Maybe it’s fall, or maybe it’s because I spoke with my mother today, or still yet it may be that I’m facing the ‘wrap-up’ of the so-called “tour” for My Husband Betty, but I’ve been somewhat circumspect about the experience of the last (nearly) two years.
[A brief timeline: I started writing MHB in January ’03, saw the reading copies about a year ago, and although the official publication date was Jan ’04, the book started shipping by early December ’03. A full year for writing, printing, & distribution. 2004 was entirely about publicity and outreach.]
I never intended to write non-fiction. I’ve got a couple of unpublished novels tucked away into drawers (along with the requisite rejection letters from agents & editors), so it was kind of a surprise to be offered the chance to write a book at all. And non-fiction? Other than keeping a journal since I was nine years old, and papers for school, I didn’t have much experience. But how could I resist?
Two years later, I have several hundred emails in my inbox – some answered and some not – and I’ve met innumerable people. Some I know only via computer and this wonderful thing our President refers to as “the Internets,” but others I’ve had a chance to meet in person. There have been movers and shakers among them, yes, but I think it’s the quiet CD who comes up to me at a conference and stands in line at a book-signing to tell me how much MHB helped his relationship with his wife that means the most to me. There have been other remarkable stories people have emailed or told me in person: the gay rabbi who got in touch to tell me that upon cleaning up his father’s apt after his death, he’d found pictures there of someone named “Fiona” and only then realized his father was a CD; the septegenarian living in Africa who was first crossdressed by whores in Singapore while he was serving in WWII as a young man. The stories are remarkable – not even because they are fascinating and all preciously singular – but rather because people have come to tell them to me.
I love stories. I love lives lived. I love the great inconsistencies and frustrations and triumphs and even the failures of actual people. And the most incredible – and unexpected – thing about having written a book about crossdressing is to have had people come up to me just to tell me their own.
I joked with my mother today that when I announced I wanted to be a priest at age nine neither of us ever expected that I would be – at least not in such an unusual way. But that’s what I feel like. Whenever a crossdresser comes to me and says “I never believed I was okay until I read your book” what can I say in response except “You are!”? What is that except absolution?
I have days when I am absolutely crushed by how hard it is to get a book published, to get paid as a writer, to live and pay the rent. Other days I’m reminded more clearly: this is what I do, what I should be doing. The cheers of support I get from all of you are at least equal to the disappointment of what it means to live as a writer. But more than the support, it’s the help I’ve been able to give – via the book, or email, or when I go to conferences – that means the most at the end of the day.
You get so many chances to laugh at yourself as a writer, mostly for your own unabashed pretentiousness! This little apologia is what I get to laugh at myself for today: this Preface to the Fourth Printing, as it were. But it is something I have been meaning to say for a long while: thank you.
Helen Boyd
New Yahoo! Group for CD/TG Couples
Since I started CDOD back in February 2000, much has changed. Because Yahoo! is sometimes idiotic, it’s impossible for me to re-open CDOD to new members, and without new members, a group gets too stagnant to be of much help to anyone.
So, I started a new group with both of those things in mind. It’s called CDtgOD, in keeping with the original intent of CDOD – to help couples build community, troubleshoot problems, and share solutions.
Do join if you’re in a relationship or wish to be in one. CDOD will be slowly phased out altogether, so do come on board.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CDtgOD/
Thanks,
Helen
May 2007 update: CDtgOD is now closed, but I’ve started two new groups:
- for everyone:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/engender/
- for partners only:
On Being a Writer (Mostly), or Why I Wrote This Book
A discussion on the MHB message boards has brought up the issue of whether or not MHB is some kind of TG “bible,” and I have to be honest that it’s completely weird for me to hear “bible” and my book in the same sentence.
Writing is such a tricky art – it doesn’t pay, takes years to get even a foot in the door, & then – when you’ve gotten published – you’re given tremendous authority for actually knowing something. That is, when you’re an aspiring, unpublished writer, you’re basically treated like some kind of freak and/or malconent, and after one book, you’re all of a sudden an upstanding member of society.
I have a sense of humor about it, of course.
I never intended my book to be any kind of bible. To me, the only goal of writing that matters is to present the truth as the writer sees it in as clear & unblemished a way as possible. It takes plenty of craft to do even that! I’d argue it takes the MOST craft to be able to do that; since as a smart person it’s very easy to become too sophisticated to know the truth when you see it.
