Tag: passing

Gender Proof and Queers; We should know better

Posted on by JAC

Yesterday I took part in Equality Ohio’s LGBT Lobby Day, a gathering of folks from all over the state descending en masse on the capital to lobby for LGBT issues. With Ohio ranking second to last in the country in terms of trans and queer rights, over all Equality Ohio is very successful in creating a safe space where our disenfranchised community can work with a conservative local government. What it hasn’t been able to provide is a safe space for our community to work with itself.

I was anxious about Lobby Day this year. My last Lobby Day experience was less than positive, but Equality Ohio leaders were surprisingly attentive to my feedback which, in addition to the over-all importance of this event, lead me to attend again, this time as a team leader. By the time the opening event was underway I was starting to feel that activist passion burning. Suddenly, I felt unfamiliar arms surround me from behind my chair and under a suffocating kiss to the side of my head I heard, “Thank you for reminding me of my daughter.” I turned to see a woman walking away from me. I remembered her… At the last Lobby Day I attended, I met this woman -correction, I never actually met her. She ran up to me, hugged me, and tearfully said, “Thank you for reminding me of my daughter.” And despite the mis-gendering and her slightly ageist tone, I was warmed by her emotion. She said her daughter was just like me: a “strong young lesbian” who dyes her hair. I didn’t correct her. I remember that year I was feeling particularly combative about my identity, and I was in no mood to out myself as trans. Besides, how do you stop a crying mother mid-sentence and tell her she’s wrong and being offensive? I didn’t want to make her feel guilty or uncomfortable – a bad habit I have when people get my gender wrong. Naturally I was irritated, she shouldn’t have assumed my gender, but I knew the conversation would end soon enough and I could walk away without facing any awkward trans identity explanations. I know now that was not the right decision.

The woman walked onto the stage, introduced as Nickie Antonio the 1st openly gay representative to ever be elected in Ohio. She started a good speech focusing on our community’s diversity, naming differences in the room of identity, faith, appearance… I knew what was about to happen and I was powerless to stop it. She raised her hand and pointed right at me. “And I’d like to especially point out the sister in the back with the fuschia hair!” Like a movie scene, all at once a couple hundred people turned and looked right at me, and there I was, outed and mis-gendered… but at least she got the hair color right… right? Sometimes gender/passing stuff rolls off my back, other times it soaks into the skin until my entire disposition is saturated in frustration, anger, and guilt. This event was the latter. Yes, I am used to this sort of thing. Like most trans and gender non-conforming folks, I experience public mis-gendering a lot – usually it isn’t over a microphone in front of a couple hundred people -though it does happen on occasion. I am used to it, but it never gets any easier, at least, it hasn’t yet. My emotional response to being mis-gendered is identical to whenever I am treated with an utter lack of respect. It makes me feel small, unimportant, disempowered, angry, and less than human. I didn’t want to be at Lobby Day anymore. I didn’t want to be anywhere other than alone. All my excitement about taking part in community, all my drive to make a difference crumbled beneath me in a heap of disappointment with my community. Representative Antonio walked back to my tabled and gave me another hug. Cradled in repulsion, I interrupted her motherly repeats speaking in my most polite voice, “I’m not a woman, I’m trans. I would appreciate it if you didn’t mis-gender me.” She took my hand apologetically, still keeping me unwillingly wrapped in her hug, “I’m so sorry,” she said, “I should know better.” Unable to think of any other response I said, “Yeah…” cutting myself off from curtly finishing with “you should.” I reeled myself in with a semi-excusatory “It’s ok, I mean, it happens all the time…” She smiled, “Oh, I’m sure.” A comment I’m sure she meant to be agreeable, but it had the opposite effect. She mentioned how her partner was mis-gendered all the time “but in the other direction,” which only strengthened the argument that she really should have known better.

I spoke to a head Equality Ohio organizer, who I deeply respect, about the incident. This organizer, in hearing who the offender was, also said that “[Antonio] should know better.” which was a positive validation of my experience. However this validation was short lived. The organizer asked me whether I had made my identity known to Antonio, and when I said no they presented the argument that if someone doesn’t know any better, and I don’t correct them, then it isn’t their fault… which I guess would make this whole situation my fault.  So, I guess it doesn’t matter that Antonio should have known better because I wasn’t properly announcing myself. I don’t think this organizer was actively trying to say that it was my fault that I was grossly and publicly mis-gendered, but they did seem visibly confused as to why I would be upset that I was mis-gendered when I appeared to do nothing to stop it. I explained that I shouldn’t have to introduce myself identity label first just on the off chance someone might get confused, especially if I am in what is supposed to be a community safe space. Do gender conforming people have to consistently tell people their gender? No, they don’t, they just get the right language applied and go on their merry way. But because I am not visibly aligned to one gender or another, it is up to me to out myself compulsively, or else just not get offended when someone plays fast and loose with whatever label they choose for me.

