I re-read this essay – which I wrote at least two years ago – how much of a nutshell version of the new book it is.
Rhea has posted a lovely review of the essay on the message boards, with further thoughts and comments by others who have read it (& I added a couple of clarifications as well).

Posted on

From the Catalog

We’ve written a description of She’s Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband for Seal‘s catalog, and since everyone has asked what exactly this next book is about, I thought I’d share it.
Not that it will answer all your questions; only the book will do that, ultimately.

She’s Not the Man I Married was inspired by the crisis in one couple’s marriage: Helen Boyd’s husband, who had long been open about being transgender, was considering living as a woman fulltime. Boyd was confronted with what it would mean if her husband actually were to become a woman socially, legally, and medically, and whether or not her love and desire for her partner would remain the same if he became ‘she’.
Boyd’s first book, My Husband Betty, explored the relationships of crossdressing men and their partners. She’s Not the Man I Married is in some ways both a sequel and a more serious and expansive examination of gender in relationships, for couples who are homosexual or heterosexual, and who fall anywhere along the gender continuum.
Boyd’s marriage serves as a platform for exploring the problems with gender in relationships. She struggles to understand the nature of commitment, love, and desire. Boyd’s strength is in her ability to share her doubts, confusion, and anger, offering anyone who’s in a relationship a lens through which to make sense of their own loves and losses, desires and disappointments. She’s Not the Man I Married is a fascinating consideration of the ways in which relationships are gendered, how gender limits us in the ways we love, and how we cope – or don’t – with the emotional and sexual pressures that gender roles can bring to our marriages and relationships.

Posted on

Five Questions With… Doug McKeown

doug mckeownDouglas McKeown is the facilitator of the Queer Stories workshop – one of the results of which was the book Queer Stories for Boys. Doug has worked as a teacher, actor, writer, scenic designer, and a director of stage and screen; his low-budget sci-fi/horror movie The Deadly Spawn [1983], has been restored and released on DVD [2004]).
< one of Doug McKeown’s childhood costumes. For more photos, check the Queer Stories for Boys website.
1) With both Brokeback Mountain and Transamerica getting nominations all over the place, it’s like The Year for Mainstreaming LGBT Lives. Why now, do you think? How do you feel about straight actors getting all the good gay roles?
Well, exactly how many out gay actors are there in the upper echelons? I mean, considering that the answer to that has to be “precious few,” doesn’t one just want to cast the actor who best suits the character? Did McMurtry know or care about Heath Ledger’s sex life when he turned to Ossana during a screening of “Monster’s Ball” and whispered, “That’s our Ennis?” (Uh-oh, I’m answering with questions. Let me get my declaratives lined up.) As for why now, I have no idea. I could guess. It may be that people in this country in general (unconsciously?) have simply had it with the national bullshit of the last several years — in entertainment as well as politics — and are craving the strongest possible dose of truth and humanity (unconsciously?), especially if it shocks their systems. Like a bracing shower. Well, that may be wishful thinking. I really don’t know the answer.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Doug McKeown”

Posted on

Need a CD's Wife, asap!

I’ve been contacted by a national women’s magazine for a wife of a crossdresser. The hitch is that you can’t use a pseudonym & they do want a photo.
They also want it all by Wednesday at noon.
The article is going to focus on how women make decisions – in this case, how a woman might decide to stay with her crossdressing husband.
& Obviously I would do it but for another hitch: they want someone who hasn’t told their story before.
So if there’s someone out there who’s just dying to break out of the closet, do let me know asap & I’ll put you in touch.