I have only two rules for writing: 1) from Neil Gaiman, is that when you sit down to write you’re not allowed to get up or do anything else except make tea. 2) from Dorothy Allison, is that you have to wear your skin as thin as you can.
Being complimented on having the courage to share our lives with others in order to educate is always lovely. But as I recently said to Betty, I’m not sure why being honest about our lives is so remarkable. I have never felt ashamed of my husband, and never felt ashamed of any of the feelings I have had concerning his CDing. Feelings are never anything to be ashamed of, where I come from. The kinds of things people should be ashamed of – willful ignorance, greed, a lack of integrity – are rarely what they are embarassed about. Instead, they are embarassed to be sweet, loving, sympathetic. People are embarassed about being liberal! I don’t understand that, & never will.
But my point is – Betty & I knew full well that our privacy would only remain if others respected it. That was a chance we were willing to take. Shoot, we’d already been blackmailed! Once you’ve been through something like that, you realize the ONLY way to prevent it from having it happen again is that no-one has anything on you that you wouldn’t share yourself.
Plenty of people know our legal names: you can’t go to a TG conference without a credit card, & mine doesn’t say ‘Helen Boyd’! We just didn’t want to use our legal names publicly, as it were – on the book or on TV. Mostly that was to spare our families, & our nieces and nephews, from being associated with us without their choice.
My issue as concerns our privacy is more a political one: I don’t want to see the book discredited as not being by the wife of a CD because Betty is expressing gender dysphoric feelings and exploring them. I didn’t want some CDs (who already dislike what I’ve said about sex & other things) in the book to have found a reason to say that nothing in the book holds for CDs because my husband isn’t one. Many CDs have written to me now to tell me that considering transsexualism is in fact very much a part of the path of becoming a self-accepting CD. Considering transsexualism is certainly not grounds for not identifying as a CD.
But the book was never intended as some kind of bible. I wrote it for SOs, for CDs, & for a larger audience: therapists, sexologists, the larger GLBT community. For friends, families, allies. I wrote it because I found too much propaganda & doctrine within CD literature. If it becomes a good reference book for therapists, I’ll be pleased. If it helps couples talk over issues, I’ll be thrilled. If it helps CDs come to a place where they feel less shame and self-hatred, I’ll think I did a good thing. Ultimately, I wrote it because I don’t think there is anything bad about anyone – male or female – enjoying feeling pretty and embracing a softer side of themselves, and because I don’t think it’s bad to be turned on by something others arent’ turned on by. Mostly I wrote it because although crossdressing is not usual, it’s certainly not BAD.
Exeunt
It turns out the whole fiasco was caused by someone who self-confessed to not having realized that Betty is not on hormones and is not transitioning, nor that the information that we’re struggling with this wasn’t public knowledge.
And ironically, she was recommending my book to a new wife whose husband is not sure if he is CD or TS.
If only all such drama turned out so well.
Thank you all for your love and support and emails. I would have rathered this not be public, but now it is, and well – so it is.
Gossip & Calumny*
Okay, I’m definitely upset.
As of a few months ago, Betty & I both realized that she is struggling with issues of TGness, basically questioning if she is TS. She is decreasingly unhappy returning to guy mode, and started to express serious interest in transitioning (whether that would involve hormones, surgeries, or just social transition, we hadn’t a clue.)
So, I recently joined a list for partners of trans people – partners I could talk to who were in similar situations, to figure out what people were doing about job/family/sex, etc.
Today I heard from an old friend in the gender community that she has heard on another list that Betty is transitioning.
I know there are people out there who would have my head on a plate for having publicly & emphatically criticized Tri-Ess for being both trans- and homophobic in my book. But despite that, I didn’t expect for us to be gossiped about this way: surely anyone in the gender community knows how hard this is without me having to watch my back all the time!
I’m feeling like I have no choice but to keep my mouth shut on our own issues, and that hurts. Whoever it is out there that is doing this – spreading rumors to somehow squelch my credibility as the partner of a CD/TG – is a nasty piece of work. I’ll figure out where the leak is, eventually – of that there is no doubt.
Betty & I have always been honest about our struggles, and to realize this is the way one person has responded to my attempt to educate the greater population – and help people who are just finding out – really gets on my case.
For the record, Betty is not currently transitioning.
