Lesbophobia...

I have lesbophobia.

For the BTQ Book Group I recently read Bi Any Other Name. It was really interesting to read something from twenty years ago and think 'well fuck, bi folks are still treated crappy a lot of the time but at least the word gets included on stuff now'. The book barely mentioned transgender existence but hell, it was written twenty years ago. There were some gender variant people in there at least.

In the back of the book was a useful glossary and a definition there really struck me. Under the word 'heterophobia' was the secondary definition of 'fear of being perceived as heterosexual'. I saw that and it hit me like a thunderbolt. I have lesbophobia!

Yes. I fear being perceived as a lesbian. This realization was further strengthened by a subsequent local newspaper article about last census counts of same-sex couple households in IL. The graphs in the article, at least the ones I saw in the free edition of the paper, were labeled 'Gay' households and 'Lesbian' households. As if all households with two women living as a couple were lesbian households. (Or all those with two men, gay ones...)

I'm sorry but mine sure as shit ain't.

Mine is two bi/pansexual/queer female bodied individuals, one of which is cisgender and one of which is third gender and identifies more as male. So again, not a 'lesbian' household. Similarly, ours is not a 'lesbian' marriage and we will not be 'lesbian' parents.

But when people see us, that's likely what they assume. And when people hear me talk about my wife, that's probably what they think about me.

I am not a lesbian. I've not called myself one for years. There are many reasons why.

For one, I'm not a woman. Well, ok, I do have breasts and a vagina, much as they might annoy me at times. And I do intend to continue to have them but body parts are not the sole indicators of womanhood, as any good anthropologist will tell you. So maybe I'm a woman, but I'm not female. I'm a fun male/female/something else amalgam and I like it that way.

For two, I like men. I'm attracted to men. I like and am attracted to women too. And those people in between? A lot of them are also really hot. So yeah, not a lesbian.

What's more it's not really fair to lesbians to lump me in with them. Let lesbians be lesbians, I'll be something else and we'll all be happy. It's important to say that I don't fear lesbians as a whole or even individual ones. I just don't want to be perceived as one anymore than most lesbians probably want to be perceived as straight or bi or male.

I'm bothered that by falling in love with a sweet, granola-femme cisgender girl and working to make a life with her I have to also work much harder to assert both my sexual/affectional and gender identity. She has the same problem of course with the sexual/affectional orientation thing. Aside from both wearing 'This is what a bisexual looks like' buttons all the time there aren't a lot of easy ways to deal with this.

What if I was a biological male? Or interested in transition? I'm pretty certain I'd still be queer, and still be in love with her, so little would change. We'd just be assumed to be a straight couple. I guess I have heterophobia too then.

Argh!

Sorry

Got busy. Life and stuff. Civil Union prep and then the actual event earlier this month. Need to get of my brain off its ass and start writing again. Poke me if I don't do so soon.

Hair- it's not just a 1970's musical

There are few things that cause me more trouble with my male identified presentation than my hair. It's long. Past my shoulders and naturally wavy.

I grew up in the 80's and 90's in Nebraska. I listened to lots of rock, hard rock, grunge and such. I didn't learn to associate hair length with gender. My father's hair was not short because he was male, it was short because he was in the military. If he hadn't been it would have been longer as evidenced by how he's kept it since getting out. It really had more to do with age, class or music sub-culture. Rockers guys, metal-heads, even country fans; a lot of these guys had long hair. And there were also lots of women with short hair all around me so again, not much association with gender and hair length really.

Another interesting factor, it was primarily straight identified guys who had longer hair. Gay guys were more likely to have it short in fact. The gay guys with long hair were generally the more granola/hippie types which made sense. Lesbians and bi/queer women could have any length of hair they wanted unless they into country, then in it was short. Or a mullet. *shudder*

Living in Kansas for four or so years didn't change this perception at all. A lot of my friends and acquaintances there were long haired guys of various sexual identities. Gay, straight, bisexual or non-defining sorts. The women were the same. So even less association with gender/sexuality and hair length. It was more a political indicator.