Gender non-conforming people is have to re-assert our identity every moment of every day; when we meet a new friend, when we’re on a date, when we’re at work, when we’re at the grocery store, when we use a public bathroom… Eventually you have to make a choice; either you’re going to lighten up or you’re gonna burn out – for a lot of us the second is the result of the first. So no, I do not correct someone every time I’m called “she” or “lady” or “a young lesbian.” And because of that, is it my fault when someone mis-genders me? No it’s not, it’s the fault of a society that breeds people to see in a black and white gender-scape. I don’t automatically think that someone who mis-genders me is transphobic and out to get me, but depending on the person and the situation, I may think that the person is careless, irresponsible, or just plain lazy. Contrary to popular belief, it is not hard to be polite about gender. To quote the opening plenary from todays lobby day session  “Don’t tell me what you believe. Show me what you do and I’ll tell you what you believe.”(quote attributed to an unknown Mississippi civil rights leader). Ironically, this was said right after I was mis-gendered in front of everyone. If people really care about trans folks and really know better than to disrespect us, they why don’t they do it? It’s true that when you are running an event, it is impossible to control what every participant says or does, however you can do a lot to promote safe spaces and educate folks who just don’t know any better. Activist leaders should lead by example by educating themselves and through inclusive language and behavior. An event like Lobby Day should have a brief spoken introduction to involve participants in promoting safes spaces, to use inclusive language, and to be cautious of their own privileges. And if the event has speakers or guests, talk to them about safe spaces and request that they follow the guidelines necessary to continue that safety and inclusion. Everyone is afraid of talking about privilege, but all recognizing privilege is, is recognizing our own humanity: our ability to make a mistake and our own responsibility to correct it. We are supposed to be striving for “equal rights” but if we can’t even form equality within our own spaces, how are we supposed to accomplish it in the rest of the world? I don’t expect anyone to be perfect, but I do, as I suppose anyone does, hold my community up to a higher standard. I would like to think we know better.

Trans and The Rest of My Life

Posted on by JAC

I looked out over the Wisconsin lake. I’d been on the road touring almost two weeks, my batteries were running low, but in the best way.  She asked me about when I came out. I thought about it casually, “Well, its been four years…” I stopped, “wait… six… no, I mean five…” I thought about what day it was and wondered where I’d been. February had come and gone, along with a date I thought I’d never forget. February 17th, my “transiversary” as I like to call it. The day I officially mark my coming out, even though by that time  I’d been “working” on things for months, years. I use February 17th as the marker because of my state of mind then and what I was working out.

Back then I dedicatedly kept a journal. Every year I look back, and every year I see different things. Its like watching a movie over and over, you always catch some new thing you hadn’t noticed before. Every year I look back and whatever relates to my life at that time is what stands out. Last year was all about love and gratitude; reflecting on my history through realizations and gradual empowerment. This year, I am influenced especially by the fact that I forgot my Transiversary; I knew it was coming up but so much was going on with tour planning, documentary filming, performances, show production, drag practices, conferences… It just slipped passed me. I wondered at how it happened. Maybe I’ve finally reached a place in life where the absolute fact that I’m TRANS isn’t as prominent as it used to be, like I’m used to it now… Maybe I just haven’t kept an eye on myself as well as I should. This year has been amazing for me. I’ve been working non-stop; I’ve been on the road, enveloped in being an activist and a performer in ways I’ve never been able to do before. And I’ve been surrounded by the outside world more frequently and more intensely that I’ve ever experienced. To me, the “real world” means bouncing up, down, and around gender. What bathroom I’m in, what pronoun I’m called, flashing IDs, sirs to mams, mams to sirs – all rapid fire from airport, to gas station, to train car, to university, to theater, and back. I play ‘woman’ when I think its safest, I play ‘man’ when I think I can get away with it, and in between I’m just me; your average, flaming genderqueer femme transguy, genderfucked from head to toe.

This year when I look back on when I was coming out as trans, I see the identity-focused back and forth that forged the foundation for where I am now. When I started to come out I didn’t know anything about gender or queerness. I didn’t know anyone gay, I didn’t even know if I was gay. I didn’t know what I was…

January 27th, 2006: I wrote about coming out to my sister as “Bi-sexual.”  I have no idea why I spelled it like that (or capitalized it). Maybe it was from quasi-reading outdated text books and off the path internet forums. Shows how foreign it all was to me… guess being in that GSA in high school didn’t really prepare me for anything.

“I walk around and have to remember how other people see me is not how I see myself. That I cannot act how i feel because to them, I am a woman. If i say “I’m a gay man.” I don’t think they will be happy. I worry gay guys will look down on me because i don’t belong with them. I can’t claim to be a lesbian because I am not a lesbian. …I feel like a guy inside.”

January 30th, 2006

“I’m just sick of being different from people, but I don’t want to change…”

Febuary 11th, 2006

“Am I my clothes? …it’s almost like my skin is dress up… Fuck it all, i’m finally gonna be something that I feel like i should be.”

Taken February 14th, 2006: The first picture I took of myself in men’s clothes after starting to come out. I didn’t own a tie, so I used a belt from a sweater jacket.

[image description: young JAC in a white collared shirt and knit hat that covers his hair with a knit belt tied like a tie around his neck. His eyes are brown, his face is rounded and young-looking]

Febuary 16th, 2006

“everything i have is purple or pretty or some shit like that. i do like my stuffed animals… alot. Fuck, this whole color scheme is all society, who says a guy can’t have a purple robe. why do i feel i have to be everything? can’t i be some bothness, like girly_boi… guess it’s how i’ve always been. I’ve always been ‘both’ and i can’t be anything else so i need to accept the constant change.”

By February 17th, 2006, the day I now use to mark my Transiversary, I had started to use the word queer in my regular vocabulary. By March I had started to use the men’s bathroom, had passed as male three times, and had fully gained a new “queer” lexicon. I have to laugh and think its kinda cute how I sorted out the labels.

March 1st, 2006:

“i’ve got a new description for myself.  I’ve been reading up on it for a while.  Like, what am I?