* cal-um-ny ( P ) Pronunciation Key (klm-n)
n. pl. cal-um-nies
1. A false statement maliciously made to injure another’s reputation.
2. The utterance of maliciously false statements; slander.
Dark Odyssey
Betty & I are going to be presenting at this year’s Dark Odyssey, a sexual vacation for all kinds of sexualities and people. This is not a huge orgy – more a place where couples or singles or the polyamourous can go learn new techniques, meet others of alt sexualities, and play.
Kate Bornstein will also be presenting, and transpeople are encouraged to attend!
Where: Northern Maryland
When: September 9 – 15, 2004
This will be a good safe space for anyone wanting to wander outside of their current sexual practices, who are exploring bisexuality, BDSM, gender role-play, etc.
For more information (pricing, registration, workshop descriptions, etc), visit the Dark Odyssey website.
Continue reading “Dark Odyssey”
Sign the Petition
Please sign on to our emergency petition to Congress to stop this divisive amendment at:
http://www.moveon.org/unitednotdivided/
Then please ask your friends and family to sign, by forwarding them this email. We’ll deliver our comments tomorrow, before the vote, so we need as many people as possible to sign on today.
President Bush campaigned on a promise to unite us, not divide us. Yet today, as people are questioning Bush’s handling of everything from the war in Iraq to the economy, Bush and his friends are trying to distract voters from the real issues by turning to the politics of division and hate.
If America stands for anything, it stands for equal rights and opportunities for everyone. Throughout our history, we’ve struggled to guarantee that equality: ending slavery; securing voting rights for women; and passing the Civil Rights Act just 40 years ago.
Equality in marriage is the civil rights issue of our generation. We can’t let anyone, or any group, be singled out for discrimination based on who they are or who they love.
When two people make a deep personal commitment, taking responsibility for each other and doing all the work of marriage, they should be able to share in the legal benefits of marriage as well. These benefits include access to health care and medical decision-making for one’s partner and children, parenting and immigration rights, inheritance, taxation, and Social Security benefits.
This isn’t a partisan issue, notwithstanding Bush’s pandering to his right-wing base. Former President Gerald Ford, a Republican, said this about same-sex couples and marriage: “I think they ought to be treated equally. Period.”
[1] Also, many major corporations, including Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Disney, Coors, and IBM, offer health insurance and other benefits to their employees’ same-sex partners. Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) says the amendment is “Nuts… To be seen as the party that’s coming between two people that love each other doing what they want to do… to me that’s going to be seen as a liability, politically.” [2]
Yet President Bush is bent on moving America backward, by enshrining discrimination in the United States Constitution.
Don’t let him divide us like this. Go to:
http://www.moveon.org/unitednotdivided/
Please help make sure your friends have signed on too, before we deliver this
petition tomorrow.
Thank you.
Transmale Nation
(I thought perhaps many of us on the MTF side of things don’t know much about the FTM side of things, & I thought this article did a decent job of it.)
25th Annual Queer Issue
By Elizabeth Cline
Transmale Nation: Remaking manhood in the genderqueer generation
June 22nd, 2004 10:00 AM
A digital call to action spread on friendster.com last month, and a crowd of tranny boys descended on the East Village gay dive the Boiler Room. It was the very first Manhunt, a party for transmen and their admirers.
When several dozen genderqueers crashed the place, a few of the bar’s gay patrons threw a tantrum. They tried desperately to sort out who was a dyke and who was a dude by rating the tranny boys – with their flat chests, short hair, and male posturing – according to who still “looked like girls.” But eventually, these hecklers were outnumbered by some of New York’s au courant
gender outlaws, a mix of young masculine-identified dykes, bois, and trans guys clamoring for a space of their own. By the end of the night, the trans folks and the gay guys had made peace, and Riley MacLeod, a 22-year-old, gay-identified tranny boy, even stole a kiss from the bartender.
Just a few years ago, the transmale community was still underground, connecting with each other in group therapy and chat rooms. How things have changed. Some of the city’s hottest queer parties are fundraisers for chest-reconstruction surgery, tagged with names like “Take My Breasts Away.” Ethan Carter’s Trans*Am party has gotten so popular it has outgrown its digs
at the lesbian watering hole Meow Mix, and Manhunt plans to carry on through the summer.
By now, there are hundreds of personal Web pages, chat groups, and surgery-comparison sites by and for transmen. (Check out , ,
, or the more than 200 Yahoo groups that pop up under a search for FTM, meaning female-to-male transgender.) Brown University, Sarah Lawrence, and Wesleyan have gender-neutral dorms, bathrooms, and sports teams. New York’s LGBT Community Center has expanded its Gender Identity Project to include eight groups for the gender questioning.