Then we moved to Chicago.

The number of men with long hair diminished greatly. Women here still seem for the most part free to wear their hair whatever length they desire but men seem expected to have it shorter, chin length maybe but even that is rare. You still see it but it's just so much less common. The exceptions seem to run along some very specific racial lines. Long dreadlocks for one, and people make all sorts of assumptions about that.

What does this mean for me? Well, in Nebraska or Kansas people would take gender cues from me based more on the clothes I was wearing than the length of my hair. Here that's not true. Here the length of my hair sometimes seems to be the biggest deciding factor in whether I get a ma'am or a sir. In the winter when I'm all bundled and the hair may be hidden under scarves and hats and coat and all, I get the sirs fairly often. But the minute it heats up and hair comes out, regardless of how masculine my attire, I become a ma'am. And it doesn't matter what hat I have on; baseball cap or outback fedora.

When I complain about this, the response from a lot of people is the same, cut your hair. But it's not that simple. For one thing, I really don't look good with short hair. In high school my hair was short, the result of having to save it from a terrible feathered haircut by a particularly ditzy beautician. Unfortunately the natural body, wave and dryness of my hair means that when short, it is also really fluffy. There may be pictures somewhere but I hope not.

With this history it's hard to imagine a short cut that will not serve to feminize my appearance even further. Sure I could go to a barber and get a man's cut. It's highly unlikely that there isn't a trans friendly barbershop in the whole of Chicago. I'm just not sure that it would make a difference.

There's another problem. I like my hair this way. Just like any rocker dude, the idea of cutting of my hair to suit the style of the mainstream bothers the hell out of me. Why should I cut my hair to suit some ridiculous, limiting concept of masculinity? What's more, my wife likes my hair and finds long hair attractive for men, women and those in between. She feels hair cutting is more a symbol of mourning or catharsis. When she shaved her head last year, people thought it was a butch thing. Even while she was wearing a dress. And make-up. And feminine jewelery. And girly head coverings. Even in heels!

What is wrong with people here that they have such a narrow definition of masculine and feminine that a simple haircut could make that much difference?

Maybe I should get a bunch of old Metallica t-shirts or something. Nothing after the black album of course. I never listened to enough Anthrax to back that up. Think anyone would buy a long haired, beardless dude in a Rush t-shirt. Oh wait, I already know they don't.

Book Review: She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders and I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted

Since I seem to have stalled in the telling of my own story I figured maybe I'd try to break through the block by writing about someone else's. To that end I offer you a book review. Two for the price of one as it happens.

She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders and I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted both by Jennifer Finney Boylan.

The first selection from a Bisexual, Transgender and Queer book discussion group I'm in (hereafter referred to as BTQ group) I was thrilled to finally read She's Not There as I'd seen and heard about it many times. I have to admit that when a book or author gets hyped, I get wary. I am happy to report that this memoir, and the follow-up I'm Looking Through You, are well worth the read.

In She's Not There Boylan tells the story of her life and gender transition with humor and honesty. From her first feelings of being in the wrong body as a young boy through her teens, adulthood, marriage and parenthood to the final acceptance of herself as a woman. James journey to Jennifer is funny, sad, sweet, poignant and thought provoking. I laughed, teared up and felt good. The acceptance and support of family and friends was very uplifting to read about. While the reality of rejection by some, Boylan's sister being the biggest one, reminds readers that there is risk inherent in the struggle to be yourself.

The follow-up I'm Looking Through You expands upon episodes and issues of her life that were brought up in her first book. She uses the memories and experiences of the haunted house she grew up in as a metaphor for her own feeling of being haunted skillfully. I have to agree that gender non-conformity does feel a bit like being haunted or possessed sometimes. It's also a fitting symbol for Boylan's feelings about the sister who rejected her because of her transition. The concept that they have become ghosts to one another really gives readers an impression how that kind of familial rejection might feel.