Straight. – “Yeah, that’s probably me.  It must be, right?” Bisexual. – “You know, I think that’s really me.” Pansexual. – “Yeah, that sounds much more like me.” Genderqueer. – “Wow, that actually fits.” Polygendered. –  “That fits even better.” FTM. – “That sounds like me.” Transgendered. – “Sounds a fuck of a lot like me.   Me to a T.”  (HAHA trans pun, total accident.)

So I’m a female [sex], pansexual, genderqueer, polygendered, transman.  Fuck, how about I just say ‘Queer?'”

I remember that day. Its funny because first, all those labels meant the same thing to me then as they do now. I think at the time I used genderqueer more to describe my non-binary gender identity, rather than now where I use it primarily to describe my non-binary gender expression/existence. And though I identified as non-binary and polygender, its curious that I used the word “transman,” a label I never apply to myself now because for whatever reason, it doesn’t fit me; I say transguy exclusively.  Really, I don’t remember ever calling myself a “transman,” so maybe it was just for the sake of print and definition. I cycled through a lot of labels for myself back then, a lot of names, a lot of identities – all within a couple months. Back then I used all those words to try and gain some validation, some explanation for what I was and why. In that same post was a quote from a trans activist. I remember clinging to it for months:

“What helped me a lot was to stop asking ‘What am I?’ and to start asking instead ‘What changes do I need to make to be a happier person?'” -C.Jacob Hale

March 7th, 2006:

“I still feel like there really is something wrong with me… Normal is over rated… probably.”

February 19th, 2007: (one year later)

“This year I have been so at peace with my gender ‘situation’ and my life… It is the dream-life I always wanted, which a few deviations… Because of the relationships I’ve had [I wouldn’t change it] even if it meant avoiding the frustration and difficulty of this life.”

“This life.” I keep going back to February 17th as some anchor for “this life” but really, I think that (though I had reasons) I picked that date to give myself a reference point for where I came from. Now, I think I’ve been cutting myself up. Lots of big moments have happened in my life in reference to my gender identity; New Years Eve 2005 when I was dolled up femme but “acted and felt like a boy” all night; six months before that I was dressing “as a guy” at home, and dressing “like a girl” in public; six months before that in the confidence of a close friend I “was a guy for a day”;  six years before that I was signing notes with my “boy name” and secretly wished to be my best friend’s boyfriend; six years before that I begged my parents to cut my hair short like a boy. Which matters more? The day I said, “I am different that I thought.” or when I said “I know what this is.” or when I said “I accept who I am.” All of it had to happen, all of it mattered, and all of it got me to where I am now.  Witness, I am officially limiting the Transiversary status  as a marker date for ornamental purposes only. It will no longer represent a sectional “moment” of my life. Instead, like a birthday, it will be a representative of time passed, and times to come. I used to obsess over knowing myself, what I was, why I was that way, how I was going to handle it, and where I was going to end up. I’m starting to think that not knowing yourself is one of the few things that drives us towards tomorrow. Every time I think I’ve got myself figured out, something new arises. Its not a bad thing. The day I stop learning about who I am and working on who I want to be, I’ll be dead. I used to think time was a factory, producing life bit by bit. Now, I’ve come to know that time is more like the earth, holding us beneath our feet, surrounding us with all that comes from it, and passing over us like the sky hanging over head. We move under it, within it, and over top of it, no sense of control, and no way to be controlled. I think that in this year of being out in the world, I’ve been hiding more than ever before. I’ve been hiding more because unlike the past, I know who and what I am. I know what I want to be, how I want to be seen and treated, and I know I have the right to have it. Still I’ve been hiding; out of fear, out of convenience, out of remorse for being different. I’m not going to try to cut up my life any more and I’m not going to cut up myself either. Whatever that means for bathrooms, I don’t know. The women’s room is still gonna be cleaner, and it’s still gonna be safer. But maybe I need to start pushing the buttons I haven’t wanted to push since I was a high-strung, newly out transguy refusing to take anything less than a “he/him” pronoun and a men’s bathroom… who am I kidding, even at my most militant I was never very aggressive when it came to standing up for myself. I’ve always been better at defending others, so its what I’ve always done and I’ve counted on catching that overflow into my own life. It’s pretty clear what I need to do about that… I need to take ownership over myself and truly recognize that I’m not just a cog in the machine of this movement; I’m a human being within this community.

Five years ago I wrote that this life was a dream, a gift. I still think that, and for the same reasons. It’s the people in life that make it worth living, and while I don’t think I am “living for some else” I don’t think I am living my life just for me. The better I can live my life, the better I can work to make other people’s lives better too.

Last month, my mom dug out an old school paper I wrote about what I wanted to do when I grew up:

February 20th, 1996: (11 years old)

“I will be an artist and a musician… I will obtain my PhD… I will try to go into space where I will discover a solar system and each planet will be named after one of my friends. When I return to Earth I will be the first woman president, if there hasn’t already been one. I will encourage kids to build their self esteem… I will try try to make the world a better place.”

I’m not counting on ever getting a PhD, (no matter how happy it would make my mom). I don’t think I’ll have much luck on discovering a new solar system or obtaining the presidency – first woman or otherwise, but I’ve got the first two down, and I’ll be working hard on the last two for the rest of my life.

Trans Fears on Sex Crush the Trans Community

Posted on by JAC

Over the past month a conversation about transmale identity, validation, and fetishization has been circling the web. This month long thread originated from a blog “Possibly Problematic Attractions to Trans Men” which discusses an excerpt from an Original Plumbing Magazine (OP) blog post about non-trans folks who are assumed to be trans written by well known (not to mention awesome) trans publisher, writer, and artist Amos Mack. Mack presents an interesting perspective from non-trans folks who are read as trans because their appearance aligns to how people expect trans folk to look. This opens up many conversations, primarily what does it mean to look like a trans person and what does it mean to be attracted to one. Some statements by non-trans guys interviewed are problematic, but I think I have some bigger fish to fry, and these “fish” are hopping right out from our own trans community.