Five years ago, if you were a transmale, you were FTM (or female-to-male) and you would probably change your name, go on testosterone, move to a new city, and perhaps consider sex reassignment surgery. Most of those FTMs wanted the world to know them and see them as real men. But there’s a new trans generation. They’re college-educated, raised on gender deconstruction, and not so interested in realness.
Today, most transmales don’t plan to have “bottom surgery,” which constructs male genitalia out of the labia and clitoris. For some, it’s a matter of cost (ranging from $10,000 to $100,000, which still doesn’t buy you a fully functioning, realistic penis). But a lot of trans guys say they’re doing just fine without one.
“I do not want a cock,” says K.J. Pallegedara, an 18-year-old tranny boy who hides his breasts by binding them with Ace bandages. “I know a couple of transmen who see their masculinity in their dick. But my masculinity is in my head.” K.J. does plan to take testosterone, and he’s saving up the outrageous $8,000 for “top surgery,” which removes the breasts and constructs a male-appearing chest. Dr. James Reardon, one of the nation’s best-known chest reconstruction surgeons, says he performs at least one such procedure a week – up from one a year in 1974, when Reardon saw his first patient.
Photo of: Rowan Foley, Stephen Alexander, Evan Schwartz, Tom Leger, Riley MacLeod, Patric Peter, Ian Lundy, K.J. Pallegedara, Eli Greene, and Ethan Masella
As visibility grows, more transmales are changing their pronouns and hormones to fit their masculine gender identity, and many are starting the transition at a very early age. (A recent Oprah episode featured transmale guests as young as 11.) Along with this emergence has come an extensive lexicon. In addition to FTMs, there are female-bodied masculine-identified people who don’t consider themselves men. They include tranny boys (who feel and look, well, boyish), transfags (who act effeminate), bois (dykes who “play” with masculinity), genderqueers (an umbrella term for folks who challenge their gender) and the list is still growing.
In this brave new world, you can be a transmale who goes “no-ho” (meaning no hormones) or “low-ho,” and “no-op” (no surgery) – or you can be a genderqueer who has top surgery, identifies as a woman, and goes by the pronoun he. The possibilities are endless.
America has always been the land of self-invention, but lately that concept has been applied to the body in unprecedented ways. Thanks to technology, transmales can now invent the body they feel comfortable with. In the new thinking, gender and orientation are a highly personal creation, and while some transmales still strive for “realness,” the new generation is heading far beyond the appurtenances of masculinity. This isn’t about having a beard or chest hair. These guys look boyish, yet butch.
But in the end, the transmale identity can’t be described within the binaries of man/boy, butch/femme, or gay/straight. Says transman and performance artist Imani Henry, “It’s all about self-identity.”
As Manhunt and Trans*Am (meaning amorous) imply, transmales are on the prowl for folks who are willing to break the mold of gender and sexual orientation – or at least go out with someone who does. Along with this evolution has come a new breed of queer women who like dating trannies and who gag on the word lesbian. “I don’t give a shit if people read me as lesbian or straight,” says Alana Chazan, 24, a femme queer woman who has dated both dykes and transmen. “For me, it’s about respecting my partner’s gender identity.”
It remains to be seen whether gay men can respect a tranny boy in the morning. But there are same-sex couples who weren’t born that way. Some transmales call themselves transfags because they express femininity in a very gay-male way. And some of them are open to dating women. “I don’t define fagginess by who I fuck, because I’ve dated all over the place,” says Bran Fenner, 22. “I define it by how I demonstrate femininity.”
Bran has a crew of transfags of color that he met through a Yahoo group he started with a friend. Most of its members, like Bran, would call themselves pansexual. Riley, on the other hand, wants to date biological men (called bioguys), a hopeless prospect, he says, because of “male ignorance” about transmen. But those walls are coming down. The Center has started a new group for LGB trans people, and there’s now trannyfag porn featuring trans and bioguys, surprise, getting it on.
Whatever their sexual orientation, most transmales remain in queer women’s spaces because they feel safe there. Acceptance is growing in this community, but there still are dykes who gripe that all butch women are turning into boys, and feminists who label transmen misogynists out to gain male privilege. It’s true that some transmen ridicule women, but no more than “real” men do – and there are feminists and lesbians who ridicule femininity. So what’s the difference?