The only trouble I had with She's Not There was the feeling that this story may for some seem to reinforce gender as a binary male or female ideal. James is not right, is not healthy, until she becomes Jennifer. This is remedied in the follow-up when the author states that her only intent is to tell her story and it's not intended to explain or reflect all transsexual or transgender experience. What was and is right for Jennifer Finney Boylan may not be for someone else.

With I'm Looking Through You I was bothered by the authors dismissal of the hauntings she experienced in her home as a youth. Being pagan and a believer in ghosts, magic, fairies, dragons and all manner of beings makes it hard not to be a little offended by that. But being a rationally minded reader I understand that the author isn't intending to offend those who do believe in such things. She's just pointing out her own feelings on the matter.

So, I'd recommend both books as good, honest memoirs of transgender experience.

An Interlude...

Today at work a well meaning co-worker of mine complimented my shirt with the ill chosen words 'that's a cute top'.

Now I like this shirt. I lovingly call it my 'Xander shirt' in reference to some of his more colorful clothing atrocities on Buffy.  It's a terrible, wonderful mustard yellow, purple, brown, orange, and mauve thing with leaves and swirls and dots that you really have to see to believe.  Like I said, I like the shirt.

Hearing it described as a 'cute top' stunned me a little. In my moment of shock I think I said something surly like 'you mean my shirt?' and getting a dismissive 'shirt, top what's the difference?' in return. I wanted to say that the difference was that women wear tops while... but I think the response would have been confusion.

And so it happens again. My masculinity is shaken by someone's complete obliviousness. The co-worker in question is so guileless that she can blithely ignore my mode of dress, carriage and speech, and see only the woman that my breasts and first name imply to her. And in this state of innocent ignorance, send my fragile sense of self plummeting to spend the remainder of the long day stewing and aching.

I still like the shirt and I won't stop wearing it. But there's a lingering weirdness that I now have to shake from it so that it will go back to being my 'Xander shirt' instead of a 'cute top'.

*sigh* 

My Story... Part 1

Note to self. If you want people to read this, you need to post more often.

But of course now that I've started this, the running monologue in my head has quieted. When it was just my brain throwing out randomness with no where to go, it couldn't stop. Now that it knows I have a place for these ideas, worries and ruminations, it's clammed up.

Stupid brain.

So why do I think about gender so much? Why do I read about it so much? Why do I get annoyed when someone calls me 'ma'am' or 'miss' but tickled if someone call me 'sir'?

The last one is easy enough. I'm a man. Sorta.

I just read Jennifer Finney Boylan's I'm Looking Through You, a follow-up memoir to her bestselling She's Not There (reviews on both later). She mentions that she doesn't find gender theory helpful. What she finds helpful is story. While I do find theory helpful, I'm a weird academic in that way, I agree that story is also extremely important. So here's mine.

A lot of trans people will talk about their childhood in terms of feeling wrong somehow. In the wrong body or at least the wrong clothes. Tales of parents trying to force their kids to conform to a standard, binary gender representation.

I didn't get that. I was a mostly happy little tomboy climbing trees and reading too much. (I say mostly simply because I've always had anxiety problems. Even as a kid I was somehow convinced the things beyond my control were somehow my fault. Maybe that's why I love fantasy heroes so much, Aragorn might have doubts but he gets over them.) I was in love Robin Hood and King Arthur and fairy tales. I used the advantage of being the eldest to chose the best male roles in most games I played with siblings and being the most imaginative to do it with school friends. After watching Camelot, I was Lancelot to my childhood best friend(and crush)'s performance of Guenevere. (Sorry if you're reading this, unnamed childhood best friend. Yeah, I had a crush on you for years. Don't worry, I'm over it.) We gave Arthur a new wife and lived in a happily ever after where no one died or became a nun.

Being a total klutz meant I wasn't good at sports or dance or rollerskating. Though I've always had great balance and good climbing skills, well except for that evil rope in gym. Non-sporty tomboys tend to slip under the radar easier. More importantly, my parents didn't really care about gendered trappings. Sure, my extended family got me 'girl' things as gifts sometimes and my grandma liked putting me in dresses for holidays and things but for the most part I didn't feel pressured to conform too much. And so long as I thought of the dresses as just a form of playing dress-up, it wasn't so bad.