Personally, I took more exception to the expectations raised by transguys about transguys than anything said by the non-trans interviewees of Original Plumbing. This is primarily because the issues raised by the trans folks, with good intentions of asserting their identities and masculinities, resulted in a smorgasbord of phobic trans-disempowerment. All of this centers around a quote from OP interviewee named Rico on Original Plumbing blog.

“…I was dancing with all these beautiful ladies… …one of them started like gettin’ all over me and… We made out a little bit, then I went to get a drink at the bar. She came up behind me and grabbed my crotch. I looked at her and she turned PALE face white. She was like, “What are you doing here at DYKE NIGHT?” And I was like, “I didn’t know that was what night it was.” She got super offended even though I was the one who just got groped.”

A key issue from readers isn’t Rico’s experience but the demasculinization of the hypothetical transguy (thought to be Rico) via what the Dyke Night Woman said and did. The original blogger states that they “read this story as someone failing to see the maleness of a trans man or at least minimalizing it in the face of his female history and/or anatomy.” The author is appalled that anyone would be excited about a transguy being at a ‘Dyke Night’ because in order for that to happen the excited person would have to be equating a transguy with a queer woman… First, it is a serious issue in our community that folks who come out through the queer women’s community are then kicked out after coming out as trans – so I would think that a welcoming Dyke Night is the bees-fucking-knees, but apparently some people prefer gender lines being drawn across our communities, and as a result, our bodies. And speaking of bodies, what is “maleness” exactly? Does it depend on the body, the conceptual idea of sex, the identity, or all of the above? Is it dependent on the male person, or someone else? According to many concerned transmasculine folks, women labeling themselves as lesbian or queer are taking interest in transguys under the guise that transguys were not real men but women and therefore acceptable to sleep with under the lesbian code of conduct. And if you are a lesbian and you have the hots for me, a transguy, you are essentially annihilating my transmasculinity with a sapphic ray gun. ZAP! “NOO! MY MALE IDENTITY! DAMN YOU LESBIANS FOR THINKING I’M SEXY! WHY?!” –Really, friends? Are we still here? Sexual orientation labels are not necessarily aligned directly to behavior. Labels are dependent on personal connection to a community, and since no two people are the same neither are any two people holding that label. Additionally, my identity is not dependent on someone else’s, I do not seek a partner’s approval in how I describe myself, and I would never expect or want anyone to seek mine in order to date me.

A growing conversation in our community is whether including a person’s trans identity into one’s attraction automatically denotes fetishization. Yes, there are a lot of people who are attracted to TRANS in a fucked up way, but the majority of people who are attracted to trans folks are into something our community struggles with more than being fetishized – our own trans bodies. I am a trans person. I don’t know whether I look like a trans person, but based on what I get from others I cover the map. Without any prior knowledge of me, (while in everyday dress, so not in drag) people have read me as a non-trans woman, a transguy, a genderqueer, a transwoman, a non-trans man, and tons of random combinations of all of the above. I don’t consider any of those readings to be offensive, maybe annoying at times, but not offensive. Attraction is a tricky topic. At one point in my life I was confused about how anyone could ever be attracted to me because I was a guy who didn’t look like one and if someone was attracted to me I wanted to be sure they wanted a guy and saw me as a guy, but I didn’t look like a guy so what would they want about me? I was uncomfortable with anyone being attracted to my body because I didn’t know what it meant to them, or what that would make me. I eventually learned something that we all should be taught right from the start. There there is not one type of man or woman, is not one type of body, and there is no “real” sex. The author states that the Dyke Night Woman, because of her anger about a non-trans guy being at Dyke Night, “…was attracted to a man based on his trans status because she saw it as making him less of a man.” Or maybe she just likes men who don’t have that kind of flesh penis. Just because someone doesn’t want a partner with a specific type of body doesn’t mean they don’t like men or male people, or the bodies of male people. I’m not less of a guy because I do or don’t have a certain body and if that’s the first assumption I make about someone else that is actually saying more about me than it is about them. In other words, your trans baggage is showing. Making an overarching “us” statement like “Someone who is attracted to us should be attracted to us as men, otherwise they are not seeing us for who we truly are and are not affirming our identities” not only does not include my (and many other transguys’) voice, it also creates a rigid specification for what is required in order to partner with transguys and what transguys are to require of a partner – something the same blogger claims not to be promoting. I personally don’t mind if someone is attracted to me categorically as a transguy because that is what I am. If someone likes me as a guy, well awesome, but they have to also like the fact that under my clothes this guy’s body is different from what a lot people expect for a guy. A good way to trust that will happen is if that person likes trans bodies. (To clarify, someone being attracted to trans folks is not the same as sexualizing TRANS as a label aka fetishizing TRANS without valuing or being attracted to the rest of me (like my fabulous hair, ha! like that could ever happen).) If someone is attracted to me with the knowledge I am trans, I know they are seeing all of me, not just part. I don’t have to pretend and I don’t have to panic and it took me a long time to get here. That is why I take particular offense when someone, especially transfolks, start to say how liking trans for trans is some secondary status of sexuality that is not affirming of some precious hyper-binary gender.