We live in a time when the attributes of manhood reign supreme, and not just for men. Women are appropriating the power and aesthetic of masculinity to redefine themselves, to the point where even our heroines – Uma Thurman comes to mind- kick ass harder than your average dude. Masculinity is no longer an exclusively male endowment, but it’s still a very desirable one. This explains why the stakes are higher for transwomen (MTFs) in the world at large than they are for transmen. It also explains why the new generation of genderqueers accords more status to the male-identified. And perhaps why there are so many queer women, as opposed to queer men, ridding themselves of their female identity.
Yes, the status of transmen is enjoying a boost thanks to our macho obsession. But the way this scene understands itself and the world challenges that hierarchy. Feminism and gay liberation made it OK to feel comfortable with yourself as the world labeled you. But the genderqueer
generation proposes a new reality in which the world doesn’t label our identities and our bodies; we do. If you spot these transmales at the Pride parade, or in your local bar, you have seen the future – and it’s very queer indeed.
Trans-Partners Forum at the Center
I’m on this panel! Do come! Partners especially welcome!!
**
Trans-Partners Forum
Tuesday, June 8, 7 – 9PM
Exploration and discussion of issues faced by individuals who are, or have been, or seek to be in relationships or partnerships with trans and gender-different individuals
$6 Center Members, $10 non-members (no one turned away)
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
Trans-Partners Forum: the Center�s Public Policy Committee, Center Kids, and the Gender Identity Project present a forum on the challenges facing individuals who are, or have been, or seek to be in relationships or partnerships with transgender, gender-different and gender questioning people.
Community members will explore some of the social, legal, medical and personal issues facing partners of trans, gender-different and gender questioning people, including losing and maintaining our sense of identity and community, getting our needs met, being overshadowed by the needs of our trans-identified partners, financial concerns, barriers to medical care, stigma associated with our attraction to trans-people, and more.
Trans-Families Series: Trans-Partners is the second in the Trans-Families series of forums offered by the Center. The first forum, Trans-Parents, in January 2004, explored some of the social, legal, medical and personal issues facing trans, gender-different and gender questioning parents, moms and dads, including challenges facing transgender people who want to become parents. Trans-Partners broadens those concerns to include an expanded vision of family. The final forum, Trans-Families will be offered in the fall and will explore the concerns of trans-extended families.
For further information call (212) 620-7310
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center is located at 208 West 13th Street, New York City
commentary
I recently read an article by Chip Johnson of the SF Chronicle on the responsibility TG women have to disclose their transgender history with potential partners, and it occurred to me that the one thing I haven’t yet read about is that the problem is not with the TG women – it’s with the violence perpetrated by men whose egos are so fragile they must defend their machismo and heterosexuality at a tremendous cost. I’m tired of it.
I’m sharing a letter I wrote to Chip Johnson articulating these concerns:
Thanks for your article about Gwen Araujo about the danger for TG women of not disclosing their TG history. My husband is TG, & is often assumed to be female even when presenting as male. I have seen the impact this “surprise” can have on people first-hand, even in a non-sexual situation.
That said, I would love it if you and other columnists would clarify that the whole responsibility should not be on the shoulders of TG people, especially – as you pointed out – now that TG women are transitioning at younger and younger ages. What about these homophobic, small-minded bigots who think violence is an answer to everything? When do we write articles about their responsibility in the violence? As you know from the defense that is being offered in Gwen’s case, it is absolutely necessary that we point out the macho, heterosexist attitudes that have got to change – or, at the very least, the idea that violence is any kind of response to a surprise of this kind.
I am what’s referred to as a ‘genetic woman’ in the TG community, and I am astounded over and over again that the unspeakable behavior of some men when faced with a TG woman – or with a genetic woman who says no – is not the issue that is called out in the press.
TG women, like genetic women, have the right to feel safe especially within sexual contexts. Sexual attention from men is not always wanted, but women still have the burden of making sure the men – who are being sexually aggressive – not only know what our parts look like but that their fragile male egos are not bruised by rejection. Why can’t we call them out, for being immature and so locked in macho idiocy, instead? Certainly the gay male community is also all too aware of the violence inflicted by straight men who must preserve their macho pride, at all costs. All of us – gay men, genetic women, TG women – have got to take a stand against this neanderthal behavior, and start demanding that courts not let these bullies have their way.
Thanks again,
Helen Boyd, author of My Husband Betty