As best I can remember it, before puberty I was solidly attracted to girls. I would chase them about the schoolyard and steal kisses. I would play Robin to their Marion and Lancelot to their Guenevere. Puberty hit and along with the family hips that ruined my, until then, boyish figure, came a interest in boys as something more than playmates. The hard part was puzzling out if I wanted to to be their Maid Marion or their somewhat more intimate Little John or Will Scarlet. And here is where we get to the confusion.

With the progression of puberty, and with it middle and high school, came the need to conform in ways I hadn't before. Honestly though it was less about gender and more about other differences. I was more interested in politics and history and literature then my classmates seemed to be. I liked different music and wanted to save the earth and fight for animal rights and peace. I felt very out of place in my small Nebraska high school. I didn't date for a few reasons. My attraction to women became a barely acknowledged fantasy thing reserved for actresses and fictional characters.

I met my first boyfriend during the summer between junior and senior year. The short, short version is he went to a different high school, was a geek and an otaku, and was completely oblivious to any sexual or gender ambiguity on my part. Even when I told him about these things he'd conveniently forget them. For him I was stuck in some mold of sheltered Nebraska girl who didn't know anything about the world. That got worse after he joined the Air Force. We were together for three years until he dumped me by not telling me he'd been stationed to Japan. Must have been a dream come true for a man who had one of his senior pictures taken with some of his anime movie poster collection.

By this time I was in undergrad trying to figure out who the hell I was. I spent those five and a half years: sleeping with male friends, trying to date women, coming out of the lesbian closet while going into the bisexual closet (while still falling into bed with those same male friends), trying on butch and fem personae to see which fit, falling in love with drag and queer theory and finding my pagan faith.

This pattern continued and stretched in to the years following getting my BA. I dated men and women, rarely telling either that I was imaging myself as a man when I was in bed with them. I always seemed to be waging a sort of internal war over my sexuality and gender. Am I a butch lesbian? Am I a gay man in a seemingly, biologically female body? Am I bisexual? Pansexual? Am I transsexual? Transgendered? Am I just plain queer, in all meanings of the word?

I joined transmen groups to try to figure it out and they were welcoming but a lot of them couldn't understand my lack of interest in reassignment surgeries. I played with drag but my body is not one that can pass easily, though I unintentionally do it all the time without really trying. I started wearing dress shirts and ties to interviews. (I love ties.) I read about Native American Two-Spirit peoples and other kinds of gender variants folks from cultures all over the world. I fell in love with authors like Leslie Feinberg and Kate Bornstein. I started reading and then writing slash fan-fiction since a lot of my fantasy life was about pretending to be a gay man. And throughout all this I worried that no one would fall in love with my confused ass.

Then came my lovely wife.

The Whys and Wherefores

The question must be asked, why a blog about gender? Well I think about gender a lot. All the time in fact.

What is gender?

What gender am I?

Does it even matter?

How does my sexual orientation play into my gender?

Are they fixed or are they fluid?

How does my race, class, faith, etc. play into my gender?

Am I happy as I am or do I want to change somehow?

How much?

How little?

And again, does it matter?

After a while all these thoughts and internal monologues about gender start to sound like a journal entry, or a book or... a blog.

So I figured I'd share my worries and meanderings with others and see what I learn. Maybe nothing or maybe something. Either way, it'll be interesting.

Oh, and the book thing. I read a lot about the subject, genderqueer and trans stuff mostly, and being that I'm a librarian who volunteers at a GLBTQ Library and Archive maybe I can offer my two cents about some of the many books I read. That should be interesting too.

Real Post?

Ok, ok. I'm getting to a first real post. It's taking me a bit to get my first post worked out. I know the sort of stuff I want to talk about but every time I start I second guess it.

Since I'm a librarian though I do plan to review some trans/genderqueer books in the course of things.

All right, more later.

Blog the first...

First post. I'll say more later. Too tired now.