Everyone is different, and just because something works for you does not mean it works for everyone. Attraction to trans bodies is entirely possible without fetishization and without identity sacrifice. Trans folks have our own bodies, our own styles of sex, our own conceptualizations in partnering, and our own sexual niches – in other words all that is needed for a sexual orientation interest. The assumption that someone would only be interested in a transguy if they thought of trans folks as “less than real” or as a fetish is transphobic – even if it is a fear coming from transfolk. We are crushing ourselves under our own fears of being misunderstood and/or rejected. I’ll be honest, I have my own baggage. And though I’ve come a long way, I don’t always trust people either. The cynicism on this blog extends to more than politics. But what I do know is that if we place expectations on others based on fear we will never be able to connect with anyone. There are mediums here, we don’t have to know or not know everything all at once and we don’t all have to be everything all at once. We all know what its like to struggle, and sometimes we get wrapped up in the fucked up expectations of others which only results in oppressing ourselves and each other.  No one person can be the voice of a community, and we can not place voices on others based only on our own hurt. That is why it is important to encourage more and more of us to speak, and not assume or attack what we are saying when we do.

 

Pride; A Dissection

Posted on by JAC

Columbus Pride was this past weekend- one of the largest prides in the Midwest. To start out the weekend I semi-butched it up with the troupe at the Royal Renegades’ annual pride drag show at Wall Street.

With fellow Black Mondays performing at the Royal Renegades Pride show, Columbus, Ohio

[image: four drag king performers looking at the camera, all dressed in white shirts with black coats, looking cool]

The show was a fantastic time, but it reminded me how different Pride – and its spaces, scenes, and people are compared to every other time of year. Maybe folks think of Pride as a way to give a dose of gayness to the rest of the world, to remind them we are here. But out of sight, out of mind. Maybe its just me airing my activist baggage, but I can’t help but get angry during Pride. I look around and see people so excited to be queer, having all this “pride” but try to get a thousand volunteers for something in October, or get people out for an event in February, good-fucking-luck. Its like Queer Pride is seasonal or as needed. What good is a parade to promote community visibility if afterward the majority of the community disappears again, back to their homes to hibernate until next year when its again time to wear rainbows and get drunk in public?

Pride is great because it is like we own the world for a day, all the communities that make up the mass that is greater queer community out and about. But it doesn’t last. The next day and I went in search of brunch (naturally, queers love brunch), but I was afraid to go anywhere. Once again I was thrust back into being aware of my outcast standing. As things are now, pride is the one opportunity I have to be in my own state, my own local community, and not stick out like a nail waiting to get hit. I like pride for that reason, its an opportunity to relax and feel like I’m in a visible community that understands me… but I’m still not. Just like every year, I met several people who didn’t know what I was and when I told them I was a transguy they didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. Its hard to feel included when people still don’t think I even exist. I don’t bother explaining because I think that of all days, I should not have to be an educator at Pride. I just want to have fun too. When I express my impatience, I’m seen as hateful or irrational. I’m supposed to support organizations that are taking their time on trans education. I’m supposed to be proud of a queer community that still doesn’t recognize me. I’m supposed to think its great that our parade is reduced to corporate shills and advertisements instead of education and action.

Continue reading “Pride; A Dissection” →

About April

Posted on by JAC

April has always been a favorite month of mine. As a kid, April was time for Easter candy, my mom’s birthday, and violets – my favorite flower. It brought the first signs of Spring as winds blew away Midwest winter overcasts revealing bright blue skies shining on green clover fields. April means brightness, color, sunshine, and rebirth. Sometimes I wish SAAM (Sexual Assault Awareness Month) had gone to a different month. Maybe its supposed to coincide with life and rebirth… but for me rebirth has nothing to do with the topic. I do a lot of planning and programming around sexual assault, finding ways to promote healthy relationships, education and awareness. But the day of… the work stops being for the good of the community and becomes nothing but a reminder. Not of the failings of society, the aggressions, the suffering… I think only of myself, where I’ve been, and what I have tried to forget.

I wandered the empty lecture hall waiting for no one to show up. I hit the lights and started the film, listening to the survivors stories echoing over the empty rows of chairs. Like cracking ice, I started to feel it. Push. Pull. When the movie ended there was a silence. It was my job to promote discussion, but I didn’t. I didn’t know if anyone else was a survivor, and I didn’t want to out myself in front of my co-workers. So I left the silence alone, watching the three attendees gather their things. I felt like a shell, smiling, faking, wishing people a good night. On my way home I turned the music up. At home, I fed my cats, cleaned my kitchen, and dissociated.

Queers search for each other through our ‘queer-dar’ using haircuts, gestures, and politics to find each other. It isn’t the same for survivors. I look at people, continually thinking its gonna written somewhere for my radar to read. But it isn’t written on me, and I’ve never seen it on anyone else. So we are continually silent, waiting for someone to speak up so we can find each other, passing as people who aren’t survivors, for better or worse, never being recognized and never finding each other.

My second ‘Take Back the Night’ I got the guts to speak out. I held my friends hand, said almost nothing, and hid from everyone the rest of the night. I was horrified and exposed, but it did make a change in me. You always hear about speaking out changing lives, and it actually does. I had tried to claim ‘survivor’ before, but I still felt like a victim. Speaking out changed that. It stopped being just a weight on me, it became a part of my identity for better or worse. I was no longer a prisoner to it. After that, like a flood, other survivors found me. They didn’t know where I had been exactly, but we could understand each other. Now, almost three years later, I’ve back-slid into forgetting and ignoring. Its funny, the last thing I want to do is remember but forgetting is just as bad. Its lose lose. Sometimes I can manage a reasonable balance of neither acknowledging or ignoring, but that is hard to keep it up in April.

April. Sometimes I wonder who we are helping here? Communities of the oppressed are put upon to educate the rest even when we should be focusing ourselves. Whatever the cause queers, survivors, it is all the same tune. But who else cares about this shit but people who it has effected, either directly or indirectly through a loved one. I know, I don’t want to take credit from a great many allies, but if you look at the majority of people doing this work we’ve all been through something, or multiple somethings. That’s how we know what to say, and what isn’t being said. But… When I think about it, when I do this work really all that I have in my mind is those I love, more than myself. The people I know, the stories I’ve heard. That is what makes me want to do the work. I don’t think that much about my experiences because I don’t want to… So I guess I understand the allies working for this. They feel as I do, wanting to help those they love, wanting no one to ever have to live through that pain. And for me, it is because I know that pain first hand that I want to protect those I love from it.

This post has no real point, or profound message (like my other posts do??) More than anything, I think this was a speak out post for me, to refresh my power of self, to fight against back-sliding into denial and darkness. I don’t even want to publish this, but I am going to. I am going to push myself to not be afraid. And this post is a signal to other survivors. Since we have no radar, no flag, no rainbow to find one another… if you can’t find anyone else, you can find me. Here I am, I am like you. You are not alone.

The Inevitable “She”

Posted on by JAC

A voice answered. I dropped my voice to its lower octave and spoke. I overheard the man speaking to his supervisor. “She says….”

She. It used to crush me.  As a newly out transguy nothing could wreck my day like the wrong pronoun. I had to accept that I wasn’t going to pass. Once I did “she” moved from a crushing reality to a minor inconvenience. After I started T “he” began to make more of an appearance, but that’s all it ever made. An appearance. Eventually I stopped caring. My friends tell me that I “don’t look anything like a girl.” I may not look exactly like a girl, but I look (and sound) enough like one to be read as one. It isn’t about self-deprecation. It’s about reality. To some I am read as male, but to most I’m not. The reason has to be I look and sound within the general concept of what a female would or could be.

Originally my theory for this was based on familiarity with visible queerness. People who where more accustomed to non-normative or otherwise queer gender presentation in women would more likely think I was a woman too, and even stress using “she” to show they recognize me. Consequently, people who had little to no exposure to queerness would always read me as male simply because they didn’t know any better. Makes sense, right? But it isn’t accurate. A queer/queer savvy person has just as much chance to use “she” as a rural Ohio store clerk. Regardless of population or location, I am significantly unreadable and under-recognized.

Sometimes I get pissed about it, especially if I’m in a space where I think people should know better. One random “she” here and there isn’t much to get upset about, but I have a hard time standing the brunt of three to six to twelve “shes” flying in my face like bugs on a windshield. It’s as if I can actually feel myself getting cut down, every pronoun pulling me farther and farther away from any hope of correction or recognition. My friends are often quick to correct people, but I rarely do anymore. I wonder if they think I’m a coward for not standing up for myself. I wonder if they feel sorry for me. I don’t feel sorry for myself; it usually doesn’t bother me… that much. The explanation is often more painful than the mistake because it often leads to more questions or, at the very least, an unfavorable look.

Sometimes I don’t know what’s wrong with people. I think I look like a guy. I think they must be crazy, or maybe I’m the one who’s crazy; crazy for even wanting to pass, for caring what other people think. Maybe I’m crazy to think that I should be able to have the pronoun I want no matter what I look like. Maybe I’m crazy to continue to look like I do in this world. Once when I was upset about not passing a friend (also trans) said “if you want to pass there are things you can do…” but I don’t want to do them. I already did them and I grew out of it, it isn’t me anymore. I don’t want to pretend I’m someone or something I’m not, and that includes going by “she.”

Its not that I’m ashamed of being female bodied, or otherwise hate it. I just don’t like it infringing on my identity. What sucks is that it’s not up to me whether it does or doesn’t. Its other people’s perceptions that continually push my birth sex in my face. I’m not opposed to being placed inside the feminine spectrum either. I self-identify as a femme, but that doesn’t mean I’m a girl. I’m a guy, and as femme as I am, it doesn’t change my gender identity. Sometimes I think of upping my T dose but I never do. I don’t want to give up the androgyny and I think my body is having a hard enough time with the strain from T as it is. I guess this is just how it’s gonna be, and since I got over the preliminary experiences of not passing, there’s no cause for me not to get over this… It’s just that I thought I was near the end, you know? I was never under the illusion that T would make life easy; I didn’t take it for that. I just thought it would make life easier… at least, easier than this.

After I was passing a little, I started to genderfuck more to suit my personality. I had been building up the confidence to do it. T was my final push across the binary line. Once I died my hair and started to “femme up” the way I wanted there was no going back to butch. Butch was gone and I guess that any chance of “he” setting roots went with it.  Like I said, I’d rather be this way than not, it’s who I am. I’ll just hang out with the other genderqueers until the binary breaks down enough for us to have a space. In the mean time, I do enjoy fucking with people who have no idea what gender I am. I think of it as a little form of payback. If I’m not gonna get my pronoun yet, I might as well get to freak people out while I wait.

How Inclusive is Queer Inclusive Healthcare?

Posted on by JAC

This year Columbus pride not only had HIV testing, but also Syphilis and Hep A & B vaccines. Awesomeness, for sure. I checked out the tent, curious to see if I needed any vaccines. The volunteer was very helpful at first…

“Since you’re a woman…” he began, and went on to list high risk activities and why I would or wouldn’t need a vaccine. I ignored the statement, reasoning to myself that I am female bodied so it makes sense to be grouped with women… right?

I listened in to a friend getting the vaccine spiel. He was female bodied also but was read as male. As a result, he got different information and different medical treatment. I started to think… Am I missing out on information I need? I’m female bodied but I live as a man. My sex practices are both like a female bodied person and a male bodied person. Which group am I supposed to be in?

There was no information about trans populations offered, and no options for trans identity to be selected. As the volunteer continued to speak I mentioned injecting testosterone, hoping he would take the hint. He seemed to get it, and then totally didn’t seem to get it. By the end of it, I felt too awkward to disclose. I let it go and was left wondering whether I had all the protection I needed –just in case. Of all places with queer health care, pride should be prepared for trans folks to be included.

What’s in a name?

Posted on by JAC

I sat back in the bar’s long, church-pew booth and listened to the members of the drag troupe talk. One turned from the conversation.
“I had another one of those trans moments today.” she said in a heavy voice. “I got called a faggot.”
She isn’t trans, but she passes for male better than I do. I knew how she was feeling… the feeling that you’re less than a person.

The first time I was called a faggot it was screamed from an SUV as it appeared and then disappeared into the streets of Cincinnati. At first I felt a sense of accomplishment for passing, but it was quickly replaced by a familiar yet fresh fear. My hypervigilance spiked, followed by other my all too familiar traits of PTSD. My body filled with an ‘unsafe’ feeling as the injustice coated fear seeped into me. I looked over my shoulder as I walked away. I kept looking for five more days…

What makes a faggot a faggot? My friend is a girl but looks like a boy. I’m a boy who looks like a girl. If faggot is intended to mean homosexual, if only I could tell shouters just how accurate they are. I’m a guy who looks like girl who looks like a guy, who was born a girl, who fucks girls and boys and boys who were girls, and girls who were boys, and people who were never one or the other or anything at all… Is it hypocritical of me to argue or get upset? In my own, closed circles I call myself a fag, a tranniboy, and queer – all controversial words considered to be hate speech. Is our pain caused by the words or the malicious intention. Which is the one we need to remove? Does language have the power, or do we?

Parallel Universe

Posted on by JAC

There is a parallel universe I live beside. It is so close that it surrounds me, and yet I am not inside it.

I was looking through my spanish book, finding the answer to what the teacher was talking about. I wasn’t paying attention and longing for the clock hands to tick. I heard the teacher say something to one of the girls in the class. I got a nudge from the girl behind me and as i looked up i saw the teacher looking at me. “You, the new girl…” she said and continued to speak to me in spanish.

I listened, shrugging off my humiliation, ignoring how hot my face was getting. I gripped my hands to hide their sudden shaking as the insecurity and hurt set in. I will never understand why it always upsets me so much to get called out. To publicly not pass.

I reminded myself: No one else knows I’m not a girl. No one else understands that it’s wrong. To them, I’m just another female, probably one of those lesbian types. To them there is no discrepancy, no embarassment. They can’t really see me, only the distorted shell of me.

I got hit with a second shot at the end of class. The teacher said “I need the new girl to come up and give me her information.” I hate walks of shame.

When the room was empty I made an experiment. I told her “I’m not a girl, I’m a boy.” She apologized and said she wasn’t sure, but that I “had the face of a girl,” so she guessed I was a girl. She said she thought it was more likely I would be offended if I was a girl who got called a boy than if I were a boy who was called a girl. I didn’t see her logic. I explained how my name was different on the roster. She asked me why I didn’t go by the name on the roster. I’m not sure if she understood that my girl name was not a male name. I just said I prefered Jac and would rather not hassel with more than one name. She understood and started talking about cuba and her daughter. Apparently she had two names too. I think it all went over her head.

I walked out onto campus, still strange from the familiar experience. I felt as if I truely were walking along a one way mirror. My world was on my side, the rest was on the other. I told myself that someday there would be more vision, less confusion. People would see through the mirror and I would no longer be distorted. But today is not someday. Today is today.

The Rainbow Dilemma

Posted on by JAC

When I was in high school I liked the rainbow. Having a sticker or two made me feel like I was included. I was a proud “ally” to the 2 gay people I knew. I felt it made me look open minded and supportive. I wasn’t a sheep like everyone else. I was cool. I liked gays and gays liked me.

When I came out, I thought of buying myself something rainbow. Everyone else seemed to have a rainbow of their own, I wanted one too. In fact, I thought it was an unwritten rule that every queer must own at least one rainbow item bought specifically because it was ‘prideful.’ That rainbow stuff you had before you were queer doesn’t count.

Shopping online, I found thousands of ‘gay’ products, all dripping with rainbows. Still, I couldn’t find the one that fit me. Even specific genderqueer/trans merchandise seemed trite and inane to me. And though I searched relentlessly for the perfect rainbow I knew that if I found it, it wouldn’t matter. I was too broke to afford my own rainbow. In hopes of future funding, I put the ‘pride-wear plan’ on an obsessive back burner. I tired to convince myself that I didn’t need to buy anything. It was clearly a capitalist plot to take my queer money, and my queer money had better uses for me. Rainbowless, I coveted the rainbows of my friends, trying on their rainbow arm-bands, rainbow studded belts, and rainbow flag-shaped belt-buckles. I spent hours online picking out clever trans shirts with hints of queered masculinity, whispering promises of purchase once I got the money. I admired the rainbow stickers on cars in bar parking lots, dreaming of someday having my own rainbow adorned car… or just a car…

And though I never got my rainbow, I somehow managed to remain queer. Because of this lack of influence I started to forget about getting a rainbow until the idea became insignificant. My first pride brought up old feelings, making the rainbow especially tempting. Luckily all the free condoms, beads, and mini-rainbow flags satisfied me so that I didn’t feel the need to buy pride wear – which I still could not afford.

But I couldn’t hold out forever. Under the indirect influence of my prideful friend I finally bought myself a rainbow. It was a rainbow ‘splat’ static-cling sticker for my car window (or more so, my parents’ car that I sometimes borrowed if they weren’t using it). Though I had become a little bored with the rainbow craze, I was excited about buying it. It felt like I was passing a queer mile-stone that I had missed. I took my sticker and asked my parents if I could put it on their car. My dad told me “That would be fine, but I better not get beaten up.” We laughed at the joke, ignoring the reality behind it. When the time came to put the sticker on the car reality hit me, adding a new element to my car-rainbowing that I hadn’t accounted for. Fear. Was I outing myself? I decided to swallow my nerves and put it on anyway. After all, what was pride without bravery, right? My car was coming out of the closet and I was proud of my little gay car. I felt included, like I had joined a club for gay people with cars. I felt like a rebel, just like every other person who puts a sticker on their car that represents a sub-culture made up of millions of people. It was a good feeling.

When I obtained my rainbow, I was well aware of how I didn’t need it. Anyone who looked at me would know I was queer, or at least think it was highly likely. It was as if I was getting the rainbow to prepare for the future. I was sure that as time passed, and as I passed, the rainbow would become more important to me… Other people seemed to feel that way so I probably would too, right?

The “LGBT” coordinator at my university created a brochure to advertise the 4 gay things on campus. She asked me to take a look at the design, but when I opened the file I almost vomited. I had never seen a more rainbow coated PDF file in my life. Nothing on this paper represented me or the space I was striving to build. I even wondered if there was something wrong with me, some shortcoming of mine that kept that page of rainbow swirls and gay-themed clip-art from relating to my reality. I then realized that if that was my reality I’d be on some trip and everyone would be asking for a hit – gay or not.

My second Pride came around. It’s hard to not enjoy that one day you feel quasi-normal walking down the street. But as the sidewalk flooded with rainbows and same sex couples there was a cloud over me. The year had been hard on the scene. The Ohio smoking ban had emptied the bars and the social opportunities had plummeted from was meager to measly. Suddenly because it was Pride weekend all the gays were out and the bars were full. As far as the eye could see there were lesbians and bears, dykes and gays, drag queens and drag kings, leather daddies and mamas, classy fags, butchy femmes, even some transfolk, all dripping with rainbow pride. Why did they all wait until this one weekend in June to show their faces, to show their ‘pride?’ Where had all the rainbows had been the rest of the year?

After that I became pretty adverse to the rainbow. I couldn’t help passing snobbish judgments on those who enjoyed it in any way other than comic relief. I felt offended by rainbow wearers. Did they think they were gayer than me with more pride? Was I a bad queer because I didn’t have a rainbow heart tattoo on the back of my neck? I didn’t feel guilty. I knew that no matter what I was read as – male or female, gay or straight, I was queer and likely to be seen as such. I said “Fuck the rainbow! And fuck the capitalist culture that tells me I should have one!” However, I am not the only queer in the world, and therefore do not have the authority to call the rainbow defunct as my cultural representation. I try to keep in mind how society rejects some people as queer, femme women or masculine men for instance, and that the rainbow may give them a means of expression. I try to consider the unity and visibility the rainbow offers. I force myself to smile at the buckets of rainbows spilling out of prideful kids just coming out. I have good intentions, but there is no stopping it. The rainbow and I have grown apart.

Out in the real world, any sign of queer life is a rarity, especially in Ohio. It’s not unusual to feel isolated and drained, or need to watch your back. Being on my city-sized campus is the worst. It’s a parallel dimension where I am forced to interact and pretend and pass. I hated school. No one ever talked to me – only stared or acted uncomfortable. I was sitting in Spanish, barely holding my head up out of boredom, when some girl walked in, bouncy as a super-ball. I woke from my semi-comatose state, eyeing her pink, white, and grey camo-pattern t-shirt. Just another preppy looking girl, probably a freshman, who will never interact with me . As she sat down something hit me. Like a string pulling me upright I slowly rose in shock at the sight of a rainbow belt around her waist. It was like I’d never seen a rainbow before. Sure, maybe it’s as the air-fresheners say: She’s not gay, she just likes rainbows. Or she’s queer, pridefully queer. Either way I was down with her vibe, it was a colorful one and I’ve always been a fan of color. It was like a light had been shined in on me, just for an instant. Like a beacon calling out to me, that rainbow reached out with a message. It told me I’m not alone.

The power of the rainbow never ceases to amaze me. There is no doubt in its power to communicate. Are the rainbow and I on the cusp of a truce? I’m not so sure, but do I keep an eye out for rainbows – in store windows , on backpacks, on cars. The sight of it gives me some sign of welcome, that I’m not the only person in this world who is different. Yes, my love for the gay rainbow will never be the same, but I’ll never escape its reach or stop needing to use it. The rainbow and I, we have a tumultuous history, but we’ll never really be rid of each other. As a queer person, it will never stop being associated with me, and I will never stop using it to identify those in my community. And how else would I know which drivers in which cars are gay? Or at least, really like rainbows.